Chương 471: BECMI Chapter 470 – Eternal Wills, Immortal Tools

Aengmor, the City Lost in Lava. The city had been built by my ancestors thousands of years ago, and then that twat Tzentotl managed to get his claws into them and corrupt them. One thing led to another, including a civil war among the Shaden, and his Schatten followers had to flee to the Hollow World or be destroyed.

The Immortal had chosen to bury the city in lava to hide it, the Shaden had left it behind to dwell deeper in the Underdark, and so it had remained hidden until the nifloids found it, a ready-made home in the deep Underdark where some of the most powerful and enlightened of them had come to make their homes… and listen to the whispers of Tzentotl. Erendyl and Moorheim's fights against the nifloids had never really stopped, much to the dismay of the various clans and tribes.

The nifloids didn't get along with one another in the first place, and their fights with us were murderous in the most unappreciated sense. We sealed off caves and living areas, depriving them of settlement space and roads through the Underdark, forcing them onto the surface where they were most vulnerable and exposed… and we killed them there. If they tried to mine out new passageways, they were easy to sense with Communes, and we tracked them down and killed them there.

If they stayed in one place, we assaulted them regularly, and the dwarves manned the fallback points when the inevitable horde rush came, and we killed them. We were pushing them back, and back, and back, making no bones about it. As the goblins and orcs were forced back, they naturally ran into the territory of other tribes, who were not happy about the pressure, pushed back, and helped us squeeze those caught in the middle to death.

A lot of those fleeing just switched tribes and loyalties pragmatically, and suddenly who claimed the territory we claimed had changed, and new hordes piled in cheerfully to the fight. They were dying, too. The primary combatants were elves, dwarves, and Rangers, and they were doing the job very, very well. There were Eismark warriors involved, getting in some tunnel fighting and earning their chops against nifloid tribes in the larger caverns.

The scouts pushed in multiple directions, the maps of the Underdark already available to them through Communes, moving through the twisting caves, caverns, and tunnels with ease and speed that terrified the nifloids at the fact their attackers could come out anywhere at anytime. Now they had reached Aengmor, a place of legend to the nifloids, concealed from observers on the surrounding shores of the lavafield over which it floated.

It was a massive secret fortress of the nifloids, home to stronger and smarter members of their species than elsewhere, the secret lords of the races. It was a bloody eyesore and I wanted nothing to do with it, certainly not caring to spend the lives needed to take the thing, and even less the need to hold it. As far as I was concerned, it could drop into the lava once more and forever, and we could be rid of it.

Thus why I was walking through the guts of it, beneath the palace-temple of its Priest-King of an orc, looking for the source of its hovering ability. The nifloids had made some crude renditions and adjustments to the place, but I saw the Schatten style affiliated with Tzentotl dominating everything. Primus' Shape Stone was now at X, Eternal level, and not even the reinforced stone of this place could defy his power.

I looked about the chamber I was in, peeled the statue in the center off its foundation to reveal the stairs leading below, and glided my way down, Duum riding on my shoulder and listening to everything alertly. After a winding descent, I emerged into a chamber remarkably low in the city, with disguised one-way windows looking out over the surrounding lava, a darkly fascinating and ever-changing sight that was still likely pretty monotonous over time.

In the center of the chamber was a familiar chair design, seen in a certain ancient flying castle of Delphan make, long disassembled. Immortal Power thrummed in this one, however, far stronger and more powerful… and the weight it placed upon the mind and soul of whoever sat in the stalagmite throne that extended all the way to the ceiling would be immense. The stress to a creature of the Sphere of Death, not so much.

The nightwalker was like others of its ilk, a great shadowy figure as tall as a cloud giant, even stronger and harder to kill, intelligent, magical, and tirelessly performing its task of keeping the city aloft above the field of lava that kept it safe from any attackers. The nightcrawler coiled about its ersatz throne reared up in front of me. It was the size of a purple worm, crawling black, far more dangerous than such a beast, and likely thought itself pretty dangerous and impressive.

The Shardray, Paired and Split and Topped and fully Disrupting, drove into both of them and directly blew both creatures, the most powerful forms of undead save for true liches, directly to ash and dust before they could warn anyone or anything. Their internal loot, likely gained from sneaking humanoids who had also managed to find this place and been killed, clattered to the ground as the whole city shuddered.

I collected the valuables into my Masspack with Funf's TK, left a delayed Interdiction into the place so nothing was going to come in time, and as the whole city began to shake and shudder and sink with the loss of the guiding intelligence keeping it afloat, I zipped back up the stairway, closing it behind me to make it even harder to get to. This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

When I reached the edge of the Interdiction, I Dim-Doored away calmly, just as the whole city dropped a full ten feet, and began to sink towards the lava below. ============== Some other fellows I'd like to sink into lava... Novel Bind and other sites are scraping my stories (and others!) without permission again. If you're not reading (or hearing) this on Royal Road, you're helping pay a thief. Please read it in its original home, it's still free!

You get the foreword and afterword, author comments, and answers to people with questions! I have not given permission for this story to be copied by a bot and posted ANYWHERE ELSE. ============= -- I stepped out onto the dome at the top of the palace-temple, and without any hesitation cast the largest Stillflight Field I was capable of. King Gravity snapped to attention at the great big blaring alarm I set off before His throne, glaring angrily at a whole damn city floating there in defiance of His physics.

With grim determination and lo, He did wave his hand, and Stillflight did cover the entirety of the City Lost in Lava, and all those within it. Out on the walls, fleeing nifloids atop giant bats and the same skinwing dactyls my own people used launched themselves from the walls… and fell screaming out of control towards the lava below, even as the whole city lurched from the fact even an Artifact like itself didn't take a X-Valence Stillflight to the jaw lightly.

No, no, the powerful wouldn't be taking flight out of here. I Teleported away a breath later. Six seconds after that, the Delayed Interdiction blew off and also encapsulated the entire floating city. Nothing here was getting away, at least by any conventional or easy magical means.

I reappeared at the edge of the cliff that was nearest to the city, all such areas now occupied by elves and dwarves who were watching the clouds of steam over the lava slowly fade away, and something large become increasingly clear in the distance. Only a scant handful of flyers were managing to flee, likely those whose mounts had gotten airborne in panic when the city first shuddered, and whose riders astutely took them away when they saw the city fall, not daring to go back.

They were plainly not very happy when they saw armed forces occupying the landings, cliff-side caves, and shorelines of the lavafield, forcing them to divert back over the lava and look for a way out of there they weren't familiar with. The lava river did extend a long distance to the east before vanishing over a firefall into the depths, but the odds they knew where any of the caves and tunnels that led off it went to was likely rather slim to none.

The danger to them was extended considerably when some of our forces were also flying, often Invisible, and were perfectly happy to shoot flying nifloids out of the sky with great prejudice. Lightning Bolts and Fireballs cracked through the air, and the fleeing riders went spiraling into the lava below, not coincidentally just about the same time as mighty Aengmor's lowest reaches hit the lava.

Waves of magma surged out slowly as the city began to submerge, forcing the liquid rock aside and sending it surging down the lava river towards its final destination. There was no Immortal hand protecting it this time, however, and Firerose had already sent some servants into the magma pool below to disassemble the place completely, as well as to remove anything the magma didn't melt down and destroy.

The pool was also helped along by the occasional falling figures plummeting from the walls, both riding beasts and those who thought they might Fly via magic items or otherwise from the place. As the lower reaches were destroyed, the Wards about the city were disrupted, and the temperature controls began to falter. The relatively cool air about the city began to heat up rapidly, indeed, starting the cooking process even before the city was fully submerged in the molten rock. That included the Throne.

It was going to be fed to Laurentine's Staff Spark and start her on attaining a truly Eternal-grade Staff, with some IP of her own to wield as she needed to. As a Fifth tier and Grandmaster of the Fire Element Secret Society under Lady Firerose, Laurentine was plenty qualified to Summon in and command the Elementals who had been Summoned here. She was now considered a direct Vassal of Firerose, whose Temple was rapidly rising in Vascouz. Tzentotl was not going to be resurrecting this city easily, if at all or ever.

He likely wouldn't know what was going on until the next time he checked his prayers, and since he didn't have much fondness for his nifloid followers, that was going to be totally too late to do anything about what was going on. I was going to kick up quite the Immortal Power fuss and alert the watchers for such if he tried anything here, regardless.

Laird crashed against the Stave of black bone, sending it flying from the hands of the lich who was wielding it, along with one of the hands of the dark-boned bastard. The undead mage shrieked in disbelief, his spell interrupted, and began another one desperately, trying to get away from there. The Contingency tried to Teleport him away, and failed utterly. The whole area was under Interdiction and he wasn't getting away that way.

The Null Strike didn't do any additional damage, but every extant spell on the lich's shadowy skeletal frame shattered like they were made of glass, destroying every long-term Buff and even Permanent spells with the strike, while Wrathflame blazed over the lich's body and began to devour him and the solid shadows he was made of. He was the Lich-King of Buraval! Master of countless undead, humanoid slaves, fell magicks, master of an entire nation for nearly a century! He could not be taken down by a mere swordsman!

The Mick, of course, could not hear those thoughts, and would not have cared if he could. A Revenant in armor lurched towards the Mick's side, trying to bull-rush him away from his master. Laird skirled, the greatsword arching for his neck went high, and the Mick pushed into the shadow-boned face of Lich-King Vagavrond, leveraging the revenant away and past behind him… one foot extended and the revenant going flying past behind the human warrior, tripped and smashing headlong into the floor.

It didn't drop its sword, but it could not possibly get back up to help save its master in time.