We were a meme.

That whole thing about going to exotic foreign lands, meeting beautiful, charming natives, and killing them? I wasn’t sure about the charming, but the rest certainly applied.

I snarked to myself as we trundled along, leaving behind us a lot of black-skinned, pale-haired corpses, and their slaves, servants, pack beasts, war beasts, Summoned minions, and various visitors of other sorts and species. Most of the slaves and pack beasts were left alive. Most of the rest joined the dark elves in burning vivic.

I made a habit of finding the most attractive females among the dead dark elves, chopping off their heads, and feeding them to my Marks. Additional Karma? Well, they definitely did have intrinsic magic, so yeah, it was like a Power Comp.

Mostly it was because the synergistic ability of the Marks needed to be fed and developed. To wit, there was a Succubus Blessing that gave those it was conferred upon the ability to change shape like the giver could. I had no intrinsic shape-changing ability, so it didn’t work quite the same way for the Marks, and I was a Null. Any kind of magical effect like that would slide away within ten minutes.

However, pretty much all Hags were shapechangers too, so that ‘empty area’ on my genetics was there, and I could work with it. So, invest Karma, magic, at least one dead dark elf per Mark...

Anyone whose template was burned into the Mark, like, ah, the Evilborn I’d fed into them previously, or anyone I ate, could form a template of someone I could shift shape into, if I was of a mind to.

Now, I didn’t know when I’d need to turn into a dark elf, but that was no reason not to build up a wardrobe of alternate appearances, right?

This process had actually been going on for some time, and not just for me. It was available to all the Nulls who had the three Physical Stat Marks, and anyone if they Invested enough Karma and Masteries in it. If the enemy could do slay-and-replace, well... Half a dozen mercenary companies had Null Ironblood officers who had replaced agents of various entities with ill intentions. Said mercs were now up to little good, instead of no good, but they were getting better.

The Hyn Nulls were particularly keen on being able to change into human-size. Of course, they had to Invest in the Marks, Invest in the Mastery, and Invest in the Soul Essence that drove the whole thing...

Naturally, I did the same thing with any succubi or incubi we came across, and given the origin of the Marks, nobody batted an eye. The general consensus was that I probably had to feed the Marks to expand the number of people who could use them and join the Marktell, which wasn’t actually all that wrong, as I was pretty sure the number of dead succubi-types affected how many of my Marked could use this expanded ability. Always looking out for my lads, I was...

The dark elves had naturally enough gotten rid of most of the wandering terrors that wanted to use their preferred routes of travel, so the things we encountered the most of were their merchant trains and patrols. Needless to say, both were quite surprised by the sudden appearance of several hundred upper-worlders, especially fair-skinned elves, who were basically an evil myth to them after the thousands of centuries that had passed in here. Yes, them Light Elves really were quite as dreadful as the old tales!

We did do aural validation (Estemar, Errant, Paladins, Heavenbound, take a bow) and, to everyone’s lack of surprise, Purple and Black were massively dominant. Given the charmed slaves and their treatment, necromantic goods, choice of Summoned minions, tokens of faith, and the like... well, we did our due diligence, and the dark elves settled firmly into designate: drow, and taking prisoners was out of the question.

Still, it was a dim and grim fairyland, with evil fey, occasional Evilborn looking to spread some woe, enslaved monster pets, abused slaves of multiple races, undead servants, mushroom forests, artistically carved caves with beautiful and dire stalagmites and stalactites worked up into unholy places of acclamation, auras of death and despair... and some really savage fighting when it came time to breach one of their tunnel blockades or camps.

There might have been a few dark elf survivors left behind us, but not many, and word certainly wasn’t physically moving ahead of us. We were simply moving too fast.

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Office building/palaces made out of giant stalagmites. Noble dwellings far above in the matching stalactites, up on the ceiling hundreds of feet above. Faerie fire and shifting shadows to accentuate things with just the right amount of uneasiness. Fliers going to and fro on batback, avenues of flight determined by great webs sealing parts of the ceiling, with their attendants looking idly on as bat-boys flapped on past, or skittering up and down the walls in a dance with the great lizards doing the same.

The emergency signal flares and horns had been snuffed and silenced respectively; word hadn’t gone out of our intrusion into this cavern as of yet. The dark elves were skilled fighters, relatively speaking, but they certainly weren’t prepared to face off with a vanguard force like ours, where one of the soldiers could take out the captain of this probably cushy job. Cushy, because they certainly had a lot more loot on them than we could expect, especially after the gnomes and hyn tossed the place at speed.

That said, getting into and through the city over yonder that stretched right across most of the cavern might be a bit more difficult. Or exciting. Depended on your point of view.

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There was a polite ‘chok’ as Endure hacked off the head of the vulture-demon that was probably supposed to raise the alarm, and instead had the unique experience of having its scrawny neck grabbed by an Ancient and wrung like a chicken, while all its claws and talons rang off waiting WotdaHell?

“Too many eyes,” he grunted. “We don’t have time to rest or do more than heal up. Call it, Sama.”

“I need illusions of empty road tied to raised spears. They don’t have to be perfect, they just have to hold up from a couple hundred feet away so the things up above can’t see us coming.” My Mask of Clarity was up and fully juiced. “They’ve got standard citywards up as far as preventing flyovers and teleports. That said, the main gates are open and they aren’t expecting anything to be coming as fast as we are.

“The three of us are going to have to go in and dismantle their magic Wards and traps, and fuck up the material defenses. AA, you’re on the magic, Briggs and I will wreck shit. Errant, your Heavenbound will have to stop the portcullis and the gates.”

“Won’t be a problem,” our silver-eyed knight er-... of the Ruby Heart promised.

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The illusions above us connected end to end, tied to the end of raised Rockborn Spears. They showed a ground area roughly the same hue as the crushed crystals lining the road, distorting and flowing, as if odd shadows were flowing across them when viewed from above.

From the ground, it was bloody apparent what was going on, but anybody on the ground was going to be taking a dirt nap if they were a sentry, or not have time to really do anything if they weren’t... plus the Casters could always toss a couple extra illusions to ward us if need be.

And so, we charged across three miles of open ground toward the gates. At sixty mph, that naturally took three minutes.

AA’s Helices turned him into a blur of shadow and grey-black motion. The dark elves and their superior infravision couldn’t possibly see him until he got within fifty yards... which gave them maybe three seconds to realize something was out there, and respond appropriately out of nowhere.

They didn’t quite make it when he blew past them. The heads of those on the right flew free in his wake, the ones on the left met Endure, and we were in.

Helices flailed out in lines of black and grey, coiled into waiting magical traps and Wards, ripped and tore with pulses of Void precision and emptiness.

The tremblesense of Briggs and I painted the entire area with vibrational echoes at every step, exposing every joint and pivot, chain and gear. Tremble sheared through stone and metal, Endure crashed and crunched against the same. Gears popped, metal buckled and wedged, stone tilted and settled.

Errant was literally three seconds behind us, he and his fellow Heavenbounds’ Ward Walls flaring up golden to forestall the abrupt fall of the heavy portcullis, and then the whole force was flowing in after us down the twenty-foot killing tunnel before the troops up above could take attention to fill the area below with poison gas, flaming oil, or spells. One very coordinated elfin lobbed a Fireball through one of the murder holes into the space above, and a silent burning explosion blew out in the confined place above, which I’m sure made their day more exciting.

Then we were out and into the streets as the alarms started to go off.

I’d like to say the streets emptied out in front of us, but we were moving too quickly with all the troops on Disks, running way too bloody fast, and not really giving them time to do anything.

Estemar and Errant were feeding overlapping Eyes of Heaven into the Mark-Up Display, painting everyone and everything around us with threat levels and colors.

It was bloody apparent everything around us was Not Friendly whatsoever. Non-combatants didn’t have colors that deep. Everything around was stained deep with treachery, blood on their hands, and ready to get more on them if it meant furthering their desires. The degree of depravity was really making both men wince.

Well, it did make things easier, in a way. To wit, if it got in our way, it pretty much died, unless it was something like a goblin or kobold slave.

---

She had quite the entourage around her. Escort of a few minotaur-esque bull demons, two vulture wrath demons, two gluttony toad demons, a four-armed envy demon, a serpentine half-snake demon attendant/lover, and of course her little old six-armed half-snake marilith demon self.

They weren’t exactly in the way, but what the heck! -Uh, boys, momentary detour for the six-armed bitch.-

Ah, yes, a more mundane Greater Demoness, whirling around at the commotion we were causing, slanted and slitted eyes widening at the speed we were moving and closing in on them –

Whoops, sorry guys, you can’t fly here if we can’t...

Fall was out and pumping as I closed, my Tail was throwing spikes as Sparky did his thing, and Tremble was rising and ready.

Her six dire swords, all irregularly spiked and barbed in that impossible demonic Pattern, popped into her hands, just in time to get a bolt or spike into each of her arms.

The two vulture demons went away as AA and Briggs went past them, shredded and pulped in passing, respectively. I slammed between two bular’ri, and as she was shrieking at me and trying to bring her six swords in to parry, I was suddenly down on my face as she was rising up into the air on her lower snake-half, and came up underneath her parries, fluid as a mountain stream. Tremble pulsed in exultation as a foot of her edge went in and up through impossibly tough demon flesh, and exited in a spray of gore blazing vivic.

Elder Arg smashed into the Tempter demon’s shocked form, its canine head bleating in alarm as it was slammed backwards. The great ape’s lower feet reached out and settled on the toad-heads of the gluttony demons, gripping very securely indeed.

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A couple weeks ago...

“Go ahead.”

The chakon charged at Feist, howling and flexing and arms poised to rip and rend.

The hyn seemed to blur and flow, grasping the incoming arms. To the shock of the chakon, the ape was suddenly going head over heels, slamming into the ground headfirst and hard, stunning it.

Then it was still going, rolling over as something kept it moving, up into the air and down again, crashing again even harder, and over one more time, wailing as it crashed into the patiently stoic trunk of a forest giant. He wobbled once, and fell backwards, unconscious.

Errant laughed, standing right there, and reached down to administer the healing. It only took the chakon a few seconds to regain consciousness, and the surrounding watching apes were still silent.

I scooched a finger towards Feist, and he trotted up to stand next to the woozy chakon.

“Notice how big Feist is,” I said to the silent champa’ka and chakon. “Note how big Omah is.” There were a few hoots and calls. “Now think: If you could do what Feist just did, just how big a creature could you do it to?”

For a pregnant second, everything went still, and then it went literally apeshit crazy.

Elder Arg stepped forward with massive steps, bent down to inspect Feist with a head taller than the hyn was, and then his eyes looked way up.

His tusked smile was truly and utterly ferocious.

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