Chương 166: AF Chapter 165 – To the Overlook Fortress

There was a thirty-foot tentacle draped over the front of the Wagon, severed and smashed down right between the Queen Mother and I. One had swept across the top of the supply Trailer behind, and a couple men who hadn't gotten down in time had been flattened promptly, but not sent overboard. Their friends were seeing to them. It had ten tentacles, had being key.

Four of them were chopped right off by running into the Wagon, as Kris had made a running jump up just to get the blades of the Wagon and all its mass cutting across the flailing things. I hadn't lost my Fastcast Shards, and two oversized Remorans that exploded out of the water ahead of us ate them, sending them tumbling and spinning as Kr i s and the Mick came right up on them, the Blades of the two and the Wagon gleaming.

The Lost Light removed wings, mounted blades punched into flapping, squealing bodies, and they fell Burning off to the side, too, quite done for. My normal Shard salvos restarted as the minions of the big Sleech back there got brave and came bursting up out of the water to close on us. Split Chained Shardrays sent them tumbling and spinning away, Burning, dying, as hostile spells blasted in from all directions and detonated against the walls of the Wagon and its Trailer… and did a whole lot of nothing to them.

A certain someone had been at it Hardening a lot of Ironwood, which the Artificers had thoughtfully made Impervious, and then layered on Acid Bane to double Hardness against acid, and Resist Acid at 30 points, as well as Force Bane and Force Ward, doing the same for the variants of Force Magic they could unleash.

Incoming damage from those Elements was first reduced in half by attacking objects, then by another fifty percent with Protection from the appropriate Element type, then reduced by 30 points, and THEN it had to overcome the boosted Hardness of the Wagon's walls, currently somewhere between 35 and 40. Oh, and the whole thing was Acid-Washed and had a deep, dark Blueshine Slake to it, and so was impervious to acid.

That incoming acid spell hadn't been going to do anything, but stopping it was a nice show of skill and power by the pair up front. The way in front of us cleared out by way of spinning, dying Aquatics falling in all directions, things that proliferated as everyone got back to their feet and returned fire. I did something a little bit worse.

Noting that the big sucker was bleeding so much, I sent out an Emotion spell at the Remorans around it, borrowing power from Kris to Widen the spell over a larger area, and drove them promptly into a Blood Frenzy. They looked like sharks with manta ray bodies. The results were predictable. Also, Frenzy wa s a deeper form of Rage, and Rage often makes the subject immune to mental control and the like.

So, not only did I drive the remorans crazy with blood fervor, I also removed them from the big sleech's control at the same time. Oh, and sharklike, that stuff is infectious, too. A squeal part sonic and part mental disbelief rose behind us in pain and shock as the remorans all about the big thing turned on their master and overlord in wild, pitched bloodlust, closing on it to feed.

Fresh ichor dotted the ocean, the smell rising in the air and spreading through the water, and the combination of that and the sight of their own feeding madly brought the other remorans in to join the feeding frenzy. In only a couple of breaths, that massive sleech was covered in a cloud of blood-mad winged shark-rays, hanging on its tentacles and feeding on its flesh with wild abandon.

"Mind control is such a damn pisser when you lose it in the middle of a lot of hungry non-pawns suddenly," I said to the world. I'd given up shooting the things, because remorans were jetting out of the water and winging their way in the most predatory manner towards the excitement going on behind us. Their sleech, niffi, and nefane masters were kind of looking after them in disbelief as to what was going on, their remoran servants utterly ignoring them.

Well, those things I was happy to pop with Slashing Shardr ays, splattering their blood all over the place and drawing the attention of more distant remorans to the fact there were a whole lot of bloody things all over the place to eat and start their own feeding frenzy on.

"It's starting to boil," Selen a murmured, putting down her Bow with everyone else. Things were coming out of the sea in all directions, converging on the mad activity, drawn by acute psychic sensitivity no doubt bred or instilled into them, and their ancient instincts finally finding a primal outlet to unleash in. I watched a pack of remorans suddenly alter course towards some floating pale blue and white sleeches who were probably attempting to control them.

The school of winged death plunged down upon them with open jaws, driving them down and across the water. Within seconds they were joined by three other schools of remorans in various colors, and more blue ichor was splashing in the ocean. Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

"So, how long have you been planning this, Magos?" Hundig asked in quiet awe at what I'd set into motion. There were hundreds of remorans converging this way from all directions, starting knots of violence as they lit into nautiloids trying to control them, or who simply got in their way.

"Since the first time I saw that damn boss and the slavemaster links of psychic control in the thaumaspectrum," I responded coolly.

"Those things are learning a lesson about the viability of mind control upon savage beasts bred for war.

"The best part of this is going to be their arrogance. They will immediately blame me and some scurrilous Isparian magic for what happened here, if they carry word of it away, and think it won't happen again.

"But the rage of these enslaved remorans is going to carry this event far and wide on their own psychic bonds, and blood, blood is going to be a very dangerous thing for the nautiloids in the future." My smile was grim and knowing.

"Not much for slavery, even of the enemy, are you?" Queen Mother Elysa asked softly, watching remorans erupting out of the ocean still, winging their way like hunting hawks towards a rapidly growing area of conflict falling quickly away behind us. Or they were falling upon a bunch of nautiloids I'd chopped into kibble to help spread the frenzy effect further and faster.

Bunita cut across, a swath of Lost Light hacked through a steel-hard shell, and a red and green nautiloid went spinning away, ichor spurting blue-green as it did so. An incoming pack of gray-blue remorans shifted directly towards the new meal as Kris just ran on, ignoring the explosion of Force magic and acid sprays as the squealing remnants of the nautiloid pod opened up with spells together, and their outraged minions replied in kind before abruptly swarming in on them and driving them frothing under the waters.

"The lass is crazy-dangerous when she resorts to The Cheese," the Black Aluvian paramount mentioned to Kris.

"Helps that the bastards have never faced that kind of magic before in combat. Their mind-control is more passive and pervasive than abrupt and domineering, and just needed something to overwhelm it," Kris nodded, still skating powerfully for speed and distance, showing no weakness to anything watching them at all. Quaver was humming a sad killing dirge that was actively encouraging all the remorans to veer out of the way, instinctively avoiding the two notes that portended death among them.

The nautiloids did it because they didn't want to be splattered across the front of the Wagon, even if the two streams of Lost Light didn't chop them apart.

"Ye think it will actually encourage the nauts to get the fuck out o' here an' stop harassing the Vesayans?" he asked.

"Well, at the very least, they're going to want to stay out of MY way, and the Wagons. We need only expand that to actual boats, and we'll be good to go." The Mick nodded shortly. It was a good and cunning plan, and if it didn't work perfectly, that would be fine. Shore dwellers were not the natural prey of remorans, anything in the sea was. Without the nautiloids telling them to attack passing Isparians, the shark-rays would simply ignore them.

But now, any that survived this fight were going to pass on that the taste of their masters was natural and filling, and the red rage would allow them to feast as they wanted to. Magos Ryin said the creatures were as smart as dogs or wolves, the better to obey their masters readily. They'd learned a grim and bloody truth about their masters today, and who knew what it would grow into?

"Ye gotta admit it be quite a sight," the Mick mentioned, looking about at so, so many remorans coming in from all directions, winging to the hunt across the surface of the sea.

"When the slaves rise in rebellion, it tends to be infectious!" grinned Princess Kristie with that savage smile of hers, the one promising all sorts of mayhem to anyone that tried to control her.

"If the Druidic magic she spoke of be trapped an' released, any chance we might become friends?" he asked, a stray thought popping free.

"They are Magical Beasts, not Animals," she replied promptly.

"You might be able to speak with them, perhaps earn their trust… but if you're thinking about Druidic Companion Beasts, no, that's not going to happen, and they are too powerful to become Familiars.

"You could try Charming one once she releases that knowledge, but that's basically following in the footsteps of the nautiloids, and you see where that led."

"Aye. Practical an' easy, right up until it eats you alive," he agreed with a slow nod. It was tempting thoughts, taking absolute control of something, making it into a weapon of your will… and not so different from what all the kings and nobles had been trying to make of the hill clans for generations. A hill clanner came willingly, or they came not at all. That was the way of things, how it was meant to be.

He could only encourage the death machines that were the remorans as they sped along on geomagnetism and beats of wings that couldn't possibly support their weight, skimming the waves faster than they could swim through them, closing in on bloody freedom and release from bondage with all speed.

"Ye think we should have warned Overlook that something entertaining might be happening on this run?" he remarked innocently. Kris chuckled with a hard and steely edge to the sound.

"They know who's responsible, especially as we roll right up to the shore and none of this stuff so much as glances at us any more." Her pale violet eyes glittered with reflections from Quaver's Lost Light trail, dancing and sparkling with freedom and fury intermixed. If her mother were aught like her, no wonder she united Aluvia and brought them together to stomp on the Viamontians once and for all, the Mick mused.

That level of emotion and raw passion would have all the hill clans falling all over themselves to follow her into a fight against their generational enemies, and woe would be the Blues once Aluvians actually united and fought together! Kris and the lass spoke urgently of rights of the people, truths that were self-evident, and the ideas they had tossed out still reverberated in his bones. Just words, philosophical bantering about, worthless as spitting in the wind.

Until, mayhap, you gathered enough people spitting, and drowned the wind in spit and spittle and vitriol that damn ye, listen to what we be saying! A King who rolled with the approval of the people, the land, and the gods themselves! That there would be a True King, aye, well enough... And it only took looking at some murderous eating machines tearing free of their psychic shackles to crystallize just how precious those freedoms and rights were to him, even as he admitted people needed to follow something.

What that would be, as they became the Tip of the Spear returning Isparians to Dereth, still remained to be seen…