The people going into the Shroudzone were naturally far more limited than those going into the Firezone itself, because we were going to be fighting undead, and Burning Undead at that.
Of the Hall forces, I directed them not to penetrate the Shroudzone deeply, and to focus on encircling it and pushing any forces back from the edge that they saw, but not to risk any incorporeal or flying forces the Shroudlord sent out.
We had proven that we could deal with millions of his troops and minions over the past ten days or so, but he hadn’t sent out any Burning Dead, because there was little point to it during the day, and the greater portion of the force behind us hadn’t fought during the night.
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Binder/4 (6). +1 Charisma and Strength, 26/16. Use Nog Mastery to +1 Base Charisma, now 15 (27). Constitution Mastery/5, +1 Con. Extra Spell Known, Binder/1.
Pact Theurge/4, +1 Theurgic Level to Binder/4 (7), +1 Binder Spell Known (IV). Feat, ESK II, Binder. Mastery Extra Evolution/3. Str base +1 through Nog, to 14 (17).
Clavus finished Blessed, +d6 Holy damage to Evil, in Slot Zeben. Slot Akt, Bane of Legends, would start tomorrow. It would take thirty days of Naming Karma to finish.
Bard/4, +1 Charisma and Strength, 28/18. Nog to base 16 Charisma, 29. Feat was Skill Focus (Song). Mastery was Sublime Chord Mastery/4, the Aria of Anywhere, a Dimension Door or Interdiction effect.
Minstrel/4 (7). +1 Charisma and Strength, 30/19. Nog Base Charisma to 17, 31. Feat Extra Spell Known I, Minstrel. Mastery Sublime Chord/5, the Refrain of Spelldeath, a Dispel or anti-Casting area effect Song.
Lore Theurge/4, +1 Theurgic Level to Minstrel, +Minstrel ESK (IV). Feat ESK II, Minstrel. Mastery Holy Scourge/4, Smite Evil twice a day with spells. Nog Str+1 to 15, Str 20.
Inquisitor/4 (7), +1 to Wisdom and Constitution, 26/28. Judgement twice a day. Feat ESK III, Inquisitor. Mastery Eyes of Heaven/2, +120 Range. Nog Wisdom to base 16, 27.
Going into the Shroudzone, Artificer/4 (6), +1 Intelligence and Dexterity, Craft Homonculus Feat. Bonus Artificer Feat, Wand Mastery. Purchased Exceptional Artisan, -25% Karma cost making magic items, Extra Bombs Mastery/2. Nog +1 Wisdom to base 17, 28.
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The landscape had the true Elemental, hellish beauty, going beyond Charlands to a true Fireland.
Both Fire and Negative energy were everywhere. The temperature was above the boiling point, and a normal human could literally ignite if a hot gust of wind went by.
I only had one more Blighting to do to finish my Ritual, and my skin was now crimson with highlights of its original pale shade. No horns, thank you. There was a lot of Fire pumping in my heart, and elements of my Bloodline were really reacting to it. They seemed to be taking portions of the arcane and holy energies I was using in my magic, and integrating them.
It was possible to Awaken a second Bloodline at Ten, and hybridize them, creating your own unique Bloodline. Alas, I was still a Six, but the process seemed to have already started.
My Shroudborn link seemed to be protesting all this, and was doing something with my excess Karma, as if waiting for step two and the Ceremony of the Frozen Soul. I could only roll my eyes and consider Whatevah, while having the distinct impression that the souls in the Shroud had never done anything like this, either, and were really eager to see where all this was going.
In other words, I was doing a great job, and now I was finally going into a Shroudzone all topped off with intent to finish it. There was a clear sense of vengeful expectation from the Shroud above me.
The rock was too black, without exception, vivus lingering on it and leaving jarring white stains behind on it. In contrast, lava was everywhere, with pools and streams and firefalls and lakes and rivers of the stuff flowing here, there, everywhere, burning fluid contrasting to the light-eating black rock it left behind when it cooled.
The landscape was cracked and shattered, full of canyons and passes, splits emanating more molten light from below that played off the dark clouds above in hues of hate and anger. It wasn’t actually bright, but it definitely wasn’t dim, and if you were close to a lava river, there was actually plenty of illumination.
Fumaroles spurted up here and there irregularly, sometimes on repeated locations, sometimes exploding up out of the ground randomly with little warning. Lavaplumes jetted up all around, while occasional walls of flaming lava gushed hundreds of feet into the air along cracks suddenly opening in the ground, whose glow slowly cooled as they fused back together, waiting for the next spurt in a new random direction.
It definitely had a fell, deadly beauty, and we were definitely filming it all. There wasn’t exactly a lot of filming done in the past under the Fireshroud, and certainly none that was current.
Oh, and we killed everything we came across.
There was nothing truly living under the Fireshroud. Even the Fireborn here were infused with negative energy and basically turned into undead versions of themselves. Ash Elementals replace Lava Elementals, Pyre Elementals replaced Fire, and the Magmen, Mephits, Salamanders, fireworms, firedrakes, and the like were all the same way, cross-infused with negative energy and turned into skeletal, gaunt versions of the living versions... but even stronger and more relentless, and hungry for life energy.
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I was utterly pleased to give them all the benefit of my anti-undead power, particularly Positive Edge and Necropotence. An extra +14 damage per Shard was not something to ignore lightly, and even if they were undead and had some resistance to default Cold... I had Penetrating Cold and Sacred Magic. They effectively had no resistance whatsoever to me.
Dancing shadows, firewraiths, witchfires, scorched bones, cauldronborn, forgesealed, pyre knights, lavacrusted, wisp spectres, burning bones, furnace crypted, the Hate Tempered... the list of fiery undead didn’t stop as they gathered for us in their numbers.
This Shroudzone actually wasn’t that big, only extending for a few miles around the massive volcanic caldera that sat astride the supercell beneath Yellowstone, venting fiery ash into the thick Shroud above. As this hadn’t been a populated area, the undead here were those that had died in the surrounding area and been drawn here, for the most part, including both sapients and creatures.
The Firelord was diligent, and seemed to have routinely Corpsecrafted all of them. All the undead, even the most basic ones, were tough, fast, strong, and very energetic in their tasks. Furthermore, they were often intelligent, tortured spirits bound to their husks, and capable of using the decayed remnants of firearms and other technology still in their hands, unlike most of the creatures we killed.
On the other hand, I had long started using Lesser Commune routinely, which gave me a searingly accurate picture of their positions within a mile, which I shared with the lads. The snipers and fireteams waiting for us never quite managed to get a jump on us, and despite the basically permanent nosebleed I had while keeping it up and feeling the Land’s screaming and pain from all this, as well as the pervasive awareness of the Firelord who could sense me snooping around in his demesne, I recast it and kept it active.
This enabled me to pinpoint the location of the intense negative energy of the Firelord’s forces; any Wards, Node extensions and anchor points; surprise explosions of pyroclastic matter reacting to a living presence; cinderclouds and sudden Swarm attacks; reserve forces hidden in the lava rivers; intense clouds of poison gas; hair-trigger conductive points for hate lightning storms from above; weak landscapes that could be collapsed or explode into mini-volcanoes with little help; powerful undead creatures waiting slumbering below the surface for the unwary to move above them, and so forth and so on ad pyroclaseum.
If I also tracked the location of a whole lot of precious metals and minerals accumulating here and there, and marked them in a Visual File that was now showing a Whole Damn Lot of such things, that was just me using the time of my extra thoughtstreams judiciously.
I did NOT extend my spell’s range into the caldera proper. It was ten miles across, and definitely huge, but I could wait for mental conflict with the Firelord after I had crippled his forces out here.
Knowing where your enemy is, being able to accurately determine their strength from a distance, and being able to strike at them there were all very important. The Mick was doing a lot of Reserve-Boosted shooting, much more than before, since he didn’t feel like getting targeted by a hundred undead guns for some reason. If it was beasties that wanted to get in close, he’d go for Smior and be the first line of physical defense, but this wasn’t about pride, and he wasn’t all that proud, either.
The fact that we could see spirits burning free of their burning shells when killing many of the corporeal undead only drove the point home that this whole fight was a massive mercy, and the seared uniforms some of them were still wearing in mockery of their former lives only made it more intense.
They used gunfire, we used guncold, and from further away and more accurately. Swathes of glaring white blotched the deadly black and molten crimson of the landscape, explosions of vivus in the air were like white pyrotechnics rivaling the lava geysers and fumaroles in every direction.
Patient, thorough, and chillingly aware of everything that had to die, we circled the volcano, clearing off the landscape, jumping right from one area to the next, skirting or triggering the deadly terrain as was needed to keep going, and we painted a whole lot of it white.
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“Well, Helix?” Sir Pellier asked calmly, looking at the sky with everyone else.
There was some motion from the opposite side of the volcano, and the troops there had reported contact with some undead pushing out. The snipers were on the job, thinning them out, especially the incorporeals. The new Eagle Eyes spell helped tons, as it meant they didn’t need a scope to see at extreme range.
Helix’s Bloodline was Air-centered, so he was more sensitive to movements and changes in the clouds than most, and taking up archery had really made him focus on his observational skills. He wasn’t really a hunter yet, but he was a marksman, and knowing the terrain was a given when you had to shoot stuff.
“It’s peeled back over five hundred yards,” the Sorcerer reported after a careful moment of examination, loudly enough for everyone around to hear. “That never happened before, right?”
“No. Killing the undead never budged the edge of a Shroud, until vivus came along,” Father Bower confirmed in his deep voice. “She’s doing it. She’s pushing back the power of a Shroudlord!”
There were murmurs from all around, text messages flying. Thermal scans from aircraft flying over had confirmed that the outer Charlands were cooling rapidly, and Casters had also confirmed that the almost suffocating dominance of pyromana in the area was dropping.
“Not pushing,” Sir Pellier corrected calmly, eyes dropping to the flashes and smears of white vaguely visible through the gloom under the true Shroud. “She’s doing exactly what we were doing, feeding his servants to the Land, and so the power the Shroudlord is getting from the Shroud is dropping with each and every removal.
“This isn’t a her against it fight. This is cleaning up the scraps so she can kill off the Shroudlord, just like we were doing.”
“I want to go in there and kill some more of them,” Helix swore.
Sir Pellier looked thoughtful, for a moment, as if his eyes were elsewhere. “If we keep it to the air and focus on picking off the incorporeals so we can’t be chased off, that would work. The incorps are the main threat. If we can thin them out or eliminate them, it doesn’t matter how many he has on the ground, we can grind through them!”
“Bring the Death Warded together, and let’s see if we can’t help speed things up. Every little bit helps!” Father Bower agreed, clutching a long, ornate length of ivory he drew out of his pack, and motioning a nearby Heavenbound closer.
The Dawnstopping power to make a spell last until the next dawn was another Metamagic she had shared with the Temples, and the Divine Metamagic to power it with Turning uses made it available to any Clerics who had investment in Extra Turning.
If they had a LOT of investment in it, they might be able to use the +6 Meta twice...
Of course, using this for a Death Ward required the Caster to be a Seven at least. Father Bower had not gone as wide and deep as he might have, finishing his Helix advance as rapidly as he could to rise in Level to Eight, and he was seriously thinking of advancing to Nine and gaining access to his V’s, but he needed another point of Wisdom to do so...
Still, being able to anoint two experienced Heavenbound shooters to come along with them and the Aruan Traveling Knights, as they were all now called, couldn’t do anything but help.
A few minutes later, three dozen men on Mass Disks went streaking for the edge of the Shroudzone, and specifically the wandering spectral undead who were not streaming after the people making all that whiteness over there.
If they could thin out the incorporeals, then the infantry and un-Warded could advance with far more security, although the landscape was definitely not friendly to anyone.
It didn’t matter. They weren’t here to hold ground, but to find undead and shoot them. The ground would take care of itself afterwards.