[Warpworld] Ch 14 – Pyramid Production

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            Blocks cracked into existence, tore free of the ground, and floated into position beneath an illusionary shield of Hallucinatory Terrain. The Pyramid began to grow towards its height, each level smaller than the one before and coming faster and faster as they came together.

            Amusingly, this was a long, slow Pyramid to put up, simply because it had no empty interior areas to save me some work. It did make the internal arrangements simpler and stronger, in addition to all of its mass giving it a lot more capacity for enduring the shit it was going to have to.

            Feature kept up most of the scouting, staying invisible and flying through the air to survey the area. I had Ices watch to the south, actually, as it occurred to me that sneaking up behind us with a magical force a-flight would be a nasty surprise I didn’t want to deal with. It didn’t require much moving around, and their heads could doze and watch in sequence, so it was very light duty.

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            Feature indicated that something was definitely happening, as there were fliers on the horizon that weren’t getting too close... except for the ones that were also invisible, which he rapidly proved were not as he smashed them out of the sky and fried them.

            They also weren’t in black and red, instead bearing a bright panoply of colors, indicating that another force was at work.

            Still, they all seemed to be part of the same faction, which was encouraging. An alliance so quickly would have worried me for my divinatory defenses. This was probably a matter of piquing someone’s curiosity because they couldn’t find out jack about me.

            I instructed Feature to start making a nuisance of himself, always prepared to send him into his space if someone got clever and realized he was an Eidolon. In the meantime, I kept working, noting to Ices that Feature had found fliers in the area already, and to be watchful for them.

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            It was good to be useful, Feature thought, streaking down from two miles in the sky. The flight of painted, armored men on demonic flat-disks, the uncontrolled glittery waste of their Warped magic trailing away from them as they cut through the air along the edge of the mountains. They were pointed directly at the pass, clearly heading there to investigate something at the behest of a master, who had not deigned to come first and was likely monitoring them with some form of scrying magic, safe in the distance.

            The other major group aflight seemed to be a scream of harpies, colored more brightly and wilder than a flock of parrots. Both forces were approaching along the edge of the mountains, pincering in on the pass.

            That meant they were likely diversions, and the real threat was coming from along the mountains. After all, there was no need to be so obvious about an approach that could be shielded simply by having a few mountains between them and any watchers.

            So, they were likely also taking note of either the territory they thought his master was claiming, or how quickly he could respond to an intrusion.

            All testing and games, he knew as he came up on the flying wing, and let go.

            He had no intention of going light on any of these traitors to mortals, and he hit them with his Topped-out Dragonflame as he drove up on the trailing edge of their wing, coming right down out of the cold sun in open daylight.

            Neither the Warped humans nor the flat demonic Disk-beasts they were surfing along on had a prayer of surviving a top-end blast of his Breath, and they didn’t even get to scream in alarm or pain as he blew in behind them and strafed the right wing of their flying wedge. The shocked left wing only saw a blast of bright white starfire shot through with streaks of black, and the whole line of armored men trailing stinking glitter burned away, leaving little more than molten metal to fall from the skies.

            Rattles smashed the first one and his Disk-mount with its ring of eyes and muttering jaws flying, pulping the latter and blowing it apart en vivus as its rider went flying, the side of his breastplate stove in by the impact of the Tailmace.

            His scything wing smashed the second one off his toothy Disk as well, and the other eight armored spellcasters broke formation wildly in panic as he swept past them, his wings spreading and internal magic working as he defied physics with aplomb, his dive turning into a great loop de loop, something no mundane animal would ever bother with, and then snapped over with serpentine ease to dive down on the knights.

            Hissing pink and blue lights came spinning up to strike at him... and bounced impotently off his scales, unable to get past his Spell Resistance, which his Master had assured him could only be pierced by some very lucky shots or very powerful Casters... which these fools obviously were not.

            Completely unharmed by their desperate magicks splattering off him, Feature dove for the first of them, Whiskers gleaming and extending off his muzzle.

            A Noseblade of that much potency backed by the weight of a Great Eidolon was not something their armor or magical shields was able to deal with, much like his Breath, nor was his speed or serpentine agility in the air.

            The Disk he crushed in the talons of his right claw, also Burning with the same powers as his Noseblade and Tailmace, and it dissipated screaming in vivic fire as he shifted course to a pair close together. They realized and started to separate, but it didn’t save them as both his front and rear left claws struck home, and Rattles whipped out and up through the other Disk and its rider, shattering ectoplasm and bones with equal aplomb.

            Five more to go, Feature counted off dispassionately, rolling over to pick a course after two more of them he could arc between easily, and scanning the land and sky again as he did so.

            Ho, there was a flaming chariot up in the sky over there, being drawn by what looked like flying, brightly-hued maw-fanged, barbed-tail manta rays trailing Warp sparks. The chariot was manned by one of those overly-armored sorts, but this one was definitely bearing much more powerful magic than these hapless fools played as a lure.

            Another eighteen of those Warprays were following the chariot, now moving ahead of the charioteer as he pointed at Feature, and they swooped to the hunt.

            He sent the sight off to his master, who just smirked back, knowing Feature could handle it.

            He opened his jaws and sent his Master’s Wrath scything across the sky. A knight a hundred yards away who thought himself and his ride safe was blasted burning from the sky in a blaze of electrum Light and went flaming down to ruin.

            Four, barreling through some blasts of pink fire to the face and impaling the knight with a crunch of protesting metal, magic, and bone. The knight went flying as he tossed his head, grasping the gibbering Disk the fellow was riding and rending it apart with claws Burning with vivus the demonic thing didn’t like very much.

            Three.

            His wings spread wide and he turned with impossible agility for his size and weight, losing almost no speed and swept past another knight who blasted him frantically, before Rattles smashed through him like a wrecking ball and he and his shattered Disk went tumbling away.

            Two.

            He focused his eyes, and his Master’s Wrath played down the length of Whiskers, reached out to the one fleeing towards the incoming Warprays, and blasted him and his Disk to smoking ruin.

            The last one he was swooping after, wings spread wide and misting with magic, screamed in fear as Feature came for him, claws flaming with three colors of anathemic magic spreading wide as Whiskers sparkled with the residues of Wrath.

            There was no way the thing could outrun him. He swept in, took the knight’s head off his shoulders with a casual twitch of his muzzle, grabbed the Disk, and tore the screaming thing apart as its eyes all twitched crazily.

            Which left the ones screaming down from altitude above him, a crazily-imbalanced discordant sound which was probably meant to strike against mortal minds.

            Against a mind protected by Protection from Chaos at VIII, not so much.

            Still, they had dive momentum and had spread out to come at him from all directions. The way their jaws were sparkling meant they probably were confident of eating through his hide, and their numbers gave them strength. The raw arcane magic dribbling off of them didn’t frighten him, and besides, what did he care about their dive momentum, of that of the chariot coming up behind them?

            He turned on his tail and flew straight up.

            The charioteer was definitely surprised by the tactic, but it didn’t discomfit the screaming Warprays at all, confirming that their own flight was completely magical. Feature couldn’t smile at all, but would have when he crossed the flightpath of the burning chariot and went for some height, quickly followed by all eighteen of the hunting Warprays...

            Which brought everything into the proper area.

            The spell his master had passed to him to carry was coughed out with a laugh. In a lofty place, King Gravity looked down from His great throne, pointed down, and Queen Physics’ eyes burned with resentment for the ectoplasmic things which were completely ignoring everything from both of them.

            The Stillflight Field rippled out, and caught everyone.

            Feature’s vertical momentum stopped in seconds, but those of the Warprays stopped instantly. Their screams faltered and changed tone remarkably as suddenly whatever ecto-gliding, mana-lifting hover-coasting process they were using suddenly didn’t work at all.

            Neither did that of the Chariot and its bigger Warprays now directly below him.

            Flapping wings that were not actually ever used for true aerodynamics, the demon Warprays fell from the sky backwards, flailing, unable to turn around or maneuver, just heavy leaves whose tails were more aerodynamic than their fronts.

            Thus, they were fully aware of the dragon turning around leisurely above them in place, and coming down at them, his jaws spreading wide, Burning fangs framing the inferno rising in his throat as he plummeted down at them.

            Their screams rose in broken shrillness that died abruptly as he Burned a path completely through the shrieking mess of them, and their ectoplasm burned as they tumbled down from the sky, ablaze and dying forever.

            The Chariot was falling faster than they were, being solid as it was, but held upright by the field of magical force around it, an ablative aura that might even allow it to survive the impact with its rider.

            Leisurely, Feature matched its velocity and pummeled it with his master’s Wrath.

            They’d been more than a mile in the sky, so thirty seconds to the ground or so, enough time for five blasts. The knight-sorceror was screaming and gesturing madly, trying to reinforce the field of magic around him as he fell, and the Wrath slammed into it with hungry eldritch power. Feature managed his descent deftly with his wings, keeping right above the Chariot and the two Warprays twisting impotently in their harnesses.

            The sorcerer-knight reached out and pulled the power out of the Warprays, instantly sacrificing both of them for their mana. Feature swept a blast of Wrath across them to make sure the things died forever, but it was enough power to reinforce the Chariot and let the Caster survive.

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