Asheron's Fall: The Power of Ten, Book Six

I rose up off of the Seal Focus under the amused gaze of the Mick. My Caster Level was totally high enough to reach the Seal Focus and bend the extra distance around the Obsidian Plains to follow his Lived-line to get here, as my own Line didn’t extend into the Direlands at all.

Something I should definitely fix more with more than trips along the beaches, which had been my sole extension here recently, taking Invisible trips along the shorelines to at least get ‘around’ the place, as opposed to within it.

“I see ye got done with the Pyramid faster than I expected,” he admitted, straightening from his crouch there in the sands near the base of the strange windmill that formed the top of the Amperehelion Vault. The vanes of the mill still circled slowly, even ragged as they were, and there were sparks of purple light flaring from up in the gear exchange at the top of the thing.

I couldn’t tell if it was turning in the flow of mana currents, or was being turned to vent off excess voltage from below. Certainly there was no way the virindi would not be aware of it here, unique construction that it was.

The virindi were incredibly sensitive to magical use, and being good with the Sublime Chord didn’t do much to protect me from that awareness, even with an Astral Ward.

At the same time, getting up that Pyramid and bringing in the two magical Zones had popped me to Eleven in Sorcerer, so there was that. I wasn’t sure what was needed to make Twelve, but I was sure explorations instead of mass military action were involved.

Too many magical secrets in this place. Karma was easy to come by, the place was made to generate it. Getting Levels past Ten in the Matrix system, that required something a bit more epic as pre-reqs.

The Isparian System, you just needed to slaughter wholesale. That wasn’t hard to do at all, and even do so productively.

Of course, mass destruction of thousands of undead, olthoi, Elementals, and wisps was probably not what the System designers had considered as a possibility with their limitations on magic and powers in the system, but given how utterly imbalancing that was as regards ‘normal’ people, that was entirely sensible.

That was why I was here. We knew the virindi were messing with the Amperehelion Vault here. That meant we had to go in, find out why, and disrupt it. It probably had something to do with the way the aetherium they had been tapping and using had blown apart, probably messing up a lot of experiments and artifice, and they wanted to get a substitute.

Enslaving a lot of Lightning Elementals would make for a lot of power.

“Greetings to you, too, Lord Mick,” I said calmly, holding out my hand and opening it up.

Minor Stinging and Shocking Stones gleamed faint green and purple respectively on my palm. I had picked up the remaining full set for each of us, just in time to go through a Vault where an Acidphasing Weapon was going to be hugely valuable.

His dark eyes gleamed as he plucked it up, then calmly slotted both the Minor and Major Stinging Stones into Bunita.

The adamantine blade of the Claymore instantly turned emerald green, bubbling with acidic, corrosive power, while the twin lights of powerful Lightning and Acid Protection spells shimmered into place over him.

“Secondary effect?” he asked, interested as he looked over the swirling emerald Lost Lights that seemed to be hissing at the very air.

“Grounding. Does damage to lightning-endowed creatures, can touch electrified systems without harm, grounds electrical traps of sorts. Acid and Lightning are opposed in the Isparian system. It would work against air creatures in the Matrix system.”

“This be going t’ be useful, then. I expect the Vault t’ be a lot more lively than it were, with the virindi in there.” He flipped Bunita over and sheathed her for the moment. “Are we shutting down the Summons points?”

I looked up at the stony tower, then slowly pivoted to take in the area.

The looming black walls of the cracked mesa or crater that made up the Obsidian Plains loomed to the east of us, hundreds of feet high. At its base ran the swamp of the Obsidian Rim, shallow waters that never dried up or flooded, circling endlessly around the most dangerous heart of the Direlands. Beyond them, the black-capped unnaturally steep and round pillars of the Black Hills circled the OP, letting you know you were getting closer, perhaps signifying something that we had no awareness of.

I could see a dozen spawn points with Summons in and on the shores of the swamp waters just from where we were standing, throngs of powerful creatures brought in together to create real messes if we chose to engage them. Clusters of golums, pairs and more of darkly agitated wisps, groups of shadows of multiple types, virindi combat groups, assemblies of powerful members of the drudges and banderlings, as well as combat squads of undead, Hea, and Gotrok lugians.

There were several Elemental groups among them, too, clusters of Acid and Frost Elementals that I could see… and one mixed-Element Tsuric, showing the Elemental instability here.

“This is a dangerous place,” I admitted. There was a lot of leashed spell power ready to be set loose among the creatures I could see.

“Aye, one thing the Dires never were be boring,” he agreed, looking over it all. “Lucky most are concentrated on the shorelines, an’ lightfooting it Invisible across the water were enough to avoid them. I didnae try t’ stir up any trouble, although I did wipe a virindi party here.” He pointed back behind him, to white smears on the ground where vivus had done its thing on a Spawn Point there.

“Didn’t want to deal with a respawn?” I asked, eyeing it.

“Nae particularly, especially given how many different things could Spawn up, an’ didnae want t’ plant the Seal out there in the water. Best to just claim a Spawn Point where none o’ the other Summons could trigger off arrivals.”

Good enough thinking, and right on the doorstep of the Vault, as it were. “We can try to Seal the Elementals that spawn inside with vivus. I don’t think they’ll hold any longer than the dawn, if there’s truly a lot of energy flowing through the place… but if any of them are virindi Summons, they should also be purged from the default defenders at that time.”

“Killing things only once today appeals t’ me,” he grunted in exchange. “Can ye make a path at the end t’ shortcut the trip?”

“I doubt it. The ground will probably be swimming with mana flows utterly opposed to Earth Magic at that point. I will try, but don’t expect much.”

“How are we playing this?” he asked calmly.

“I’m here mostly for case of emergency. Any magic I do will be slow and subtle, to avoid alerting any virindi, so you’re going to do most of everything. Take your damage on your Health, and I’ll Reserve it away quickly enough, and I’ll carry Darts on standby to accelerate any kills.”

“So, play it as ye’re next to useless, as Casting will announce to all an’ sundry we be here an’ turn the place into a beehive o’ spells.” He smiled brightly, and winked at me. “I do love treating Casters so shamelessly, ye know.”

“A little humility goes a long way in such circumstances,” I replied diplomatically. “Shall we?”

The door to the interior of the place was still intact, mana-reinforced as the structure was. I could feel the voltage the instant I stepped inside the windmill, as could the Mick, and we both looked down at the stone stairs leading into the ground, lit up in the faint sparking light of purple arcs of electricity dancing and discharging up above us off arcane equipment that was not a normal windmill’s gears and shafts.

“Down we go!” he murmured, pulling Bunita out again, Clan on his arm with a full array of Armor Banes on it, and he led the way down into the bowels of the earth.

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There were Lightning Elementals all over the place inside, dominated by Enhanced Astyrrians, who were definitely far more powerful than their random cousins found on the landscape. A combination of melee with fists of pure electricity, throwing javelins of sizzling voltage, or unleashing Lightning Vulns followed by Bolts of the same were all potential approaches by the things, something that wouldn’t be that dangerous if the Virindi Masters that were stationed about the place weren’t obviously in control of the creatures and helping them coordinate and bring in reinforcements.

Happily, Bunita was an Acidphasing Lightning Elemental Slayer with enhanced crit chance, boosted criticals, and Armor Cleaving to hew through the force structure that defined the Elementals with ease, while Clan was Baned properly and non-conductive to lightning entirely, meaning the Shield didn’t pass on any voltage that splattered against its dark surface.

Really, the main thing I had to do was shut down the virindi. If I took the time to bring up a Shard array, that was absolutely simple to do, as the virindi were very much glass cannons if you could pierce their substantial magic resistance. I just had to wind the spell up over the course of a good thirty seconds ahead of time not to alarm anything with the mana I was drawing, and take down the Masters the second they wanted to start Casting on the Mick and really send in the War Magic.

“Real one,” I told him quietly, as we stood over the Burning remnants of a Virindi Director with three destroyed Elementals around it. I Sifted up the gemstones that resulted from the latter crystallizing into being, a good reason to not Seal up an Elemental-generating spawn point. They actually still dropped minor gems worth real goldweight!

A Virindi Amulet came up out of the disintegrating armored shell and fracturing Mask of the thing as the vivus ate the virindi away and ensured it wasn’t going back to the Singularity, just like the Masters slaved to the System in here.

It sparked a tiny bit before our eyes, and the Mick whistled. “They be using the Vault to make their little Amulets now, be they?” he asked shrewdly.

“If we assume one a day from a Shocking Stone…”

“That could be thousands o’ them, depending on how long they’ve held the Vault,” he nodded once, while I stashed the Amulet away. A +1 Valence to Isparian War Magic was a whole lot better than nothing, and more importantly, Matrix magic could be built in on top of it with very little work, given the nature of virindi craftsmanship working easily with magical energies.

The interior of the Vault was a square pit surrounded by levels of interconnected walkways around it and the ramps and stairs that connected said levels. The Mick had pointed out that the fastest way to the Stone was simply to jump the railing and plummet down alongside the central shaft that rose up to the windmill above, with the Stone being found underneath the main arcane machinery down below.

Of course, doing so would involve going through the proc range of basically every single Lightning Elemental and virindi in the place, so that wasn’t going to happen. We were taking it easy and slow, and if it meant fighting a lot of Lightning Elementals and their newly-installed virindi bosses, well, we got minor gems and now a Virindi Amulet out of it.

“They may or may not be aware if their lessers start vanishing from magical awareness of one another,” I warned him.

“Aye, ‘tis why I’m working from corner to corner, so I dinnae have t’ worry about multiple War Spells coming in t’ test me magic defense,” he agreed, moving ahead towards the next stairway down, another Astyrrian crackling and snapping in place there as it adjusted slightly to face us.