True to form, two minutes later, there we were.
The great arch we used to enter had only a scattering of resistance. It did, however, have a lot of things burning vivic, odd smears on the walls, shattered and rusting weapons and armor, and a few maimed and screaming drow staggering about.
For some reason, even these shroom-heads bombed out of their skulls didn’t want to see us coming.
Yes, yes, there were legions drawn up outside the arch. Were. Past tense. Something had cut a winding path through them, ignoring the copious amounts of arrow fire coming from atop the walls ringing the plaza, and left a sixty-foot swathe of dead fungi-skinned drow in burning parts behind. That had really made a mess of their formations, and then at least three legions had gone pouring in after said individuals doing the Interdiction, finding that they actually had quite a lot of room to do so, as long as they didn’t mind trampling the dead and wounded on the tiles in front of them.
Generally speaking, that wasn’t an issue, of course. Stoned out of their minds on actual magic mushrooms, the biologically diversified set of drow soldiers enthusiastically pounded after their opponents.
This was a Hag Empire, three hundred miles wide, nine hundred long, filled with millions of drow and lots of mushrooms, all of whom existed in a state of carnal bliss and demonic savagery whose only purpose was to satisfy the whims of their souped-up shellycoat mistress. The drow in the neighboring Zones were basically feeder states for this empire, sending over their best and brightest to get addicted to magic mushrooms and sexual gratification of any type, and then die for her.
It meant all these elite guardian drow legions were Elf Racial Sixes, meaning 4/4 Fighter/Sorcerers, for the most part. Granted, they weren’t Deep Sixes, as being stoned out of your mind and fed drugs like candy isn’t conducive to side studies, but still, phenomenally tough for base-line fighter types, with a combo of spells and fighting skill that would give any normal force intruding on them conniptions in such numbers.
And, in case anyone was interested, there was no sign of spiders anywhere in the place. Probably because Hag not want competition with Spider Queen...
Anyhoos, the combination of magic mushroom ‘Potions’ going off, buff spells being released, and then all sorts of attack spells trying to seek out the Brothers did indeed make for a very fine show of pyrotechnics. If they were dealing with magic resistance, such as they themselves possessed, luck and the sheer volume of fire would have had results.
Alas, they were dealing with Forsaken. As far as magic was concerned, the Void Brothers weren’t really there.
No-miss spells missed, unable to find a target to lock on. Ripping Bolts and exploding balls of energy swept right through them, and were treated as air. Rays flashed past them, ignored and ignoring in turn, while Barriers, Walls, Webs, Spikes, Hedges, Pools, Quagmires, Illusions, and Enchantments meant to slow, stop, pin, trap, grapple, obstruct, divert, confuse, or hold them basically either collapsed upon manifestation in a Helix, or simply did nothing at all.
It was like trying to grab smoke with a pair of tongs. There was no stopping them, regardless of the volume of spells.
This plaza was a full mile across, with that Obelisk towering up a good three hundred feet in the middle of it. The walls holding the archways ringing it were sixty feet thick, and packed full of elite archers and yet more Casters, waiting for the Brothers to come out so they could drop tens of thousands of shafts upon them.
It didn’t matter how agile you were, you wouldn’t be able to dodge a true rain of arrows coming down.
But they didn’t, because they had acknowledged this point and gone up the walls before actually speaking with us. Objective? Clear those walls.
And that’s what they did.
Swirls of Helices became a wall of death, four Brothers reaching across the breadth of the top of the Wall, and killing everything in the way. They ran up the side of the walls on misting feet, completely avoiding the arrows meant to saturate the area on the ground, and before the archers could correct their aim, they were into their compatriots atop the wall, and butchering.
The shining, multi-hued threadlike Helix of Lightscepter. The ephemeral, haunting shadows of Shadowknife. The seen-with-the-soul-not-with-the-eye pspectral arcs of Mindring. The whites, blues, and greens blowing without substance around Windarrow.
They all united in a colorful wall of annihilation, vivus igniting, Banefire flashing to add unwhite and ruby-red elfblood to the hues, blending into the green, maybe tinged with gold, of the Soulbound Weapons that seemed to blend into and out of the Helices, shadows, death, spraying blood, screams, and flames that followed their paths.
At ninety feet every six seconds, as fast as many people could run, they moved forwards.
The elite troops on the ground could only watch helplessly as a hundred feet above them, their archer cover was completely annihilated.
They were Beyond Law and Chaos; there was no luck, good or bad, here to affect them. As Sama had explained it to them, skill was everything now. They wouldn’t automatically ‘miss’ on a 1, ‘bad luck’, or automatically hit on a 20, ‘good luck’. It was all based on their skill, and just how good they and their weapons were together.
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They defined their own luck.
There was no doubt whatsoever that their Weapons and they were now very, very good together.
Cutting Life had finally given the Void Brothers a major boost to their damage in open combat, a killing power formerly reserved only for assassination attempts. Their Helices were now weapons, ripping the magic and life away from these very magical opponents, and then using that power to damage them further.
The ability to do one-hit kills now meant that Cleaving was a valid, useful tactic, instead of something occasionally useful, and was horrifically deadly when dealing with large numbers of opponents. They didn’t need to execute a Storm of Steel, a Tsunami Rush, an Avalanche Run, or a Pyroclasmic Surge. Nope, just base Feats: Cleave, Great Cleave, and Supreme Cleave.
They hit, they killed. They might step. Hit, kill, maybe step. Hit, Kill, maybe step. Up to the limits of their base movement every six seconds, which they had raised to at least 90, thrice as fast as an average human.
Ninety feet every six seconds, as fast as many men could trot, as if there weren’t crowded throngs of archers before them, trying to shoot or fight or get out of the way, and just dying, dying, dying.
They were far, far different from the Void Brothers of myth and legend, not that these drow had ever heard of such, sealed away here from the outside world. They all had Strength Scores of at least 30 now, Dexterity of at least 40, and moved with inhuman power and precision, ki-boosted speed, and Vajra tirelessness. Their Helices swirled out, touching, tasting, testing, marking, revealing their foes, their magic, their Brothers nearby, and with Intellects now also in the 30 range, they coordinated marvelously and continually, communicating with their Helices even faster than by /Marktell.
The archers and Casters could only scream and die.
Some archers were clever and leapt off the battlements, to levitate softly towards the ground. Windarrow, who was on the end, flicked a dash of his Helix out and removed the magic, and they could only scream as they plummeted to the ground. They might not die, but they would be severely injured, regardless.
There was no missile fire to speak of coming up from below in support. Indeed, a mass saturation from archers below might have been the only way to deal with them. Unfortunately, it was these archers up high who were the support, able to back up those fighting below with ranges of easily a quarter mile. The only other archers in the plaza were in the very middle, with half a mile to go to the walls, and not in enough numbers to do what they wanted to.
After all, not even True Seeking was going to be of use against them, as they were just blurs to Insight bonuses...
Of course, those drow at the bottom tried spells, but all that did is kill some of their own and speed up the progress of the Void Brothers more. The Brothers serenely glided through the magic erupting all around them, basically ignoring it, guided by their Helices to their opponents, not even needing to see.
One ruthless commander ordered the archers to begin setting up a rain of fire on their own troops in the way of the Void Brothers, so that they must run right into them and take the hits. Unfortunately, all that did is spur the Brothers to use Sidestep, attacks from the drow on the Brothers instead triggering additional steps, above and beyond their base speed as they slid through openings like phantoms, and left death behind them, combining the two motions. With at least 20 AoO’s from Dexterity and Mastery each, that was an additional 100 feet of movement every six seconds. They were now slaughtering everything faster than a human could sprint.
The bombarding archers were over two hundred yards away when they started their shooting. The Brothers were underneath and inside the arch of fire before the first volley arrived, and the archers barely got off the second volley before the interlinked Helices were upon them.
Their screams and ruthless tactics died with them.
There were three miles of walls to cover. The Brothers swept them clean of life, leaving a ring of unwhite flames encircling the entire plaza, in a little over fifteen minutes.
There was a short interlude where the drow thought they might have some hope, when flocks and swarms of flying demons and daemons fell screeching and shrieking upon the invaders.
The Brothers slowed to half speed, and those AoO’s being used for additional speed were instead used to cut apart demons.
The drow had never seen demons explode quite like that. The smaller ones just popped. The ones that could survive one hit ignited, and then popped with the second hit. The ones that could survive two hits went up like oil-soaked torches and died screaming. The great ones that could survive three hits either fell burning from the battlements, howling all the way, or directly popped out of existence as the magic that kept them here, far from their home plane, was ripped away from them, and Reality came down and sent them howling back home.
Granted, that only occurred a couple of times, as what normally happened is two Brothers disposed of such demons at the same time, not wanting to let the Karma get away. Being literally made of Sin and ectoplasm, the bodies of demons and daemons went off like oil-soaked tinder to vivic flame, which also had the effect of strengthening the Veil and making the Summoning of more of them impossible in a rapidly growing radius.
Demons, daemons, and dark elves died, and left a trail of unwhite fire behind them. Despite their drugged states and their fanatic belief in their Empress, the elite troops watching below had shivers of fear going through them as they watched the carnage taking place, and whole companies of archers were bailing out before that line of swirling colors, fire, and blood could reach them.
Sure, they were archers, but they were elven archers, they could still fight, there were no weaklings here. So much magic going off, so useless, and that trail of carnage was Three Miles Long...
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So it was that the Brothers paused, standing atop that wall, as they spoke with us to coordinate the time of arrival. Yep, they did all that BEFORE we got there.
Two minutes, to drive towards the heart of the formation below, and begin the wreaking of havoc.
Their Weapons had all reached Zehn long ago, all made Item Familiars, all Intelligent. Twin long knives, twin short swords, twin chakram, and twin maces all began to hum and sing softly. Yet the sound carried, carried down to the waiting drow on wings of dread and fear, their skin crawling as they stared up at those Helices playing at the magic above them, shrugging off and ripping apart all the spells sent their way.
And they understood every word.
Tremble, oh ooooo oh Tremble, they come...
They clutched swords and spears and shields tighter, but they knew it would make no difference...