With the ease of long practice, we swept through the top layer, not even stopping as we did so. Standard practice was to stand back and either Bolt or snipe the shades down, which was kind of a run-and-stop procedure of going to the proper approach places for long shots, staying out of melee since most of the paramounts were Casters.
Mana conservation was very important here, however.
My wonderful Mana Boost discovery had rapidly started to loose its efficiency and power, eventually faltering and falling completely out of the Isparian paradigm under normal circumstances as the manafield glitched and distorted around me when I used it. A lot of manipulating mana tests had followed, trying to determine how it had transformed, and it was plain my temporary honeymoon with magic was over.
It could be Cast from a mana pool over the course of a minute, while basically in Meditation/Aurora Stance. That was still incredibly fast versus relying on pure Mana Renewal, but it meant I didn’t have effectively unlimited mana.
It could also be Cast from Valences, but the Slot to do so was then absolutely Burned until Natural Renewal. Naturally a lot of effort was put into maximizing the amount of Mana I got out of those Valences, as emergency sources of mana if required. Energized, +5 per die, +8 per Valence Level, Topped off, Positive Edge, Healing Mastery… yeah, I got a LOT of mana back when I used the Valence, but it was still for emergencies.
Those facts meant none of the new students I was teaching ever got to enjoy unlimited mana, which was why I’d never had them focus on it. The rapid mana draws of old had yet to return, but I’d still managed to get in a lot of rep counts using it… perhaps the very thing that had tweaked the manafield and glitched it.
Eh, ah well.
-Get that Slash Vuln,- Princess Kristie /ordered crisply, as she trotted and some of us rode down the ramp to the next level.
Once an aspect of Isin Dule, the leader of the Shade Rebels, such as it was, had stood here, vetting everyone who wanted to pass through to the next level and opening the way via a custom Portal. That shade had spazzed out and gone crazy like the original had, and now needed to be put down like his former self and his master had been.
That was fine, as we didn’t play nice.
True Casting hissed by, another Valence gone, but I didn’t replace it now unless I had mana to spare and was in a safe location. I watched my spell expenditures very closely, as any Caster should, and maximized them when I spent them.
That generally meant letting others do what they were good at, and spend only one or two spells so they were better at doing it.
The shade in its black armor and boiling red eyes was there, promptly unleashing a full volley of Mana-Tier fire magic at us, even as the Slash Vuln shimmered yellow about him… magic which bounced uselessly off Kopf’s blue-black adamantine Shield, much to the shade’s astonishment, as the Ray effect should have conducted right through it. Then it saw the lugian wasn’t slowing down in the slightest, and tried to get out of the way… but Scutum was transparent from behind, and Kopf shifted just enough to catch the bastard squarely.
This was actually the biggest fight of this level, as the crazed master shade was no slouch and had very powerful magic. It was generally wolf-packed, cut down as fast as possible while everyone grit their teeth and ate his magic.
He wasn’t Casting much when he was flat on his back with a half-ton of lugian splayed out on top of him. Trying to lift the lugian off meant his hands were occupied.
Two shining Blades came in side by side over Kopf, driving down with merciless speed at his exposed head. His howl of anger and outrage was cut short by the plunging Leap Attack Valorous One Strike Charge combination, the Weight of the Waterfall descending in a wall of death down onto his head, one at the neck and one at the flaming eyes.
The chok as they bit into the stone was pretty final. The archers were already spreading out, Bows and Autobows aimed unerringly at the first of the artificial Virindi down the hallway just ahead of us.
Kris and the Mick grabbed the pauldrons of Kopf’s armor, and the heavy lugian, not made for acrobatics, was heaved back up to his broad splayed feet in a surge of motion, still holding his Shield. The shade was left to die as Kopf oriented himself silently, the archers now spreading out behind in a flying wing, two to each side, me behind the lugian as he charged ahead.
Closer, closer… the chalky-white virindi Construct, called a Dream Marauder, put its arms together in a monastic manner, just like its makers, prepping to Cast, and I dropped two Valences to push the Chain through the Isparian spell.
The spell became almost beam-like, flashing down to the Construct, limning it in yellow, and then leaping forwards to the next closest enemy the spell could sense, a series of sharp notes sounding as the spell lit up on each one of them with +75% damage from slashing attacks with the Blade Vuln.
The slamming force of the Pyreal Shockwave’s telltale circular manifestation shattered loudly against Scutum, Kopf just grunting as he planted and diverted it up sideways, passing it in front of the Mick to shatter uselessly against the wall as the Mick turned his head, stones flying and pattering off his armor. I had pounded this formation of theirs with spells literally hundreds of times, just so Kopf could get used to handling his Shield and what it could do.
That naturally meant Kris zipped ahead, Quaver rising to the side, ki and momentum building as she unleashed a screaming kiai, and a swath of the Lost Light took off the floating thing’s head in one blow.
Kopf smashed through it a second later and sent the disintegrating thing flying.
-Marauders in positions there, there, there, there, there, and there-, a thoughtfully added afterglow of the Vulns clearly marking them for attention.
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The archers glided to a halt and released over the heads of the three melees splitting up to draw attention to themselves, and the Summoned Marauder Constructs fell for it.
The Mick and Kris had little to fear from their spells, both having very high resistances, and I had everyone on Status through the Fellowship effect, watching like a hawk in case one of the Constructs got lucky, which had happened in the past.
Four gleaming Bolts laden with anti-Construct magic punched into one Marauder in the second rank, while the three melees smashed the closest ones backwards, hacking as they did so. Shards of metal sprayed and strange energies escaped as the shells of the things were badly damaged, even as the remaining two virindi Constructs unleashed their magic at the Mick and Kris.
The Lightning magic shattered around the Mick, his Magic Defense too high… and also something he’d invested Matrixed Mastery Ranks in these past few months, driving it ever higher in combat against the grievvers here, as well as against myself, trying to withstand the high-end magic loaded with Spell Penetration that I could unleash against him.
The spell targeting Kris just faded into nothing, the Piercing Bolt diving into her Null of unmoving magic and vanishing like raindrops into a lake.
The Marauder in front of Kris flipped out its sickles and broke into a slashing pirouette, like a floating razor top, the things hard and sharp enough to score magical metal.
An artful flip of her Sword tilted the spiral up, and the Construct tilted backwards, the triple-spin upended and hitting nothing, leaving it off-balance and vulnerable.
Quaver ripped up and down in a two-toned note of finality, and tore it apart.
The skirling as another pair of sickles lashed across Scutum hurt the ears, especially when one broke against one of the bosses there and went whining away.
Kopf’s massive Axe Land came in over the top and drove the thing towards the ground under the force of impact, caving in the helmet that served as its head. Before it could rise back up, the broad lugian spun with a grace and speed that he had spent a lot of time working on, getting full hips and back into a massive whipping circular blow that took it in the side of the head, bit in, and tore it cleanly off.
Bunita sliced up and down with deadly speed on the third, catching both arms as they extended out for him, and metal shrieked as it was sheared through and the deadly sickles went spinning away towards the wall, driving into it and staying quivering there as the Construct’s forearms were chopped through and now spitting purple energies out. The Construct wavered uncertainly, its options extremely limited with its arms so truncated.
The Mick ripped it up the front of its chest and let out the energies inside as it froze, trying to determine what to do from its programmed options, and ended its confusion in a plume of thauma-purple.
The second group of missiles punched out together, and the fifth Construct sagged as its stony chest was impaled clean through, false metal shattering and spewing out the animating energies as it fell.
The last one was charging Kris, sickles spread wide, gleaming sharp and deadly. She brought up Quaver, grinning as she locked into her Stance, the Archer Stands Thrust lowering to a point of perfection, ready to accept the charge… and Rogar came in from the side, slashing down with his Glaive Accent to take out its right arm and destroy its balance, tilting this side down. The Construct’s other blow whistled over Kris’ head as Quaver drove into its nexus and popped it instantly, the thing almost falling apart around the point of Quaver as the pale, greasy gray-white Construct Banefire around a raging core of Lost Light did its job.
She probably would have taken the hit without any problem, but that is what teams did when they worked together.
“Next!” Kris ordered, pointing through the doorway to the last set of Virindi, where their ‘boss’ Marauder, the Thief of Dreams, spawned.
It held a reforming ‘key’ item, the Skull of Avoren, which opened the ramp to the true prison. That meant we needed to move into the next chamber where three more Constructs waited beyond the range of the first Chain. Kopf led the thundering way into the next chamber as this time I sent a Blade Vuln to the left. The archers took that guard out instantly; Kopf rammed the Thief in the middle straight right back into a pillar with brutally crushing force, and Kris and the Mick chopped off the arms of the other guard, then sliced it open front and back in a dance of swords. They split wide, and then came together into driving lunges into either side of the boss Thief that Kopf had pinned with his mass and weight, and the double Charge attacks from them finished it instantly.
Kris snatched up the Skull from inside the Thief before it even hit the ground, and we went racing back towards the stela in the main chamber, right next to where the fragment of Isin Dule had been standing. The Skull of Avoren was inserted into the receiving depression on the Rune-carved column, where it shimmered and disintegrated.
A section of the floor wavered and vanished, a gout of raw-smelling air coming out, laden with acidic tinges, the tang of ozone, and the acrid smell unique to grievvers, all mixed with a heady bunch of rotting stone, pulsing mental pressure, the feeling of eyes watching, and something unclean settling over the body.
---
This was the true fun place. The ramp would stay open as long as anyone alive was down there, so at ‘normal’ times, a half-dozen Fellowships would clear the area, then pile down below and camp the spawns of grievvers for as long as they were allowed to, rotating in and out as new teams were ready.
Paramounts watched and managed the whole process, pulling everyone out once there weren’t enough people left, or piled in to buy time for an unlucky group caught by massed magic or surrounded to retreat with all speed. Deaths were rare, the teamwork and magic needed long worked out, but bad luck was still a thing, and the Bile Grievvers were extremely dangerous with their electrical attacks, the plunging stabs of their barbed spear-like legs, and the magic they could unleash to Debuff their foes, the main thing that made them predators of the olthoi, instead of victims of them.
They also made great servants of the shadow-entity that powered Bael’zharon, so there was that, too.
-Banes to Vermin in place,- Kris /ordered, Quaver already changing out from its multiple Slaughter choices to the yellowish Banefires that chewed into insects and other arthropods.
Eyes closed, magic moved, Infusions moved into Weapons, and our Banefires shifted once more.
Ten minutes per level for the spells, so good for a couple hours nominally, longer if Extended, but we wouldn’t be here that long.
The Bucklers on the hips of Kris and the Mick were unslung, and Morphed into full long Shields. They weren’t nearly as big and impressive as Scutum was, but neither of them were his size, either.
-Brilliant for everyone,- Kris /ordered me, raising her Blade up, and everyone else did the same.
I was the only one with the Caster Level to lay down an enchantment that strong, and to do it with a Valence, which would stack with the Infusions and existing magic.