One Hundred and Sixty-Two – Playing the Flue

Errant thumbed his chasuble reflexively as he made the long walk upwards, traipsing up sideways along the windy passage to the top.

It had taken him several months to finish it, as he had to first commission the cloth with extraordinary workmanship through his contacts in the Church of Amana. Once it was delivered to his specifications, he then had to spend a small fortune empowering it properly to do its job.

The wide strip of cloth looked like part of a priest's or sacred knight's vestments... mockery on the part of many Warlocks, but an honest acknowledgement of the position and mission of the Heavenbound. It wouldn't fall off, it passed through any fingers but his own as if it were liquid, and if damaged by an attack or energy, it would respin itself back to full form, powered by his own Wrath.

It gave him two additional Slots of Wrath to use. Bound to his Throat Chakra, it gave him another one, and when enchanted as an Arcane Mark Soulbound item, +1d6 extra damage per Soul Essence invested in it. It was the first time he'd taken it out.

Eight slots Topped for 48 damage, +6 for Warlock Sword +4d6 Mark +Con bonus in damage. Sole had forged the way for multiple Pacts, able to get twelve Slots this way... but without the power of Purity. On average, the damage from the two Paths were close, but a pure Pact had much less versatility then multiple ones.

But that was fine. The Heavenbound Pact was versatile enough, and if he couldn't Shape Stone or manipulate fire or play with lightning or make the grass grow... well, he couldn't, but that wasn't his job.

He was Heavenbound, and his job was to fight. The Warlock Pact of Heaven did that very, very well.

The matching ends of the Chasuble were stitched with platinum threads in symbols honoring the gods of Good and Law. The threads gradually turned golden, and the symbols alternated to those of pure Good, then multiple colors adorned the middle and backside of the Chasuble, none the same, honoring the gods of Good and Chaos.

Heaven was united. Heaven did not war against itself. There were too many ways for deities to settle their differences then fighting amongst themselves for such to occur, and such happening meant that a god was going to Fall, and all those who blindly followed Him as well. Supposedly, that was how much of Hell's senior hierarchy came to be...

His father would freak if he saw it. The son of a family loyal to Hell, selling himself to Heaven. Might even try to kill him. Errant found himself amused at the thought.

But as long as he only used Wrath internally, there would be no Sign, and his eyes would not be silver. Normally, this would not be allowed, the very existence of Pacts was predicated on the basis of showing Sign... but as the Warlock who'd replaced his mother had demonstrated, Pacts could be subverted if the purposes behind them deemed it right.

Heaven certainly didn't mind if he delayed showing Sign until he came of age.

The sound of the airflow around him was actually deafening, vibrating the whole shaft at this point. It didn't bother him, however. The default resistances of his Pact were to Cold and Lightning, and with Purity, included Thunder. Sonic damage simply couldn't affect him at this point, and he couldn't be deafened by loud noise any more than he could be blinded by bright light.

The flue was getting broader, and lighter. He could see some faint illumination up ahead...

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The wind tunnel ahead was broad enough to fit an ogre, scoured by ceaseless flows of air pulled out of the opening of the cave. A couple other side tunnels poured into this one, driving the air out of the cave, as pressure differentials sent the dank, cool air behind him screaming out into the thin atmosphere.

Where the air got into the Felldeep, he didn't know. But places like this pulled it out constantly, helping refresh whatever lost and forbidden things were buried down in the magical mantle, ignoring all the physics of air pressure and internal heat of the world...

That said, he was pretty sure the side tunnels would lead into the home of the Stormcrone. He was also sure that she'd be very sensitive to changes in the winds and air pressure.

He was also certain that she wasn't just a Stormcrone. He'd read some battle reports about her, listened to the tales of adventurers who crossed her, and her ability to take punishment while raining down lightning was legendary. Blood would fly, and yet the wounds would vanish instantly...

She was a Legendary, a Boss-level Hag in gaming terms. The tales had made it plain she had a nasty level of Witchcraft, in addition to her native abilities, and copious amounts of Health Qi. From what he could interpret of the battles, she never let her Health Qi vanish before fleeing, probably spending several days using healing magic to restore it before getting into another fight. She would hound people for days if she could, using magic to track them down and simply pummeling them to death from afar with her greater recovery ability and massive Health Qi pool.

Definitely not something he wanted to deal with, so he had to make sure she couldn't run.

There were ways...

He sat there, looking at the intersecting passageways, the swirling winds, and then down at his finger.

She could smell the blood of the young, eh? Well, that could work against her...

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It wasn't hard to hear her coming, by the way the wind was warping. He sucked down a Potion and remained perfectly still as the wind blew past him.

She came floating out of the side tunnel swiftly, buoyed by the wind, scrawny legs with oversized clawed feet never used to walk if she could help it. She had a mouthful of teeth like a barracuda, the face of a withered crone too mean to die, wild white hair longer then she was tall, and she probably didn't come to his shoulder, with claws longer than her gnarled fingers and toes.

Oh, and lightning crackling around her hands, up her arms and across her shoulders. Couldn't ignore that.

She floated right on by him, drawn by the smell of the drops of blood he'd smeared in the air pipe, thirty feet down. The thought that there might be a human child down there was probably the equivalent of sugar plums dancing in her head.

She was just about to the edge of the lip when he slammed into her at a full six g's.

Over thousand pounds of mass hit her at significantly above normal human speed, driving her right across the twenty-foot wide pit, crushing her against the opposite side of the well with a ferocious impact. The Sword inserted into her liver likewise wasn't very comfortable, a One Strike Spirited Charge doing a horrible amount of damage in his hands.

The basic Wrath effect employed against mages was using the Wrath's eldritch energy as a general Dispel, capable of endlessly counterspelling as long as you beat their Caster Level, a pretty annoying tactic. He had five Ranks of Purity, he had a Warlock Sword that was currently at +VI, he had a +4 Caster Level on contested checks against Evil, and he had full Holy Warder Mastery for +5 on Dispel checks.

He also had the Eldritch Dispel Mastery at V, and could choose various supplements to his Dispel. As this was his opening attack, Devour Magic, turning the disrupted energies into healing for himself, was inappropriate. Disrupt Magic, the equivalent of Spellflash, was far more appropriate, as it turned every spell dispelled into a discharge of energy against the Caster.

He had to get rid of all her Contingencies and buffs, and then get down to butchering her. So, the Wrath in his Sword didn't do any damage this time, but it tore every spell and magical effect extant on her into wild magic.

The lightning crawling over her became pearls of iridescence and clots of inky goo. A half-dozen spells inside her erupted out her orifices in fountains of smoky butterflies, pink flames, orange and blue fireworks (complete with rocket sounds and explosions), streams of living sand, a torrent of minnows, and a rather gruesome set of extruding tentacles in paisley.

Ignoring the effects, he grabbed her arms and wrenched them behind her as they both started to fall.

She had at least as much Power as him, something like a 25 Strength, suitable for a legendary Stormcrone. But his Might was much, much higher. In pure brute strength, he was the equivalent of a 37 or so, and in a grappling contest, Might was as or more important than Power.

The rope he used was magical enough to resist tearing and assist with the grappling, binding up her arms with incredible speed and fighting any attempt to wriggle free as he held them tight with his massive Might advantage.

He also flipped her over with his greater mass and slammed her face into the wall as they fell.

Her arms pinned, her face shedding a waterfall of Health Qi, he dragged Grace out of her back and began to plunge it in again and again as they fell... at six g's.

With his Wrath powering his plummet, he didn't have much to put into his Sword, but that was fine. The big thing was keeping hold of her skull, ignoring the lightning she was trying to put out, and keeping her face grinding against the wall and a solid flow of Health Qi streaming away as they fell down the smooth shaft, quickly outpacing the rocks falling down at normal gravity behind them.

A normal human reaches a speed of about 120 mph when falling, 180 mph if they dive headfirst. Under the effects of six gravities, he was much heavier and falling much, much faster, and he was bringing the Hag along for the ride.

Ten thousand feet of face-grinding at 300 mph left a solid trail of bloody Health Qi light following them down, dissipating above them, while stones cracked and shattered under the unbreakable force of her face not giving way, and the nearly solid wind howled past them, not affecting either of them despite flesh-stripping power.

A couple of times he spun her and slammed her into the wall again, feeling some energy building somehow as she tried to marshal her concentration and get some magic off to save herself... but this was now a contest of grapple checks, his advantage between Might, Feats, Masteries, and Expertise was at least +17, maybe +20, and she had no chance of breaking the pin, let alone wriggling free.

If he figured it right, she was taking a d6 every ten feet in abrasion damage. So, ten thousand feet, 1000d6. Should be about 3500 damage, which hopefully was enough to get through her Health Qi...

Then she was going to hit the bottom, moving at more than twice the normal impact speed, wind resistance unfortunately not allowing him to do six times and break the sound barrier. That should be another 50d6 or so...

And in the meantime, he was driving Grace into her over and over, hissing holy light burning against more Health Qi, One Striking repeatedly for 50-some a hit, just to add insult to injury.

Ten thousand feet at 300 mph took less than thirty seconds to cover. The tiny dot of light stayed small and small and small... and then suddenly he was in the open room as he let go of Grace and Zouma. Five feet from the ground, Angel Weight automatically became Angel Walk, and all his momentum dispersed silently, leaving him floating down abruptly as lightly as a feather.

Zouma slammed into the ground at 300 mph. So did Grace, right through her back, the crack of it driving into the stone sounding simultaneously with the Hag's impact.

He reached out, touched the ground, and rolled away as the stones came pouring down after him, a deadly hail that shattered against the ground and the impaled Hag, further pounding her into the stony floor and sending shrapnel flying everywhere. Quite a bit of it bounced off him as he waited for it to end, and then he promptly pounced on her when it did, over a half-ton on her back making sure she couldn't get out of the shallow indentation she'd made on the patient stone.

He yanked out Grace from hilt-deep in her back, and still had to make four more stabs before the Health Qi was gone, and she actually began to bleed.

Using both hands, he left Grace in her back, reached up, and grabbed her skull. He lifted it up enough to grab her jaw, and wrenched her head completely around with a loud crack... a completely impossible kill move if she had any Health Qi still remaining.

Her pale white eyes glared at him for a long moment, and then the Wrath in Grace coursed out one more time, disrupting any death curse she might have, glowing behind her eyes, and burning them out in the sockets.

The light went out, and so did she.

Errant took a deep breath as he sat back for a moment, then rolled away from the last few stones still falling down and banging away at his Soak, dragging the corpse with him.

He looked up at the flue above.

It was a good plan, but now he had to walk all the way back up there to get any other prizes, and could only hope she didn't have any servants who would steal it all first!