The Power of Ten, Book Three : The Human Race

Sabaton - Man of War (Heroes might and magic) - YouTube

On the surface, it should not have been a fight. Everything there was a post-Twenty undead, probably the most valiant champions of another world, overcome at the last by endless undead, turned into the same, and enslaved by the same death giant lich who had invaded Pentara and claimed the whole planet for its own.

However, these creatures had just weathered an absolutely incredible vivic storm, and had likely had to expend an enormous amount of power to live through it.

Another huge thing was that the massive amount of Health Qi they should have as Dark Clergy was totally absent, because there weren’t any undead control lines in force, and the nearest of those undead were thirty miles away.

Sure, they’d managed to Fast Heal their physical forms, defiling the vivus-saturated ground as fast as they could while drawing power from the Shroudlord and the Shroud to do so. But if they started calling up negative energy spells and the like, they were going to get a nasty surprise in this vivic-charged air.

That might be important for necromancy-focused sorts like them.

And there was the minor detail that they were still within the brand new and doubtless completely ignored Pyramid Power Field emanating from that shiny white crystalline tourist attraction over there.

Perhaps there should have been dialogue, but we had no plans to enter into any. As we’d been flying over here, we’d been expending lots of Valences on Buffs, and right now, this thousand-man army was armed to the teeth and truly ready to rumble.

They lined up to face us, outnumbered ten-to-one. Perhaps they thought it was fair, even with the fact that all the Weapons facing them were definitely geared to kill the undead... or Constructs.

They were not prepared for the circle of Stone that abruptly jutted up out a foot from the ground, forming a circle almost five hundred feet across around them as it did so. Energy hummed, and Sealing magic rose towards the sky, vivic energy gathering to it to form a translucent white wall as hundreds of Morituri Warlocks bent down and filled it with eldritch juice.

It snuffed all the Clergy’s active links to their undead minions completely, locking in the fact that the undead now had to come this way. There was no stopping it... and more importantly, there was no Body-jumping away if these bastards died, period, even if the fastest of them, such as other Dark Clergy, got here in time.

I drew an Item Scroll from out of my Masspack, and tossed it to Shvaughn and Legion. They reached down to the Symbols, pulled, and lifted off many pairs of telescoping Rods there with their Tails. With beats of overly powerful wings, they headed out, flying five hundred yards from the Shroudlord, and jamming the first Rod of one set each into the ground before splitting off.

The Permanent Widened Might of Thunder Walls of Holy Vivic Waterfire at VII blazed with some very, very Sacred waters, sounding like impossibly melodious waterfalls as they shimmered there, forty feet high, rotating courses of jet and silver shining waters looking like curtains of moonlight on a lake at night.

The two Grandmaster Warlocks spun through the circle precisely, planting the second Rod, and then starting another Wall behind that one.

As they did that, the Fellowships were forming, and teams were lining up, picking their opponents. The undead moved their attention from the encircling Walls that were waiting out there, counting Caster Levels on their tarsals silently. The eldest dracolich hurled itself forwards with a roar, crashing into the Containment Seal and being hurled back without doing any harm to it.

Protection from Evil Cast out of VII is pretty strong, too.

The presence of Commander Haru’Ara and the Angelos was noted, and the Nightshades moved to face them. The Shroudlord was fixated on Briggs, while the dracoliches were all staring after Legion and her great burning wings.

The two Warlocks planted the last of the Walls, closing the circle, and winged back to rejoin us, getting ready to launch the final attacks.

Legion pulled up in midair, and reached into their own Masspack for an Item Scroll. They drew the Scroll out, crushed it in their hand, and there was an abrupt crunch as a very big straight Sword, oversized for even a Titan, suddenly drove itself into the ground there.

The dark blue-black Blade was forty damn feet long.

Legion reached back, and drew Idiot out of his sheath. The Warlock Sword transformed into a thick bar, which was inserted into the hiltless blade, and as it did, Runes lit up along the massive, multi-ton length of metal. Greater Ki-Bound Bane to Undead Enmity/Evil Bane to Legends Holy Blooding Vivic Valorous +I blazed down the full length of it, a configuration shared by more than one of the Weapons out here.

Idiot was a Legendary Weapon now, too, the final one Commander Haru’Ara had completed in time.

The whole damn Sword was made out of adamant, too. It had to weigh...

Legion picked it up and held it straight out to the side like it was a willow wand.

I found myself grinning ear-to-ear despite myself. Master Vrune and the dwarven smiths of St. Paul had a Really Dumb idea once they found out how strong Legion was, and man, it really did look anime stupid.

Made a mockery of ALL the laws of physics. Looked really cool, however, especially as Legion spread their wings and the butterfly Runework there was all brimming with The Light.

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There was still a formality to this, as it was a big event, and all the showmanship was on our side.

Spreading around the Seal about them, we all picked targets, lining up, communicating telepathically, and then the ding-ting notes, laced with Threnodic power that could affect even the undead, rang out over the undead, who could not help but stop their own actions to listen.

“You came from Darkness, from Death and Gloom,

“Bearing endless despair, inevitable Doom,” Sama began with a choffed note of scorn.

“A World to conquer, a world to slay,

“A world to forever deny the day,” Luminous Chalker of Aru from Sydney contributed forthrightly.

“You gave us a Sword in Steel and White,

“You gave us a Hammer to show our might!” Father Bower continued grimly, and glanced to his side.

“You made us hard, and we stayed the course,

“With a bow, and a prayer, and a blazing horse!” grinned Helix at the hand-off, and both Sleipner and the Old Steed added their own punctuation. Of course they were here, Azaia and Morningfire had been riding them right along.

“TREMBLE!” thundered a thousand voices, and add a few zeroes to that over the rest of the planet. The ley lines BOUNCED at the word, and the undead flinched despite themselves. “Ohhh OHHH ohhh, TREMBLE, WE COME!”

“Busy hands with busy tools,

“Noble hearts and noble fools!” my Seneschal Abigail also added in, here at the end as she had been at the beginning, now much more than just an Alchemist.

The dracoliches over there tried to roar and challenge us, but the Sublime Chord backing the Song just swamped over them and muted them to almost nothing. They almost sounded cute the way they turned into a burpy meep.

“The sky is open, and the sun beats down!

“The Shroud bows low, and gives up its crown!” Jaelez Morningfire added in, a vision of fire atop a burning not-a-horse prancing and ready for the fight.

“Tigers walk where dragons tread,

“Hunters stalk where fear the dead!” bellowed Mohono Blakhamar, waving about a six-foot Sword enthusiastically. I noticed Shvaughn sending a sly eye the ogryn’s way.

“Slaves to a dream, a nightmare waking,

“Broken on life, your hope we’re taking!” Sinead Morningflame called out from among the Blood of the Irish.

“We rose from the low, we came down from the high,

“We remembered the pasts we’d thought let lie,” The Mick’s startling tenor added in, and Amaretta picked it up instantly.

“Where history stands, the future glows,

“Shatters your grasp where Destiny flows!”

“TREMBLE! OHHHHH OH OHHHH TREMBLE, WE COME!”

They couldn’t hear all those voices across the planet, but they could definitely feel the ley lines seething with the emotion and focus of them. Undead technically couldn’t feel fear, but that just meant a -20 modifier to one HELL of an Intimidation check going on.

Can’t feel fear? We’ll just supply some for you, here you go. Tastes good, right?...

Hank Blakhamar nodded. “The winter you brought has turned and gone

“All that is left is your final song.

“A requiem, a soliloquy, a prayer delivered on bended knee.

“Your answer here, as is your doom, a season comes where flowers bloom.”

The sky lit up in every color in three spectra.

“The Great Wheel in Time’s patient hand,

“It is time, indeed, to FEED THE LAND!” was my contribution, and the Sublime Chord began to peak and build, magic thrumming with a nice +5 to everybody’s Caster Level, +10 for someone in the mirror using Holy Magic with Words of Creation.

“TREMBLE!

“THE SUN HAS RISEN!

“TREMBLE!

“THE MOON CRIES SILVER!

“TREMBLE!

“WE COME, TO DELIVER!” Sama rang out like thunder once more.

“TRUTH!”

“HOPE!”

“VALOR!”

And as the undead reeled from the Words of Creation bellowing loud as Thunder itself, confronting them with the lost virtues of their own cursed and stolen lives, people all across the planet shuddered at the glory and wonder behind the Words, and we were coming for the last of the undead lords of the Shroud.

Legion led the charge across the Seal boundary, slammed into that eldest dracolich, smashed it right across the circle and sent a bunch of other undead tumbling, and then inverted and rotated to chop through the other two dracoliches, continuing the spin to send more undead flying. A thousand Weapons burning to kill undead and Counterspellers there to cancel whatever they threw out surged through the Seal and set upon the fallen heroes of a fallen world with all the conviction to not end up in the same fate.

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The HU - Song of Women feat. Lzzy Hale of Halestorm (Official Music Video) - YouTube

We were just waiting now.

Most of the Buffs had worn off. Healing had been administered. There had been nineteen deaths, and hundreds of pulled-back-from-deaths. The Toughness Mastery Tree was very favored here, and just because you mangled someone with the Feat all to complete shit didn’t mean they actually died, when they could survive at -60 Health and just looked like a mangled corpse.

Very somber after watching the events of the last day, Bey ‘Azzar’s Wishes made sure the damage from the dread flames and frost of the Legendary Wights was not permanent, and the Vile damage from dozens of the undead could also be mended easily. Thanoptic magic was very much evident, but almost all of that stuff allowed Saves, and the stuff that didn’t was annoying but nowhere near as lethal.

It should be the last time I called on Bey ‘Azzar, possibly. He was both in high spirits that he was about to be free, and very depressed that he hadn’t participated in this at all, and would be sharing in none of the true Glory, merely dregs for empowering some Firebound fighting here.

Everyone here had the Sun Saves at +30 or higher, Evasion and often Mettle, and had totally astonished these unliving legends when they didn’t die to some truly horrendous necromancies or Curses, and in many cases were totally unharmed by them. Indeed, the ones who had died had been focused by several undead during combat and simply been overwhelmed faster than their friends could kill the things or the healers could deal with the damage.

But their deaths bought time, and Cure Mortal Wounds was available, as well as Raise Dead. The undead hadn’t been able to spare the time to Animate any corpses, killed themselves in overlapping explosions of vivus that battered at their companions and accelerated their demises as vivus ate the death-explosions happily.

Now, we were waiting here for the end, like a big bonfire party that needed to be thrown.

The Shroudlord had pulled its entire Dark Clergy in to retain control before Guiogg came down, otherwise the lines to its March would have been severed, and the Dark Bishops, Ministers, and Cardinals out there would have torn its March apart. It would have had to reconquer them to regain control.

It was apparent because its March and the Congregants had never stopped running this way.

The Shroudlord was still alive, pinned to the again-crystallized soil by +XII Weapons, Commander Haru’Ara basically standing on top of her (surprised to find that out, but the Commander actually knew her species, and the females were the intelligent smaller ones, the males big hulking brutes that we had fought earlier) and by keeping her around, the undead kept coming this way.

Kept coming into those waiting Walls of Holy Water, and dying.

There were naturally those undead who didn’t die, plunging through 150 points of damage and able to take it.

There were a thousand elites, all of them bearing laenwork Weapons now, sitting right there ready for them, quietly waiting for the moment of the Glory Award to come.

The Shroudcloud was shrinking again. It had started to grow as the first waves of undead surviving reached it, down to merely one mile after we sacrificed the Dark Clergy to Aru and the Gods of Heaven in violent combat, but it was now failing as searing vivic whiteness stained the ground so bright that getting within a hundred feet of the Walls was already burning the undead.

Millions of them poured into the curtains of placid, holy Waters falling in burbling welcome, and exploded out of the other side in sprays of silvery sparkles, dissolving into sparkling mists as vivus danced in them. Even the weapons and armor they held couldn’t take the hit, and disintegrated with them.

Unless it was valuable, of course. Telekinetic fingers were already heaping up mounds of loot to burn on Disks, at some point to be awarded among those who had fought here, although there’d never be enough to properly reward them all.

Still, hundreds of millions of undead can generate a lot of loot in one form or another.

I was linked into the effort, surveying the whole area with Detect Evil at VIII, pinpointing the Congregants and most powerful elites left. Ranged attacks softened them up before they even breached the Walls, while the Casters, and especially me, focused on dealing with anything airborne, especially more incorps who managed to re-coalesce once they were under the edges of the Shroud.

I could Ethercut the incorps from almost a mile away, and wasn’t too proud to do that, either, blasting them right out of their powerless state and into vivus if there weren’t any others close enough to worry about. They might have thought they were invisible, but I had See Invisible and Eagle Eyes, and no, no, they weren’t.

Nothing was going to go wrong at this time. We were going to play this hard and tight, right up until the end.

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Reports from around the world indicated that the Haze was weakening, and where it was, things were starting to change.

It started in South America, when petrol cans and jugs, and ammunition carefully buried, had ignited and exploded all by themselves, and the effect was starting to spread.

Batteries began to flame out, and lots of fires started when people didn’t unplug fast enough. Municipalities who didn’t believe and didn’t shut down their power grids ahead of time set whole towns on fire if they didn’t throw the breakers fast enough.

Plastics, paints, chemicals, and other artificial materials that broke the one-tool-rule of Alchemy and Energized materials began to slowly bubble, corrode, and decay, breaking up into their component elements. If there were sparks around, this rapidly caused a lot of fires, too.

Phone lines were going dead. TV and then conventional radio went off the air.

The fires of an old life burning away were going on around the world. Some people were taking this as opportunities, and feeding the fires, rioting, wreaking havoc, and the like.

Other people were shooting them, shanking them, and generally looking down at them exploiting a sad time of change for gratuitous violence.

The change begun on October 11, 1941, was finally becoming complete here, today, on March 11, 2020.

The whole world would start again afterwards.