Asheron's Fall: The Power of Ten, Book Six

I sent a trio of such into that yawning opening, and they didn’t get very far before they impacted something that didn’t much like the intrusion.

The flames of the Darts didn’t do much, but they didn’t have to. As long as they did anything, the Kickers would activate, and the Holy Banefires promptly unladled 5d6 of wrathful energies through whatever was inside that kiln.

I saw streaks of energy erupt along the tendrils, and some of them just turned right to powder and died instantly. Greatly cheered, I sent another trio down into it, and whatever was going on inside flashed a lot brighter. The vent at the top started spewing some thick black stuff, which was probably not a good sign, so I sent the next three Darts up there, through the mounting black cloud, and down into the chimney. It looked like a Roman candle lit off as electrum and chalky-sap flames exploded through the spores, consuming them and driving down into the interior of the kiln.

One more set into the main opening, and something actually kicked on inside there. I realized after a second it was probably residual coal, igniting as the magical fire found something to play with, and the fungus growing on however many corpses had been stuck into the thing really began to burn. Banefire happily cleared out the things that would help kill it the fastest. That must have included the floor feeder vents, because my last set of Darts seemed to blast everything out of them smoothly, and the kiln was starting to burn to life.

The connecting roots, tendrils, and mold upon it had all burned away from the interior, the top was spewing out a smoke which was probably toxic, except vivus was spurting up after it and eating a bunch of it. The fungi all around seemed to be wilting rapidly as they lost their center.

Ah, here they came. Over the slow and building hiss of the fires inside taking off after who knew how long, a lot of little pattering feet were coming this way.

I pushed ten mana into my Shards, giving me a full array of seven if needed, mana down to 230, going up by one every twelve seconds. Well, nine with Mana Renewal going.

A small horde of the thrungus came shuffling into sight at the far end of the hall. I’d obviously stopped in time and they hadn’t seen me shooting stuff into the kiln, as none came down this way.

Had to be forty of the buggers. If this was most of the force... well, this didn’t look too promising if I had to fight here, as they’d swarm me and kill me, and there was precious little I could do about it.

Also, there were three fungus men of my size, and six the size of the guards. The latter were coming in at a cool 100 health, and the bigger ones at 150ish. The little guys were only 50, so an ambush and the extra Kicker damage to all of them was enough to clean them all off with just a Shard each.

I eyed the spells in my Matrix. The Isparian spells were very basic and powerful, and yes, if I would have dared waste time making them vulnerable to what I was going to hit them with, the Life Magic would have been helpful. I did not have the time, the blockade, or some meat shields to stop the horde down there, and even if I had a Fireball, I would have had to really juice it to have an effect on these creatures.

A Mass Fire Vuln in the future sounded all kinds of promising, however.

I, however, had access to the faithful Phantom Servant hovering there unseen, waiting for orders, sticking around for another two hours or so. I could also cast Invisibility, which would last until Natural Renewal or I broke it by fighting, a Force Disk which would also last for three hours, and a Levitate spell which would last for thirty minutes once used. So far as I could tell, these rooms all had twenty-foot or more arched or vaulted ceilings, and I could totally stay out of their reach, long enough to get all my mana back, if needed.

They were magical options Isparians simply didn’t have, and it expanded my range of tactics a great deal.

I also had one spell more, which could really change the game. I had a Web... and those suckers were all packed in there nice and tight for now, as if they never had a reason to avoid Areas of Effect, and clumping together was the best thing they could do.

If I wanted to use the spell, now was the time. There was an anchoring wall and ceiling, nothing looked strong enough to be tearing through it... and those would be the first ones to die.

I grit my teeth, looked at my hide and run options, and went for it.

Pure Matrix magic, didn’t pump it with anything, no inherent resonance to help it out. I did Cast it slowly and completely, trying for maximum power, and the manafield seemed to coalesce in great interest at what I was doing here, as if it hadn’t seen magic used like this before.

With a whirl and splaying of magic, ectoplasmic white strands of silk were suddenly thickly all over the place... except near the hot portions of the kiln. The entire force of thrungus was blanketed in them, and promptly panicked, thrashing about wildly, getting themselves stuck even more tightly as the silk wound up, even collapsing in areas to make tightly packed bundles of helpless toadstool folk.

I was racing forward, getting in range even while building up a complete show of power, and shooting into the helpless mushroom men, starting with the big three.

Eight Shards laden with an Iron Whirling Blade tore through the first Leader Thrungus, the eighth black flying sawblade cutting the deepest and ripping it apart.

Cost, 11 mana from my 235, down to 224, as I turned on the next one and let it rip at him at point-blank range.

I must have been critting with all the different shots smacking into it, which was fine by me, the next Leader blew up and scattered frozen chunks onto its servants. Minus 9, down to 213 and five.

The third Leader was shredded. Four Slots, six Guards. Thirty-three of the rest kicking and rolling in the webbing.

I dropped twenty mana into the two Slots, bringing me to 193 and seven, and this time I went for the little guys in groups of eight.

It was a complete massacre, as they had no way to dodge and could only sit there and watch me slaughter them. Each Shard found a different target, d8+13 damage, +7d6 of Kickers, plus the diluted force of the Whirling Blades coursing through them all for another +10 or so each. They were just torn apart.

It would have been very nice to just be able to hack or pound them down with a weapon, but I didn’t even have a suitable knife on me at the moment...

-60 mana and four Slots later, and all the little guys were dead, and only the guards were left.

Since it couldn’t stick to the webs, I’d had the Phantom Servant keep itself busy drawing more silk strands around the struggling guards, especially when the smaller thrungus were ripped apart and freed up more for the task. Didn’t want them slipping free with some mucous secretions, although it looked like they had more the sticky kind than the slippery, too bad, so sad.

For just a second, I contemplated how ruthless I was being. Then I saw the white stuff sticking out of the mounds of mold and the like to the left of the kiln, leading towards a tunnel with wooden doors torn off straight ahead, with absolutely no fungi on the floor there, and a very disturbed passage of dust leading off to the right, the fungi only getting thicker.

Five Shards to one, three to another. Each d6+6, +7 for my Razor, +7d6 Kickers.

Neither one died, but the pair of Lightning Darts I spun up finished both of them off, the Holy Bane Kickers doing the job on the helpless things just fine.

118 mana, two Slots, four more Guards. I couldn’t take the risk of being completely depleted, so I kept an eye on that passageway as I hammered the last four thrungus down in pairs, four volleys each driving into them and letting them know I was also an extremely powerful predator with territorial instincts going to kill them all and make them fertilizer for the Land.

They died with little squeals of escaping air, and launches of spores which had the Banefire and vivus darting and swirling through the air to consume them as I backed away.

The whole area of the Web was now Burning merrily with unwhite misty fires, the floor thick with the stuff and spreading in all directions, hungry to break down the dead organic matter that was everywhere.

The hurfing sound coming from the passageway off to the right there, along with the sounds of some heavier galumphing tendril-feet thumping on the ground, prompted me to retreat to the far side of the kiln.

The thrungus that came lurching out was much thicker and more powerful, a Warden Thrungus that probably headed up the whole colony here. It was taller than I was, its toadstool cap was a meter wide, and I was pretty sure it had some magical ability the way the manafield was tensing around me.

That was fine. I had an invisible, scentless Phantom Servant, and Minor TK.

It slowed as it came up on the edge of the misting area, staring at it and the Burning bodies of the fallen fungus-men, their stool-heads all shattered and drooped in long lines that weren’t actually aflame, but were definitely eating away at the fields of mold and slime growing over layered bones.

It kicked out a stubby, blocky leg, no bones, all fibrous tissue, and wasn’t hurt by the mists at all, of course. It advanced into the area... and naturally stepped up onto the Webbing, which was quite sticky. It lifted one foot, then the other, realized the stuff was pretty strong, and then whole sections of it which had been wrapped around the dead suddenly were tossed into the air and came down upon it.

Its reaction was instantaneous, magic coalescing and spitting out in a spray of acid which easily blasted through the strands that had fallen upon it, no match for that level of power.

But there was more Webbing snaking towards it, its feet were still stuck, and it blasted at each of them again and again, jets of acid rapidly dissolving through the remnants of the Webbing, as well as laying waste to the fields of mold and slime and shrooms, which made the vivus grow even faster around it.

Which was about when I stepped around the edge of the kiln and lit it up.

Eight Shards buzz-sawed into it loudly, sinking into it deeply and ripping through a bunch of pale white fungoid flesh. It had over 300 Health from the Assay I had on it, but I had just taken out 8d6+48, +7 Warcaster, +7d6 for the Sneak Attack, plus 60ish for the Whirling Blade.

Yeah, I’d just chopped its health down in half, and just stepped back as it blasted another of the Acid Bolts my way, at least a Copper in strength, potentially capable of one-shotting me. The blast sprayed off the magically hardened brick of the kiln, which mostly no-sold it, although the wall behind me was completely splattered with hissing globules that killed everything in the area quite instantly, visibly turning it all into goo that ran thickly down the stone.

I spun back out and gave it my last Slot, and I was down to 83 mana.

A crit must have come in as the seven Shards bit into him, but it didn’t help it as the multiple Toppling impacts blasted the thing back, off its feet, and into the Webbing it was tearing its way through on the floor.

More empty strands fluttered through the air, came down on the severely wounded thing, and pairs of Darts with +5d6 of Kickers drove into it once, twice, and it stopped thrashing around.

A second later, vivus ignited all over it, and I knew it was dead.

Taking a bit of a risk, I decided to stay where I was. The vivic mist all around was charging my default Mana Renewal up to 2/minute, so Meditation should get me to 3.5 or 4 a minute, doubled by the Renewal, added to my default 5, and I should be getting back 13 a minute.

252 topped, 83 remaining, +70 for Slots. 239 mana to get back. Just shy of twenty minutes.

Would the bugs show up? Would more thrungus come up to investigate after smelling the death spores of their merrily Burning boss?

Would I find out when Natural Renewal was so I could get on with getting stronger?

Whatever. I dropped into Meditation while vivic mists slathered the ground about me, and the fungus began to break up, break apart, and die as something important was taken out of it and returned to the Land.