[Warpworld] Ch 12 – Extermination Agenda
Added 2025-03-29 04:05:47 +0000 UTC« Chapter 11 | Index | Chapter 13 »
“They’re calling to all the searcher teams that something has been found,” I judged. “If they get destroyed, the other warbands will know where to search, since there’ll be no response from here.
“We’ve been found. Feature, come down out of the sky. I’m putting up the Stillflight Field, and we’ll see if we can get the fliers down out of the sky and remove them as a problem.”
My invisible Familiar promptly headed for the ground. He had no wish to be caught in the area of such a thing while aflight, having experienced them and watched the effects on others who’d been caught unawares. He could borrow Cloudstepping Sandals from me to feather-weight himself down in a slow glide and land without harm, but that basically made him a sitting duck for the same time period, and he couldn’t do much more, not possessing any true reusable long-range firepower… not to mention spiritual exposure to Warp energies was a bad idea here.
Long-range firepower was, after all, was my job.
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Ices had burrowed into the thick snowfall covering the mountainside with the skill of a master ambush predator. The snowpack here was over ten feet deep, ancient and compressed, less melting than being turned into ice and adding another layer in slow increments, until the weight became too much and it all gave way in the form of a thundering avalanche.
Which was definitely a possibility for me, but later.
The first manticore rider came in, his own horn fishing for replies, and finding nothing. Any tracks had been rapidly filled in by the blowing wind, so he had nothing to follow, and nothing was replying to him.
Which naturally was suspicious on its own, as the outriders from the warband below were proving, heading rapidly towards the pass, sure they’d finally found something.
It was time for the annoying dragon, hydra, and their master to pay, and our skulls to adorn the throne of their patron demon god!
Right...
I was sitting on the top of the Pyramid for maximum overview of the surrounding area, my Rings and Staff giving me a 360 angle of vision, if not magnified. My ability to see magic and Auras had a range of thousands of feet, and the Black of the manticore rider’s gifts from his Patron were impossible to miss, even in the blowing static coming through from the Planar Breach on the wind.
The rider circled the pass once, looking for signs of something, anything to draw his interest. Unfortunately for him, he wasn’t a wizard and couldn’t see the illusion that made the Pyramid look like an extension of the mountain, and both of the monsters were under the snow or invisible.
He did dip down lower above the snows as the other two airborne riders came in, their own champions of Klaw upon them, especially the fellow in massive over-spiked plate armor on the two-headed drake.
The two manticore-riders were emphatically gestured down to land, and obeyed without hesitation. If something was hidden and laying in ambush, they would spring it, revealing it to everyone, and were definitely strong enough to endure any close combat, which held no fear for them. Dying in melee combat was basically their preferred method to die!
But the big fellow staying on overwatch in the air could also come swooping in to join either of them in combat, surely enough to definitely save one of them, and possibly both if the other one held on long enough.
Well, that was until all three of them abruptly plummeted from the sky. King Gravity upon his Throne of Mass glanced over to this place, sneered at the things that thought they could fly, and pounded His fist on the arm of His mighty seat.
The manticores gliding in to land actually had their spread wings break from their combined mass, sending them into uncontrolled, roaring dives as the sky was no longer their bitch to ignore.
The drake didn’t have it so bad, its wings not breaking, but it still plummeted as it lost all lift, corkscrewing wildly as it was unable to beat its wings against its true weight, and it and its rider went howling down into the snows.
I hadn’t missed the Collars of Klaw on the necks of the lion-headed, whip-tailed manticores, either. A Stillflight Field wasn’t a direct attack on them, so they could suck it.
The fall wouldn’t kill the beasts or the riders. There was too much snow there, it would be more akin to dropping into some slightly tougher water. Both mounts and riders were unnaturally tough and magically-reinforced, and would certainly survive.
However, they’d also be driven down deep into the snows, and unlike the scouts, they didn’t have snowshoes or skis on. Getting out of the snow would be an interesting challenge. Maybe burrow towards the sides and the rock there.
However, they had other problems. Namely, the two furrows cutting towards them under the snow, who were certainly not hampered by all the frozen white stuff at all.
The spotters for the oncoming horde had definitely seen the trio fall from the sky on their mutated mounts, so they knew something was going on here, just not exactly what.
The drake with the second swollen, over-toothed brass-and-scarlet head burst out of the snow, screaming wildly in frustration and flapping broken wings, yowling at the pain and frustration as it spread its mass over the snow, while the rider who was still on its back waved around a flaming great axe in one hand like it was a willow wand, screaming out something about coming out to fight like a man instead of a coward, etc.
Then he looked over in time to see Ices and Feature arch out of the snow and come down on the hapless manticores and their riders with burning jaws and claws, and a whole lot of ripping and tearing commence as tons of beasts and riders went rolling and thrashing through the mad scramble of the snows.
Yep, he definitely had the right spot. The big question was what was I going to do about the two of them?
They found out when I turned the entire area around them to slush and mud. Not being capable of flight, and being armored up and distinctly heavier than water, they shouted as they fell down underneath the snows, my Shape Stone XIII+1 working just enough on mud to part it under them and ensure that they slid down, down, down about sixty feet, surrounded by mud on all sides, nothing to brace themselves with and clawing at the gunk around them.
They looked up just as the pit above them solidified into stone again, but before they could climb out, it flowed over and into place atop them, trapping them down there.
I closed up the entire pit in twelve seconds, and then I cleared away an inch of space around a cylinder of stone forty feet high and ten feet across.
Something like two hundred tons of stone fell down on top of the clawing, scrabbling duo down there I’d not cast any spells at, and there was a solid crunch.
The Rune I’d thoughtfully Shaped under their feet poofed to life as they died, and they began to Burn. The energies of the Warp and the Axe and Armor of the Champion made them particularly intense, especially under the compressing pressure of the column of stone from above.
---
Feature popped up his head first, the arms of the rider in his claws and the head of the manticore impaled on his Noseblade Whiskers. Rattles, his Tailmace, had flattened the helmed skull of the other to a bloody pancake, and the whole lot was messily burning mistfires now.
I watched two armored arms go flying from the fracas that was Ices and the other manticore and rider, complete with a lot of growling. The rider actually followed a moment later as Ices focused on the manticore. Two heads were on each front claw, two more were on the sides of its head, keeping its jaws at bay, and four more were holding back the whipping tail and its spikes, keeping them useless. That left heads Five and Six to tear out its throat while Ices’ new big back legs prevented any raking and their greater mass kept the manticore suppressed.
Eventually Ices rolled it over, pinned the spiked tail with their own, and six heads quickly lashed over to rip out the manticore’s throat as it struggled and thrashed and grew increasingly weaker, until Ices heaved and tore basically everything out of its neck, leaving its head hanging by a bloody spine.
The whole thing poofed rapidly into vivus, Ices straightening up with all twelve heads and roaring a layered, oddly harmonic bellow of victory into the sky to celebrate their accomplishment.
“Well, so much for stealth,” I mused down to the two of them, Feature just shaking his head a little, and Ices only looking a little abashed as my words came down to them. “Tear that knight’s head off and get him to Burning.”
Feature cut through the snow like a jet-and-silver snake, quite familiar with Stillflight Fields. The surviving rider, the spurting blood from the stumps of his arms having stopped, could only kick and curse futilely as Whiskers Burned with anathema for Chaos and vivus supplemented it, chopping down once dutifully after one heavy claw smashed down on the man’s breastplate to hold him in place.
I’d retrieve the Armor and Weapons of the riders, and the Collars of the mounts, to Burn away, dutifully efficient lad that I was. Their corpses could just feed the Land, which was having quite a hungry reaction to the vivus pouring the pure stuff instead of Tainted Chaos into it.
Well, it was going to get fed a whole lot more, so that should come as no surprise.
My eyes went to the oncoming horde, and I sighed. They were cutting into my work schedule, so I supposed I would have to make it quick. I had a lot of work to do and didn’t want to get into a major fight before I completed all of this.
I hopped off the top of the Pyramid and skimmed my way towards the ground. King Gravity and I were on good terms, and when a Stillflight Field was up, I could still drift down at reduced speed.
Feature slithered over to the end of the Stillflight Field and rose up off the ground to await me. Seeing that, Ices cut quickly through the snows to join him.
I kind of sideboarded down the air to the edge of the Stillflight Field, and landed politely right on Feature’s neck. Ices popped up out of the snow right next to us, hissing excitedly.
“All heads, bring it in,” I snapped my fingers, and promptly had twelve big fanged maws clustering in close to listen to me. I telekinetically laid a hand on each of their heads, and looked into all of their eyes at once with no eyes of my own.
“I’m not bringing you down there, this isn’t your kind of fight.” I patted each of them consolingly as their necks drooped. “I am going to give you a very good view of it.” I hummed and Mass Eagle Eyes popped up on all of the eyes, giving them a x100 human standard forward vision multiplier, making them all blink. “Watch, get an idea of how I’m going to fight this. You have a way of fighting that is best for you, and this is not it. This is an opponent that simply cannot deal with me. Number One, make sure you’re all commenting on what I’m doing, see if you can get any ideas for everyone to practice on.”
They nodded, I give them all a pat on the nose and a chuck on the chin, and Feature peeled away as a wave of Invisibility cloaked us from sight.
-----
Ices plowed through the snow to a vantage point next to the stones, laying their snowy white necks on the dark stone to gain a good view of what was going to come.
The magic of the master chopped the distance to the invaders down to a level where they could identify individual fur-and-armor-clad individuals without any problem from at least three miles away. Ices settled in to watch the coming show.
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