“I have veins of good schtuff not too far.” My smile was a wee bit skewed, however.
“But?” Big John asked for everyone fatalistically.
“There’s a nice big nest of Crimson Lava Ants right on top of them.”
“Anything serious?” the Mick asked with a frown.
“No, it’s an outlying colony. It could be said to be trying to expand the Fireland’s reach, actually. If it vanishes, the Beasts on both sides won’t care.”
“That sounds like we aren’t going back to Boston tomorrow,” Swampy murmured, flexing his hands. His Earth and Water Magic was going to be important in this fight, and even his Novice-class new Sound Magic was going to be useful in tracking enemies.
“Take off, Lady Fae. We’ve got this,” the Mick said confidently.
“You sure?” I had to ask, as I dumped the layout of the nest and the location of the veins into their Visual Files. They all studied them intently.
“These critters don’t know what they are fighting, and we do. If there’s a surprise, we can also run a whole lot faster than they are expecting.” The Mick patted Hopper, who trilled and stomped sparking feet in anticipation, expecting a good meal that wasn’t seafood.
“Scream if you need me, of course.”
“Have no fear of that. I shall put on my best girly-man voice and yell for the shining lady in armor to come save us, if such is required!” he replied in a dramatically deep voice, flexing in a manly manner. The others were all quick to join in the flexing and false bassos, as I just smiled and rolled my eyes.
“As you say, gentlemen! I’m off to shepherd some noobs once more!”
------
The KIA team watched her swirl up and flit sideways across space, heading back to Michigan, nearly two thousand miles away.
“That is still so spooky,” Big John admitted, shivering as he watched her go. “To think she can Blink across the entire continent like that...”
“Aye, and if we all get a Contract Beast, or Summoning, Void, or Chaos Magic, we can learn to do the same,” the Mick agreed. Supposedly the ability to form a Contract Space was enough of a link to spatial magic to be able to learn the Dimensional line of Wizardry spells.
The lesser spells weren’t any better than Void Magic, but the ability to cover thousands of miles in a step was definitely something Void Magic didn’t give away easily. Supposedly there were great constructed Arrays of Void Magic which could reach across such distances, but such things took time and powerful magic to put together.
Teleport. Fwip, reach out to an earlier point of your Lived-line, and gone!
His Lightning Jumping was already over a mile, and with Hopper, he could use it almost in series, covering massive amounts of ground very quickly, even if it was quite showy. She had told him that Ride the Lightning from Wizardry could reach anywhere in line of sight, meaning clear to the horizon...
“Everyone ready?” the Mick said, looking at each of them and getting nods in return. Driver Sam sent the earth into motion, and they headed east. The nearest anthill was only a mile away. They’d crack it open, the Ants would flood out from multiple directions, and the fighting would begin.
They’d all broken through to Mage now; the last one left was Lady Fae herself, who had said she would wait until they all did so before she followed suit. Of course, they’d only done so in one Element each, and they’d barely gotten out of Novice level with their newest Elements, frantically upgrading them so at least they had the option of using the Adept spells if needed, and could enjoy the upgraded Tier-5 Novice spells.
Tox had taken the Earth Element, becoming a ‘Blue Ox Mage’, following in the footsteps of Bunyan and Babe. He would try for the Void Element, if and when it was time.
Big John had grabbed the Summoning Element. He hadn’t managed to find an acceptable Summoned Beast from the Beast Realm yet, having high standards, even after Lady Fae had offered to fix him up. But he really wanted a pet powerful Beast friend and to be able to Summon in an army of Beasts and stuff, even if Lady Fae also had very strict standards for that kind of activity...
Swampy, Bjorn, had grabbed the Sound Element. He had a lot of work to do on it yet, as it was a Will-based discipline, but the simple ability to hear everything around them meant he was going to be their best scout, without having to leave the safety of the group.
Burt had likewise grabbed the Psychic Element. It was an odd choice, as he had a cold and detached personality instead of empathic, but his focus was more on bending minds and sensing them than empathizing with them. He could gently influence the attitudes of Beasts, calming them or distracting them, opening up breaks in assaults the team could exploit, using them to attack or flee. He also had a lot of Will to work on, like Swampy definitely aware of that after feeling the lethal mental power of some of the Aquatics in Boston.
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Driver Sam had also gone with Void. He was much less concerned about using it to attack with than having it ready to extract everyone from situations at speed, shifting everyone about on his Earth Wave in bursts of motion to get them around and behind attackers with sudden speed.
Glenn had filled out the Elements with Chaos, determined to add maximum versatility to his Light and Air Elements. The ability to return magic back at their Casters, redirecting attacks, and layering illusions and the like all appealed to him, especially if they all teamed up to overboost some of the spells and really introduce a punch to something...
The best tonic for all their Wills was the Seven Stars Formation while Lady Fae was Singing. That Sublime Chord thrummed deep in their bodies and souls, letting them harmonize with the magic far more than they’d ever imagined, a passive awareness that was helping them at a slow and subtle level now.
The Phobos Stand, the active test of their Wills, was something more serious, an artificial assault of fear and illusions which they had to overcome... and which, eventually, they always lost. The goal wasn’t to beat it, but to last longer, and longer, and longer...
Sunny came out of Red’s space, his pinfeathers now Regenerated, the gold and scarlet-breasted Avian taking flight and swooping ahead of them, while Hopper led the way for the actual team, proudly staying out in front of Driver Sam’s Earth Wave easily.
The greatest benefit Contracted Beasts got from linking to Humans was the ability to rapidly increase their own Cultivation. Humans were far, far faster at absorbing Mana and Elemental power than most Beasts were, even if Beasts tended to have massively superior Mana reserves. Beasts took a long time to rank up and evolve, unless they had access to some powerful Cultivation Elements like Soul Seeds, rare Crystals, Herbs, or the Bloodlines of superior Creatures to catalyze their own.
By being Bonded to a Human, they could gain in an hour what might take a week to digest otherwise, and also restore their expended Mana far faster. Evolutions and improvements which might take years, decades, or centuries otherwise could be accomplished in mere months!
“We’ve got some two hundred yards, ten o’clock!” Swampy murmured, and the men turned to see the bright scarlet forms of a few of the fire-dwelling Ants, each of them three feet long, poking over the edge of the broken ground here.
Sunny swooped over them, and several daggers of Light fell from his breast, instantly impaling the hapless Ants. Swirls of Lightning descended on them, edged with vivus, and they began to burn unwhite.
“Remember, any Great Warriors or Commanders, we want their heads!” the Mick called out, his voice carrying in the Markspace perfectly despite not raising it. One thing he’d also gotten a lot of quick practice in was meshing Prestidigitation to Void Magic and nabbing all the Soul Crystals quickly and discreetly for everyone.
The silent alarm from the slain Ants still managed to carry, with pheromones or psychic power or something. Burt and Swampy both called out that the Ants were moving with hostile intent, and soon enough the Bugs came bursting out of cracks in the ground or from a towering anthill or two, streaming out in ceaseless numbers and ready to fight!
Such numbers were definitely not going to impress the KIA team after Texas, and they were much, much stronger now than they’d been in Texas. While Fire Magic was next to useless, they all had other Elements to use, and they’d gotten lots of experience in doing so... and infusing Ice Magic onto their Implements was a given against these things!
Earth Magic began to rumble, the ground to shake, spikes to shoot up impaling dozens of Ants in clusters of death, but naturally the Bugs still came on without stopping.
That was fine. The magic that rose to meet them didn’t stop, either!
----------
Boston, the next day...
It was an interesting day, not having any of the boys there, but the newbs needed to get used to the experienced mercs not being around. I definitely promised them I’d tell the KIA guys about every sprawl, slip, accident, mistake, and fumbling the newbs did while they weren’t around, which fired up their competitive instincts.
Naturally I would tell them about all the awesome moments, too. That was a given.
The firearms were starting to draw attention, although right now we were spending more money on the ammunition than we were making selling corpses... which was fine, it wasn’t like we had revenue problems right now. Abundant Ammunition was useful for high-expenditure periods, saving a ton of brass when it was active.
It had taken the boys twelve hours to crack open the Ant nest, clear them out, and secure the ore veins. They’d been busying themselves digging up the ore we wanted, far more efficient and less wasteful than any machines. Normally this sort of thing was beneath most Earth Mages, but this was securing the stuff that could be Burned to make magical items, and so these normal-as-Hell metals, with only minor uses in society, were great bonanzas to the rest of us, and securing masses of them was a great use of their time.
It went without saying that Coralost could Burn away literally a ton of gold a day without any trouble whatsoever, so the more we found, the better. That was why we were out here, after all.
But now I had another problem.
She was wearing a veil and a habit, wearing the red cross that was the universal sign of a Healer, with the white arch in the center that meant she was part of the Acropolis. I wasn’t sure of her rank, but she had taken up position outside the Boonies alongside the other Healers to offer her services, which not accidentally put her by default near me.
She was also an expert in Curse Magic, with a blue/crimson Aura that did not have me thinking good things of her. I was immediately Not Impressed to find an Acropolis Healer was wielding Dark Magic, and wondered what that inferred about the rest of the organization.
She was also keeping a very close eye on me, how I was diagnosing poisons, diseases, mental attacks, spiritual injuries, subtle physical afflictions, and then how I was dealing with them all... without using Healing Magic as she knew it.
Of course, there was a lot more screaming in pain with my kind of Healing, but nobody denied it was effective, and some of the masochists actually got a kick seeing just how much frostyhot agony they could withstand as I put them back together. The light scars left behind were also badges of battle that didn’t interfere with anything, sizzling and popping as they steamed, and if they sometimes left silver or gold scars behind, woo, awesome!
A standard Healer used their magical Awareness, tilted with Healing Magic, to sense things that were out of kilter in their patients. It was not a foolproof method, but it did get much more sensitive as they improved and gained the experience to interpret what their senses were telling them.
I used a Healing Assay at IV or higher instead, which was at least as informative as that, and didn’t miss anything, having a broader spectrum of what it was sensitive to.
Sama had noticed the Healer’s attention, and was standing sort of in-between us, making it plain the Acropolis Healer wasn’t to disturb me, as I wasn’t going to disturb her.