A lot of those things dancing crazily above the waves were Burning with fire, cold, lightning, and acidic energies, accented with Banefire and Holy Kickers devouring them alive. The trailing damage was generally +50+Kickers on the second round, down to +1d6+Kickers for four more rounds… but +8d6 of Kickers was a lot of finishing damage over five rounds as they Burned, and vivus reduced them to white ash if they died quickly to it.
The Casters behind me were staring in disbelief, but this was what months of waiting had done for me. I had brought up a Matrixed spell that scaled with Caster Level enough to hit this damn hard… and it could be repeated, and repeated, and repeated!
I’d not shown this kind of damage punch, because I normally worked support, letting everyone else do the killing work while I made sure the punches coming in never landed or were Healed from quickly. Knowing I was there to do that kept a lot of people alive, and morale high as they knew they could fight, and that I had their backs.
The Roaches and those who’d seen me in the field knew the other side of the equation: that if things started at range, I could reach out and touch single targets, and do a lot of softening up of them.
The most I’d done to Aquatics in the past was generally swat them out of the air and out of our way, and the fact I could do it to a whole bunch of them was one of the reasons they couldn’t stop the Wagon from coming through, and actually didn’t randomly bug us.
This was obviously a guided effort and time, done since we’d revealed the fact we were going to cross early.
“I will not be able to sustain this level of firepower while crossing with all of you,” I said firmly, while ten strobing Rays pulsed out for hundreds of feet, hunting, Seeking, for targets who had no idea death was coming, only that their kind were screaming and Burning around them with unnatural flames.
Some were attempting to flee, and as they did so, they naturally bunched up together for protection.
Unfortunately for them, when Chains are concerned bunching up makes you more vulnerable, not less. If they came up out of the water to zip away from the death hunting them, well, that also made them more vulnerable.
The area of my Detect was empty of anything dangerous living within two minutes, while if anything came above the waters within a thousand feet, it was a viable target regardless of how fast or erratically it was moving.
If it was clusters of them, they were all targets.
Everyone looked out on a seascape full of nearly two hundred remorans and nautiloids, floating there and Burning away in multi-hued flames.
“Welllllll,” Kris drawled as she looked around. “I guess their little welcome party didn’t work out so well for them. Shall we be going?” she asked rhetorically, and headed for the Shoreward without waiting for everyone to pick up their jaws.
Her Null spread up and out, and the Shoreward, actually shimmering a bit from the power and variety of energy sources that had just gone through it, peeled away smoothly from in front of her as she led the way.
The Mick trotted right beside her, Bunita out in his hand as Quaver was out in Princess Kristie’s, both of the Swords trailing whorls and streams of Lost Light from their blades, one to the right, one to the left. It was quite the eye-catching sight, and if you knew them as well as I did, you knew it was incredibly dangerous.
The fact the Mick had possessed his own Blackfire Stones, still tucked away on Swords he’d long given up, recovered from his own dwelling place out in the wilds some time ago, meant Bunita’s display of them wasn’t any worse than Quaver’s, either.
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“That is quite the impressive display of magic,” the Queen Mother Elysa Strathelar murmured to me under her breath. There was chiming in the magic as volleys of Shards materialized, faded, and re-materialized around me, the spells and their Echoes and Pairs manifesting and fading away.
I was looking directly ahead, the Holo of my Detect showing targets within two hundred and forty paces in the forward arc. Some of the materializing Shards were Spellwarping into Shardrays, Splitting, and hissing out over Princess Kristie the Wagon Mule, plunging into the water, and clusters of Aquatics ahead of us were erupting Burning out of the waters to die.
The Casters behind me were staring in utter disbelief, as it was apparent I was not holding the spells. I was Casting and re-Casting them so I would not have to restart the progression and build-up again… and I clearly was using no or next to no power to do so!
“Thank you, Your Majesty. It’s also a lot of time and investment, and knowing what to invest in and being able to do it. The Matrix system of magic has a lot of depth to it. Integrating it all has been quite the challenge these last few months.”
“May I ask how you are not running out of mana?” Elysa asked after another moment of chiming, rolling Shards materializing around me before hissing out after targets ahead of us.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
There were remorans and nautiloids rising up out of the waters to our flanks, but far enough away that they couldn’t even Cast at us and hope to hit us with the limited range of their spells, nor could they outrun the casual pace Kris was setting, with her Lightfoot advanced along with the rest of her.
“There is an extremely advanced Metamagic skill in the Power of Ten system called Perpetual Spell. It is ruinously complex, hard to understand, and extremely demanding to tack onto an existing spell. If you can manage it, however, and your Matrix can only sustain one such effect at a time, it turns the spell into a Cantrip, a word for a type of spell that can be Cast out of ambient magic without drawing from the Caster’s own Reserves, usually quite minor utility effects.
“What you are seeing is basically the equivalent of a Lead spell in the Matrix system, tricked out to the utter maximum, being Cast without tapping my Reserves.”
She looked somewhat overcome at my display and the range of my killing ability. “Well. This certainly seems to put archery to shame, doesn’t it?”
“My reply would be… do you truly know what archery is capable of?”
Her mouth opened, closed, and then she pursed her lips as she glanced at me and my entourage of Singing Shards playing at the Sublime Chord. “I thought I was one of the best archers in the world. I probably still am. But… that does not seem to be the limit of what you think of as archery…”
“It most assuredly is not. The epitome of Archery is One Shot, One Kill. Its brother is If I Can Shoot It, I Can Kill It. The true Archer builds towards those extremes.
“I am simply reaching the edge of that level of magical ability a bit sooner than most. I will also note that Princess Kristie down there could probably bat all of these attacks out of the air without much effort, and it wouldn’t even slow her down much… so the target is important.”
Pressure, at the edge of my Detect!
I let it fall and the Holo go abruptly blank! “Company!” I called out around the chiming of my Shards coming in and fading out of existence, just as the water boiled and erupted ahead of us.
It was the big one, rising like a small building out of the water ahead of us. By the gaze of all those eyes turned our way, it looked to be a mite miffed that I had wiped out so many of its underlings, and they had done somewhere between jack and squat back to us in return.
It was also directly ahead of us.
“Infuse the Wagon,” I ordered under my breath, and the grinning Roaches leapt to obey. Their hands slapped down on lengths of metal that connected to other metal, and things began to gleam nastily, while the Mantlets along the top of the Wagon glittered with some very obdurate reinforcements to them.
Kris and the Mick didn’t alter course one step, heading right for the big guy at full speed.
I redirected my Shards, but took them off Ray mode first, going back to normal Shards, and weaponizing them.
Why? Because its shell was going to bounce my Rays crazily, and I didn’t want them coming back at us.
Yeah, I lost the double damage. But the +10 or so Weapon damage per Shard was a decent replacement, if not a complete one.
Also, it was a lot of Toppling attacks.
This big fellow hadn’t made more than an occasional appearance on Kris’ past runs, mostly because she gave them no warning when she was coming across. By the time they knew she was coming, she was already over halfway across, and it couldn’t move fast enough to get in the way.
Now it was in the path. Poor it.
“All mages hold spells until in range. If you hit its shell with your spells, they will BOUNCE. Aim for the center of the tentacles!” I Said, Magevoice making damn sure they could hear me. “Your Majesty, if you would care to land two spells for me? Arrow up!”
Startled, she nevertheless had an arrow out in a second and was poised in perfect Stance, settling in on the rapidly closing target.
I reached out and dropped an Arcane Fusion on her arrow. She released the shot with cool confidence at two hundred meters.
It zipped out ahead on Cyclonic wings, and plunged directly into the creature’s head as it did so. There was a swirl around it, and a shimmer of bladed yellow light settling into it. It no doubt realized what was about to happen, but it couldn’t counter-Buff in time, and these things almost never Buffed ahead of time.
“Fire!” I said, and dumped over two hundred mana into Energized Silver Whirling Blades, ladling them across my Shards for extra fun.
Wedges of Force became crescent blades and went shooting out in a murderous salvo. All the mages opened up, the archers had already been shooting.
A massive Acid Volley burst out of the thing, aiming right for us.
Kris sniffed in disdain, skated to one side, and like a dance partner, the Mick matched her. Bunita and Quaver rose as the Wagon followed them, most of the acidic magic was going to hurtle past us, and as two of the shots zeroed in, both of them cut without a care in the world.
Lost Light in gold and rainbow-edged motes of Radiant Force slashed out, and sliced the incoming Tier 8 or 9 spell apart into dissipating shreds of acidic magic that harmed nothing without even slowing down.
Point-blank spells blew past and around me, spinning blades and wheels of cutting Force, smashing into the thing as it was sent spinning wildly at the impact of my Shards detonating and tearing into it. Arrows and quarrels drove into its face and eyes as it warbled and squealed in an ear-piercing pitch, its tentacles spinning and flaring as it was knocked to the side, and everyone ducked.
Whopchopcrashbangcrunch, and we were still in motion as the Wagon tilted and abruptly steadied itself, continuing on without losing speed.