Chapter Two Hundred and Seventy-Eight – A Spectacle to See, Autobows A-blazing

Wayfair was, of course, above getting her hands dirty in melee. It didn't mean she couldn't, it just meant that she wasn't that great at it, relatively speaking, and she vastly preferred using magic and ranged attacks to kill things. It was much easier on her nails.

She had, however, ridden around inside me, and was totally enthralled by my gunslinging ability. She (very) briefly regretted not advancing sideways into Marilith to get more arms to hold more autobows, but since she really, really wanted the Manticore Belt, why not get the Arakne Arms to go with it?

So, naturally, that's where the huge amount of Karma she earned by shuffling hundreds of thousands of goldweight out of the Shardzone had gone. Soulshaping, and some Archer levels.

Fall and Down were her models, of course. Greater Soulbound Force Speed hand Autobows with the appropriate Baneskulls attached, which she wore on stylish crisscrossed gunbelts and bandoliers, all black trimmed in silver. Two holsters on swaying hips, two under arms framing That Bust.

She told me what she wanted me to do, I made her a proper cowboy hat out of Mire Dragon hide and mithral, with a couple pure white feathers from her own angelic vohr stuck in it, handed her a proper set of dragonhide and mithral cowboy boots for Them Legs. I noted she was going to need Main Gauche bands for her Tails, and she could design her own custom leather vest.

She also got the Texan Drawl and Southern Belle accents down within literally seconds.

So, that's what she was doing right now. Her cowboy hat firmly anchored to her horns, her tails up above her like spitting serpents spewing out force-essence spikes, her silver-limned jet bat wings behind her like a great demonic cape, and her hand Autobows Vanity and Jealousy in her main hands, Desire and Lust in her Arakne Arms, exploiting everyone's insecurities.

Four spikes a round from her Tails, and six a round from each Autobow, at point blank range like this, slower if she shot at stuff far away.

Silver, of course, trailing stars, and, um, emitting bangs and pops of varying decibels levels and tones as she found them intimidating or amusing, and harmless pyrotechnic and eye-catching impact explosions too, if she was of a mind.

She was riding on Haul, which was only a foot or so above the ground. Her feet wouldn't leave it if she didn't want to, her legs were looser then rubber as I went up and down things, taking it all with aplomb, and being forewarned by me anyways, and while she was doing the equivalent of a song and dance routine, she was also shamelessly exploiting my Warlord bonus to help herself out.

She was using me and my Trembling Domain as her own targeting computer, her four Arms moving every bit as quickly as mine, while her Tails matched mine on offense, with Sparky providing something extra for me.

I was clearing a swathe twenty feet wide with my Blades, giving these Riggors no respect whatsoever, and my and Wayfair's missile fire to the sides was expanding that to a working thirty feet.

If it came within thirty feet, it was a point-blank shot, and it didn't matter that we were moving as fast as a person's dead sprint, every opening was yawning open, tracked and charted, and we were inserting endless ammunition into those openings.

The individual shots were nowhere near as strong as my swordwork, which was still one-shotting all the routine stuff, and two-shotting the tougher stuff, with only Greater Sluggors or similarly massive stuff taking more attention.

I bulled through stuff, equal parts sliding through and smashing aside as they came apart, steel screamed, flesh exploded in vivus and banefire. Riggors gargled in shock as they felt the pain of their alien energies and what was left of their souls getting consumed, and then the fellows who thought they were just out of reach got bolts of solid force in the eyes, necks, heads, open wounds, and similar entertaining spaces with dreadful accuracy.

Wayfair was dancing back there to the beat, while machine gun fire seemed to be roaring from her Autobows, exploding on her targets (and if they died and actually blew apart, bonus!) and having a good ol' time, there was no doubt about it.

All her Angelic Vohr were absolutely green watching her. All of them were archers, but there was no way they could match her rate of fire, even if they had Arakne Arms of their own, which they didn't. Sure, their arrows did twice as much base damage as a bolt, but the pure rate of fire and high base bonuses attached to that bolt totally blew away that fact. They had to sigh and content themselves with being much, much better snipers then she was.

With a working 50 Charisma from being an Exemplar Lite, Wayfair had a +20 Deflection bonus to her AC, meaning that basically nothing wanted to shoot at her, swing at her, or do anything to her, really, before anything like Force Armor, flawless jet steel-hard skin, or superhuman dexterity, reflexes, and dodging even came into play.

She rode the Sama Wagon, riding autobow, and even ignoring my Halo Crown, I was now every bit as noticeable as any of them there Helices and the thundering impacts of that Hammer as I trundled along. There was a literal wall of close-support ranged fire clearing away the stragglers around me, and when the two of us concentrated fire, well, it got bad REALLLLLY fast.

Given how the Riggors were staring at the misting carnage we were leaving behind as we tore through their obdurate, inexorable, inflexible, and heavily-armored lines, I am sure they appreciated the show, and the rear view of Wayfair pulling away with that hipswing in full view probably gave them immense regrets Down There.

-You know, that ensemble isn't complete without a lasso, as I'm sure Aethra would inform you,- I /told her leisurely, between cuts and slashes and stabs faster than a human eye could really see.

She promptly went sniffing through all the tropes I was thinking about, and agreed, and then considered for me all the other things said lasso could be used for. I kept my face straight, but finally lost it when she wondered if I had all those Erinyes levels yet, and if so, could she have one made out of my hair, as her own personal Binder's claim of... possession, said in JUST the right way?

I laughed for five minutes straight. And then I reached up, cut off fifty feet of my hair I'd woven together into a rope for her using my Vajra, and handed it back to her as we got to the end of a run.

She took it, winked at me, and said, "Thank y'all, sugah," just right, tying it to her hip.

I started laughing again, and was joined in mutual harmony by my shameless passenger. The jolly Riggors didn't seem too happy to see us laughing at them...

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Slow and remorseless, advancing over their dead, they threaded their way through the bottlenecks. They sent undead spilling into the trenches to occupy those down below, and dug up and hurled down the spikes to partially fill them in so they could advance across a wider area. They died, opening the way for others, and advanced steadily.

Over the trenches, through the second field, and then into the range of the Reservists.

Tightly packed and disciplined as they were, the magical area of effect attacks were the most devastating thing yet. While they were tough, they were not agile, and couldn't avoid the ceaseless attacks coming down from above. We could hear curses about Casters and elitist servants of jRaztl and condemnation of spellcasters, and when they tried to use their necromancy, lightning came down and added to their woes.

Most of their champions and Casters were long dead to the ceaseless thunderbolts coming from above. It didn't much stop the tide of armored bodies, but it meant that those left were easier to kill and certainly not as inspired, or as possessed of aura effects that could be quite debilitating.

In quiet, ordered fashion, they lined up and knelt down, locking in position and forming steps for those behind them, moving with uncanny group coordination. It made them perfect targets for Reservists, who blew out steps after steps with repeated bombardments of fire and lightning, and lines of thunderbolts plummeted down to do the same.

However, the front was too wide, the numbers too many, and the stairs of flesh and armor rose up ceaselessly.

The priests came up then, and showed them the hearts of their gods.

The positive energy was as bad as fire, and the Riggors howled in pain as The Light of a dozen different gods shown down upon them, and ate at their necrotized flesh, which sloughed away like dust in the light. Great masses of Riggors keeled over as their resistance to the pestilence and punishments inflicted upon them was burned away, and their bodies were overloaded and slain by that which had formerly been gifts.

Thousands of them died in The Light, repeated as new ranks came up to keep up the inexorable pressure, built the stairs, and as fighting broke out at the top, they were annihilated again.

Three times in total this tactic was used, killing tens of thousands of Riggors. Their advance didn't stop or even slow.

But that was fine. The object was to kill them in the most efficient manner possible. We knew they would get up eventually, and the fighters on the walls were raring to go. In the meantime, they provided shield cover for the Reserve Casters, and for the archers whose endless volleys had never ceased.

When they finally started to get some up the walls, through the constant spells and the lightning coming down, they got another rude shock, because the people on the walls were no pushovers at all.

Their pestilence auras were popping and crackling near the vivic braziers burning all over, and while these were targets, getting picked up and dunked in one by a twelve-foot ape swinging up over the side was not on the plans of most of those who made it to the top of the wall.

Nor was Elder Arg looming up, reaching out to grab them in his hands, and toss them lightly up and far, far away casually. Most didn't survive the fall, but the urang and bandoon crunched their skulls flat anyways.

Knots of fighting erupted, but oddly didn't have much effect on the amount of firepower going out. It was like those channels of advance were planned ahead of time, and those who were fighting were able to take care of the streams of advancing Riggors until thunderbolts could come down and wreck their stairs, simply adding new DPS to the total.

They also broke through weak points that weren't weak points at all, offering themselves up for the cavalry beyond to kill, or apes to drop heavy Runeballs on them from above.

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Over on the other side, Tremble kept the main forces of the savages fighting, especially the minotaurs, centaurs, ogres, trolls and giants that were so effective. Those big fellows soon knew to wander wherever she was for a very quick heal-up, then return energetically to the fight. They were basically tough enough to ignore most of the disease effects, and the savage commanders soon organized their tribes around those big fellows to take advantage of the mass healing that would come their way.

The fighting was deadlier, with far more casualties, but the savages also had more people to spend, and weren't at all afraid to spend them. The orcs' defense of their crude statue was particularly spirited, and although it had no magical effect that any of the Riggors could sense, the enthusiasm with which the orcs died for it wasn't to be underestimated.

But they all knew that all they had to do was hold until the enemy ran out. They could see the Helices moving back and forth, and burning white lines in the dark masses of Riggors, extending all the way across the advance area to chew through the rear of those attacking their walls, too. Once the numbers coming out of the Rift stopped, those Helices would come swarming over in their direction, and clean up anything left behind here.

Also, they had more bodies. More bodies meant more vivic fire. Setting a corpse on the white flame meant they wouldn't be able to eat it (meaning they had to take a quick bite if they were going to), but it also meant more vivic flame burning the advancing Riggors, who had to wade through the burning dead to reach them.

They didn't have countless spells to impede the living stairs of the Riggors, they had walls of unwhite fire burning on the dead.

The giants swept the walls clear time and time again, the tribes behind moved up as those before them died, and energetically leapt to intercept any breakthroughs. The Riggors got further then had the Klawites, but in the end, could not break their opponents, nor inflict lasting damage to the toughest of them, because Tremble was there to make sure they lived.