The Jotuns flooded towards the disturbance. Owing to a severe lack of real-time communication and post-combat lack of high-Level people to communicate with, the Hags didn’t know precisely what was going on.
They knew the Wake had come, and they had enough magical perception to see the effect it was having upon the reality here. They didn’t know precisely who was responsible, although disjointed reports of men with rainbows of odd lights around them made them wince in fear. Unlike their servants, they knew what Void Brothers were, and Void Brothers had never acted as blatantly as they had here in the Fifth Zonering. The slaughter from not so long ago had been too massive and apparent in their memories.
So, the command to surround and kill the Void Brothers went out, and the Jotuns responded with fanatic zeal for their Hag mothers and matrons.
The primary guards on the Obelisk weren’t sent off, of course, as that would be just dumb. However, they weren’t reinforced with the uncounted hordes, either, who were now all engaged in pursuit and slaughter of the Void Brother diversion.
The entrance of the Company from another quarter was almost unnoticed, in contrast. The combination of speed and killing everything in their path, along with the rambunctious horn-blowing and drum-pounding and chest-beating and feet-slamming really did the job of drowning out any inadvertent alarms. So did the arrows and spears in the larynx, but those were just circumstantial.
Even the griffons and dragons were down low, levitating just above the ground, propelled ahead by flight magic or bouncing, driving kicks to the ground below. Elder Arg was just behind the three of us at the tip, huge arms hurling away any over-sized bodies falling that might get in the way of the company behind us. There were a lot of giant’s skulls shrunk down and mounted on Spears, Bows, and Axes, thick red banefires about the points leaping at the chance to kill, turning the whole company into an incoming river of death in the eyes of any Jotuns who happened to see us.
Our river of death streamed towards the crude, cyclopean walls rising around the Obelisk. The walls were just as tall as those of the drow, but there weren’t nearly as many troops atop them. That was good, as the thing which could wreak the most harm on us was the stone-throwing of the Jotuns, as powerful as catapults, far more accurate, and with a greater rate of fire.
There were still thousands of giants to kill, and those on the walls all had stacks of rocks to throw. Ergo, just like before, the Brothers went up the wall and picked off the throwers.
Invisible elven fliers dispersed around the walls ahead of time, setting up the largest Sound Bubbles possible. The sounds of horns and alarms and battle would meet the Bubbles and just vanish, leaving only dribbles spreading past the top of them to draw attention. It would buy us time.
Then the mass spell bombardment opened up.
We hadn’t used the elves for mass AoE’s, instead choosing to preserve their power for emergencies. The directed fire of Bane’d bows was incredibly lethal and inexhaustible, and so had sufficed for offensive power. But now we were facing enemies with large amounts of Health and no effective magic resistance. It was time to bring as much punishment as we could.
Ritual Casting to increase their collective Caster Levels, every elf by now was at least equal to an Eight Caster, and most were Nines. As the Brothers once again attracted a lot of attention by starting to sweep the walls of brawling, shouting Jotuns two and three times their height, the Company came in and opened up on the masses of them gathered around the Obelisk, already clustering and gathering in the direction of the great stairs to the walls, as if they would rush up and reinforce their kin up top.
Flattened Fireballs detonated at ground level, sweeping out in hemispheres of burning energy. Lightning Bolts tore through long lines of giants and ogres. Storms of ice came pounding down with skull-sized chunks of ice. Walls of Flame exploded through the battlefield, burning and dividing. Whole sections of the plaza collapsed into mud that would slow the giants down, or drown and bury the truly unfortunate.
A score of sixty-foot wako, leashed like flat-scaled hounds, were swallowed in a Wall of Fire and ended up fleeing wildly from the flames in the wrong direction, while their masters cursed and beat out the fires burning over their skins. The marshy lands meant there was no cavalry force, which was a relief.
Unfortunately, the bombardment of spells was rarely enough to significantly harm or kill any of the giants, they simply had too much raw vitality and power. A few fell to elves who had invested heavily in metamagic effects that could boost spell damage, but mostly what it did was disperse a whole lot of damage very fast to clusters of giants in explosive, blinding fashion, rip up the battle zone, and break up lines of sight.
The company plowed right into the confused mass with a vengeance.
Individually, a Spear or Axe wouldn’t really do more damage than a spell could to any giant or ogre... but considerably more than one could be so applied. If they were already wounded, they just went down faster.
Dragons and griffons were all missile platforms now, getting some elevation for their riders, who focused on anything that was lifting a spear, javelin, or rock to throw. Volleys of anywhere from five to ten burning, bloody arrows would streak out to those unfortunate giants, and smash them down as or more effectively than a bolt of lightning.
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The dragons and dogs were keeping up the breath weapon attacks, reaching over the lines of dwarves and humans and letting go at close range where the numbers of ogres and giants were the densest, wreaking horrible damage to them repeatedly and violently. Thundering lightning, blood-freezing frost, and all-consuming flame spewed out in bolt after cone of killing power, relieving the massive assault to the sides and the piling up of huge bodies to the front.
Great clubs, axes, and mauls smashed down on our invading forces, and the Jotuns were stunned to find enchanted Shields actually holding up under the blows. Weapons dancing with fires the hue of their own blood came striking out for their souls, shredding tough flesh and hides and biting deeper than they ever thought things in the hands of smaller races could do.
Of course, the giants had elites. They towered a head or more above their kin, were clad in actual mail and plate, and their eyes were bright and sharp, unafflicted by the slow minds and sloth of their lesser kin. They were commanded by those among them with greenish tints to their skin, and prominent fangs, the signs of Hagspawn.
These were the guys AA, Briggs, and I ran into.
The rote giants were all two-hits, unless they got sufficiently softened up ahead of time, or we crit. That meant advancing was slower, as there were fewer openings, and the fact they all had massive reach didn’t help matters.
Tremble was back with the company, flitting from here to there, Curing or Transferring Wounds in numbers to offset the smashing blows and great cleaving attacks coming in from giants we couldn’t kill fast enough. The spell bombardments had thinned out, and now it was down to a slugfest of who could deal out the damage the fastest, as Music blared in our minds and drowned out the bone-shaking deep voices screaming all around us, coordinating, inspiring, uplifting, tracking, guiding, and motivating all at once.
The ogres I could usually take out at speed, and when I needed to heal fast, that’s what I did. My Cleave runs were not as long, nor as fast. Happily, the giants were bunching up in order to get at us, which did ease some of the load, and the killing edge of Quaver extended out three feet beyond her blade as I was swinging her, also helping with that.
Multi-ton bodies pressed and toppled around me, over top of merely half-ton bodies. The noise level was incredible, the impact of Jotun feet on the ground was like the pounding of hammers on stone, but it didn’t stop me, or the unceasing firing of Fall, Sparky, or Wayfair, who energetically kept up a bloody stream of offense at everything around me. Generally, it took four shots to get a Jotun down to one-hit range, which involved coordination in a massive, chaotic press of bodies that made me feel like a toddler in a room full of adults, just like my giant days in Nightmare all over again.
Damn, I had hated those days...
Being smart, Briggs and AA followed my lead. I could clear a trail better than they could, and they could widen it with aplomb, especially if the giants were unfortunate enough to inherit a few Spikes or Bolts. They didn’t have the missile fire volume that I did (I talked about the Karmic investment required to make it effective, and they both sighed and focused on other things).
Zeitgeist burned through dense flesh, hides, and bone, trailing the edge of a new age, and sending down these oversized holdovers from antiquity in endless sweeping swirls of slaughter. He danced through their bodies like a ghost in streams of thickening blood, and despite themselves, bone-deep fear rose in the eyes of the giants to see him coming.
He was the Ancient and the Axe, there to send to death those mighty primordial races who hadn’t had the grace to die, and messed with the new age.
Briggs... just beat stuff.
Endure played the giants like drums, crashing into and rebounding with appalling speed and force. I saw watching giants gawking at how hard he was hitting them. Knees kicked out as if made of reeds, exploding in passing. Stone-hard ribs caved in with crunches every bit as loud as those they could evict on one another. Heads coming down within reach cracked, shattered, even exploded, mighty necks bent and broke like trees shattering.
Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!
Every step a blow. If no one was in reach, he threw his Hammer, and Endure hurtled out to drive into the center of a face, then back to his hand... or more frequently, carom over a skull, which cracked and jerked away, neck shattering at the impact, to bounce away to a second skull and repeat the process.
Never more than two, unfortunately. There was a Crystal Dragon Technique that could actually bounce a hit multiple times, but Briggs couldn’t wield Chi, unfortunately. However, it didn’t matter. Briggs was plotting out way ahead of the hits, and when Endure bounced back to his hand, it was just in time to rip out another knee, pulp a heart inside its chest, or crush a skull.
Everything is a Nail was some Grandmastery...
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The Lesser Exemplar Hagspawn Jotuns were not far ahead of us. Not being as dense as their kin, they were watching us coming with trepidation.
First, us little people were harvesting rows of combat-happy Jotuns like cornstalks. Bellies and throats cut, limbs flopping off, heads exploding, knees kicking out like twigs, ogres being smashed back into their own. They realized that us small things could hit just as hard as they could... and maybe harder!
Second, fifteen trails of bloody flame were spitting in all directions, finishing any wounded, softening up those in front with shots to the throat, face, groin, or knee, moving with fantastic precision and coordination, every shot primed to open up a slash, move the giant into reach of a lethal blow, disrupt movements, deflect blows.
The three of us were like ghosts, only the faceless Briggs in full armor ever taking a hit, none of which seemed to do more than move him a few inches as they glanced off his armor.
Behind us was a trail of dead and dying Jotuns, unwhite flames burning on the gallons of blood and barrels of gore leaking out of them. There was no mistaking the trail of dead we were leaving, and we were coming for them!
Third, they couldn’t see what we were going to do...
After the fact, they could subconsciously appreciate the arcs and flow, the fluidity and abruptness, the measure of every step and the cadence of every strike we were letting go. But while it happened, before it happened... they couldn’t see it.
They suddenly didn’t feel very Lucky today...