[Warpworld] Ch 11 – Pressure on the Pyramid

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            “This is a belly slide for you.” The twelve heads all blinked at me. “You slide all the way to the bottom, then you run up the trail back to the top, and do it as many times as you like!” So saying, I popped up a Disk, jumped on it, dropped on the ground, and whooped as I took off down the slope. “See if you can keep up!” I called back to them.

            Ices’ heads all hissed, and only a moment later, they threw themselves after me, tucking their legs back and sliding along on their belly, using their tail to steer.

            I was moving at a good clip, but roars echoed off the narrow walls behind me as the delighted cryohydra closed in on me down the long initial slope. Then we were careening around an icy curve, Ices tumbling a bit as they lost their balance and I got away from them. Thrilling to the chase, they clawed their way for some speed, and zipped after me excitedly.

            It was quite a chase, but they didn’t have an actual chance of catching me. I was using lightfoot to go as fast or slow as I wished, so I could keep just ahead of the eager hydra who was snapping after me without any trouble, staying just inches ahead of the lunging heads at time.

            “Oh, follow me!” I shouted as we hit the final slope, and aimed directly for the ramp there instead of the safe circle off to the side. Tail plowing a furrow in the packed snow, Ices hissed down the slope after me, right up the ramp, and then kind of barked oddly as first I, then they became airborne, and we came right down into the cold pond at the bottom of the run.

            It was a very big splash for both of us of course, taking the impact easily. I rose up out of the water, perfectly dry, as Ices thrashed for a moment, getting their balance and ballast straightened out. They thrashed their tail and big legs, making it back to the surface without too much difficulty.

            Their over-eager heads snapped up at me as I drifted down to them, and I cuffed them in greeting. “Five, Seven, mind your manners,” I told them, and they retreated, abashed. “How’s the swimming going?” I asked them.

            Number One hissed out that they hadn’t gotten to swim that much in the mountains, especially after their body had changed. They began to thrash around rather oddly and slowly, their tail good for power but not very practiced at it.

            “I think this place is big enough and deep enough for you to practice without much effort. Remember that your necks can help you swim, too.” I made swervy motions with one hand. “If you all work as Team Hydra, you can snake your way through the water with pretty good speed, especially with that big tail helping you!”

            The pool was neither overly large nor overly deep, but it was enough for the massive creature to play around in. I could consider making a larger lake in the future, but it would probably take almost an entire spell to make one big enough for it.

            That was fine. Having a nice fresh water supply handy could be helpful, and if I was going to make my own paradise, it should have a good supply of fish, right?

            “Over here is the trail leading back up to the top, where you can get back to your cave and try sliding the run again.” Ices hurried to the shore and came out dripping, then freezing and the ice flaking off them as they headed up the trail quickly, eagerly finding out the bounds of this territory. “I have an idea, too.” The odd heads turned to look back at me, while the evens stayed intent on the trail up as I paced them from above. “The next time you go down the slope, do it on your back, keeping your legs and claws off the snow. I bet you go REAL fast then!”

            All of the heads danced excitedly at the thought, and their bounding pace back to the top actually increased as they shifted back and forth along the rather irregular trail back to the top.

            They’d be getting some good cardio going up and down this place, that was sure, something no hydra ever did!

------

            “So, what do the two of you think of the place?” I asked a couple hours later. I was on the transition veranda, sipping a drink of wine Korbald had sent along with me.

            Ices was sprawled out on the big boulder next to the back of the manse’s exit. Feature was laying in coils across the roof about me, his head lolling down just above my shoulder and looking down the valley with me.

            I listened to their energetic comments with a tilt of my head. Ices found it very nice, although the warmer areas down the slope weren’t really for him. There certainly were a lot of strange nooks and crannies to investigate, of course, and many, many plants and things he hadn’t smelled before!

            Feature found it all very interesting, although its size was limiting when one could fly around. It had pleasing aesthetics, and in snake form gave him plenty of places to slither around in. I had to agree with him, but I only had so much I could do at one time, and 45k of goldweight was not cheap, nor easy to run through easily.

            Not that I wasn’t going to do just that over time, of course! Magnifying the value of gold through Energizing, Crafting, crafting, and the like was just rote use of downtime now, and Fabrication could completely a whole day of work in seconds. Pair, Admixture, and Echo such stuff, and I could get weeks of work done in minutes easily enough.

            Never forget the Crafting and making magic items if possible. The demand for them never went away, and they all had the damn time constraints on them. I had to do all the crafting side of things myself, but seriously, I could spend all day and night on doing that and never run out of things to make.

            Heck, making the Pyramid was just one more Crafting of Magical Architecture.

            “Ices, the place will get bigger, and I’ll be able to cut down on your need to eat. If you don’t mind shifting your lair here, you can come with me when we get moving.”

            Their heads perked up, the dozen of them looking up and around and conversing to one another with quiet hisses. At last, they turned back to me and murmured their assent.

            More room to swim was their biggest request. They’d taken quite a liking to it.

            “Good to know!” The cryohydra had spent a lot of time running up and skiing down their private snowslope, and were happily tired after having more fun than they’d ever had in their life.

-------

            I turned my head sharply as the Alarm went off, and got to my feet immediately, handing off my glass to a waiting Servant to be washed up and stowed away. “We’ve got visitors,” I announced to the pair of them.

            Feature hissed, and the dozing heads of Ices snapped up alertly. Both creatures got to their feet in their own way. “Archway,” I pointed, “and keep it quiet.”

---

            The Portal opened just in time for me to hear the rolling, uneven notes of a hunting horn fade away, doubtless signaling that someone had found something of great interest.

            I stepped around the edge of the Portal while Invisible, Feature gliding past me and into the air the same way, gaining altitude and turning back to get a look at the area, while the crouching Ices stalked through and turned all twelve of their heads in all directions, looking for a target.

            The Pyramid floated about five feet off the ground, humming very faintly as geomagnetic repulsion kept the blocks of it aloft. Ices hissed as the Portal faded, and I crouched down next to Number Seven head, who had noticed the feet of someone standing on the slope on the opposite side of the Pyramid.

            Pinged Black on my Detect Evil at IX, too.

            “Left, cut them off if they try to run down the slope. Take it slow and quiet,” I hissed to the cryohydra.

            Ices hissed to me and slowly stalked off in that direction. The normal wind cutting over the mountain and shrieking around under the Pyramid was enough to shield them from noise until they got abnormally close, especially since they were invisible.

            No form of flight or lightfoot was going to work underneath the Pyramid, so I zipped in the other direction, going upslope as Feature fed me the view from above.

            Looked like a team of four. They’d hooked a line to the bottom block and two of them had scrambled onto the Pyramid. One of them was at the start of the steps going up to the twenty-second level, where my progress was currently at, and the other was at the top, looking around at the perfectly flat surface I’d stopped at after completing that level. I hadn’t put any internal areas into this Pyramid, devoting it entirely to its singular function of becoming the biggest goddamn vivic torch possible, intended to seal the Planar Breach.

            So, it was a big hunk of rock nineteen levels up, meaning three hundred and eighty feet high, eight hundred feet wide and long, floating here inside an illusion one of them had been lucky enough to stumble through, and nobody was around.

            Well, hadn’t been around.

            “Check to see who that horn was directed at,” I told Feature, and he zipped towards the downslope to get a better view down the mountain and over the tundra beyond.

            I hopped up to the first block effortlessly, and then Flew on up with magic, zipping up the forty-five-degree incline quickly.

            The marauder scout was pacing around the edge of the Pyramid, clearly awed and mystified by what he’d stumbled onto. That ended rather abruptly when I zipped across the middle of the area past him, and flicked a Shard into him.

            He was nowhere near tough enough to resist all the Holy Metas and Kickers on my basic spell, and was launched off the Pyramid like from a catapult. Only ashes and dust remained long before he could reach the ground, blown away by the wild mountain winds as I also came into sight of the guy at the foot of the stairs, looking up at my now-visible self.

            A second later, he was blasted off my Pyramid, and almost made it to the snow-covered stone below and behind him before he, too, was white dust.

            The two men in hides and spikes standing on the slope there stared up at me in shock, and started to raise their weapons in defiance at me.

            All twelve of Ices’ heads roared at once, turning their gazes and absolutely freezing them with the sight of twelve reptilian heads with great burning fangs reaching for them. 1 and 2’s heads snapped down on the axe and spear, 3 through 6 grabbed the four limbs of the first guy while 7 ripped his head off, and 8 through 12 did the same things to the second scout as the cryohydra charged right through them, picking both of the men right off the ground and ripping them into six pieces in sprays of blood.

            “Well done. Indulge quickly,” I Said down to the cryohydra, who expertly began to strip the meat from the bones of the men, vivic flames burning faintly on their flesh. Not just death, the beginning signs of mutation, probably rote cold resistance.

            -Warband coming this way from across the tundra,- Feature /reported. -Three fliers coming this way, all mounted. Two on manticores and one on a two-headed drake.-

            Well, weren’t they waiting for something and eager to get here, I mused. I had four to five more days to complete this Pyramid, depending on how many hours a day I devoted to it.

            Well, they’d still have no idea what was here until they pierced the illusion, they only knew the horn call came from this valley. Even the gore of Ices’ kills was inside the Hallucinatory Terrain over the place at the moment.

            Well, the news was going to get out sooner or later. I looked at the Chaos knight on the Warped manticore winging my way, and considered my options coolly. Obviously, the more I killed now, the longer I’d have before there were more interruptions.

            Feature communicated the sounds of more horns going off in the distance in discordant notes, carrying with magical force and clarity.

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