In normal circumstances, the Mick could have made a beeline for Ayan and reached it in less than twenty miles, just running past or around anything in the way.
They wanted to disturb absolutely no virindi on this run, nor leave any witnesses whose memories might be plumbed to indicate their presence. So, he was moving more carefully and circumspectly, detouring around all the spawns unless he was totally sure he was ghosting them, being patient and careful as he closed in on his old stomping grounds.
Let the virindi wonder.
Hunting outside Ayan Baquar back in the old days had been the equivalent of idle fun. The foes were tough, varied, and one didn’t have to go far at all to get into a good brawl. Back then it had been wonderful and convenient, a way to alleviate the boredom of grinding a Dungeon, still earning decent loot and Karma, and getting a chance to test himself against a wide variety of enemies, including the occasional Bosses or Champions with their unique rewards.
Now, he saw the unmoving Summons sitting on their spawn points, and didn’t see enemy forces and fighters just begging for a sword in the guts so they could cough up some valuables. But there was a lot of magic at work and creatures tied to the Summons system, unnatural things that were sapping at the magic and land as they existed, sitting around and literally good for nothing but fighting.
But he still wanted to fight them, to dance with death and prove himself the master and victor. He grimaced at knowing how thoroughly he’d been programmed to slaughter the things, and just kill and kill and kill like it meant nothing.
The Fall had brought truth and reality back to him as to the value of the lives of those he cared for, including his own, but he could still look at any non-human and value its life as less than the dirt on his soles without effort.
He had killed far too many of them, bathed in gore that dissipated and cleared itself off of him as a reward for his victory, and seen more treasure go through his hands than the treasuries of a hundred noble houses for doing so.
Down south, the spawns were higher with the skeletons and mu-miyahs, but here, in the trees and hills and forests around Ayan Baquar, truly this had been where he’d had some of the best times of his life.
Before the Fall, aye.
There it was, the saddleback of the two hills to either side of it, the town nestled up on the low point between the two of them, still above the forests below and the western beach to the ocean nearby.
Gor, the damn town didn’t even have any walls, despite being surrounded by so much hostile shite.
The Mick actually glided to a stop at the edge of the treeline, staring at it in disbelief at the simple fact staring him in the face after so many years.
So much deadly, hostile stuff, and they’d not even bothered to put up a wall… because it was almost all Summons and they couldn’t wander away from where they Spawned.
“So fucking ridiculous,” he said aloud, staring at the town.
His Mask of Clarity responded to his will, magnifying the forward view of the hill still a good mile away, and the details leapt forwards with piercing clarity, even in the night, false dawn barely starting in the east.
Banderlings. Banderlings everywhere.
The catlike species hunted at all hours, and he wondered what in the heck the things could eat out here, if they were indeed real. He knew that the strong warriors of the wild tribes made the trek to the Direlands to find a champion and teacher to instruct them in the greater paths of power of their people, a rite of passage for so many species here.
Something drew them to the Direlands, where they could grow powerful, beyond the restrictions and limits of their homelands and homeworlds.
And it was the place the Undead, Virindi, and Shades all operated from.
Something big, nasty, and important was in the Direlands, and there was no doubt whatsoever that it fed on conflict and death.
“Banderlings all over the place,” he said aloud, totally unneeded since the Lady Magos had reclaimed her feet and was studying it through her own jet and silver Mask.
“I can verify if he’s there if we get within three hundred paces. He’ll likely sense the Divination, but I’ll just crash it and we can run away.” She glanced at him with eyes that always saw too much. “Strange to see it? It looks largely intact. By the stories and amount of virindi involvement here, I expected it to be a virindi encampment.”
“Harraag tryin’ t’ take after Bobo, perhaps.” He pointed at the base around the town. “Those used t’ all be random Spawns.”
Hundreds of banderlings in bright armors, color-coded for convenience of the watchers, occupied all the spawn points for at least half a mile around the hills of Ayan.
Stolen novel; please report.
Banderling Champions, Paragons, Crushers, and Hierophants. Not a single Enforcer, Thrasher, Mangler, Mauler, Aggressor, Predator, Savage, Scalper, or the other, lesser types of Banderlings. Only the apex banderlings of their paths.
“Standard tactics we’ve seen many times. Ridiculous how?” she asked him.
“Nae walls in the middle of such dangerous shite.” He sighed deeply as she glanced back at the town, raising an eyebrow in acknowledgment of his point. “This be not Osteth. How could… it makes no sense at all. Like we knew the shite couldn’t threaten us, even as we thought of them putting us under siege… and then our attention slipped away from Ayan, and without hundreds o’ us killing everything around it all the time, it continued on without any problems…”
How hard and subtle did that shite have to be, fucking with his head so easily and for so long?
“Cover your scent and circle the base of the hill once.” Her gaze drifted to the northern hill, where crystalline glitters in a specific shade of blue still sparkled erratically, even at this distance. “There doesn’t look to be much motion on the north side. Do you think we might drop a Focus there, or be better off toward the beach?”
“The spawns are light over there, so I’ll do an approach from that side, an’ we’ll see. Can ye conceal a Seal Focus?” he asked archly.
“Was thinking of Shaping out a room, putting it on the floor, and then closing the room back up behind a stone veneer. Even if they discover it, it’ll just be a hidden chamber, and they won’t know what it’s really for. That way I can put some basic Runes in the walls so that virindi or Harraag won’t sense someone ‘porting in, too.”
“The virindi do love their dimensional shite.”
“They do, probably because they aren’t really physical themselves.” Her silvered eyes narrowed sharply. “Also, I’d like to Burn that Deathstone pit clean, if possible, banderlings be damned.”
The Mick straightened slightly. “Aye, that sounds like a fine thing t’ do, even if Harraag ends up chasing us until the morning a-growling in outrage!” he agreed promptly. The wailing of tortured spirits just went right to his heart now. Not doing something about it was nigh-impossible, if he could.
“Let’s go.” Her Disk lotused up and fed itself into her Masspack. Their loot was already Itemized and would be broken out when they returned to civilization to be processed. Their Masks allowed them to see one another clearly, even when Invisible, so there were no problems with her following him, murmuring a spell to repress their scents, as they headed straight for the town.
He wanted to confirm if the Whispering Blade Chapterhouse was still in existence, too, the secret society’s base of operations formerly being a Portal down the hill east of Ayan.
She said nothing, following smoothly and quietly, not a ripple of cloth, her steps more precise than gliding like his own, a combination of magic and a different lightfoot style that somehow gave her a more purposeful, domineering air she likely wasn’t aware of, a subtle and direct display that indicated that she knew things you didn’t.
It was not the pure danger that Princess Kristie had when she got to moving, beauty and dance-with-a-dragon dangerous just radiating threat to anything with any common sense whatsoever. But the Princess was a killer born, aye, no doubts as to that, and the Lady Magos was a Caster, so seeing that hint of martial danger about her was always a bit surprising.
---
He didn’t remember quite so many Spawn Points, but Ryin assured him that all were Summons, no real things about her. Such banderlings would have indicated their status by wandering around or just collapsing in place to sleep, regardless.
The entry point of the Whispering Blade had been located at the edge of a marshy area, and was completely obvious as a long and incredibly blatant stone formation ripped up out of the ground, with a long tunnel leading down and into the underground.
There were banderlings of lesser types around the entry point, and a well-worn trail leading directly up the side of the hill to Ayan, as well as to the left around the base of the hill.
“Those are all real banderlings. Large enough for extra living quarters and a lair?” Ryin asked him from within the safety of Bunita’s Sound Bubble.
“More than large enough,” he confirmed. “The inside was nae as large as the town itself in some ways. Could easily have fit every one o’ the people inside it.”
Question of its status answered, he headed down the trail to the left, wary of banderlings he might meet, but not so much at this early hour, the Sound Bubble coming down so he could hear any activity.
The trail ran around the southern end, past three more Spawns who didn’t hear, see, or smell them sidling past, and all the way around to the other side of the hill, where it intersected a similar trail coming down out of the town and led down towards the beach.
He didn’t stop until he was well past the intersection, proceeding towards the northern end, only stopping for a moment.
“Fishing?” he murmured to her quietly. It had been a pastime for some of the people of Ayan, not a vocation. Smart people were wisely concerned about the potential dangers of what might be dwelling in those shadows, and there were plenty of Spawn Points out in the waves, some damn random in when they popped up with creatures.
“Looks like it.” She pointed off to the side. “That looks like a bone pile they are charring down with magic. If I were to hazard a guess, we’d see a bunch of them come down in the wee hours as the tide is coming in, and they’ll unleash on something big that comes in just past the shoreward together. They’ll kill it, and then the waters will push it past the Shoreward to eat.
“That, or Harraag can break the Shoreward long enough for them to grab it for meals. Flaring his Aura might even be enough to draw some prey in.”
“Ayan always bought its supplies with the loot from the Summons in trade. Self-sufficiency were never its thing. Gor, what would old Ulgrim do if they couldn’t bring in the beer?” He shook his head and resumed his course, angling them to bring up the side of the larger hill that buttressed the town to the north. “Ye familiar with how it were laid out?”
“I scanned an old map of the town, yes,” she confirmed, as he was sure she would. “A line of Portals that led to the old gambling houses. A race track for carenzi. A tent occupied by, eh, ‘independent’ virindi, and the Deathstone.”
“Were an old Portal to Baishi, too, but they managed to shut it down when they set up the Portal Network, shifting it down inta the town proper an’ changing the destination. Used t’ be pretty difficult t’ get here, closest way was ta come down the coast after Portaling inta Mount Lethe t’ the north, an’ then ye used a Deathstone Tie t’ come back here when ye wanted.
“Banderlings bein’ what they are, I expect they be shunnin’ the place, what with the Deathstone pit up here…”