Chương 66: AF Chapter 65 – Heading Downriver Again

"So?" Princess Kristi asked me, arms folded as she watched me examining the fallen pillar there. There were fused cracks all along the surface of the thing where it lay on the ground, joining an entire line of the things spaced about two hundred yards apart in a large circle that stretched... as far as we could see. The fallen obelisks had cut right across the river, plainly some sort of Warding device, and they had floated, because they had no foundation, weren't planted, and had all fallen over when they dropped.

"Exactly what you're suspecting. The mana surge and Veil reinforcement smacked into them, they absorbed too much energy too fast, fried, vented it out the levitation array," I pointed to the flower-like fused hole melted through the pyramidal bottom of the thing, and the obsidian glass fused into the ground where nothing dared to live, "and they fell over as they collapsed.

"The resemblance to the shadow-infused tower is actually inverted. It was designed to absorb and burn away that type of energy, sucking it in and Warding it away." I stood up as I eyed the site and stone, looking left and right, and then started drawing a mental arc I filled in in Holo for her. We didn't know if it made a clean arc at all, but it was plain that these extended quite far into the distance, and the 'center' of the effect was to the south of us, around the town of Shoushi that was supposed to be there.

"You think there was another set to the north around Holtburg?" Kris asked, eyeing the distance. Given the height of the riverbanks, we might have missed them in passing.

"That's a LOT of obelisks..."

"Tremendous consumption of magical resources doesn't seem to be out of line for this place. Plus, Aelryinth could easily make several thousand of these a day, so it's far from out of line for a powerful Caster to do the same. As long as the ley lines do all the magical heavy lifting, it's just Shaping Stone properly, and if these people had infinite mana cycling, just an application of grinding."

"Can you Shape them?" she questioned.

"No, it's magically treated and infused with magical energies. Maybe a VI Valence or higher could overcome it, I'd have to see. Plus the fused parts would be like wrestling with diamond or something. I could duplicate what was here, to some extent, although I don't have the Ranks right now to fully understand and do the fine detail. Still rebuilding a foundation here."

"If that's actually doing some Warding function, it would be interesting to see if you could put them back up so they could resume that function," she said thoughtfully.

"Yes, it would. In the future. I've a feeling that whatever energies or effects they were Warding against was purged or Burned with the mana surge itself, and so they were redundant... but that doesn't mean they can't still be useful against some other mana. They are effectively a Warding effect plugged into this ley line network, and there's always things you can do with that." She just grinned.

"And you have ambitious things planned." My eyes probably flashed.

"Oh, I have tons of things planned, I just have to gain the power to DO them. Us Powered, always with the schemes and things."

"Follow them around, or follow the river?" she asked me, mostly to verify that the fallen things followed a rough circle more than anything.

"Let's stick with the river. If they are a circle, we'll see an arc downstream."

"Good enough!" I hopped back onto the Wagon, and we continued on.

We actually only went a few more miles before stumbling across another of the formerly-magical Mansions popped up on its own self-made butte just off the swamp's borders. Like the first one, its bottom floor was trashed from the stress of what must have been a personal dimensional space shunting into its basement and raising it off its previous foundations, and said basement was also flooded from rain and groundwater seeping in through the cracks formed by it entering reality.

It also bore the signs of being scraped regularly by the k'naths, so I wondered if they actually had a migration route based upon these places. It was close enough to morning that we stopped for the day. Regardless of the whooping pyramidal oozes, it was still a treasure trove down at the bottom and under the waters, one we were welcome to exploit.

Kris went diving for more stuff, Sift gathered it all, multiple Disks held it up, and it was arranged, separated in Shaped stone boxes, and put in with the rest of our acquisitions and the smithing gear she was quickly assembling once she had her Bracers made and started. Just Burning more goldweight, Crafting and doing reps. It was building a foundation for future things to see.

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"That looks damn weird," I acknowledged as Kris stopped to just look at the thing sitting in place on the shoreline to the east of us. The swamp had given way to flowing water as it narrowed and a current re-established itself. Still, there were subtle changes in the Summons accompanying a rapid change in the vegetation, the mana fumaroles rapidly fading into non-existence here. The river was slightly wider than that near Holtburg, but not by much, and the land was flatter about it.

I studied the thing in front of us, about fifty yards away now, kind of hovering in place, the purple-pink energies that made up an amorphous form only made weirder by a porcelain face mask on the thing, a thing twice the size of a full-face human mask and bearing a cherubic smile.

"I think we both know that mask is some kind of focusing tool for the magic it is made out of. Recognize that light?" I asked her.

"It has definite resemblances to the energies inside the Virindi shells. Either a servant creature of the same materium, bound to serve via the mask, or a proto-Virindi. It definitely looks like a bound Elemental of some form."

"So, they've clearly infiltrated the Summon system. Even if this is a random landscape spawn, it's still a source of information if it reverts to the hivemind structure of the Virindi themselves. Vivus it and get rid of it." It wasn't the first new creature we'd seen. For some reason, we'd spotted our first skeletons on the landscape after we'd left the swamp.

Yes, we'd seen some at the undead base at the abandoned fortress that was Yanshi, but not as Summons on the landscape, and they'd slowly popped up here and there as we moved along the shore. This... Doll creature was visible at a great distance, and naturally we'd gone to investigate. There were also a lot more of the red-skinned Hea Tumerok Summons on the river edges than there were before, which meant they probably had a presence in the area neither of us had seen free-traveling.

Given the number of hostile creatures around, that was completely believable. Hunting was probably a lethal occupation by now. They weren't night hunters, so they'd be out during the day if they were civilians, and if they had a settlement on the water, there'd probably be fishermen active there. We were looking for signs of them.

"That's what, the second or third of those heads?" Kristie asked, as we contemplated the big sculpted head of yellowish stone sitting there in what was some sort of temple complex, ornate and very old pillars around it leading to a circle where some fountain was spewing colored mana irregularly into the air with strange explosive sounds.

"Makes you wonder who he was, to get himself carved in stone and dropped all over the place," I agreed, while we studied the crimson-skinned tumeroks milling about the place. They were living in tents instead of buildings, but they'd plainly taken the place over as an extended camp, complete with rafts out in the water with woven baskets to hold fish in. The smell alone was indicative of the fact there were living beings here, and they seemed relatively safe and secure about their lives.

A ring of Summons three deep surrounded the camp, plainly taken over and ordered to be on guard duty, treated with casual respect yet taken for granted by the natives there.

"I'm going to sneak on up and listen to them for an hour," I said.

"Might come in very useful in the future." Kris just lifted an eyebrow and sat back down to relax.

"I'll wait." Invisible and Flying, I ghosted on up to the edge of the firelight, set myself atop one of the pillars, and listened to the tumeroks speaking below. My Assay once again hinted at something wrong about them, as if they weren't supposed to be the way they were. They seemed very humanoidish in build and size ranges, ranging from maybe five feet for some of the petite females to the most powerful warriors hitting two meters and the like.

Pointed ears, notable fangs, and skin ranging from pale red to a deeper almost-mauve. Their garb was harsh and militaristic, even the females looking more like they were in uniforms than casual attire. The males also seemed to enjoy cutting their hair and scalps clean, although the females had darker hair they grew long, but coiled into tight braids and buns so as not to get in their way.

There was a certain stiffness and formality between them, an acknowledgment of rank and hierarchy that pervaded them and was an essential part of their society. It changed terms of address between them, and was only slightly eased to deal with children. I noticed that many of the children effectively had similar names, puzzling it out to indicate they were basically 'son of' or 'daughter of', and their names were the equivalent of 'First', 'Second' and so on.

A couple of the young men and women had full names of their own, however, so a true name was probably granted upon their coming of age. Gradually, their words became more apparant, even as the fires of twisted grass and branches died rapidly down. The temperature was easily fifteen degrees warmer than it had been in Holtburg, with no snow on the ground here, but it was still cool, and the tents would be warmer.

It was with an almost formal air that the local chief rose, taking a single embered branch from the fire with him as he turned towards his tent. Obviously a signal, the other tumeroks, save for the one who had been pointed out to stand watch, did the same, retiring alone or with their mates towards the tents. I eyed the crude fortifications around the place, making use of the existing pillars and even the stone head to add some defensive elements, wondering who they were protecting against, and then just shrugged.

I'd likely find out soon enough.

Kris wasn't there when I returned to the Wagon, ghosting out in the vicinity to see what was where at high speed when she didn't have to drag the Wagon and me around. She came back in about ten minutes as I lounged there under the moonlight waiting for her.

"The number of monugas among the spawns to the south, especially across the river, are significant, and they are getting taller, too, with different skin colors and even some minor magical abilities," she told me, and I smirked, knowing she'd happily pitted herself against something bigger than herself as part of her nightly Karma, Named or otherwise.

"So, they are protecting against potential monuga aggression?" I said, nodding slightly.

"They were speaking of a fort just downriver, so I'm assuming the next town, Shoushi, has been taken over by them. They also gave thanks for the fallen obelisks that we saw, which seem to be keeping away the undead and the shades we ran into still. The skeletons we're seeing aren't under the command of the undead we ran into at all, and seem more like random humans who died and the Summons system picked up on. They did look like they were wearing Sho armor, didn't they?"

I hadn't been certain, but it explained a few things...