I was looking out Reynard’s eyes as he surveyed what might once have been a vast volcanic caldera, long gone cold and now just another mostly-isolated section of rain forest, a pocket of life hidden by mountain walls from creatures on the ground, vastly overgrown and concealed by those above by persistent clouds and mist.
The darkness seething underneath those mists could not escape his eyes, however.
“The Elephant’s Graveyard is a sacred place to the Beasts. Any humans disturbing it are under a death sentence! Beast Waves have erupted for stealing the least bone, and the Guardian Beasts there always know...” Archmage Obai murmured, staring at me in disbelief.
“There are no Guardian Beasts left alive. There are quite a few Guardian Beasts who are dead, and a great deal more dead Beasts in the Graveyard who are Undead now, too...” I shook my head slowly as the locals paled at the implications. “They seem to be tied to the Pyramid, and so are limited to the Graveyard proper.
“The Nobles and Kings of the various neighboring Beast Tribes have encircled the Graveyard and are warning all other Beasts away from it. It seems King Mogobo detected the arrival and corruption the Pyramid brought with it and went in to do something about it, judging by how torn-up parts of the jungle inside are.
“Obviously, he fought hard, but he lost in the end. Probably either ate too many Undead or was bathed in too much of the Dark Mana. I am guessing he ran away before the Pyramid could take control of him, but succumbed afterwards to the effects.”
Eyes turned on the crystalline skull of the King, now shrunken down and less than half as long as a full-grown human, sparkling and gleaming with leashed power ready to be exhibited.
A soon-to-be Undead Baneskull that didn’t come from a former-human or Netherworlder! Very unexpected here...
“This is very annoying timing on their part,” Sama muttered, definitely irritated. “It’s like they chose to strike when Humanity has so many more important things on their docket to address for some reason...”
“It was meant more as a strike against the Beasts, as opposed to humans,” I shook my head. “They wanted to prod an Emperor to react, which would give them an excuse to ramp up their own response. Taking over the Elephant’s Graveyard is a massive insult to the Great Beasts and many Tribes whose Elders go there to die.
“If the Beasts don’t respond, that just gives them plenty of time to Animate the corpses in the graveyard and massively increase their strength before starting to expand aggressively.”
“Can you lay a vivic rainstorm across the entire Graveyard?” Briggs asked reasonably. “It won’t get rid of anything powerful they’ve Animated, but it should get rid of any corpses they haven’t, right?”
“There’s a Pyramid there. That means an Undead Domain. I can crack it, but they can put it right back up...”
“Unless, say, there’s a Forsaken sitting atop the damn thing stopping it from doing so!” Sama grinned. “Oh, I think they are going to be unhappy with us, Fuzzy...”
Briggs nodded seriously. “What needs to be done?” he asked shortly, spinning Endure idly between his massive fingers, the hefty Hammer twirling like a baton.
“We get all our power back, you take the Undead Hunters to hold the position. I’ll start gathering the storms to bring in the weather. A half hour of the Heavens Weeping should erode any carcasses to unusability, regardless of how much they are buried.”
“Let’s do that, then,” Briggs agreed without batting an eye. “Archmage Obai, we’ll speak further, but see to your people for now. If Ojibwae tries to make a move, we’ll know, and we’ll see how intact he gets out of here.
“Don’t let him know we know about the Graveyard. He can be just as surprised as everyone else when we attack it.”
“What is the meaning of having a Pyramid here? Do they mean to turn this area into a soul-stealing area, like they have in Egypt?” Archmage Obai spoke up nervously. That would be very bad news!
“That is very likely, preying on Humans and Beasts alike, and doing it away from the Pharaohs back there,” Briggs nodded. “Likely this is a lesser Pharaoh and other ambitious undead who want to grow in power, but are prevented by not having Pyramids of their own, and the suppression of the other Undead Sages. It’s a clever move, and if it doesn’t draw off the power of the other Pharaohs, they can’t really stop it.
“If it’s meant to prod the Great Beasts into action, then that leaves it up to Humans to solve the problem instead.”
“Correct me if I am wrong, but Humanity has never managed to clear any of the Death Zones claimed by Undead Sages...” Archmage Obai pointed out respectfully.
“That is absolutely correct,” I agreed quietly. “But then, we’ve never made war on them with vivic fire before, either. They are about to learn a painful lesson about True Death and just how hungry the Land really can be. I just wish I could have taught the lesson at an actual Death Zone first, instead of this little throwaway effort here.”
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“If it’s a Pharaonic Sage, they will also have Snakes and Scorpions defending the place, as well as potentially Medusae and Spiders,” Sama reminded me. “Potentially Harpies and Vultures, if I remember correctly...”
“Only important for the period you are defending the Pyramid, and the KIA team will be unloading from the storm above during that entire time... and their Beasts are going to bloody hate it under the Weeping.” Creatures with Dark Mana might not be treated as destructively as undead, but the Holy Water was still going to react with their power and nauseate them at the very least. “I will likely be dealing with the corpses of the Elders they have already Animated.”
Commander and Noble-tier Beasts, maybe an Emperor or two buried deep, who knew? It probably required a lot of power borrowed from the Netherlords to Animate so many powerful creatures, but if it jumpstarted the whole confrontation thing, who cared? The unsuccessful Pharaoh and his accomplices might end up punished if they failed... or they might end up perma-dead at my hands. Either way was enough to end this.
“Hey, Briggs?”
“Yeah, Fae?”
“See how much of that Pyramid you can crack open while you’re at it. They’ll be prepped for magic. They won’t be prepped for Everything Is a Nail.”
The Sage of Hammers made a face of interest at the image. “That sounds like a fine idea, Fae.”
Let’s see how well their Pyramid stole souls and established a Domain when Endure started cracking the reinforced blocks of it open like eggs...
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The Meditation Formation was going full out, and because we didn’t care, a whole lot of the native people ended up joining us for it.
They’d never been part of a Seven Stars Elemental Formation before. The influx of Mana from a Sage and seven anchoring Archmages was nothing like they’d ever experienced, going from trying to catch falling leaves of Mana to being buried under a pile of them.
Two hundred and forty-four Novices broke through to Adept under the surge of Mana and the Sublime Chord ratcheting up their power levels. It was literally the most magical day for the city of Franceville, and likely the whole country of Gabon, ever.
Mine and Coralost’s reputation was totally made here, of course. Briggs and Sama would soon be doing business with them, and eagerly. A pan-oceanic mutually beneficial alliance was a Good thing, and this was not the first one we had in place.
Setting up a Spellhouse for Plant Magic was also a distinct possibility.
Mana swirled in, the eager natives got months of Meditation work done in just a few hours, and then it was off on another adventure to save the world from the shadows....
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The Wolverine Hunters flew off with a bunch of Disks some of them could ride on, carrying a Permanent Holy Vivic Widened Wall of Fire suspended between two steel poles that could extend up to a thousand feet in width. It should easily sweep up the backtrail of King Magogo, but there were hundreds of miles of ground to cover, so it would not get done in a short time.
That was fine, as this was not a problem that was going away overnight or something.
---
The Undead Hunters, Briggs, Sama, and I came through the Portal just outside the Domain I could feel extending off a Pyramid in the distance, courtesy of my Lord of Pyramids Title. I eyed the steep stone cliffs in front of us, vines and greenery drooping off them, but the birds and creatures which would normally be nesting there were completely absent as of now.
Reynard was feeling a bit peaked after staying out here for so long away from home, but the feed from my Heaven Pact could keep him around as long as I needed him here, actually, since it modified his Eidolon status with me. My elephant-sized seven-tailed Golden Winged Celestial Fox headed back for the Beast Realm after I arrived, leaving us there with a forty-foot-tall Golden Mountain Gorilla King who was chatting things up with the Mighty Turk in a friendly manner.
“Elder Koga!” I greeted the Golden Mountain Gorilla King, who hurfed and ambled over to greet me, along with Sama and Briggs and the others. Sama and Briggs called out their own friendly greetings, while the Undead Hunters all bowed carefully in greeting to a powerful Great Beast.
He eyed the Tokens I was carrying, bowed deeply to acknowledge that I was indeed walking with the Will of the Emperors, and related quickly what he and the other Beast Nobles had done.
Their Presences were subtle but omnipresent. I could sense a good dozen of them building upon one another, ringing the Graveyard, with one off further to the east simmering with great rage.
“Ironhide Treebreaker Elephant Duke is very unhappy about the realm of his ancestors being so desecrated... but he is wise and will not break the Domain to repeat the fate of King Magogo,” Elder Koga told us with some grunts and growls. “What means Healer Fae to do?” he asked me respectfully.
“We cannot solve this instantly, as I’m sure you realize, Elder,” I said quietly, putting my hand on his wide nose. “This is an attempt to get the Emperors involved, and perhaps allow the Netherworld to bring forth Emperors of their own from the deep, dark places. They have already proven the depth of the power backing them with the extent of King Magogo’s rampage.
“We can fix this, but we are going to need time to fight. If the enemy breaks out of the Graveyard, you are free to get involved, and we will help as much as we can, but don’t go into the Graveyard. Far more than your life depends on it.”
The massive Ape grunted. “Will tell other Kings, Healer Fae,” he promised.
“How do you want to handle this, Fae?” Briggs grunted.
“Basically, I need to summon up a bloody wall of clouds, fill them with energy, then send them boiling over the Valley to dump their loads and clean off any Beasts’ remains that are left behind. As that is happening, I can break the Domain to let the clouds in, but they are going to expend basically unlimited amounts of Dark Mana to re-establish it unless the Pyramid is shut down. So, you need to get to the Pyramid, be there as the Domain is broken, and stop it from going back up.
“How you do that, I’ll leave up to you. Keep in mind that Heaven will be Weeping and helping you out.”
Briggs and Sama glanced at one another, then around at the Undead Hunters, who included all the KIA lads and SAR ladies. “Gather up, people. Let’s hear some ideas, how to get them off, and how to stay alive long enough to make those bastards really regret coming here.”