[Warpworld] Ch 24 – Old Friends, New Friends

« Chapter 23 | Index | Chapter 25 »

            Something was carving a violent path through demons and Warped cultists, marauders, champions, and the like. They didn’t seem to be in too much of a hurry, as they were taking the time to kill everything around them, even as their forward progress continued in a march of annihilation.

            The Warped were certainly trying to get rid of them, but little explosions of vivus, and the corpses sent flying from crashing impacts of superhuman strength, were signs that not all was going well.

            There was a lot of haze, both from magical interference in the air and vivus reacting to it all, but it looked like there were only two of them, too.

            I had to raise an eyebrow at who could be so damn confident that they could stroll through a whole army of Warp-enhanced mutates and supporting demons, when I noticed the throbbing in the air. Very carefully, I reached out past the Domain to see what it was, very aware of the influences in the air out there, who seemed to be... anxious and angry, and not exactly at me.

            Also, someone was Singing.

            Ding! Ting! Thruuuuum...

            Oh, hey, I knew that Song, and the answer to who would be that idiotic was answered pretty fast.

            “Hey, it’s some old friends, I was wandering through this town,

            And I thought, My Briggs, why don’t we send them Down?

            He chuckled and hefted his Hammer, cracked a demon on the crown,

            Ground another under his boot, and remarked, Just like this clown?

            Tremble, OoOoOo, Ohhhh, Tremble, WE COME!”

            Back home, everybody knew that Song. When the Trembling Song came out, things were meant to die.

            So I interjected, “Demons speak, and demons lie.

Demons rage, and demons die.

            The Warped do wail as promises fail

            Scream despair to pitiless sky!

            From first to least, the Land does feast,

            Feed the Land, and say goodbye!

            Tremble, The Land Sings!

            Tremble, The Land Rings!

            Tremble, We Come!”

            And I unleashed on the Warped, who had perhaps unwisely turned to focus on the incoming agents of destruction, and belatedly turned to look back at me.

            I didn’t target anything in the pair’s way, as that was silly and would have interrupted their fun. I did, however, blast the shit out of everything to either side of their approach path.

            Chained Bursting Paired Greater Shards went out with all the fixings, and the Land got to feast. The minions and the lesser demons went up like exploding oil lamps of vivus and Holy energies having a good ol’ time, no Hope for them, and Chains from different spells cut through the stronger stuff, subjecting them to two and three sets of Kickers, and they exploded like vivisized Roman candles, too.

            The explosions as the greater demons went up were nicely sizable. Some of them absolutely stunned when they died, completely unable to believe they could be hit with magic that hard from a mortal sorcerer, and even their screams at the oblivion yawning before them cut off rather too quickly. The Shardrays I targeted the big guys with were totally capable of hammering them for hundreds of points of damage. Add on the intersecting Chains, and they were toast.

            The Bursts nicely took out all their minions in the area, too. I had some terrifyingly lethal Kickers.

            I think the pace of the two picked up. Yeah, the things they were killing were lesser in number, a mite distracted by the air pounding around them and dripping with the hunger of the Land.

            “Ho, I hear a brother

Of another mother,

            I trust Dad is doing well.

            That mithral Sword

            He can afford

            ‘Cause He treats His kids so swell.

            Tremble, you fucktards! The family’s come to play!

            Tremble, mealworms! It’s final tolls to pay!

            Your debt is due, it’s time to rue

            And we bring your Final Day!”

            Hey, you took my catchphrase!, I thought, highly amused, just as the two figures got serious.

            I only saw after-arcs of their Weapons, golden Soulfire buttressed by a half-dozen other fell powers bouncing this way and that in defiance of inertia and physics. On one side they came apart and ignited, on the other broken bodies went flying in flaming arcs, and now they seemed to streeeeeeetch forwards suddenly. Those looking on were caught totally by surprise, not realizing until a wee bit late it was because the two were charging ahead really, really fast, and STILL managing to slaughter everything within reach as they did so.

            I blasticated and explodified everything outside their path, letting them have their fun leaving a carpet and playing ping-pong with oversized creatures that weren’t at all ready for mortals to be just that damn deadly.

            The two Elders of the elves had come up and were flying alongside me. I didn’t pay much attention to their way their eyes narrowed at the unbelievably deadly display we’d put on. Just a little flexing.

            This Sama and Briggs blew through the remnants of a bulky, shambling force of Riggibuhl’s Mumblers, ogre-sized rotting demons going up in vivus like gasoline as the Briggs batted them away, sometimes right into the edge of the Domain field. Suddenly the Domain visibly parted around the two of them, and they were inside.

            He didn’t look like the Briggs I knew, but he still didn’t bother to Sing, either. He turned around, hefted his Hammer in contempt, and hollered in a very carrying deep bass, “TREMBLE, WORMS!”, and what survivors were in range all took a step back automatically at the pure scorn in his voice.

            Feature dropped straight down to meet them.

            The two of them were strolling up without a care in the world, what looked like a lot of topical injuries crushed into their Armor mending with speed visible to the eye. So, they’d been getting hit occasionally, and were just ignoring and Healing through it.

            She had the lean, wide-shoulder build of Sama, right down to the no-chest, but her hair was dark and her eyes were, too, bewitching and black and probably capable of switching from sensuous temptation to bottomless holes of death faster than an eyeblink.

            He was over a full head taller than she was, deeply bronzed of skin, with coppery hair and pale green eyes, but was obviously still an Ancient, leisurely holding an adamantine Greathammer which would have broken the wrists of a normal human to wield.

            “Good afternoon!” I greeted them cordially. “It looks like I’ve stumbled across a set of Ranthas out for a late afternoon stroll...”

            They both grinned brightly. “Hey, you look familiar,” she squinted at me.

            “I’m the guy who Sauron sues for copyright infringement,” I confirmed for her.

            “Sauron? The...” her head tilted. “Ringlord! Aelryinth! Hah!” she pointed at me triumphantly. “What the fuck are you doing way out here?”

            Feature furled his wings as he pulled us in beside them. “First, allow me to introduce two noteworthy personages of this world, Master Sethanon and Master Artlis, Lord Archmages of the White Tower of their people,” I waved up at the phoenix and dragon-riding pair cautiously descending toward us. “Big names locally,” I stage-whispered to the two of them.

            “Well, greetings to you both, then,” the big guy rumbled with a casual wave, and the startled mages even gave little waves in return reflexively, not knowing quite how to respond. “I’m Patrick Briggs, and this is Elisia Rantha. We kind of went for a walk, ending up going through that Warp Zone there, and came out here after a bit of time. No idea where this is in space or time,” he admitted with a casual air that impressed them both.

            I flicked up an array of thirteen-dimensional coordinates as we casually strolled away from the edge of the Domain, the elven archmages landing to keep the easy pace. All four of them fixed on the display, the elves not knowing quite what it all meant, the Briggs and Rantha obviously aware of precisely what they indicated.

            “YES!” Elisia shouted, high-fiving the massive hand Patrick put up. “Got out of the place!”

            “So, less accidental oopsiness than calculated exploring places no sane chucklehead was meant to go?” I asked from the side.

            Elisia Rantha just beamed, all eight canines on display. “You seem to know Ranthas pretty well!”

            “I know the original, so, yeah. She’s my direct vassal back home, as is her man.” I nodded at both of them.

            “No! Seriously?” Elisia gasped, and Patrick looked startled. “No offense, how did you manage to get her to Swear under you?”

            “I was Rank M and Heavenbound, and she was a Rank D chucklehead who needed stuff to do. Briggs is my Warlord.” I glanced at them. “You DO know I gave you your first Soultats, right?”

            “Uh... huh!” they both said at exactly the same time, blinking again. “Right. More dangerous than you seemed to be as a Nine, as I recall from that trip to Coralost...” Elisia mumbled apologetically.

            “Very much so. If I may ask, where are the two of you from, because it is totally obvious you aren’t natives of this Warpworld.”

            “Oh, fuck, we’re on a Warpworld?” Elisia promptly asked, while Patrick held up his big hand, a crystal on his bracer glowed, and a bunch of dimensional coordinates appeared in front of me for me to memorize. “How close to its End Times?” she added, and the elves there blanched. Another one knew about that, I wasn’t just spouting silly man-dreams?

            “Under five years, probably two, if I had the collapse of its Mana Vortex correct.” The watching elves glanced at another with long faces, wondering just how such a thing was known outside their worlds. “I’m kind of trying to break them out of that cycle of asshattery.” I waved my hand at the Pyramid ahead of us. “Damn, you two came from a LONG way off.”

            “We came from a Warped Universe!” It was my turn to flinch extravagantly at her exclamation. “Yeah, those Warped fuckers were exerting their influence over most of a whole galaxy. But Grandma kicked them out, which isolated the universe. We’re part of a few teams trying to break out of the pocket universe into the greater multiverse, but it’s a heck of a distance apart. I’m guessing taking a shortcut through their Domains is going around a lot of stuff...”

            “In the greater multiverse, they are just a quartet of pissass parasitic demon lords, but I understand they stick their fingers into anything they can, like bacteria,” I nodded sagely.

            “You need some help with stopping this shit from happening?” Elisia asked, cracking her neck with some startlingly loud pops.

            “Two funny things, but yes. First, you have just given us a vivisized corridor into the Warp Zone, reality is expanding right into that nail hole you made nicely. Second, I didn’t even bother to check, but there might be another two of your family here already.”

            It was their turn to do a double-take. “Wow, Grandmother is soooper-efficient!” grinned Elisia.

« Chapter 23 | Index | Chapter 25 »