[Be Gone] Ch 18 – Bad News Tigers

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I inclined my head slightly at the news. “That sounds like a big hint that we’re in a place with different Rules at play. Let me make a guess...” I tilted my head back, thinking. “You’ve got all your powers, whatever you brought with you when you arrived. But when you started using Karma to access the Akasha, you couldn’t add anything actually new... someone else with you had to have it first.”

            “That is it precisely, Aelryinth,” Mother Bea confirmed firmly.

            “Fifty years of getting by on the Great Book.” At my head tilt, Korbald went on. “We made up a list of what everybody had gained from the game, and put it in a big book. It basically told everyone what spells they could learn, what Classes they could take, and to what Levels they could take them.”

            I considered how much that would restrict someone, particularly a Cleric. “And no Divine connection, correct?”

            Mother Bea nodded quietly. “We had to use Theurgy to circumvent the lack of a Divine Link. Heartsong, Arcane power, Druidic power...”

            “And thus your Empyreal Bloodline.” Perfect choice for a Good Cleric. “Fifty years, you say?” I asked calmly, looking them over, but before they could respond, I went on, “Either you’re damn short on gold, or it interfered with stuff you could make, as well.”

            “Good eyes. Uh...” I waved off Korbald’s gaff easily. “Same limit. Unless someone made it in game, we couldn’t add it to a Weapon, even with Named Weapons. Naturally nobody had actually made a non-Named Weapon with vivus, and before we got here, nobody had Cast a Magic Weapon Buff using vivus...”

            My face twisted, and then I looked to one side sharply, pointing with Mortus Dius.

            Twin pulsing Shardrays in ROYGBIV+White hues, girt in Kickers, shot out eighty paces and plunged into the waters.

            Something long and rather impressive in size was briefly illuminated by the Rays, and like the mutant carp, its hydrostatic sense impelled it to lunge out of the water, as if massive weights were closing in on it from all sides.

            It wasn’t big enough to swallow the carp, being more along Feature’s size, but was thicker than him because aquatic.

            It also had two holes burned through its vaguely serpentine head’s scales, gouting vivic flame, and was howling in pain as its innards were energetically dusted.

            Twenty windfire Arrows descended on its head within the space of a second, discharged, and pretty much blew it apart. A fountain of vivus hit the water, and spread clarity across the ink like someone wiping clean a dirty window.

            Down below in the sudden clarity, dark things burned and drove for the surface, trying to get away from the killing water. Things got pretty active in the area, and the lightfooters were whooping as creatures came up from beneath them wildly and were haplessly cut apart with single-strike Forms, helping make the water even clearer, at least until more black oily stuff pushed it all downstream.

            “You truly aren’t Casting, Ael,” Mother Bea murmured, watching all that. “You said you had Matrix disruption...?”

            “Full story when we can all sit down and share war stories, if you please. Although, if you have any extra starter Shard Wands you don’t mind getting rid of, I’ll take them all.”

            They all blinked. “That’s a Wand charge?” Korbald asked carefully.

            “Wand as Staff. Got a starter Shard Wand in a Wand Chamber inside my Staff,” I said cheerfully.

            “What Level are you Casting at?” Rapman blurted out from the back. “Those Shards are almost blinding!”

            “Effectively 34ish? Plus Penetration,” I replied easily.

            “Thirty...” Tread echoed for all of them. “Damn! How much time has passed on Earth?!”

            “A little over ten years.”

            They all went abruptly silent as I relayed that news to them.

            “Only ten years?” Korbald asked softly, for all of them. Bea knew, but had said nothing, obviously.

            “Yeah,” I replied, equally quietly.

            “Did... have they found any more of us? Of the Archmage’s people?” Bronze spoke up awkwardly.

            “No. I wouldn’t have stumbled across you without Mithar’s help. There’s no way me being here is random chance or an accident. We’re just too goddamn far away from Terra-Luna for that to be true.”

            “Terra-Luna?” Korbald repeated.

            “There’s more than one Earth out there. Alternate dimensions and all, you know. But we’re the only one in orbit around a big red planet the size of Jupiter. Terra the Moon, Terra-Luna.”

            “So that’s where we came out,” Tread muttered. “I wondered what that was, but we didn’t really have time to understand everything before the moon fell on us...”

            “Everyone pretty much figured you all died with the Archmage, which I imagine you realized, too... Well, hokey shittiniski, Batman...” I muttered, looking downriver. “You people downriver better swing back behind me right now.”

            My Voice carried clearly, and the lightfooters ahead and downriver of me all looked over sharply.

            “Get behind us now!” Korbald Ordered, with all the authority behind him, and they obeyed instantly. He had his Axe unlimbered and raised now. “What are we looking at?” he asked me.

            “Big turtle?” I conjectured, looking at the Black image in my head. “Shell like that, I’m not shooting it.”

            “The Snapper is here?!” Bronze exclaimed, as lightfooters hastily diverted course behind Feature. Wrathfire was blazing on the river now, and a broad arc of purified water was heading downstream behind us from where Sin was blazing en vivus on and in the river.

            “Good call on holding fire. Demonic Dragon Turtle. Its shell can bounce almost all directed spells,” Mother Bea told me, as a ripple suddenly began about two hundred meters downstream, like the water was breaking on a rock. Except the ripple was coming this way, and it was getting thicker and higher.

            “Its belly?” I asked politely. I was pretty sure we could beat the thing to shore, but that went against the grain of what I was trying to do. A Named beastie meant something that had been annoying them, which they hadn’t been able to kill.

            “...I don’t know,” she admitted.

            “How many of you have Heaven’s Answer, and how many can contribute to it?” I asked Korbald.

            His gray eyes widened slightly as Feature glided to a stop, and wrathfire blazed as the Wall burned down into the water, stripped of almost all power... except the vivus, which was the only thing that was important.

            The water beneath us blew into clarity, and like before, dark things began to burn and jetted for the surface to get out of the suddenly purified water all around them.

            “Step off, and we’ll get you a shot into its belly,” I said, and they all got off quickly. Mother Bea promptly began chanting a Call Lightning, as other scattered spellcasters did the same, and men bearing souls of Thunder knelt on planes of force or on the surface of the oily waters that had gone transparent below them.

            Up above, the clouds began to roil and churn.

            I sat down on Feature, and Wrath burned in a tight ring about us just as the very broad area of cleared water downstream was intruded into by a very large and dark form that didn’t see the vivus coming. The sudden eruption of whiteness breaking over it caused an eruption of spray as it came hastily to the surface.

            Feature was already underwater and streaming to the attack. Whiskers glimmered, and Animal Growth’d him from its daily allotment, which he was specifically eligible for as a Druidic Animal Companion, la.

            Doubling in all dimensions came with a hefty Strength bonus, eight times as much mass, and impressive damage from natural attacks, the latter being of least importance.

            Feature was as at home in the water as a sea serpent or anaconda, propelled by magic and Shared Water Elemental Command from Primus. The vivus in the Wrathfire blew away any Corruption in the water around us, chasing away anything vaguely menacing down here, and killing that which wasn’t almost instantly.

            I saw the discharge of the arrows from above, desultory as they couldn’t do more than stick in the massive shell at best, and most just bounced.

            That said, the massive thing was reeking with Sin, and while this wasn’t holy water, it was like taking a bath in mild acid full of anathema for all that it was. It was rather urgently trying to get back to the black water... except there was clear water all around it, and there was no fast way out at the moment, except forward.

            Feature had a clear shot at it, and how could he miss that fat silhouette? It still had its neck out because it was still swimming, raising it out of the water that was annoying it so much to protect its eyes, but its hard frill was also ignoring the arrows coming from above.

            A set of big jaws closing on that neck as a massive gold-and-silver patterned serpentine body wrapped around it, not so much.

            Feature latched on as Raptured venom drove into the huge Corrupted dragon turtle, ignoring the clawed fins already tearing at him as he wrapped around its shell, and heaved.

            Already top-heavy, the turtle the size of a small island flipped right over. The turtle was plenty strong... or had been, before Feature pumped a whole lot of Strength-destroying Rapture into it.

            Mortus Dius was raised as I sat on Feature’s coil, the Spear of the Four Seasons gleaming black and blazing with Wrath inside a great electrum Eldritch Blade. I chopped down, and the flaming blade came down precisely with Find the Flaw, inserting itself into the crack between two massive belly plates.

            Astutely, Feature’s coils sidled and slid backward, giving those watching plenty of room for what was coming.

            The skies opened up, and a vortex ascending to Heaven peeled up into the sky above as the Sublime Chord rang out in an angelic chorus of Truth, Hope, and Valor. A thousand lightning bolts thundered celestial glory above, and down they came as the disbelieving mass of The Snapper could only stare.

            They all came down right into Mortus Dius’ spike, and were conducted fully into the interior of The Snapper’s body.

            A whole lot of silver-gold voltage blew out all six of its limbs, dark flesh eroding away and blasted into dust. The serpentine neck trying to reach Feature convulsed as the lines of golden light from Feature’s jaws assailing it from within flared, and then blew its head clear off its neck.

            Magnus reached out and provided enough positive lift to the skull to keep it floating with its Telekinesis.

            Feature disengaged from the dragon turtle smoothly, staying above the surface as it bobbed, wrapped around it just enough to keep it upside down... and amusingly enough, floating on the surface of the water as vivus burned away most of whatever was inside it.

            The suddenly white shell burning with vivus spilling mistfire out all six holes around it was pretty striking, as well as the fact that the water for three hundred paces in all directions was as clear as crystal.

            “Nice shooting!” I raised my thumb to the Heavens above as the skies closed, being that sort of a person. Cheers sounded out in every direction, rather incredulous at the sight of the massive beast’s crystallizing shell floating there, completely dwarfing even the suddenly massive dragon.

            “Let’s get this thing to shore before you shrink,” I told Feature. He began to drag the burning, crystallizing shell slowly towards the far shore, Magnus hauling its skull along skimming after us.

            The lightfooters swept up on both sides to escort us, while those on the force-bridge above cheered again and hurried to keep pace.

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