Chương 337: AF Chapter 336 – Moar Booting

The Mick and Kris led the run across the sea to Freebooter, right out in the open. Kris hummed the Trembling Song and Quaver set the beat. I watched the sea empty out ahead of us and raptor packs poking their heads up at a safe distance, hoping to catch sight of some magic going out and making lunch for them. Alas, not a damn thing tried anything for anyone.

"That be a pretty cool effect," the Mick commented enviously.

"Ye've taught 'em so well, so quickly."

"It's like they are smarter than most Isparians, or something!" Kris snarked back with a grin, Quaver chiming steadily and confidently.

"Aye, but we not be getting the chance t' eat one o' the big ones.

'Tis a double-edged blade, I say!" he protested.

"You need to add a couple accompanying notes," Kris cajoled him.

"Me Bunita not be talking yet, lass."

"Then you know what you should be working on after your current project."

"Aye, then," he said softly.

"Won't really be me Bunita coming back, would it?"

"No," she replied quietly.

"But it will probably be based on how you remember her. Names are powerful things, after all."

"She's goin' t' be givin' me shite all the time, then." He sighed in fond expectation.

"You are the kind of person who earns all kinds of shite, Lord Mick," Kris informed him loftily.

"I be as pure as driven snow!" he countered haughtily.

"Snow melted off an active volcano into the mud, yes," Kris nodded along with him, and he just chuckled as we closed in on the beach of the island ahead of us.

The fighting started pretty much as we came into the shore areas. There were four main spawns here. The first were some very, very dangerous moarsmen, with thick scales, good reflexes, and dangerous attacks, primary melee combatants that could take on anyone and everyone there. Their claws dripped acid, their breath was flammable, and of course they all had over 1200 Health.

They were also charged with Luminance, the extra energy source for post-Paramount status used by the Empyreans and introduced to Isparians before the Fall. The ability to grant Luminance had been totally lost at the Fall. Even the few surviving Isparians who'd once been able to grant it as an aspect of Quests and the like found themselves completely unable to do so, although those who had earned boons and benefits from it had still managed to retain them.

Just one more of the ways newcomers couldn't compete with the old-timers, but we'd see how long that held up. The second major spawn was that of some dangerously strong sclavi. They were powerful archers, dangerous in melee, and had historically cast Platinum-grade spells. The third common spawn was actually young moars.

The Mick had said he'd never seen any true source of the creatures, but the young moars were ostensibly the creatures the moarsmen had once been, and becoming moarsmen seemed like an extra life cycle to the vicious things. The last common spawn was Wasps. Lots and lots of large and dangerous Phyntos Wasps, spewing lightning up to Platinum grade. Freebooter was the biggest source of the wasps in all of Dereth.

The wasps that came to the Vesayans all came winging in from the north from Freebooter Island, and the lesser colors that swept in to Dereth always seemed to come from the sea. It was one of the reasons why the seas around here were active. Remorans were plenty happy to jump out of the water and snatch any and all kinds of phyntos out of the air as a great snack, and didn't have much fear of their lightning-based attacks.

We had absolutely zero incentive to keep the phyntos alive, and they supposedly had an utterly massive hive on the island, something worthy of the olthoi in size, if tales were true. If you weren't immune to Lightning, probably not a very good place to go, however. Also, having to confront a buzzing storm of destruction the size of an eagle in your face tended to be really unnerving to the average Isparian. In all honesty, I was the answer to the swarms of the phyntos.

Swarmbane was a devastating effect to put on a Weapon against most Swarms, but when combined with actual Banefire against Vermin, it really doubled down. Swarmbane's main power was to inflict full damage against Swarms with weapons, transferring the damage to all the creatures and forcing the Swarm to eat the entire damage, instead of expending all of the damage against a few inconsequential creatures. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

Banefire would then blow itself through the Swarm, and following it would be all the Kicker damages, carried to each and every target. If that Kicker damage was enough to kill the individual creatures, then an entire Swarm would be popped, just like that. No damage was wasted, either. If the primary Shardray dropped five hundred points of damage into one creature and overkilled it, all that damage was conducted to other creatures in the swarm.

Banefire always gave that damage the most lethal path, and the Kicker damage always applied from the first point of damage. So a swarm of six smaller phyntos in a tight, lethal cluster of wasps could eat a Split Dartray, and each of the six phyntos would take roughly eighty points of Kickers… twice. They flamed out and popped like firecrackers. Everyone cheered when I blew through the clusters of them, even if the archers with us were all very, very experienced at tracking and picking the blighters off.

The tougher individual phyntos were left to the archers. They didn't seem as good at eluding missile fire as I might have expected of magical bugs, but they didn't seem to be as agile in the air as most magical insects I remembered via Aelryinth's experiences. The place's hostility to aerial magic probably had a great deal to do with that little fact. Stillflight Fields had always been the best way to handle giant dragonflies and a lot of the bigger bugs when they Swarmed. Put 'em on the ground and wipe them.

Pyroclasms with Swarmbane, too.

"Those are still here?" the Mick swore, looking north along the beach, instantly joined by Kris skating up next to him.

"Isparians?" she swore.

"Summons or real?"

"Summons," the Mick said, glancing back to where I was Healing up both Knights and the Roaches who'd been fighting, all of them cursing with feeling at just how difficult a foe the sclavi and moarsmen here were proving to be. None of the archers wanted to be fighting them up close after seeing how long it took even a proper Wolfpack team to divide up a group and cut them down from all sides… and likewise how difficult they were to shoot accurately.

The Mick pointed out another Summons of Isparians even further down the beach.

"Aye, look at the placement of them. One in ten, an' only right along the ridgeline. None o' them further out an' away on the beach." Kris' expression was not friendly in the slightest.

"Freebooters on Freebooter Island?"

"Well, nae proper freebooters as it were." He pointed north.

"The story were that they were part o' a big bandit gang, working on harvesting the flowers that grow here an' the crystals that dropped off the critters here. Residual effects o' the Deru Tree being here, it were said." He spat off to the side.

"One o' the Society Quests were t' find the bandit lair on the north side o' the island an' send 'em a message. Turns out most o' em were Simulacrums, an' the virindi were takin' the spoils."

"There's absolutely no chance the Freebooter Council wasn't getting their slice under the table, one way or the other," Kris sniffed at the opportunism.

"The virindi had that whole Empyrean Mana stabilization 'r summat going on at the same time. Minions o' Aerbax or some other random virindi faction. So there were a tie-in, although why the virindi be wanting flowers be a mystery. Virindi were a freaking pain t' be killing, too."

"As Summons, we know they aren't our friends. I'm guessing tri-spec and all?" Kris asked shortly.

"Aye, annoying twats an' all." The Mick twiddled with his belt as he studied the spawns.

"Cannae remember any 'real' Isparians on the place, save me fellows, but the NPC's were known to me uncle as real folks." Both he and Kris looked up and to the northeast, where the peaks of the mountain cut off most of the view there, and the castle that was supposed to be up there.

"You don't expect them to be there, do you?" she asked him critically. He spat off to the side again.

"Nae t' that. Place was just stupidity, flaunting their money an' giving fools something t' fight over. Uncle called it the biggest foolishness he'd ever heard out o' the council. I be expectin' they had a secret bailout Portal to Northwatch Castle, the other one they built, like as not their smuggling connection t' me other uncle's keep an' such. I think Master Oswald commented they got out o' here an' were imposin' on MacNaill, an' he dinnae liked it too much, but couldnae do much about it."

"So they'll be wanting this back.""'Tis such a high-demand vacation spot, with quite the view an' atmosphere, perfect for the raisin' o' brats an' gardens, it be."

"If it was popping up mana-infused flowers and is breeding phyntos non-stop, there's a major ley line under it."

"Ye know the Deru Tree here be dead? An' the tentacled thing be responsible for it?" he asked her, just to be sure.

"Yes. The Aun are making a final sweep of Ithaenc now, and there's a commitment by the Guard to find any T'Thuun extensions on the lesser islands now. If we can wipe the phyntos off Freebooter, we open up both northern Vesayan islands to farming."

"Tch. Less phyntos honey for me mornin' biscuits. How be I surviving?" he whined theatrically.

"There'll still be lesser hives all over, you know."

"Let me pretend I'll be missing 'em fer a scant two seconds, ye Hag."

"Two seconds too long, Lord McMikal."

"Well, aye. Damn things. What did ye think o' the snakes an' moars?"

"More dangerous than the Withered, as my valiant Knights are finding out. Your Roaches have the head start on them with Named Weapons, and better group tactics, but I see they are not too happy, either."

"Aye, were considered the toughest moarsmen on all Dereth here. Stronger sclavi on the temple island, however. Terrain weren't kind here to work the spawns so much, island o' the moars were much more popular."

"Wasn't that place devoted to T'Thuun, too?"

"If it weren't, it had too damn many tentacles coming up out o' the ground for it not to have some kind o' interest there."

"Well, this place is all kinds of useless and because of the Phyntos and tentacles, an ongoing problem we have to fix, and only the best of us can do the job."

"Are they retaining any o' the Luminance?" he asked quietly, tossing his jaw back at the teams behind them.

"Ryin says its coming in with the Karma, but it won't stick without a Feat or a Mastery. So, the key is earning enough Karma to unlock that Feat, without some ancient Empyrean Spirit as an intermediary, or by doing something grand enough to earn a boon from an ancient spirit that can do the job." He lifted an eyebrow, both of them looking down the beach.

About two miles away and inland, a towering tree, withered and brown as it loomed over the trees about it, waited lonely and forlorn at the heart of the island here.

"Well, then how about we go save a dead tree from a fat tentacled godless shite what killed it?" the Mick stated.

"How about we go do that," Kris asked, pale violet eyes flashing grimly, and two Swords of Lost Light swirled in ready tandem.