Chương 102: BECMI Chapter 101 – Forged in a Lava Pit… Sounds Familiar?…

My variant Wizard Eye didn't go much of anywhere. Although it was silent, shadowy black, and stealthy, it moving around and being spotted would alert someone that something was up. I didn't feel much like alerting them when I'd taken so many brutal pains to destroy their security forces. On the other hand, I checked the tracking magicks of those that had been at the Torford Abbey.

I'd already killed most of them, and the rest of those involved were stationed inside this place, so this was going to be the end of the road for them.

"Four efreet!" the sollux exclaimed eagerly, watching the scene from way over my shoulder, his hands creaking on his gildensteel blade.

"This will be a fine battle!" he proclaimed, probably a wee bit overconfident of his chances.

"A Soul Eater." I focused on the incongruously silver-like Cauldron sitting on a pedestal towering above the lava, glowing Runes carved into it and the red-hot stone slowly pumping power into the thing. The thing was five feet high and three feet wide, easily large enough to fit a person inside its crawling black interior… and it did. They were sacrificing someone to it. The slave was being held helpless in the hands of two grinning efreet twice his size, if his scrawny frame hadn't been completely underfed.

A Khirifi male who at first glance looked to be clad in tight blue garb, and on second look was actually only wearing a loincloth and bright blue tattoos, was just finishing up a Ritual offering as we watched, drawing a curved athame across the doomed man's throat. Crimson lifeblood poured out in its wake. Still the man struggled and writhed. As the blood poured out of him, the darkness was gathering to him, coloring his arms and limbs and racing up his blood as the two efreet quickly let go of him.

They chuckled at the show as the blackness wrapped him up, and then it dragged him down into the depths of the thing as if he were but a dissipating shadow.

Watching this show were two more efreet, standing guard to the sides, along with a squat fully-armored human officer, two of the elite braided silk-over-mail warriors with their scimitars, and a crimson-cowled priestess spreading her arms and exulting as a ghastly greenish glow lit up underneath the silver thing, the Runes on it pulsing with power as it devoured flesh and soul alike to empower itself.

Behind all of them, drifting in the shadows of the roof, was a Soul Eater, a cloud of shifting smoke extruding a reptilian face and body here and there regularly, with the smoky flesh distorting from internal pressure as the souls within it pushed and flattened themselves impotently against it. The fucker was a LOT bigger than it had been at the Abbey. I pulled the skull back up into the chimney before it could be spotted, although the heat distortions and swirling vapors made that very unlikely.

"That thing can rip your soul right out of your body with a couple solid hits. It is a good thing you did not go down this flue, Brother Tunnex." His face was grim as he nodded slowly.

"Truly, the depths the efreet and these mortals will stoop to, working with such a creature."

"Actually, I came here hunting it, and I am pleased to see it is there." The Eyeskull was drawn back just enough to watch that Cauldron seething with power.

"That thing devours souls as well. If you touch it, you most likely will die instantly… but I will not." I considered the scene, knowing I had to move quickly before another hapless slave was hauled out and fed to the thing.

"Are you willing to work together to slay these infidels, Brother Tunnex?" He looked at me and my completely unfazed demeanor, nodding slowly.

"Fire has come for them this day," he agreed slowly.

"What would you have me do, Lady Edge?"

"How about you take on and slaughter a Soul Eater that probably thinks it should bowl you right over and kill you out of hand, while I deal with the rest of the infidels?" His eyebrows rose slightly.

"That would be a mighty feat, and even worth passing up the efreet," he agreed eagerly.

"Can you kill them swiftly, Lady Edge?" he asked. I held up my left hand this time, and the rose that came curling up from out of my sleeve and arose this time was a pale, crystalline white, shedding petals that froze blue as they fell away from it. He retreated a good long stride instantly, staring at the petals as they touched the ground… and the stone crinkled and froze for a foot around them instantly.

"Yes, Brother Tunnex, I can quench the fires of their very souls, and reduce them to less than ash, just as they have been treating their mortal victims." He sucked in a long and careful breath, eyeing me carefully. That had been a very, very dangerous Cold. Just being near it had felt like his burning blood was falling into a chilling hunger that could not be sated. He did not want to test such dire frost himself! Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

"I will obey your orders, great Lady," he said quietly, resolutely going down to one knee.

"Order me as you wish!" I nodded once.

"We shall keep this simple… but not simple for them."

I could have Dimension Door'd us both in, but that would have given them a moment to respond to our appearance as we oriented ourselves, and why do that? No, it was actually simple to Weave up a simple Fellowship, and share a few spells with the knightly sollux, as well as put a few Buffs on him and his Gear that he could definitely use. Greater Magical Weapon, Vivic, and Demonbane on his gildensteel Greatsword turned it into a terrible threat against the Soul Eater.

Greater Magical Vestment improved his armor considerably, and a Greater Protection from Evil added to his defenses, with a Bear's Strength improving his already giant-level strength for the nonce, and Divine Favor helping guide his offense. A Fly spell and Gaseous Form, and we were on our way down against the powerful updraft of the smoke, Primus' Elemental Command clearing a way for us through it so that we could spiral down against the hot wind without difficulty.

My Eyeskull was still watching as we came out of the flue, Brother Tunnex sticking close to take advantage of the wind control of Primus. We spiraled down from above, just vapors, not invisible, arcing between the winds and looking more like currents of power feeding back towards the lava below as we descended past the Cauldron, and then came back up next to it and over the lip of the great pit where the attendees were waiting.

I started matters along by sloughing off the Gaseous Form from both of us, and suddenly I was floating in the air right behind the Cauldron and letting the Chained Icy Thornray go. Just the manifestation of the great pristine white Rose rising up around me as I materialized out of Gaseous Form dropped the temperature here two hundred degrees.

Thorns like metallic icicles curled and oriented, then all the white drained out of the Rose as it went straight to black, and a score of screaming black Skulls rode spears of Greater Thorns to their targets. The nature of magical resistance here was different from the Power of Ten. People grew more and more magic resistant as they grew in Levels, and magic didn't normally get harder and harder to resist.

With the right magic, it was perfectly possible to basically never fail a Save, which was much harder to do with the Power of Ten. However, there were some things that could penalize Saves, and I happened to know a few of them. Two were very relevant here: Greater Cold Focus from Snowcasting, and Holy Domain + Domain Focus. Each of these imposed a -2 to Saves for non-Good folks, for a total of -4, and Spell Perfection now doubled that to -8.

The nature of the Chain Meta was that if you Saved against it, you avoided it and it dissipated harmlessly, having lost its target. That was true even if there were multiple Chains going and targeting you: it was all one spell, so if four Thorns were Chained and you Saved against one of them, you saved against all of them. That is, unless you were the primary target. The efreet were not primary targets.

I had twenty Greater Shards in a most amusing form here, all incarnate cold damage to beings Buffed up to resist fire, and five human targets who inherited four each, plus all the Kickers. Then those five Chains went and found the efreet, who didn't have a prayer of making the Saves… and Chains doing half primary damage was nicely obviated by the Penetrating Cold doing double damage to them.

Priestess, tattooed mage, and officer, plus the two elites, were hit by the equivalent of frozen exploding lances and went flying as Toppling blew them off their feet and smashed them against the wall. Ice, lightning, and thunder echoed over them, Holy damage and Banefire blew through them, and there was a massive overload of damage they were not ready for. The efreet took it square on the chin.

Whiteness blew through their flaming bodies, and like the White Rose, they went black, were blasted out over the lava pit and disintegrating as they fell into it, worn away by elemental conflict and a Cold that seized their very souls and would not let go. Vivus devoured them, contaminated with the energies of death as they were, and Fed them to the Land, which in this case was a brooding pool of lava below that was quite eager to reach up and take them in, blurp, blurp.

In the meantime, Brother Tunnex was ripping that rat bastard of a Soul Eater a new one. He was swinging as he materialized, shining golden steel blazing with +VII of anathema and Bane to all that a Soul Eater was. He was also a Master of the Weapon, strong, fast, and I might have just put a single-target Haste effect from a II Slot onto him so he was swinging even faster. All of which was important, because he was using Crushing Blows, what we'd call a Power Attack in the Power of Ten.

Crisscrossing blurs of light trailing crackling silver followed his Greatsword as it arced and flew, racing through three deep and deadly flaming strokes against the smoky form of the startled Soul Eater before the echoes of Brother Tunnex's battlecry had even faded away. Instinctively, it pounced at him, mouth distorting and widening as it manifested claws, striking for the mind and soul instead of the body. It was a bit surprised when his armor defied its claws. Only one bypassed it and raked over his soul…

and the spitting, sparking Death Ward drove its deadly touch back, the draining aspect of it completely thwarted, and the physical damage merely leaving black streaks along crimson skin. That was about when it realized it should have tried to get away. Vivus was starting to blaze on it, and it was still in reach of the sollux who had come out of nowhere to kill it!

The souls within it were starting to rip their way out of its wounds, Banefire and vivic energy pulling them forth, and the Soul Eater screamed and tried to clutch and beat at them… but it didn't have the time. Brother Tunnex's flurry of swordstrokes, patterns likely practiced for thousands of hours, went off with literally eye-blurring speed under the impetus of magical enhancement to the flaming Weapon and the speed boost.

Chopping up through one flailing hand, the limb exploded into vivus as it separated from the body and discorporated, forcing more of the Soul Eater's form into physicality. The Sword came down with equal speed, and the second claw tumbled to the floor.