Even with Teleportations and superhuman speed and logistical planning, there was no way to invade the entire Felldeep and the Strata below it overnight... especially when violence started erupting.
On the other hand, when violence erupted, having Sevens through Tens being there to receive it generally meant it resolved pretty fast.
They were punching into the Strata under North America, and already finding stuff they didn’t want to, which was par for the course. The cephalids in particular, if not numerous, were spread far more widely than anyone was comfortable with.
There were very, very few instances of running across anything friendly on the way down. Humans were food, livestock, slave labor, or spare bodies to swap down there, and most of the races had absolutely no hesitation in trying to enforce that paradigm on the explorers going down there.
The explorers had no hesitation in enforcing extinction back on them. The Templars had made it very obvious that messing around with the genetics from these things put you under the control of them or the Entities backing them. Plagues were still racing across the world, mind-controlled terrorists were still blowing up bridges and dams... but the sources of them on the surface and below were being hunted down now, and Healing magic was warring with the plagues, strengthening the population to resist, building immunity that was only going to help more on the far end.
When the Shroud fell, dark gods were coming, and that meant more of this shit. You fought, or you wound up in a ditch.
But sometimes, you took a break.
---------
Thanksgiving Day at the home of Hank Blakhamar was as raucous and cheerful as ever, spilling out into the nearby streets with the numbers of family and comrades who didn’t have family present.
It didn’t matter, as there was food enough for everyone, and the cooks making it so made sure it was Damn Good Food, too.
This was not a highbrow home, and so wrestling contests, arm-wrestling, beer sampling, extremely muscular men doing extremely awkward and funny things, extremely strong women throwing said men around, and kids running everywhere excitedly to see what was up as songs spontaneously broke out, one chasing the other around the place, were just part of the atmosphere.
But when it came time to set down for the shared meal, there was discipline, and there was quiet.
---
Sama watched Briggs sort of straighten his collar with amusement. “Hey, it’s not like you haven’t met them before.”
His violet eyes glanced down at her. “Hey, permit the great warlord and future emperor of the world to be nervous around the dad of his fiancée.”
There had been a lot of people who had up and volunteered for Shroud-hunting, getting stronger, getting Levels.
That had included the entire Piotrowski Clan. Karen and Darren Piotrowski had left their jobs in Detroit, put their belongings into storage, and went out and started shooting undead. Their kids, still unmarried, had joined them, all of them having done their Service by then. Josiah mustered out after a second tour of duty to take charge for them all, with Nancy, William, and Jill all quickly arriving to help out.
None of it was a coincidence, of course. Hank Blakhamar had his own contacts to make use of once Sama told him her background, and arranging jobs for her folks in Detroit, probably the safest metropolis at the street level on the planet, hadn’t been difficult once they sold the family farm.
They’d had some peaceful years, watching their daughter’s ups and downs, and there’d been no stirrings from werewolves or Imprusar around them. Their kids had all grown up and done their service, and they had been holding down some jobs of their own to make ends meet when the world started to flip... and a quiet letter from Sama told them to jump on it with everything.
They could hide themselves forever, or they could get strong enough to face everything themselves.
Also, it was a road to Seven, which meant extra years for Forsaken, and her parents were getting up there in age.
They had made it all the way to Six at the Philly Shroudzone, taking very few detours on the path, as normal, and then made Seven after the leap to China and the murderous fighting with the Cultivators there. They were quietly looked after by Blakhamars, and Briggs and Sama themselves, as well as the Blood of the Irish, being just normal folks out there fighting and doing the right thing.
They’d made Seven on grit and determination, become Forsaken, and almost despite themselves, entered the ranks of the Senior troops, using the Double Helix method as basically Warrior/Vizards, a standard tactic for the average people who were joining the fighting.
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It meant they were still soldiers, still ‘average’ troops for their Levels, not the elite Melees, Archers, and Scouts... but that was fine. They were there, they were contributing, and as Forsaken Nulls, they were tough as nails. They worked together very well in teams, all of them using Spears and Rifles to great extent, and all of them had fought and killed Cultivators and undead in repeated one-on-one combat.
They were also in the Allegiance now, with Marks and everything, so they could talk with the monstrously powerful second daughter of the family as they needed to, which really helped with the Leveling.
They were all sitting at Eight now, as far as the Double Helix could push them in the face of the Shroud’s suppression, as they had Classed up and weren’t following the Human Racial Class that most of the Chinese were. Still, they had their Human/3’s, all of them, and were simply expanding sideways for Depth as they continued the fight, upgraded their Gear, and made themselves stronger than the Imprusar or werewolves who might eventually discover them wanted to deal with.
Having their commanding officer/second daughter be obscenely wealthy didn’t hurt matters at all, either.
Hank Blakhamar had discreetly set aside a room for the whole family to sit and talk together, something they dared do only by ‘coincidence’ out in public. Sama wasn’t going to take them out of the field, as they needed to Level, although she totally could have made them adjutants and trainers, and nobody would have said a thing.
“Tch, you’ll be fine. You’re their commander-in-chief, after all.” As only appropriate for those working in China. She toinked the silken shirt over his barrel of a chest and winked at him. “I’m just sorry your family couldn’t be here, too.”
Briggs’ flat nose flared once and settled, his violet eyes hot and cold inside a second. His knuckles popped slowly as he flexed a massive hand. “I think we got just about all of the bastards responsible for that,” he said calmly. The things that had come out of the sea and taken his whole village had been from somewhere deep in the ocean. That had been years ago, and if they had survived, it was probably as breeders for Deep Ones. Most had probably simply ended up as delicacies.
If they had still been alive, death would have been a mercy.
“Well, let’s fill that supersize chair and finally get to relax with your family outside a hot zone,” he rumbled, bowing her forwards. She grinned up at him, opened up the door, and everyone inside stood up with a smile as they entered.
“Haha! Mom, Dad!” For the first time in many years, Sama dared to hop forwards and gently embrace both of her parents, who hugged her back just about as hard, but much more fiercely.
Briggs towered over everyone, naturally enough, looking on and smiling despite himself, a hint of wistfulness in his eyes.
----------
Three blocks away, Shadowknife Nam Renno pulled his Helix-swirling knife out of the back of the last Templar’s head. The expensive surveillance equipment was shut down with a flick of his foot as he pulled out the power cord.
“How many others, Brothers?” he asked the air softly, inserting a small thumb drive into the computer there. Uploads began, and the magically-boosted Virus burned through the computer’s files very quickly as it began to send more data out through the ethernet.
-I counted five,- Firesword William Blake /returned from several blocks away.
It had come to the attention of more than one interested party that the Blakhammers had a great number of connections to very powerful individuals, and were people worth keeping a careful eye on. Accordingly, the number of forces doing surveillance on them had increased markedly over the past nine months.
Unfortunately for them, these fellows had moved into a town with a heavy non-human population, who tended to watch for things... and if they weren’t all in the formal Allegiance for one reason or another, many had still become Marked.
The watchers were noted, interested parties had observed them in turn, and when they began to ramp things up for the intelligence bonanza that was the Blakhamar Thanksgiving and family reunion, well, Hank Blakhamar had had enough.
It was a fact that using Void Brothers to snuff out recon teams was a bit extravagant, but Void Brothers tended to be bribed by good company and good food remarkably easily, and the pure swirl of powerful Sources here meant they didn’t feel the pull of the Land to address this or that unclean problem so much.
That meant a big happy family holiday was a great way for them to relax for a night, and that was worth a lot to them. That these recon teams led back towards some interesting people who were slamming into Source rivers of destiny really hard, well, that was another problem, but not one for them to address. Heads were being taken, people would be questioned, and maybe some would just be captured, and not killed, but they would supply answers of some kind or another all the same.
Nam looked at the threads of Fate around this event, and the burning River of Destiny that was Warlord Briggs, a well of pure unadultered Will rampaging through Fate and Chance towards an unknown future, messing with the predictions of everything in his path.
Things had been building towards a brutal, horrible ending, according to his elders. Everything they could see had pointed to the destruction of the whole world, and the undeath of everything upon it.
The Lady Traveler had come, and the Source Rivers had just exploded into being, multiplying as the Forsaken did, and were getting stronger and stronger by the day.
He could sort of see the future his elders had warned him about, glimpsed around the edges of Briggs’ grand path, but it was thrown into such chaos by the Source and the tens of millions and more of Nulls backing him that whether it could even happen was in doubt.
They cannot stop me...
He had not been a Void when those words were spoken, having been Awakened with so many others later, coming to fight the Shroudzone, and learning he could possibly be so much more.
Those words of Lady Traveler still echoed within and around Warlord Briggs’ Sun, and his River of Destiny. The River he was plowing was built upon them! His absolute belief that her words were utterly true was driving every other decision he made, lifting a huge weight off his shoulders and enabling him to take on others.
Whatever had been planned by the Undead, the eventual fall of the Curse of the Sun, and machinations of things Outside, was in tremendous flux and instability right now. Disaster still threatened and loomed... but with a Source present, there was no way even a Divine-class Power could guarantee what was going to happen.
Such was totally worth knifing some spies trying to identify all the Blakhamars for later removal. The threads spun about these fools led to darker places and fates for the world, and he had no hesitation about removing them at all...