Chapter Two Hundred and Twenty-Four – Big Ugly Rock Fall Down Go Boom

Yep, Zone 14 still...

Hazé stopped her strafing and brought up two Walls of Fire in front of two of the six entrances to the complex, forcing the undead into taking double-damage banefire'd flames to the face to get to them. The Heavenbound immediately sealed off three of the others, and General Moonriver the last.

The dragons had swooped in to join them as the last of the wedge came flying through, spreading out with the hellpoodles to cover each of the entryways. The archers and the Casters flanked them, and as the toughest of the undead managed to make it through the Walls of buffed-out flames, salvoes of undead-eating arrows, magic, and breath weapons, coordinated to maximum effect, slammed out to meet them.

The dwarves and Ironblood converged on the skeletal warriors not being taken apart by the previous four, mobbing them with shields and thrusting in for what damage they could inflict, reinforcing one another and not letting themselves be thrown back like they had before. Shields screamed as bony appendages and rotting Swords and Axes that shouldn't work crunched against the troops surrounding them... but this time, they held, smashing their victims to and fro, taking advantage of their lack of mass and heavyfoot to render them off-balance.

Tremble floated overhead, the griffons ripped the last of the skeletal bats and pterosaurs out of the skies with burning claws and beaks, watching the unlimited horde that was converging from all directions, covering the ground for literally miles around with rushing undead bodies big and small.

It took less than two minutes for the Big Four to rip their way through the dozen skeletal warriors, each of the ones enfolded by the troops turning in anticipation as they saw the Shields opening up... and then seeing nothing coming for them, only to be surprised by the sudden arrival of Grace, Endure, Zeitgeist, and Quaver, all come to play.

"Take it down!" Sama ordered, her voice cutting through the thunderous, collective moans of millions of undead, resonating through the Elevated Music. The apes howled together, vine ropes were snatched up, and they climbed up the rough basalt thing glowing with yellow-green Runes, shrieking in fear and loathing as they touched it, but still continuing.

The fighting lines quickly reorganized as the Healers tended to the wounded fast, forming up shield and spear lines before the six entrances. The dragons and hellpoodles pulled away to the Obelisk, while the griffons above alighted on the stone columns ringing this plaza, eyes sweeping everywhere, missing nothing, warning everyone of what was coming.

Long vines wrapped around the top of the Obelisk, layer on layer of braided vines extending down into the ready hands of the strongest apes, and Elder Arg. Briggs decided the angle, and then the One-Two-Threes started.

The elven Casters with Fire Reserves poured the power into Captain Fido, who sent a steel-melting Topped blast of fire into the side of the Obelisk. An inhalation later, Captain Shirley and the Two Valor Dragons slammed it with enough combined cold to freeze helium. An inhalation later, triple blasts of lightning from the Shield dragons hammered at the black stone, sending shards flying in every direction.

Fire howled down on it again, and overstressed rock expanded and disintegrated. Cold came, it crumbled, and lightning followed, to explode and shatter.

The apes were all pulling steadily, feet wide and braced, heaving back on multiple creaking rope vines, feeling the Obelisk tremble.

The magic-resistant stone cracked and crumbled and shook, as a huge bite was taken out of its base.

The breathers poured over to the other side, at closer range now, and began the bombardment again, across a narrower strip.

One, Two, Three, repeat...

One minute, two, shredding a narrow path across the base of the Obelisk, and the apes heaved opposite them.

There was a very loud crack, spreading through the base of the Obelisk. It began to sway and tilt. The apes howled and surged, muscles popping and sinews straining... and the tower of stone began to fall.

Shrieking with glee, the apes got out of the way, Elder Arg giving it one final pull before leaping in the opposite direction. The lines of shields and spears moved out of the way as the Obelisk tottered and fell, slowly, grandly, the Runes emblazoned all over it going out, right between two of the six pillars forming the entrances to the plaza. The griffons thereon didn't even move out of the way, just narrowing their eyes at the rush of wind as it fell past... right onto the forces of undead and the Wall of flame burning there.

The impact jolted the entire plaza, enough to send the Casters and Archers stumbling, while those with heavyfoot largely staved off the impact.

The undead outside all seemed to slow and mill around as a visible shockwave swept through them. The pell-mell rush to surround and overwhelm became more of a trot or walk, as whatever uniting force the Obelisk held over them vanished.

Now, it was target practice time.

----------

Yawn, Zone 14 again?!...

In the end, it took almost twelve hours to burn them all away.

As the only living things in the Zone, and definitely creating a commotion, they still attracted all the undead there... hundreds of square miles of them.

As they died, the vivic fires feasting on their remains spread out over the plaza, eventually becoming a virtual bonfire of unwhite fires, wiping out the weak skeletons before they could even make it to the plaza.

Like moths to honey, the mindless undead kept coming, stacking up their bones... and getting burned down literally as fast.

The intelligent undead were instantly noticeable because they stopped. Archers on Disks up beside the griffons on the columns instantly took note of them, and hatracked them with burning arrows.

Hazé, flying in the air, did the same. Endless streams of Shards and Shardrays continued pouring out from her, getting in the rep counts she would need to Weird the price of her Perpetual Spell down a level. Ten a minute, six hundred an hour... and one million twenty-four thousand to get to...

She was covering a third of an arc all by herself, Rays and Bolts and Shards flying out from her endlessly, multicolored eruptions among the undead, just target practice for her. Anything flying she started dealing with hundreds of yards away, and flocks of hundreds would be reduced to scattered numbers easily shot down before they could reach anyone.

---------

Okay, seriously, Zone 14 is taking way too long...

There really wasn't much to do. The entire plaza was now surrounded at about a hundred paces out by burning undead heaped more than thirty feet high, the vivic fire glowing with a sepulchral light, heavy mists wrapping knee-high through the area. The undead charging in never got down the mound before collapsing under the force of the flames, expanding the hill further out as they did.

Archers and Casters on Disks up in the sky were poking down any intelligent undead who might stop the incoming horde, but that was about all that was needed. Nevertheless, a lot of Casters were working on rep counts with their Reserves... why not, with so many targets? Aiming practice on top of it all was always a good thing...

The apes were up on the fallen Obelisk, or up atop the pillars not commandeered by the griffons, watching the endless undead marching blindly to their dooms. The vivic mist was as thick as soup, almost liquid, the hill of undead grew ever higher, ever further away, as they marched in mindlessly and died... or maybe willingly, as the sight of the vivic flames was seen very differently by the living and undead, perhaps beckoning them...

Even the Heavenbound were out there, practicing the uses of Wrath, making use of the casual time. With the undead having no ranged attacks, just endless numbers, it was a decent use of down time.

"I have to admit that this is a first even for me," Brother Ancientaxe said, seated on the steps to the dais and gazing at the thick vivic mist that stopped just below his heels. "The Land is feeding very well today."

I pointed up. He and Briggs glanced that way, where the clouds were getting lighter and lighter, prying apart that pale line the Wake was drawing through the inky clouds. There was a lot of negative energy here, and even with the millions that had died, the cloud cover hadn't broken yet.

"Given a couple years, this would be a nice not-a-Zone for the apes to expand into, if it weren't all going away," Briggs observed sagely, eyes more on the Marks-Up Display than anything else. Lines of red and orange x's, interspersed with the occasional yellow or green, were marching up and going away as they hit a blurry white line. Countless shapes were crawling to the top of the hill, igniting unwhite, and crumbling down, and the mound expanded out...

"Is there really a need for us to stay here, other than killing the intelligent undead?" Brother AA asked.

"Glory Award," Briggs and Sama said together, emphatically. The urkhar Brother lifted a dark eyebrow. "You'll know what it is when you feel it. It's the reward from mass combat, when you finish the job, drive or break your enemies before you, and accomplish a great deed in concert with many others. It's the reward of a Warlord, and those that fight with him," Briggs went on. "So, we see the deed through, and get our reward. How much longer, Sama?"

A couple of the dragons were a-wing, scouting the edges of the Zone, measuring the pace everything was moving at. "Six hours, give or take."

"Well, a rest is not unearned, but could we speed it up any?" AA asked archly.

"If the three of us went out there and chain-slaughtered until they were gone, we might speed it up by fifteen minutes," Sama informed him blandly. "Six hours of effort for fifteen minutes of reward..."

"Any harvests?" AA glanced at a small mound of unnaturally warped skulls sitting nearby. The undead Knights and pseudonaturals would auto-Invest as Lesser and True Baneskulls respectively once Carved appropriately, but naturally needed someone with the skills to do so. QL 30-35 didn't just stumble by...

"Other than the Weapons and armor of the bosses, no," Briggs sighed. Those were already being burned away by the apes, who really had a long way to go on their Gear... although not as much as a week or two ago. The weapons of the skeletons tended to be bone, obsidian, stone, or ironwood, so not much to salvage from those, and that was if they just didn't use naked carpals and teeth.

Sama grunted, bounced to her feet, grabbed one of the misshapen skulls off the pile, and sat down against the column nearby. She fixed her gaze on it, her nails began to caress the steel-hard bone, and white dust began to fall away.

"Let's do something a little more complex with these," she said to them, not looking away from the skull. "Qualifies as Undead and Aberrant Bane, or stacks on it as a Bane of Legends." Her fingers moved like delicate spiders over the bone, etching subtly, strongly, and already there was a glitter of fell blue-black light in the unequal sockets.

"Ohhhh, that sounds interesting. Give me the Pattern," Briggs said, also rising to his feet. AA grunted agreement, getting up as well. This sounded like a very useful tool.

One of the things that the Brotherhood had started investing Karma in seriously was Expert and Vizard levels. Even they had downtime, and one thing they had never lacked for was raw materials. Being able to Craft their own stuff during downtime had surprisingly come across as very relaxing and rewarding to all of them. Carrying around enough Tools to do so before had always been something of a problem, but now they were happy to Craft, stitch, sew, paint, mix, and assemble during their rest.

There was plenty of stuff that needed full workshops to do properly, and they certainly didn't have the time to stick around in one location to do that kind of work, but carving wood, bone, and stone traveled easily, and rewarded those who had steady hands and keen eyes with something other than placing a length of sharp metal into the vital points of things that had to Feed the Land...

---------

It was a pause, of moment like drawing in a fresh, cold breath. That instant when the deed was done, the mission accomplished, the goal achieved.

Victory.

It blew across their souls, perceptible, obvious, a recognition by the Land of accomplishment, of achieving a Great Thing, above the Karma of individual effort. This was the end results of souls coming together and accomplishing a Great and Worthy thing through combined strength, not individual strength.

This was Glory.

To those who'd never tasted it before, it was truly an awesome experience. A feeling of being connected to all who they had labored alongside, of collective undertakings rising up to do what must be done. To those with the most accomplishments, the greater Glory, but the true Glory was what was given to them all, standing together and fighting together.

Many of them had tasted lesser Glory on a battlefield, against the Warp Bands... but nothing like this, the purging of literally millions of undead from the land, a totally lopsided battle that they had somehow managed to engineer.

The Glory, even for the more seasoned souls, was overwhelming. They had done an awesomely Great Thing this day, and the Land had taken notice.

"So, this is what Warlords live for," Ancientaxe mused aloud, savoring the sensation, his crimson eyes glowing brighter. "And Champions, and those who lust for battle..."

"Yes. Eternal yet fleeting, powerful yet ephemeral. There is nothing like it... and little to rival it in the course of gaining Levels," I answered him. "Glory Awards are addictive, and why generals want to fight, fight, and fight. Glory is truly something that men strive for."

"So... this shattering of the Hags' ambitions, the destruction of the Warp Rift... these will also generate Glory?" he asked in understanding.

"Yes. And they should dwarf this. This was merely a slaughter, after all. Defying a millennia-long scheme, thwarting Divinities... yeah, much bigger," I replied knowingly.

He laughed softly to himself. Naturally, I was still power-gaming, even after all this. Or really, the power-gaming was meant to facilitate this...