BECMI Chapter 293 – Into the Char
Jace and Eshauna had killed dozens of giants between them, and several times that number in their pets and great predators of the frozen highlands around them. Their combined combat skills had risen to levels they’d never even believed possible, the equal of those they’d once called heroes and inspirations… while those heroes and inspirations had quietly advanced to higher and more impressive tiers yet, while few knew that.
“They’ve seen it.” Jace nudged his partner and pointed towards a neighboring peak. Eshauna squinted, and could make out the flashes of fiery beards and heads clad in black plate armor, watching from lower on a neighboring mountain, below the snow line.
Easily half the Daisho teams had been engaged in continual harassment and destruction of the combined Fire and Frost efforts to fight them, slowly and constantly taking tolls on their towering enemies, then fleeing the area when swarmed and surrounded, much to the great ire and frustration of those seeking to kill them.
They weren’t here to fight honorably. They were here to kill the servants of Gulguz who’d fed the souls of thousands of mortals to His damned Khirifi, and in doing so earned the undying enmity and attention of the Lady Edge.
No Immortals had moved to stop them, even those who might favor the clans of Stone, or the barbaric hill giant clans that had been mostly exterminated anywhere along their advance course, and who were still proving to be viable practice for up-and-comers, since they formed the outer line of defense for the land of Jotunbrul.
Time and time again, the giants had sought to organize, to bring the clans together and form a great army that could march to the kingdom of puny ones and tear it down. Time and time again, their leaders had been killed, their messengers waylaid, and their gatherings bombarded by magical assaults that had mauled those attending with terrific and fatal power.
The Stone clans had simply retreated into their holdings and their caves, staying out of the way of the little ones. The hill giants generally tried to fight, since the invaders seldom bothered to outnumber them by much and so lured them into battle.
Dead giants didn’t spread the wisdom of their defeats to the others.
There were dragons about, but the ones allowed to remain here were all either allies or vassals of the giants, especially the animalistic Whites. The giants had many warriors eager to gain the glory of being dragon-slayers, so dwelling here and attracting endless giants to fight them was not a wise choice on the part of any of the dragons here.
With the giants gone, there was increased aerial traffic of dragons of multiple kinds. Indeed, there were at least four non-Whites in the sky, watching safely from a distance as the Jarldom fell, doubtless thinking to stake out their own territories now that the frost giants were finished.
Lands with an abundance of over-sized giantish animals running around were very attractive places for a dragon to hunt, after all.
The advance from hill giants to frost had taken nearly eighteen months, cost the lives of tens of thousands of giants across nearly a quarter of a million miles of territory, and wasn’t even done yet.
There were six Fire clans spread about inside Jotunbrul, centered in the Charlands about the active volcanoes here. The largest of those was a colossal volcano that had a second volcano within it, containing the home of the Fire Giant King, a warrior-priest of Surt who dared any to come to Fjurhjart and test the mettle of Fire!
“Let them watch. They doubtless think the Frost clans were weak and unable to keep us back, and the same cannot happen to them. They can dig in, and they are far too prepared for a siege, able to exist on the leavings of the Charlands for as long as they need to,” Eshauna murmured confidently, staring at the distant giants while cold winds that were yet warmer than they had been not long ago blew past them, affecting no one here. “They won’t believe it’s happening to them, right up until it is.”
“And now we’ve got to completely retool from cold to fire!” a spirited neighboring hynnyl Adventurer spoke up, tugging at the silky white fur of her winter wolf cloak, enchanted to give her Resistance to the cold and the ability to walk on snow and ice without any difficulty, a common item among the Daisho teams.
“That… is a good problem to have!” Jace grinned back seriously, and the Daisho teams nodded agreement that it was, indeed, giving them something to work toward.
In the meantime, Adventurers would rely on Rangers and Wizards and Priests to protect them against their forays into the Charlands…
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The very ground of this area was too warm to be comfortable, no matter the height, and it easily chased away any chill from the heights, as well as any type of standing water. Eshauna could feel the fiery power of the mana in the air clearly, exulting in its dominance over other magicks.
The heat came up from every stone, and their feet would have slowly cooked just standing around most anywhere.
But no, they definitely had protection now. Plenty of fire giants had ventured outside their Charlands to fight the little invaders, and they made fine goldweight components in blood and bone to empower the Ironblood Amulets they all wore now, providing Resistance to extremes of heat and cold alike, and which were fed by further infusions of fire and frost giant blood.
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They had a lot of fire and frost giant blood to Infuse with.
The hell hound before them lunged, its gaping jaws spewing out burning flames to accentuate the obsidian fangs of its bite. It yelped as Armz found the back of its throat and rammed itself right on through, the Archer Stands Thrust locked in place and the Ranger not moving as the hellish beast of fire, the size of a good horse, kicked a few final times, flaming blood spraying out of the death wound.
Then the flames of it went out like coal going black, sputtering and failing, and Eshauna levered it over off to the side.
Sparks of violet electricity crackled around the head of the Spear from the discharged Shocking Touch she’d delivered through Armz to its brain.
The creature was otherworldly, and rapidly began to disintegrate as vivus gushed from the death wound and began to consume the ectoplasm that held its mortal body together here. There might have been a bit of a sad and fearful howl that echoed in the winds as the hell hound Burned away in body and soul, not being sent back to Surt’s realm to bedevil anyone else in the future.
Jace retrieved three arrows from the side of its chest, where they’d been buried feathers-deep into the burning furnace of its lungs. They were still unmarked, the cool silver of the tips not scorched in the slightest, even bits of frost falling from them as he collected them for his short quiver.
“They don’t seem to be running out of this sort,” Eshauna told her partner with feeling, reclaiming Armz and carefully surveying the area.
“Aye, just more Summoned things brought up by their priests and sent out here to fight us, maybe get lucky and kill one of us before it perishes. Getting sneaky about it, too.” The vivus acted on the smell, but the brimstone that clung to the beasts still stank. “Not the only things coming out, of course…”
Bestie came out of literally nowhere, lunging out at nothing with glowing eyes. There was a startled yowl that was cut out as the Hound found the throat of his target, silvered fangs gleaming as he bit into nothing in midair… and dark blood spurted about his teeth, immediately igniting with vivus and Holy electrum flames.
With power and skill the Hound folded up under the throat of the lion-sized hellcat he’d ambushed, twisting and turning it into the shadows, where it broke out of its invisible state and became semi-visible as a transparent clawed shadow. It was trying to rip and tear at the Hound who had already Jaw-Locked the creature and wasn’t going to let go short of his death.
Eshauna took two steps and was at a full charge, driving Armz into the side of the hellcat’s ribs and slamming it back with superhuman strength derived from her Girdle. The hellcat smashed into the rock there, and then there were two cracks less than a breath apart as Jace’s arrows took it in the neck and the skull, nailing it to the stone.
Bestie heaved and tore open its throat, opening a spray of stinking jugular blood which the Hound twisted agilely free of and rolled away from, scampering over to stand in and inhale the vivic mists coming off the Burning hell hound deeply.
The Hound’s eyes glowed silver as they did so. Hell hounds were known for their visual acuity, able to see shadows, ethereal, and invisible things clearly and truly, making them incredible hunt-beasts and sentinels. Bestie was building that power himself, taking in the magic of this semi-canine, diabolic thing of the afterlife to do so.
A few of the Daisho teams who had great cats working with them had reported their Cats doing the same thing to Hellcats, and Horses were known to do the same to Nightmares. Apparently it was a valid form of evolution for them, gaining passive abilities like that by absorbing magic via vivic consumption.
The Cats were becoming more shadowy and stealthy, their fur growing darker and seemingly merging into shadows and blending with the terrain more easily. Some of the Horses had been growing claws on their hooves, horns, and even new fangs, while definitely being able to see invisible things and spirits, too.
Bestie had done some of the things with Burning winter wolf corpses after they’d been skinned, eating their flesh and his hide growing thicker and more resistant to cold after a time, to the point where he’d been able to ignore their freezing breath and take them straight on fang to fang, even if he was still only the size of a pony, not a horse.
Magic only did so much for Awakened Animals, and they had to evolve to get more done.
Bestie was noticeably bigger since they’d been killing Hell hounds, and could seat Jace effortlessly now, Eshauna with some care. Much bigger and he’d be able to seat them both without issue!
The three of them peered over the lip of the hill at the iron fortresses of the fire giants, rust-red and brooding in their heights and in the lambent glow of the lava moats around them.
“Boy, are they going to be surprised when Lady Edge tunnels us right in past their walls and moat and right among them,” Eshauna said, the former Frokki slave girl rescued from Siricil shaking her head knowingly. She had fallen into the Ranger training as if made for it, and accompanied the other volunteers to the Far Shore in Darkmoor to match up with a hyn living here, forming their Daisho team.
Giants were far from unknown in her homeland, although ogres and trolls were much more common. Fire giants were, however, significantly rarer and usually only seen in their own fiery homelands. It was never wise to provoke such forces, as gathered together giants were very dangerous.
Gathered together, they also made great targets for the combined spells of a lot of very skilled Rangers, too.
“Those Cryptomancers were indeed too cool,” Jace had to agree. The elves from the Far Shore, Lady Edge’s companions, had been behind the successful infiltrations of many of the glacial lairs of the frost giants, enabling the Diasho teams to strike behind fortifications and take their much larger enemies unawares. “Going to have to be. Fire giants are far tougher to deal with then frost giants, especially in that armor of theirs.”
“Aye, just waiting to use Umbral on our Blades in a big fight, and not just the secret ones,” Eshauna agreed. The shadowy Enchantment on their Weapons allowed them to ignore all armor, rendering the thick plate mail of the fire giants useless. It required a Sixteen Caster Level, so a Ranger had to be Rank F, a Thirteen in the Elven Path, to use it, which Eshauna had reached successfully.
Jace was solidly Rank G. They were both extremely skilled, worthy bearers of the appellations of Adventurer and Ranger!