Chương 479: AF Chapter 478 – Thinning the Opposition

The Glory Award for ending the Doom of the Mhoires wasn't received until we cleared out four Dungeons there: Castle Mhoire, the Jester's Prison, the Mhoire Armory, and Lord Mhoire's Tomb. There were other, lesser Dungeons, but the Hallowing of the Pyramid of the Graveyard was clearing them without us needing to investigate. All of the older Paramounts had experience in the Graveyard, so the Dungeons were dangerous only if proper care and tactics were not used.

Nobody felt like truly dying, so teamwork and proper tactics executed smoothly were the bragging rights of the day, not soloing something and risking death to do so. Each Dungeon needed a single Block of its own brought up there with a half-dozen Disks to Hallow the place as they went carefully along and finally scoured it, fitting the Block into the Divine protection being fitted over this place.

Once it was done, and we'd cleared out any real undead and lingering unbound spirits (the Lord, the Lady, the Child, the Smith, the Jester… just, ugh) with respect, the Hallowing of the Graveyard meant any Summons coming in anywhere there would Burn away as they arrived and be sent off to the hereafter. Soon enough, there would be no spirits here to manifest, the Spawn Points warped by the Curse of Eibhil would return to their original locations and functions, and this place would return to its natural functions.

Then, then it was time for some vengeance. The Fall had been eighteen years ago, but nobody had forgotten the forces that had hounded us. We'd cleared them back out of Osteth, and we were watching, but we hadn't reclaimed the whole land, because we didn't have the people to do so.

What we did have was a rebuilt core of Paramounts and aspiring Paramounts, backed by Class Levels, burgeoning magic both new and long-lost returned to the light, and a bellyful of resentment that seeing all those spirits released from a Curse that had doomed and damned a noble House that simply didn't want to be ruled by undead for ten thousand years had only lit another smoldering fire under.

It was time to take advantage of me not killing a certain noble revenant lord some time back, and the Scrying I'd done intermittently since then.

There were a lot of Dungeons and strongholds of the undead, shadows, and virindi in the Direlands, no longer sequestered in Aetheric space, exposed and obvious in their locations, possibly well-defended and occupied, possibly really vulnerable if you decided not to walk in the front door, and, oh, instead made assaults from the sides or bottom via the services of someone who could Shape a whole godsdamned lot of stone. Interdictions, Stillflight Fields, Divinatory disruptions.

Paths of escape shut off, dimensional travel stopped, flying halted, and any notifications to outside forces gone quiet, we started going in and hitting the many, many bases that Scrying and careful follow-up scouting had located, and we went after them. There were precious few signs that anything was happening at any of the locations at all. If an alarm sounded inside, it tended to draw exterior guards inside to be killed. Any that stayed outside were brought down as quietly and with as little flash as possible.

Once they were cleaned out, they were looted, and then I filled them in, stone flowing in to reclaim that which had been displaced, wiping away any trace that the undead had ever been there. The only thing that might be left were some surface defenses, all built around ramps to the underground and tunnels or wells going deep that were no longer there.

Equal parts distracted by the witch-hunts and rivalries between themselves and their own instinctive lack of urgency about temporary delays, there was little to no response from the undead or the shades until basically the whole of the South Dires was absolutely clear of any of their holdings or bases entirely.

By the time they realized those forces weren't randomly hunting in the Direlands, working the Elemental Fields, or exercising on Freebooter, thousands of undead, shades, and virindi were off the board, their bases were gone, and there was nothing they could do about it. It startled the undead, that was absolutely true. Many unique and noble undead were gone, and did not respawn at all.

The shades were more well-informed and believing of what vivus had done, as the souls of their ilk did not return to the Shadow in the Void at all. The virindi lost a good chunk of the Singularity that they didn't want to lose, and began withdrawing to the Obsidian Plains from their mines and other locations, abandoning the mines and excavations of the Gotrok and Hea entirely as they finally processed what mortal beings with Vivic Weapons could do to them.

Abandoned by the virindi, more and more of the Hea withdrew to Marae Lassel, some of them even returning to families in Osteth, and the virindi did not stop them or choose to follow. Likewise, with their virindi patronage drying up, the remnants of the Gotrok had mines producing ore that nobody was buying or trading for, and their circumstances grew grimmer by the day. Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

There was a chance that the forces we were fighting with could find some level of common cause, it was true. But, Bael'Zhaon's people weren't going to ally with any of the undead, and had little but disdain for the virindi. The undead could barely hold their seething anger in check under the heavy hands of Rytheran and Geraine, both of whom the Gelidites loathed.

The virindi themselves were utterly pragmatic and dismissive of the chaotic minds of mortal organic beings, and also extremely wary of the effects of permanently losing portions of the Quiddity and the Singularity. Thus, there was no alliance as such, merely withdrawal of lines of conflict and the raising of defenses against further incursions, not that they knew how the earlier attacks had been executed.

The last stones flowed down into the ground and out of existence, reducing the proud castle down to a level white clearing of stone. The walls, bailey, and keep were gone, flowing down to fill in the expansive dungeons and chambers below that had been carved out of this mountain atop which it sat. The last trace of the Mhoires was gone, save for the floating Empyrean Battle Platform that had once floated over the place.

Harlune had quietly come in, taken over control of it, and floated it south to Candeth Keep, where it had been turned into a mobile artillery and missile platform for the Keep there to use. The Stillflight Fields around the Keep kept it very low to the ground, but it was still a mobile troop transport capable of shuffling rapidly around the Keep's walls to face any intruders. Also, a sign that we could take the creations of the undead and use them for ourselves as needed.

Kris was there as the last of Mhoire Keep receded into the stone and was gone. She walked over to the edge, and looked out over the graveyard below. The various mausoleums, monuments, and buildings of the Graveyard had been unmade, the spaces below them filled in. What remained was an expanse of green grass, thick and lush, with trees already starting to poke through here and there under the encouragement of the vivus.

Silver Flames Burned here and there as Hallowed Summons were quietly incinerated and crumbled down, freeing their spirits and Feeding the Land. The only construction was the hundred-foot-high Pyramid of the Mother floating a foot above the ground in the center of the place, glowing a faint Silvery Light as it maintained the Hallowing of the place.

"Clean-up is always the best and the worst," she murmured, looking down upon what had been one of the best combat and loot zones in all of Dereth before the Fall, and now was just a quiet monument to the enslaved now freed of a Curse lasting longer than Isparian history.

"Not all Evils can be undone, or even buried, but they can still be remembered properly." The history of the Mhoires, such as I knew of it, was among the runescape around the perimeter of the Pyramid below.

"The worst part of it was that ten thousand years was not enough to outlast their tormentors." Kris's face turned grim.

"Oswald had best hurry up on Rytheran's part, then. Geraine knows he lost his library, there's some blackened pits where the Dungeons used to be now. The Hea had to vivisize them, they were bleeding Taint."

"Well, the shadowy mastermind blew his cool. When he Scried all over the place and couldn't locate a single book, probably," I guessed. He probably couldn't conceive that anyone would destroy ALL the books, and that said destruction ended up being the whole goal of the infiltration. I could only imagine the vile things that collection of books had done over the ages, and wonder how many copies of them still existed.

Destroying three, four empires of nigh-Eternal beings was a pretty big checkmark on the Evil side of things...

"How close are you to Seventeen?" Kris asked neutrally.

"Five minutes ago. You and Briggs?"

"Nineteen is just a step away. These big Quests ending ancient foes are like Karmic stew." Fewer Classes to raise helped loads, and that was with them going Deep and Wide all the way through.

"Seventeen means you've got Nines. How many Slots?"

"Currently ten." She gave me a funny look.

"Base three, standard for a new Valence. Archsorcery, doubles to six. Bonus Slots from Intellect, three. Bonus Slot from Extra Spell Slot Feat, one. Ten total."

"Hah! So you've got at least sixteen VII's, then." I nodded once.

"How's your Mana Renewal?"

"Base Meditation from Aurora Stance divided by ten is 10 per minute. Cantrip Dumping is another 5 per minute. Pyreal Mana Renewal is +85%, Arcane Restoration is +50% to the Renewal Rate, so about 28 per minute in Aurora Stance."

"So… you can cast a Rapid Ritual Resurrection once per five minutes, or use and recharge the Staff of the Mother once every how long?"

"Recharging the Staff requires Valence Burn, so all it does is save time. If you can't Cast the VII, you lose a Valence Tier on the recharge, so it takes a LOT of lesser spells to give it a recharge, and ten minutes per charge in Meditation… which is damn fast, especially for not requiring gold," I reminded her.

"Mmm," she agreed with a nod. Putting charges in most things was basically similar to initially enchanting in that respect.

"But that means you can easily do a hundred of the Cursed Dead a day now."

"Faster, if it can be done near an active Standing Stone set, like in Holtburg. That's roughly 45 mana a minute, if you recall."

"Ah, right, yes. You set up that branch of the Matrix Magery school in Rithwic just to take advantage of the Henge there."

"It is obscenely good for rep counts," I agreed calmly.

"I pop into the one in Holtburg whenever I need to accumulate Rep Counts for higher Valences. Best is that it works passively, you just need to stand there and get filled back up."

"Ten per minute is unreal back on Ispar, and yet so damn slow if you have the Transfer spells instead."

"And no Pool Burn for using them or the Boosts," I agreed.

"On the flip side, none of the undead or virindi can use them, either, and that is insanely valuable to us. I'll take Meditation over intelligent enemies with unlimited mana and insane mana renewal."

"I can't argue against that, even as a Null. The Caster Levels of the creatures here are as insane as their hit points." I just snorted at that.

"What?" she smiled.

"You broke a thousand on combined hit points, didn't you?" I just sniffed. Double canines gleamed.

"Rantha Hag Levels are so damn sweet, you gimpy human you!" she admitted cheerfully.

"You're harder to kill than an ancient dragon, and complaining about inordinately powerful creatures here." I just rolled my eyes.

"Awww, just because it cuts into your abilities to wipe out entire armies of things that aren't undead!" she rebutted cheerfully.