Prepping the ground wasn’t hard, and why not do so? We were hours ahead of them.
Shaping the stone for a few surprises was just casual walking around for me. Describing what I was doing meant everyone just enjoyed the sinister surprise, and I didn’t even have to be the one to activate it.
The easiest things to put in place were delayed Area of Effect spells, preparing the ground with Fire Variants of Acidic Miasma and Calamitous Cacophony. The spells were Elemental-based, and gave +1 damage per die to all acid and sonic magic, respectively.
A simple Elemental shift to Fire for both with Elemental Mastery meant Burning Miasma and Charring Cacophany were going to be coming into play here. Amusingly enough, the boost was going to be helping all the Firephasing Weapons going to be waving around, and naturally affected relevant Kicker damage, too.
Plenty of time to get Buff spells into place on our people before the undead came marching up, too.
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They were visible as a dark line marching quickly over the ground, in disciplined lockstep only barely broken by the landscape, a stride and gait practiced over thousands of years. No living army could possibly have replicated such discipline, but in my eyes it was more a weakness than a strength, a focus on marching that dominated thinking so much that such things as conformity and perfect obedience now controlled their thinking, as opposed to organic flexibility and lively energy.
But it was fine, fine. They weren’t going to be a problem for too much longer.
Ten soldiers wide, tramping down the path, five hundred soldiers long, close to half a mile long all told. Empyreans all, a head taller than most Isparian humans, black lights in their eyes from the negative energy powering them, bristling with magical power, well-forged arms and armor… and naturally the Conjuration magic of the Summons system covering them all.
They came marching up the saddle between the last of the mounts of the Esper range and the first of the foothills rolling off its western side. Doing so would save them about five miles of marching and no real effort, so of course they would take the shortcut.
There was no scouting out ahead, anything ahead of them either obliterated before it could form a threat or fleeing rapidly from so many undead coming through. No wasted spellcasting, unlike the shades, all tight control and obedience.
It wasn’t hard to make them stop right where I wanted them too. A nice bright explosion of pyrotechnics right in front and above them, seen by all the undead, sent them slamming to a halt right atop all of those Area of Effect spells, waiting under the stone underneath them.
At which point I just unshaped the coverings on the stone, exposing said Runes beneath them, brought out my Shards, and let them fly in pretty much the same instant.
Well, the Miasma billowed up and cut off sight, except for a smoky crimson fog. Then the Cacophany started, and the slightest temperature gradient started becoming the sounds of infernos burning in all directions.
Then the Shards entered the whole mess, and everything seemed to explode.
I had to layer the volleys and space them out so the Chains would have room to jump to new targets, as opposed to going through previous ones. The first volley was only three sets of a dozen Shards each, but the next volley was nine of them, as the Residual Metamagic and Echoed Spells came through, and twenty-five Chains from each brought devastation.
936 targets the first salvo. 2800 the second, as the screams to get up Fire Protection rang out urgently, wondering what was going on up front over the howling sound and through the red fog that was just itching to burn and react to fire magic all around them.
Stone covers were heaved off of the caves to the sides, and the Scouts and Stoneholders and three angry gurogs stormed out behind their Forsaken leaders, just as the screaming, leapfrogging Chains of my third salvo came exploding through from the front and swallowed the last of the army in fire. Delayed lashes of Silver lightning swarmed over the melee attackers, and they moved with a speed that was quite not-human under Delayed Haste spells.
My Detects were fully up, watching as the undead winked out in massive swathes, and others Burned away slowly, stumbling and beating at the flames devouring them, not even motivated to stop, drop, and roll like a living creature would. The two groups of fighters came in from the rear, where the majority of bright points that were NOT going away existed, even when crisscrossed by several Shards each.
It was exactly what the undead didn’t need to see, even as the sharper of them finally realized they should try to get out of the fog and the noise that was making it impossible to do anything. They stumbled out into light and silence, and the fighters fell upon them without any mercy.
I was scooting forward now from the front, switching to Shardrays and concentrating them on individual targets for anywhere from six to twelve 100-point shots of individual damage, depending upon if they took one Ray or two. Coruscant lines of Primal Divine Arcane fire hunted down the officers and nobles with this force as their servants fell Burning, picking them off in pulses of flaring brilliance, and they still couldn’t see who the source of all of this was.
At the back, Kris and Briggs fell upon the strongest of the undead there in a whirlwind dance of killing that looked like they’d been working together for years, while the rest of the teams hacked through dozens of undead in series following them through the press their Auras cleared of magic, and twenty flaming Weapons in a row did what one could not. They fell upon the commanders in the heart of the army, surrounded them, and efficiently began to hack them down.
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“Tremble, WE COME!” she roared out in Human, and Heartsong pumped and worked its magic as two notes rang and hearts soared for the fighting already taking place at enhanced speed.
I pulled power from Kris and flashed an Arcane Fusion down their way the instant I was in range. Mass Dispels burst over the undead, taking down the Fire Protection they’d gotten up… and then the Mass Silver Fire Vulnerability followed on its heels, shifting them from taking one-quarter fire damage to full double damage.
“You came to kill, you came to still, the hearts that ever mock your choice!
You came to rend, you came to send to doom that defiant voice!
The young and the new, a threat to the blue, meant to drown in war,
Are up and alive, we’re going to thrive, and our future will soar
Over your Burning Bones!
TREMBLE, WE COME!”
Their Source and Forsaken Auras rapidly dismantled the standing Area of Effect spells, meaning they and their men weren’t fighting in mist or distracted by noise, and the moderate fire damage Buff wouldn’t benefit the enemy if it got fire spells off, which it most definitely tried to do.
Happily, the Casters had Buffed up everyone with the Protection spells, and so there were no instant kills, the Casters hastily on top of everyone wounded as Rings and Blasts and Volleys went off and ripped through the fighters, who just grit their teeth and continued hacking away with terrific speed and effectiveness as the magic exploded around them, and the Heal spells worked quickly to bring them out of danger.
Kris was flitting in sparking motion around the undead commander, a towering spellcaster as tall as Briggs, and Quaver was ringing on its robe and skin, slicing, swirling, a rain of attacks coming in on it...and instead of piercing or slicing deep and for the vitals, was tracing paths and patterns, pushing and forcing movement subtly this way and that.
Then Briggs came in with a massive blazing Hammer. Endure, moving nigh as fast as Kris’s Sword, followed her. So big and fast, he looked like a controlled thunderstorm letting loose his own Wrath of Heaven!
Defensive magic and Health Qi exploded away from his blows in eruptions of deadly flame, staggering the commander and driving him back as he tried to avoid them, fear rising blazing in his unbeating heart as the vivus in the attacks caught fire on him, fed by the flames pushing in at him, and he began to Burn.
He grabbed for his magic, and there was nothing there, as there was for none of his closest guards and lieutenants, who were being urgently hacked apart as the very toughest of the undead found they had no magic… and only scorn on the disdainful faces of the warriors hacking them down.
I came into Healing range and joined the effort, the outlying undead commanders the only ones who could get spells off. I used Arcane Fusions, however, pairing Mass Cure Light Wounds with Imperil, and the vengeance that hewed into the undead made sure they died quite quickly indeed. Just about all these men had Weapons with critical-improving Enhancements, be it Isparian or otherwise, and everything stacked as the undead were hewn down with quite impressive speed, despite being as dangerous as they were, clocking in over 200 in relative Level.
That one Kris and Briggs were hacking down was level 475, with 20k in Health. However, his protective magic had evaporated in their Auras, he wasn’t getting anywhere with the Sword he was trying to ply on them, and his Health was dropping like a goddamn rock as Kris fed Briggs her criticals, meaning 80% of his attacks were crits.
Only the Dark Noble’s magical robe was holding off nigh-instant death, and not enough. I could see the panic in the faces of the undead as some tried to Portal out, feeling the vivus eating at them and realizing what it could mean, but there wasn’t any saving them.
Briggs pounded the fucker in the abdomen, doubled him over, and then a swath of fire liberated the commander’s head from its shoulders in less than an eyeblink. Kris didn’t even look as she pivoted for the next one, the skull hit her foot, she kicked it lightly, and it arced up, expression of hate and horror frozen on it, and dropped into her Masspack as she and Briggs split apart to help different teams take down their targets in crackles of accelerated motion.
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Magic spiraled, and Notchhorn gasped as the shattered ribs and massive cuts in his torso spontaneously closed. Blood flowed backwards and the powerful heart that had stopped beating forever resumed its pounding course. The elder gurog, who was more than familiar enough with death to realize he had truly died there, gasped as a grinning Briggs held out a hand. Reflexively grasping it, the horned mattekar-man was pulled to his hooved feet, white scars now crisscrossing his chest in more badges of honor.
“The courage of the gurog continues its legend,” Briggs smiled, slapping his solid shoulder, while the dazed gurog watched as another dead and unmoving Stoneholder warrior was surrounded in a nimbus of powerful magic, flesh and bone dissolved by multiple Acidic Blasts to the front reforming in unnerving pulses of whiteness, organs restoring themselves, skin closing, and abruptly life returning where magic had torn it free before.
“Commander Briggs. The magic they used… it tore me from the respawn system!” the gurog said haltingly, still a bit dazed over being returned to life by the Isparian female from the south, watching as the very dead human’s body reformed, and he drew a strong, shuddering breath, blinking in amazement that he could even do so.
Briggs looked at him, and just nodded after a moment. “They came to exterminate you and the tuskers, then, because they didn’t need that kind of magic for us Isparians. We need to get you back to your people and warn them quickly about it.”
The gurog leader growled, but did not dispute that. “You knew this would come.” The mighty Ancient had warned them about this before, and reminded them repeatedly.
“Yes. What did I tell you?”
“If they gave us the power, they could take away the power,” the gurog repeated. “And now they seek to kill us off.”
“Existing only ever more as slaves in the System, Summoned to do their whims when needed and wanted, as disposable as dung,” Briggs grunted. “I am sorry. This is a terrible thing for you and your people. The undead outnumber you greatly.”
The gurog shrugged stoically. “It is but one more death. We shall fight to the end regardless if it is our first death, or our last!” he declared, fatalistic yet determined.
“Glad to hear it. You’ll get your share of the spoils, too. They had plenty of Weapons doing Elemental damage. You know what to do with them, right?”
“Burn them, and sacrifice them to our own!” the gurog recited proudly.