It did take the Mick longer to kill the Hollow Servant, since I wasn’t Debuffing it and he was paying more attention to parrying and dodging than exploiting openings, meaning he reverted to One Strikes instead of multiple attacks. But that had the amusing effect of the Hollow Servant ending up with both of its chorozite fists sundered and shattered against the boss of the Mick’s Shield as he counter-punched it with shield bashes, which really destroyed its ability to do him any harm once it couldn’t ignore the magic of his Armor and Shield.
Adamantine beat chorozite, natch!
Once both its fists were broken, the Mick went on the offensive and wrapped up the lot of them fairly quickly with Flurries driving multiple crits and explosive attack sequences.
“Maybe we’ve found the solution to them, maybe not,” I said calmly. “I still needed a double Dispel on the opening War Magic volley to shut down the two real ones, and they are still being stupid and not moving into melee with me. All they have to do is have the Hollow Servant charge for me and ignore you, and the whole dynamic changes instantly.”
He shot me a concerned look, his eyes rapidly shifting down and around as he imagined the course the fight would take if I couldn’t lock down the magic of the Fulguris… and I’d have a devil of a time surviving the attacks of the Hollow Servant.
“That would be bad,” he admitted quickly. “How would ye deal with it?”
“Trip it.” He blinked. “Its feet never clear three inches off the ground when it moves, it just shuffles and slides around. If it sees there’s an impediment there, like stairs, sure. But if it doesn’t, it doesn’t high-step at all, and it will fall flat on its face.
“Valence I. Once it’s on the ground, you can either deal with it really fast with Death from Above, or I can pin it there via other means. A spell of Black Tentacles, Entangle, or just forming a Wall of Ice or something atop it would all do the job.”
“And the Wall would provide instant cover against spells, even if it were blasted through with one volley.”
“Precisely.”
He looked over the dead again. “So simple, but aye. I dinnae think I could truly solo this lot without being really lucky.”
“Do you think you could Spellcut one of the Fulguris’s spells?”
He tilted his head slightly, considering that. “Huh. What do I need to hit?”
“Probably a 48 or so?”
He winced. “Gor! I’m sitting at about +44 or something…”
“Favored Enemy bonus?” I inquired.
“So +46. I’d miss on a crit failure, right?” he said thoughtfully.
“The only time you’d miss, and it would be horrible,” I agreed. “You should be able to handle the Director and Master without too much problem. But keeping the Hollow Servant at bay while having to press the Fulguris and kill it while Spellcutting every spell… it if had any tactical sense at all it would simply retreat from you continuously and pound you from a distance if it can, or go run for an alarm and send a dozen Servants after you. Us.” My eyes flickered in the direction of the next Sparking Stone my Locate Object was sensing. “They have no tactical sense at all. The Fulguris should be retreating as soon as I Dispel its magic to go get reinforcements, leaving its minions here to delay us. It should return with more Hollow Servants, send them in, and while we try to survive them, pound us dead with magic.
“Coming up on us from behind with a second front would only make sense, too. These things have the battle-sense of rocks. It’s more like fighting a whole bunch of people who won’t help one another, rather than a collective hivemind operating intelligently.”
The Mick began waving his hands urgently. “Shush! Quiet! Quit talking! They might hear ye an’ realize they been acting like idiots!” he berated me urgently. “Do ye WANT t’ make our lives more difficult?!” he moaned theatrically.
I had to smile. “They are Axiomatic Aberrants. Innovation is not in their nature. They can observe, they can imitate, they can recall… but to do so requires personal agency on behalf of the virindi involved, and that commodity seems to be something they dole out in very small and precious lots, probably because those virindi afflicted with it tend to develop very non-Axiomatic tendencies rather quickly.”
“Realizin’ their limitations because o’ the collective will, an’ seein’ what might be possible goin’ outside the rules. Can’t imagine anyone else might be thinking the same way, nopers, not Mother McMikal’s favorite son, I say!” he swore fervently.
“They are probably very intelligent, but they’ve the willpower of rocks. Start in motion, finish the motion, ignore anything else. Don’t do what is not part of the motion. Obey orders. Don’t take individual initiative.”
We watched the last of them finish Burning away, leaving only scraps of their armored robes and scattered clumps of broken ash behind that had been the Hollow Servant. “How do ye reckon they are on a battlefield?” he asked me.
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“Utterly devastating,” I replied, which made him wince. “Kris and Briggs both realize it, too. Mass combat is the bread and butter of Law. Chaos typically only wins large fights with sheer numbers and overpowered soldiers. Law… well, you know. Just look at what we did against the Hea. Soldiers against warriors and hunters? Soldiers clean their clock.
“Virindi are highly mobile, tough as such things go, capable of Buffing themselves, perfectly obedient, totally willing to fight to the death, and possessed of tons of mana for spellcasting.
“I imagine their leaders have witnessed dozens of wars, thousands of battles, and can call upon those memories to emulate them and put winning strategies and formations into play on a battlefield. They can probably maneuver around with lightning speed and coordination, unleash massive spell volleys in absolute tandem to ruinous effect, and have no morale, discipline, or supply issues.
“They probably won’t respond well to irregular or guerrilla tactics, or methods which pull them apart and don’t allow a unified front and strategy, but on a straight-up battlefield? You’d best duck and cover, because it would be Hell to fight them there.”
The Mick looked into the distance thoughtfully. “Huh. All me years here, an’ I’ve not ever seen the virindi do a mass battle, nor heard of them moving together like that. There be stories of them making war against the Rynthid in whatever home realm the two species share, but naught on Dereth.”
I nodded agreement, Briggs having noticed the same thing long ago. “That is pretty stupid of them, and the virindi aren’t that stupid.”
He caught the underlying meaning. “They’ve some manner o’ restrictions on ‘em, then.”
I nodded confirmation. “That is what we’ve deduced. They have to wear their robes just to move around in the material world. All of their Dungeons tend to be covered in Runework designed to make the place more comfortable to them, or are places of incredible mana intensity, like here.” I narrowed my eyes, made a gesture and Hummed a Note that was low and deep on the scale.
The air lit up with wavering purple fluctuations, faint but visible.
“Virindi magic. A Domain that lets them endure the Vault. Powered by that engine?” the Mick asked, following the flow of energies sweeping slowly past us.
“Yes. We believe that if enough of them materialized in one place to form an army, they’d immediately be rejected by reality and thrown right back outside it to wherever their Quiddity hangs at.”
“So, what we are seein’ here are the Virindi at their absolute weakest,” he deduced.
“That’s probably fairly close to it, yes,” I agreed.
“I dinnae know if that be makin’ me feel better or not,” he remarked thoughtfully, taking a deep breath and shaking out his arm.
“Well, they obviously started figuring out how to allow more and more powerful members of the species to manifest here, which is not encouraging, and the creatures they have created here are almost apocalyptic in their capacity for destruction, if you recall all the Prodigals of the species they created.”
He looked sharply west. “Ho. That’s why they want me checking on Ayan Baquar! I bet she’s thinking that the Banderling Prodigal, Harraag, took it, an’ she’s wondering if the virindi still control ‘im.”
“If Bonecrusher, a drudge, can wrest itself free of the virindi, I have to believe that a banderling can, especially when the Fall overloaded so many control magicks like it did.”
“Ain’t gonna argue that point, an’ it makes a quick trip west when we get outta here,” he said, looking around. “Oi, only got five more o’ these little guard groups afore we graduate t’ the big ones, lass.”
I tossed a thumb at the Disk trailing behind me with our spoils. A lot of copper wire and minor glittering gemstones were piled haphazardly up and around the Shocking Stones, adamantine sickles, Virindi Masks, and Virindi Amulets. “If we had to run now, I still think we did pretty good on spoils.”
He beamed. “I be agreeing with ye there. Goldweight throwin’ itself at me be hard t’ turn down, ye know?”
“Golums and Elementals, still paying for Gear upgrades, if only the slow and ugly way!” I pointed ahead. “Go find more!”
“Yes, m’lady!” Bunita swirled through an ornate flourish and he bowed flamboyantly to me, leading the way towards the next guard point.
-------
“Ye sure ye’ve the mana?” the Mick repeated one last time. He was at full Health and Soak, and even boosted past it by some preemptive False Life and a Bear’s Toughness, just to be careful.
“I’ve got plenty of Slots even if I run out of mana,” I assured him. “The minimal amount of spells being Cast has helped. Trust me to neutralize the spells, just focus on those two Servitors one after another.” I flexed my fingers in anticipation.
The room with the floating chest full of Shocking Stones was right ahead of us, as was the ominous hum of the Virindi Signat, which was drifting around in clear agitation, doubtless wondering why it couldn’t feel any of its subordinates.
We both reviewed the way out if we had to run, and we both took deep breaths.
Time to do this!
Haste crawled silver lightning over both of us. The attack speed Buff was going to be very necessary.
The hum around us seemed to fade a bit and deepen as our perceptions sped up. Together we glided past the corner, giving us a clear view of most of the room beyond.
The arcane device the virindi had cooked up took up much of the ceiling, a column of ornate crystal warped in non-linear ways extending down from it, with a clear aperture condensing something within it in a riotous little ball of purple mana-plasma.
The two motionless purple and red Servitors there jerked their sack-on-sticks heads around at us, and snapped loudly into attack mode.
But not before three things happened.
Triadspell +1, for Imperil IV+1 times two. Sudden Fastcast Triadspell +1, Acid Vuln IV+1 times two!
Shades of shattering metallic gray flashed over the two extremely powerful scarecrow-like Hollows, followed an instant later by the flaring green of the Acid Vulns going off on both of them.
The Mick’s Valorous Spirited Charge drove home for x4 damage, a quadruple-damage One Strike, and the crit and sneak attack damage exploded into a shaft of emerald boring right through the skinny chest of the nearer one. At the same time, the purple sparks emanating from the mail mesh under its ragged clothes sputtered and faded away.
The Item Dispel imbued into Clan as it reached out and swiped the second one was discharged, and the lightning effects and snapping speed about it abruptly dimmed.
With a kick of his heels, the Mick was sliding forty feet backwards and out of the room before the two Servitors could even get into motion.