"Our primary mission is actually to stop the source of betathaumic growth mutation, not to kill this thing. If we were to kill it and drop it on the Pyramid, we'd only bury the source, not necessarily destroy it. I want that source Disintegrated," Briggs stated flatly. "So we have to hit it first, then take out this creature."

"The thaumic radiator is at or near the top of the Pyramid they built here. The Avatar probably dwells within the structure," Sama said, crouching down and picturing the area below us. "Move us laterally so that we can make the drop, we'll glide down instead of a straight drop. Briggs and I will go after the Avatar while you remove the device."

"After," I interjected, getting their attention.

"After what?" Briggs inquired reasonably.

"After I make a hammer big enough to crush a Devastation Spider flat against the point of the Pyramid directly below us," I stated simply, looking up above us.

Briggs and Sama glanced at one another, and shared smiles that had all sorts of appreciation for hammers and sharp pointy objects in them.

---

We made a short circuit to determine the extent of the spider's two-hundred and fifty-foot main body, with legs reaching out a similar length in all directions. The legs were not a concern.

Then I Shaped out a two-thousand foot high pillar of rock, basically separating it by an inch from the surrounding stone, directly above that spider.

At three locations around the pillar, I blew my Tier 4 abilities for the week and inscribed Runes of Earthquake there, ready to detonate on my command.

Then I took the patiently waiting Briggs and Sama outside its radius, opened a circle into the ceiling of the cavern below, and we all fell through the roof of the cavern into the dimly-lit chamber lit up by countless phosphorescent fungi and minerals reacting to the betathauma, and swooped down towards the Pyramid.

The top of the Pyramid was basically a radiator and condenser of the radiation, gathering it and then distributing it by the buzzing noise which was just barely audible now so close to it, my bones tingling slightly with its power.

My blood would probably have been tingling so close to the radiation, but I'd Warded against it. Briggs and Sama had just ignored it as they coasted down on Disks after me. They broke off three hundred feet down like skateboarders, swooping left and right past me with their greater weight and ki cutting through the wind resistance, aiming for the main entrance to the place at free-fall speed.

Someone watching might have been able to see us falling, but I'd also kindly blurred our images so that we looked more like fallen wisps of webbing than anything coherent, an illusion that only had to last seconds as Briggs and Sama arrived at the entry point, the guards there, and exploded past them in blood-spraying explosions of violence.

I flicked up the Featherweight, and went from 200 mph to .5 instantly, dispersing my momentum and turning a diagonal plummet and dive into a gentle wafting across the air and underneath that cap.

And there it was.

Byodnar 65ltG-1, in some language magic could translate but didn't recognize, the rest of it abraded away by what looked like acidic burns. A huge teardrop-shaped chunk of metal with two missing fins, golden wires extending out of the narrow end of it and up into the golden cube above it.

My Disintegration spell was ready, and the green Ray shot from the black star sapphire atop Dread, smacking into the durasteel of the thing's container and instantly swallowing it in molecule-rending power that took it apart on an atomic level, then shifted the resultant energy release somewhere else as most of the mass simply disappeared.

With a gentle hiss, dark powder spilled down behind me as I drifted past it, leaving a mass of precisely severed golden wires above.

Below me, the Pyramid shook, and a deep battle-cry rose as a Greathammer beating on steel hit something, hard.

Dread hummed at the instant release of Immortal power erupting in all directions, and half-a-dozen schider on the slopes of the Pyramid died instantly as it swept past them, the very stones blackening at the release. It ran into my Wards against death magic and necromancy and was instantly stopped cold, even if it was an actual higher order energy, as I'd buttressed all my longer-term Wards with Immortal power for precisely that reason.

I heard a two-tone snapping, and a whispered 'Tremble…' on the winds, and then there was a shriek that shook the stones.

Another stone-shaking impact. Two. Three, four…

Dread pulsed, and I was out of there.

---

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Sama and Briggs winked in next to me at a wall ledge with direct line of sight to the Pyramid, although it was nearly ten miles away. It was still more than enough to see the blaze of light erupting as vivus and Immortal Power had puppy-kittens, bathing the entire cavern in a display of light that was both kindly and unremittingly hostile, ghostly and all too real as it blew through the Pyramid towards the cavern's ceiling, there to impact against something dark and terrible.

I clenched my fist, totally unwilling to let a Devastation Spider absorb any of that juice, and above it, three great Runes detonated.

The Earthquakes took half a second to reach one another, perfectly synchronized waves of force that tore apart the integrity of the stone hanging there in waves and sections. The unaffected areas of the overlapping waves weren't enough to hold on, and the stone let go.

Far in the distance, part of the sky fell down into that blazing light. If something underneath it tried to stir to life and move a little bit too late with the distraction and opportunity arising from below, well, that was on it.

There was a pop and wave of pressure as Dread appeared in my hand, the Runes covering the dragonbone it was made of seething momentarily with new energy it was drinking in very happily indeed, while a true hammer of the gods came down and drove a creature too massive to exist onto something that should never have existed.

The impact was totally visible, blowing dust, shrooms, and bugs into the air as the force of millions of tons of stone was dissipated in all directions evenly and started sweeping towards us in a wave of destruction. It covered the miles in mere seconds, faster than the sound of the impact and the resulting aerial shockwave, kind of surreal watching the mushroom jungle flying apart and toadstools and mushroom caps thrown into the air, along with uncounted numbers of bugs.

As the wave reached us, I snapped my fingers and, with Sama's and Briggs' hands on my shoulder, removed us from that area entirely. The air popped, and then the location we were in was swallowed by a wave of exploding stone, dust, bugs, and fungi bits, erasing any trace we were there as it did so.

---

We shimmered into existence at the Innspot, Briggs and Sama grinning ferociously as they stepped off the Seal.

"Big perfect schider, or an actual spider?" I asked them, waving at the guards nearby to return to whatever they were doing and ignore our arrival once they ascertained who we were. Marked always recognized one another, so they identified us promptly and went back to work.

"Former. Very unhappy when Briggs hit her hard enough to pulp her ribcage against the wall behind her, and I started taking off her legs. Made the mistake of trying to Heal, and when the Blooding stopped it, did that pulse of Entropic Aura and wiped out her entire court when she did so."

"Wasn't very happy when we didn't follow suit, and I hammered her skull into the rock a few times," Briggs grinned in satisfaction. "Took a few seconds for her spirit to realize the shell was dead, and then the vivus flared up, and she started to scream and the Power in her began to escape."

"No intact skull for you, sorry," Sama said, with minor regret on her face. "It was pancake-sized after that fourth hit."

"I forgive you," I replied piously. "I think that will severely impact the short-term numbers of the bugs and open up plenty of opportunities for us to begin the Karmic harvesting for the new troops."

"I'll have the first company ready to go within twelve hours," Briggs promised. We'd spent the time between my initial survey and this strike getting some of the proper equipment, especially masks for filtering out the poison in the air, ready for the fighters, and now they were going to start their rise to power.

No end of volunteers, from either the natives we'd been carefully recruiting or the Moorians come through. They'd all seen what the Free Company men and women were capable of now, heard the stories, and they totally wanted a shot at that kind of raw ability.

"Good. They are opening up Eisfall soon, finishing up the work."

------

"You are entering the aerial space of Eisfall. Flying traffic is not allowed over the city. Turn away or be grounded and destroyed."

It had been a pretentious warning, albeit delivered in a very bored and precise woman's voice speaking excellent Delphan, probably translation magic at work.

Captain Hardolf had been dispatched when Teleport spells to arrive at Newport had failed utterly to bring anyone there, as if the destination did not exist or was completely blocked. The Delphan Windborne Fleet, the pride of its naval power and aerial supremacy, had been dispatched to survey the area and determine what had happened, but not to exert military pressure unless attacked first.

Delpha had a great deal of experience with cantankerous and powerful wizards who could make life miserable for those who disturbed them, and wasn't about riling them up if that could be avoided!

Unfortunately, that wasn't going quite as planned, either… because he couldn't make out the city back there in the slightest!

He was pretty sure it was illusion magic, masking the entire circle of the city and even its docks from aerial view. Scrying magic revealed nothing, and far-seeing scopes and glasses earned the users eyefuls of mist and a rough idea of the round city walls' locations at times. Drifting out here a couple of miles off-shore warily, Hardolf didn't approach any closer, even a cursory scan with magic indicating there were some powerful spells woven about the city.

They were probably tied to the Obelisks that were in place around it, having risen up out of seemingly nowhere about a mile from the walls. There was nothing on them in his reports about the city, be it before the fires or more recently, so he assumed some great magic had put them into place to support the Wards.

"Sir, we've got a Siricilan flying carrier approaching from the south!" one of the spotters called down from above, in the crow's nest enchanted to give those within it the visual acuity of an eagle.

The Siricilan Storm Wings was the barbarians' much over-celebrated aerial cavalry, magical beasts, dragons, and devices ridden by heroic Siricilans in a pitiful attempt to match the utterly superior Delphan aerial navy. Individually, the barbarians were brave, able, and skilled, but they were also known gloryhounds whose discipline broke rapidly as soon as they were in mass combat and under magical fire themselves with Delphan aerial forces. Their effectiveness was notably erratic and based on the skill of their riders more than anything, and a competent Delphan crew had little problem dealing with most of them, most easily by simply shooting the beast being ridden out of the sky.

Still, one of Siricil's rare and precious aerial ships being sent up here indicated that their barbarian emperor was taking the matter seriously. The two empires had an active presence up here in Eislas, and some third party coming in to take advantage of the situation was going to do little more than find its own doom in the making...

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