“Agreed, but let’s spare the goblins if they run.”
Cassie asked, “Why?”
“We won’t get experience killing initiate level opponents, and the nearby human city wouldn’t thank us. On our starting island we started near a goblin cave. They apparently raid and attack the elves every twenty years out of overpopulation. I’d wondered then why one of the master level elves didn’t just mosey on in and remove them as a threat, just exterminate them. It would be easy for them. I think the elves use them to train the next generation. It’s a good way for them to gain power and rise from initiate to apprentice level. That seems insane, to accept the possibility of death, but then if they didn’t their children would never grow in power if they grew up in safety and didn’t have to strive. Then when the race war comes next, they’d all be wiped out.”
Dan shook his head, “That makes entirely too much sense, in a cynical way. This world is cold at times.”
“Right? Gaia has a lot of explaining to do.”
Cassie said, “Alright, but they’re toast if they don’t run away.”
I nodded, we didn’t have much choice. With our mana shields their shamans wouldn’t be able to touch us at all, but even an initiate with an arrow could get lucky with a head shot. It was doubtful with the level difference, but it could happen if we screwed around and didn’t take it seriously.
It was more important to finish off the aliens, then to preserve that particular tribe. Maybe if we killed this one, another tribe would move in.
“Plan? So far all I have is go in blasting. As far as I can tell they’re not even watching us right now.”
Gwen giggled, “That works, or… Want me to scout?”
I nodded, “Might be a good idea. We also haven’t fought them melee before, and I’m thinking in the caves that we might not have a choice.”
Gwen asked, “Worried about me?”
“Is that a trick question?”
I kissed her, and then gave her a light push toward the caves.
Gwen smirked, and cloaked as she turned and walked away. At that point, with just herself she could cloak forever, her regen rate was higher than the spells cost. I didn’t doubt she’d also be able to take a passenger. It was only the six of us, or the ship itself, that the cost was still too high. In a level or two, she might be able to do that too. All of our mana amounts were skyrocketing at that point in our development.
Cassie asked, “That bothers you, doesn’t it?”
I shrugged, “I’m a guy, so yeah. But it’s also one of the reasons I love and respect her. She’s amazing, but that doesn’t mean my instincts to keep her safe just goes away. She tolerates it, as long as I don’t give into it and try to coddle her.”
Cassie nodded, “Dan’s the same way. I was thinking, we should put half this stuff in the vaults we rented for our backup equipment in the western kingdom, in Tradewinds? The rest of it we should get more vaults in the Southern Kingdom and put some of it in there. Or maybe in our own vault under the mansion?”
I sighed, “Being rich is a pain in the ass, but I agree. We shouldn’t put all our eggs in one basket, even if the vaults are secure there’s no point in taking chances. We’ll get more in the cave too, we can even build a hidden vault in the glade, and then we’d have a stash out in the middle of nowhere. Split it in thirds, each one a fortune.”
Dan asked, “What’s next, after we do all that?”
I replied, “I’ve been thinking about that, while we were flying for days. There was that large port city on the northern size of the continent we passed that was in the middle of some fleet battle. Maybe we could check that out, there’s got to be a quest or two involved there.”
Steve said, “Sounds good to me,” a second before Gwen appeared and said, “Sounds interesting. Do we want to get involved with a human on human war though?”
I frowned, “Maybe not fighting, I won’t risk us killing innocent humans, elves, or martens in some war between the good races of two kingdoms. But there’s got to be other stuff to do peripheral to that. Right? We can always move on if there isn’t.”
Cassie said, “I wonder why they’re fighting.”
I shrugged, “There were no mountains anywhere near there, the closest range was hundreds of miles away. My guess is because they don’t have any evil races to fight, and being humans, they had to go make other trouble.”
Lara giggled, “That’s a bit fatalistic, darkly so.”
Gwen sighed, “But he isn’t wrong. Humans thrive on challenges, and chances are one of those kingdoms is trying to expand their domain, and one’s defending. Or, they’re both expansionists.”
Gwen shook her head, “One problem at a time. The cave tunnels are extensive, but generally just keep going unilaterally. There’re caverns, connected by tunnels, each with one exit. There was only one split, toward the end. Down one split, is a couple of caverns where the high-level shaman and his apprentices live, the other split is where the chief and best guards live.
“I also discovered why no relief charged out here. The chief’s area is a big cavern and very deep inside the mountain. There’re twenty-four soldiers down there, with about sixty of the monsters in normal uniform clothes without armor, about half male and half female. My guess is they’re so deep they didn’t hear a thing, and I have the feeling the goblins didn’t dare tell them about it, or even stick their heads in there. Best I can tell, the aliens displaced the chief and his warriors. That whole section is taken up of the alien quadrupeds.”
I thought for a second.
I nodded, “That makes things easier. We cloak, walk to the split where the aliens are. Dan can put up a wall to keep the goblins out of it, it sounds like they won’t be stupid enough to try and come to the aliens’ aid. Then we move in typical party order down the corridor. Gwen and Dan in front, Steve in the back, and the rest of us in the middle. When we get to the cavern, Dan makes something for us to hide behind, and we start killing.”
“Simple enough,” Dan said.
I nodded, “The good plans usually are. It’s overly complicated ones that usually go south. We could dig a new tunnel and try to flank them, but we’re stronger together. The aliens also don’t have any area of effect spells we need to worry about, just their plasma rods.”
We headed into the cave system, and we updated Gwen on our multiple vaults idea on the way down, since she wasn’t there for it. We decided in the end to use our vault below the mansion in the Southern Kingdom, no point in renting one, and using our own which wasn’t known about wouldn’t draw unsavory attention. The third one would be in the glade, and of course the one in Tradewinds where we had our old journeyman stuff.
The goblins were easy to avoid, even with my agility, and we made our way to the split that led to the chieftain’s area. Dan put up a wall, which cancelled our cloak, and blocked the goblins out. We waited for a minute or two, and there was no sign that they were thinking of knocking down the wall. Perhaps they even believed their alien usurpers were responsible for putting it there.
Then we got in party order, and headed down the tunnel…
Chapter Eight
We should’ve recloaked, because we didn’t get to the end of the tunnel before the plan fell apart. Sort of. We should’ve known there would be guards right at the entrance. They opened fire before we could. A blast hit Gwen and Dan.
They screamed and charged, of course they did.
I sent a fire blast of my own between them. I’d also modified and recast my duration area fire blast spell in anticipation melee combat would happen. It worked as a shaped charge, only in one direction in a very wide cone, not quite one hundred eighty degrees, more like one hundred forty.
When it got close to them, it detonated, and both guards disappeared in white fire. Cassie did the same thing with her lightning, and Dan fired a blast from his left-hand mid-charge. We’d pretty much drained their mana shields in the first two seconds. I wasn’t unaware there were twenty-two more in the giant
cavern.
Gwen feinted toward the bastard’s feet, and when the quadruped lowered the shield to block she adjusted and thrust straight at its head. I cringed a little inside, as the sword tip sunk right through its armor and into its face. The giant quadrupeds were so much stronger than Gwen, or any of us, but they were also far slower.
Lara’s spell went off, we were already covered by a constant plus four enhancement to all our attributes, so she’d had to come up with something new or she’d just be tagging along with us, her heal and enhancement spells just automatically worked. It looked like she finally had come up with something. Both of them, including the one Gwen just ran through, suddenly had a helmet of light over their heads. A shaped light instead of the usual orb, that would make them completely blind.
Not harmful maybe, but it disoriented the one still alive, and would make it impossible for it to aim its plasma weapon.
Steve said, “Nice one love,” as he shot a bolt at the second one. It disappeared into the large torso, cracking the armor.
The quadruped screamed, which was cut short into a death rattle, as Dan’s sword slid into the lower torso, and right through the alien’s heart.
Dan frowned, as he started to build a three-foot-high wall, three feet deep, as the twenty-two enemies opened fire on the cave opening. That’s kind of why I’d cringed at their charge, they should have stayed with us and Dan should have formed a small fortification. We could have fought in the tunnel for a bit, and slowly gained ground, but they hadn’t waited for orders.
If it wasn’t for the large corpses on the ground, they both would have died instantly before the wall was complete. As it was, the two corpses were completely ripped apart by the plasma bolts, while both Gwen and Dan hit the deck. They’d both been hit at least three times, and they’d both lost their mana shield. Fortunately, we were all resistant by eighty percent to fire. That meant a ten thousand hit point plasma bolt only did two thousand damage once the shield was gone.
If it were me, I’d have been dead, I had five thousand hit points, so I suppose I could take two more shots after the three that took down my stronger mana shield, but I’d have died on a third hit. Gwen and Dan had a lot more hit points than I did though, so they were just in pain and lying on the ground.
My and Lara’s mass heal spells kicked in, and they both started to heal as we got down in a crouch and made our way carefully to the blocking three feet thick stone wall. Two down, twenty-two to go. Plus, the sixty that were virtually defenseless.
They fired again, and half our stone wall was obliterated. Steve would have to maintain it.
Just because, I got up and shot out five fire blasts in quick succession, two thousand mana each. I was determined to stick to my thirty thousand mana mana-shield, ten thousand for fighting, and ten thousand reserve for oh shit situations.
Point was, each one of the five did about eight thousand points of damage. I’d just killed about a third of the sixty since they had less than five thousand hit points, and slightly damaged the shields on all twenty-two warriors left.
Gwen muttered, “I thought fire was bad, plasma hurts even more. It… sticks.”
Neither her or Dan would get an attack on that three second opening, they were both recovering quickly from our automatic healing spells though. Dan wouldn’t get an attack next time either, he needed to fix the wall as soon as he recovered his wits.
Lara cast another light spell, that started as a thrown globe. About ten of the warriors had been in a sixty-foot radius of where it landed, and all of them got helmets of light. What was amusing, is they were tough but had no magic really, just magic powered tech. There was no way for them to dispel it.
Cassie cast chain lightning, which probably took another ten or so thousand off half the remaining enemies. We still had a long way to go because of our diffuse attacks. Twelve had ninety-two thousand mana left in their shields, and the other ten thanks to Cassie had about eighty-two. It’d been a mistake to give into my desire to kill a bunch of them, we needed to focus on one area at a time.
Steve shot a bolt with mana drain on it, further draining shields on those ten by another ten thousand. A little more for those closest to the area of effect.
We all ducked down. Twenty-two plasma bolts flew. Twelve of them took out another foot of wall, there was only half a foot left. The ten that were blind fired anyway, but they missed the wall. There were a lot of small cave-ins, but the cavern and the tunnel held.
Dan fixed the wall, as we all stayed down for this round, except Lara who blinded six more of them.
Twenty-two more plasma bolts hit, this time only six managed to hit the wall, which was now six feet thick and three feet tall.
I popped up and shot a fire blast for the full ten thousand. Two of them took forty thousand on their shields, four others took thirty-two thousand.
Dan and Cassie followed my lead with fire and lightning and the two that took forty thousand died, since they’d been down twenty thousand to begin with. The other four died too, when Gwen and Steve threw an area of effect shadow spike attack and life drain spell, respectively.
Eight down, sixteen to go.
My inner greed noted as I ducked down, we were about to get forty-eight crystal sheets and twenty-four cylinders. Double what we’d gotten outside. That would be in total, twelve sheets, six cylinders, and one big cylinder each. Sixteen hundred eighty grandmaster gems after being cut up… each. At my current thirty-six intelligence with Lara’s four-point bonus, that kind of math didn’t even require any real thought. It was more like just wanting to know the answer and it was there.
Another sixteen plasma blasts, and that time eight of them hit. Two of the blind ones managed to hit the wall.
A moment later, Lara threw a third spell, to blind the last six, and several of the non-warrior caste that they were desperately guarding.
Another sixteen plasma blasts, three hit. The misses were more problematic that time, it caused a partial cave in behind us, and the front of the cavern caved in, but not enough to block anything. The wall still had four feet of thickness, so we all stood up and blasted them.
We managed to take down three more that volley, and we hurt the shields on three more. Eleven down, thirteen to go.
I’d thought Lara would be done, but nope. She was getting creative because her usual stuff was automatic. She launched a dispel magic, which drained the shields of the three we’d hurt.
I glanced at her and she shrugged.
“Technically, dispel magic can’t kill anyone. Neither can blinding them. Everything else I do to protect you helps you kill better and faster, so I don’t really see the difference.”
I laughed, which mostly got drowned out by the sounds of thirteen blind shots of plasma fire.
That time we all waited for the next volley, except for Dan who once again restored our wall out to six feet.
My return fire blast took out three more shields but caused a little damage. Dan’s fire blast finished them off leaving ten still alive. Cassie shifted to another group of three, and hit them with lightning, Lara dispelled their shields, and Gwen’s darkness finished off their shields leaving them vulnerable.
Steve did an area hit point drain that killed them all. Seven left.
The enemy panicked at that point. All the ones left not blinded out of the breeding pairs, charged. If they made it, I could see them jumping our cover. Weapons or not, their bodies were weapons, and they had claws on their feet.
If that wasn’t an emergency, I didn’t know what was. I dug into my standby mana and shot off another four, two thousand mana each, area fire blasts. None of them were armored, and about thirty of them just died, just leaving the ten blinded ones, and the seven blinded guards.
Of course, doing that I’d stayed up to long, and the enemy fired before I could duck down. Lucky for me, they were blind. One plasma bolt hit the block, two hit me, and the other four went wild. My mana shield dropped from thirty thousand to ten. I could even
feel the heat of the fire, but none of it got through and caused real harm.
I ducked down to regen. It would take me at least twenty seconds to refill my mana shield and refill my available spell mana. Of course, three of those seconds had already been spent from after my original normal volley.
Cassie chuckled, “That could have been bad, thanks.”
I laughed, a little strung out on adrenaline myself. We were definitely holding our own at that point, more than that even, but these aliens really freaked me out. What was a shock was the high value of those last two levels, two levels ago we’d have never been able to face down so many.
After they fired again, all the others blasted away. Three more died, leaving four, all of which had under forty thousand left on their shields. They’d been taking low damage, being so far away from our attack radius, but the fight was long enough that it all added up.
More blasters.
We all regened.
More blasters.
Lara attacked first with dispel magic, then we all piled on with area damage. If they’d been able to see, they’d have probably separated more to prevent us getting them all at once, but we took out those four. It was simple enough to take out the rest of the blind ones, they couldn’t fight back at all.
I waited for the experience, and then snorted at myself. We were in a dungeon, and weak or not, surrounded by goblins. The dungeon was not cleared. We’d have to wait until we got outside and away from the immediate area.
It didn’t take us long to loot. On the way out, we cloaked as soon as we removed the blocking wall. The goblins didn’t even try to find us, I guessed they were pretty much cowed from what happened outside.
When we were around that hill and getting in our ship, it finally kicked in.
Congratulations! Eighty-four quadrupeds have been killed! You have earned sixteen thousand eight hundred Experience Points!
Congratulations! Normally I’d say genocide is bad, but in this case, you have prevented a new evil race from rooting itself upon this planet. Good job, I figured you’d flub your way to success eventually. You have earned five million Experience Points!
Cleansing Fire Page 7