Chương 19: BECMI Chapter 18 – Busy as the Bugs

It felt very weird to be exercising my combat abilities as frequently as my magical ones, but combat was an integral part of the Elven (my Halvyr) Class, so I spent a lot of time fighting. Mostly bugs and humanoids, of course. I knew a dedicated area for the former, and I stumbled across the latter on my explorations all the time, vastly preferring taking them out in combat where they could at least try to hit me (and often enough did so, as I wasn't all that well protected by default).

Mostly it was about getting Achievement Feats against things I could find in numbers, since Favored Enemy mechanics didn't seem to work otherwise here. I hadn't even found a good area with tons of undead to kill, although I stumbled across knots of them, mostly unburied humanoids, all the time. Dread wanted his daily Naming Karma, of course, and I was happy to give it to him.

The bugs and humanoids were basically always ready to volunteer themselves, as a four-foot girl with a stick just looked like lunch to all of them. I was always fast on my feet, inhumanly so, with Longstrider always active, and Run Mastery 1 and 2 combining for another boost, pushing me from 30 to 55' movement, nearly as fast as an average horse. I could actually outrun almost all of the bugs, even if they were flying or something, certainly all of the humanoids, even if they were mounted on wargs…

and that was if I didn't just take off and fly. Duum was always there to watch over me, and selectively take on the most powerful stuff that popped up. If I Cast an Animal Growth on him, there was literally nothing down here he couldn't handle. Becoming a 28 HD monstrosity of ripping claws, teeth, and wings, he could and would shred anything and everything around with gleeful abandon, and if that meant scorpions the size of elephants, well, too bad for them.

I spent a lot of time getting bit at and things trying to jump on me and grab me, which didn't go well for them. Steadfast meant I was always considered braced if charged, which jumping on me qualified for. The Archer Stand Thrust did horrendous damage to stuff if I was braced, and Hold the Line meant that charging stuff both impaled themselves on me and were stopped before they could reach me, at least in most cases. Naturally, there were Swarms of stuff.

Sometimes massive Swarms, with either countless little things or thousands of bigger things. Having thousands of foot-long ants racing at you to kill is not a fun experience. I assumed that them inheriting a Swarmbaned Pyroclasm to the face wasn't too appreciated, either, and I wiped out virtual armies of Swarms again and again with the spell, as that was what it was designed for. Didn't even hurt the mushroom fields doing it, as Of the Invulnerable World wouldn't affect anything that wasn't hostile…

which meant anything it scorched was something else I had to deal with. One-handed weapon, dual weapon, two-handed weapon, reach weapon, braced weapon, thrusting and crushing weapon, even slashing attacks totally possible with Versatile Unarmed Strike and a Profound Weapon.

I hacked bugs, I bashed bugs, I impaled bugs, I danced around with bugs (mantises were particularly good at the dancing), I dodged bugs, I charged bugs, and I did so day after day after day, getting in my Naming Karma for Ring and Staff, and not incidentally building up whole supplies of bug meat and chitin that I could stack into a cube, Tapestry down to size with a convenient silken square enchanted enough to be reusable for the spell, and haul out of there for sale.

I had a couple butchers who were keeping constantly busy with the demand for high-end bug meat, all of us making quite a killing off the stuff as I brought in loads of it for the more well-heeled customers, and even the priests of Gaebrel were buying it up as a very tasty alternate to curina. They didn't have much equal to butter down here, however, so supplies of that I had to get from the surface world… which wasn't all that hard now that I had the Mirror properly working, either.

Weapon Mastery worked differently here than it did in Power of Ten, but I still had the major advantage of having Aelryinth's memories of Staff-fighting Right There in my head, and all the Feats and Techniques he knew ready to be broken out, including all the foundational weapon stuff. Thus, improving my Weapon Mastery was actually quite a simple process.

I just had to use the damn thing for hours and hours and hours, work them into the Altered Self I was using and translate it all into the body of a two-year-old while shaking my head inside at the irony of it all, pay the associated Karma and Feat Cost equivalent, and lo, I had my upgraded Weapon Mastery. The improved damage and skill hitting stuff was GREATLY appreciated, at least by me. The bugs, not so much. This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"Would you look at that." I was highly perturbed at what I was seeing in the distance. There was a Pyramid down here in this hidden cavern, and it wasn't covered by bugs or their nests, despite being ideal for the job. It was a couple hundred feet high, the steps on it as tall as I was, steps for a giant… or very large insects who had no trouble negotiating such things. Things like spider-centaurs, made from shadenelves. If they had dark skin, I would have called them driders.

The D&D game had some famous pictures of the elf/spider things made from their dark elves, supposedly drow who had failed their spider goddess and been transformed into the horrid tauroid things, frozen forever in their Levels and power and doomed to be sterile, unaging things eventually dying in violence, because they passed on nothing to nobody.

There were about a dozen of them visible from where Duum and I were hanging upside down on the ceiling, a nest of giant millipedes torn apart and in pieces down on the cavern floor hundreds of feet below us, currently the center of a writhing mass of large beetles of multiple species feasting on them.

The Chained Shards I dropped on them twisted and turned in all directions, flashing through hundreds of bugs, popping and steaming them with tinkles of ice breaking in chimes of Thunder, hissing flames, arcs of lightning, and Holy disdain for mindless scavengers being used to protect this location of utter Evil that I could see over there. The watchers on the Pyramids saw nothing, because it was all tight to the ground floor, and the forest of mushrooms the size of trees totally hid everything.

With a poof, everything began to vivisize. I reached down with Funf's Telekinesis and began to rip and wrench with it, the TK able to quickly break apart the shells and carapaces which were worth preserving, especially the ones with artistic patterns that were most sought after for armor, shields, and chariot or wagon armor. I could see them looking around, generally this way, trying to determine where the echoes of the pops and crackles were coming from.

The very alien, all-white spider-centaurs clambered easily over the large blocks of the Pyramid, spears and crossbows at the ready, pointing and chatting with one another, but making no moves in this direction to investigate. My rather ferocious amount of activity had finally garnered me a view of what might actually be behind this centralization of so many giant insectile creatures. I had slaughtered armies of the things, limited only by Valences and my physical endurance.

The closest thing I had to infinite spell capacity was Force Reserve, and it wasn't nearly powerful enough to deal with all of the things here. I could kill a lot of things with Shards, I could wipe most swarms with a Pyroclasm, and my single-target killing power was pretty impressive if I Upcast Shards with Metas. I wasn't threatened by the, eh, what, schiders? Sure, schiders it was.

But that Pyramid of pale stone, silent and cool, lost in the dark, just radiated an ancient, lingering threat that made my blood go cold with the danger. And that's when I felt the whisper against my Aura. Reaching Virtua Sixteen Wizard hadn't been all that hard, with new Levels coming from both the Arcane Theurge and Mystic Theurge Class Levels I was taking. I put in a ridiculous amount of time and effort to improving my magical skills in combat, and the Karma never stopped for even a day.

I had a very un-elven view of life, and killing crap like this was my job. I took it seriously, despite my age. Sitting around and playing at being two years old I could leave for Number One Sim. She, at least, didn't get bored. Getting to Sixteen Virtua Caster had taken a LOT of Karma. None of those Levels were cheap, and I had just reached Halvyr/10 after over eighteen months of dedicated exploration and combat. Access to VIII's meant access to Permanence, the local version that worked here.

I Exemplar Surged for it, Wrote it to Funf, and I suddenly had many, many more options as to what I could do, as the version here was much more flexible and much less expensive than the version I knew of. Specifically, it allowed the Caster to keep any two spells permanent upon themselves, and one such spell upon others. One of my two chosen Permanent Spells was Protection from Evil at VIII+1, Cast at an effective 52 through Domain Theurgy, a Good Spell, a Cold Spell, and the Sublime Chord.

Wasn't nothing mortal going to be taking it down. Getting it up to a Raised IX meant the bonus from the spell was +4 to AC and Saves against non-Good magic due to Zealotry, and a blanket immunity to being controlled by powerful magic. It also extended up to a twenty-foot radius at my desire, or just skin tight. As my Familiar, Duum could share it, as well. His long ears twitched as shadows seemed to swirl in the air.

I cast Astral Ward every single damn day, not wanting to be tracked by gods or men, and the air was alive with whispers, saying things I was instinctively trying to comprehend, when all my instincts and my Aura blared at me in warning. Sound Bubble was the option I had chosen for Dread's no-cost area effect, as opposed to Lighting himself, and I snapped it up around us. Duum actually twitched beneath me as suddenly the area went completely quiet, the only sounds us and our breathing.

He was much, much smarter than he'd once been, and I talked with him about a lot of things, but this was still very much beyond him. -What was that? - he /asked, shuddering beneath me. -I think that whatever is in that Pyramid there knows something is out here, and is looking for it. - I shook my head. -Head back and stick to cover. I can't drop the Bubble, but… - I touched the stone of the stalagmite we were concealed by, -there's a vibration building. I think a really big swarm is coming.

- He needed no other encouragement, letting go and twisting around to keep more of the stone spears on the ceiling between us and the Pyramid in the distance. His wings beat strongly for speed, and he flitted back and forth with unnatural grace and ease, even in the darkness, his flight lacking all the normal up and down motion of a winged flyer, while not truly gliding, either, and certainly not slowed down by me in the slightest.