Bows and Autobows thrummed, and Mick’s target jerked back, skull impaled and starting to blaze with flames from five shafts punched into and through it. Superhumanly strong himself, the Mick forced the dying carcass off to the side and started cutting upward in Sharding strokes at the thing falling down much too slowly from above, arcs of blazing fire and vivus surrounded by sunfire motes of fiery Lost Light ready to do their work.

  I could have blown it apart, but I was moving out and to the side, because Crown was saying there was another one in the hallway the Annihilators had been guarding. I flicked up the Fire Vuln V over the thing up there, highlighting arms almost half again as long as a normal Devastator, claws easily a meter across, and widespread jaws that could tear a man’s head off like a lollipop, with a disgusting tongue that had to be six feet long flailing about it. It was by far the skinniest tusker we’d ever seen, but it moved so fast and powerfully it was plain that it was far stronger than any that we’d seen yet, too.

  The stench of it hit us like a wall of blargh, but it was cut by fire and vivus, and so not nearly as gut-churning as it could have been. What it could have done if it landed in the middle of us would not have been fun, but what it ended up being was target practice as Shardings and missile fire drove into it, and the Fire Vuln doubled the impacts of all the attacks coming in on it as it screamed and shrieked in tones and sounds no normal tusker could ever make.

  When its partner leapt out of the hallway, quick as a panther, spinning and making ready to charge and pounce at us, I was waiting.

  Rose flared on my finger. Fire and Positive Energy swirled in the Lost Light, which blazed with real wrath at the presence of a chosen foe. The Baneskull on Crown Burned blacker than the void, and for just a moment, the Tusker Devastator Ghast locked eyes with it, and flinched.

  Then the Paired Admixtured Greater Shards slammed into it like the first rays of dawn.

  Fire, Force, and Positive energy slammed into it and smashed it up and backwards off its massively-splayed feet, driving it into the wall. Unwhite, dead black, starlight motes, and Holy Primal flames like all the spirits of the morning smashed into it like starfire arrows from the heavens, detonating upon it, tearing through undead flesh, and blowing it and its remains into vivic dust and a blast of shining unwhite mist almost instantly.

  There was an explosion of whiteness up above me as the shriek of the second Devastator Ghast was interrupted, and heavy white vivus blew in all directions.

  All the bones were now ablaze with vivus, staining the stonework white as they spread rapidly, feeding on the remains of the angry, desperate, and despoiled undead. An unspoken pressure around us was both rising and lessening at the same time.

  The Mick was circling slowly, looking in all directions. “I feel spirits moving, lass,” he reported quietly.

  “Two of the human-sized ones in that room up there. Bows up!” I said softly. They came up, and Zeks reached up and Telekinesis launched the first one out through the opening they were inching towards violently, my Featherweight catching it in midair and leaving it a target.

  The other one didn’t know what had happened, and could only watch as its companion seemed to jump out the opening and then somehow drift slowly down as flaming attacks shot up from below to destroy it.

  Then it was launched out the opening the same way, telekinetic fingers giving it no love, and it was drifting haplessly in midair, only able to kick and writhe helplessly, nothing in reach.

  I didn’t bother to Fire Vuln them, because Rogar, Hundig, and the Mick had joined the attacks, and neither got within a dozen feet of the ground before they exploded into ash and vivus violently under the flaming assaults from below.

  “Nothing above, nothing in the ramp up,” I reported, now the nearest to both openings, ready to bring up Shards or something else as Lost Lights spiraled eagerly and brightly around Crown.

  “It’s eating away the stench and still turning my guts,” Selena whispered, still covering the above opening. “That’s worse than the fish guts pile on a hot day!”

  “Tuskers already smell, so that be not worth mentioning,” the Mick murmured. “Ye all got yer Whiskers o’ the Wild up high enough to be blockin’ stenches as well as smellin’ good, right?”

  There was acute silence from all of them.

  “Yeah, respondin’ like folks what never had to inhale olthoi acid pool vapors for an hour straight,” he said, his own rather ferocious and snarling Whiskers out and displayed in a much more wolvish snarl. “Put yer masks on. In close quarters, the smell is gonna make you puke without ‘em.”

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  There were murmured apologies and promises to get the Tats as everyone dug into their Masspacks for the alchemical masks they could strap on to breathe underwater and filter their breaths if needed. Their Mask of Clarity Tats were enough to protect their eyes, they’d all at least done that much, if only to be able to ride Disks at speed without having a helm on.

  “Lass, a bit o’ scoutin’ ahead be soundin’ appropriate,” the Mick said, and I had to agree.

  The Wizard’s Eye popped up, and zipped on off ahead of us, just a flicker of shadow in the darkness. It might still be seen, since it was moving, but I could use a Detect through it, so it was also going to tell us if the ghouls and ghasts were closing in, and where all the Summons were so we could pick the fighting points.

  “Hunding, next fight, ye crouch down, angle yer shield up, make the feet bounce up instead of going through ye,” the Mick murmured to the ashamed Gharu’n, giving a knock to the Roaches shoulder. Everyone was watching the combination of my Detect Non-Good and the Wizard Eye’s view in the Markspace window.

  The layout of the hallways ahead of us was slowly spinning into the Visual File map, along with side corridors that were pinging defenders. The Summons were Brown, and the undead Black slime.

  The Mick saw that and paused, looking at the layout of the tunnels. “They be going to surround us an’ hit us from four angles,” he stated grimly. “Rogar, yer on Shield with Hundig, move to the back, both o’ ye. Cam, with me at the front. Ladies, two forwards, two back. Lass, first spell puts them on the ground, if ye can, second spell Vuln ‘em t’ Fire.”

  The responses were quick and curt as all of the men were off their Disks and Shielding up now, Rogar’s Glaive shortening to basically a short Spear as he joined Hundig at the rear, Milee and Mizaya facing backwards and over their heads.

  “When we advance to the next junction, I can start shooting the first Annihilator, and probably blow that ghoul off the ceiling there,” I informed the Mick.

  “Shootin’ ‘em around corners just makes me laugh, lass. Do it,” he grinned back.

  We advanced to around the corner, and I let loose the flight of Shards with Seeking on them, which could turn several corners in pursuit of their targets, and I knew right where those targets were.

  There was a bellow and a shriek in tandem as the split flight of Shards found their targets, smacking a ghoul off its ceiling hiding-spot and blowing an Annihilator spawn off its feet. Neither target was killed, although the undead was severely burned and injured, and fled immediately to deeper in the Dungeon, my Wizard Eye following it smoothly as its burning, ice-rimed, and sparking body fled urgently back into the corridors, bits and pieces of it falling off as the layered Kickers raged at it again and again.

  It made a nice distraction as I plotted out the location of the other undead it ran past, none of them paying attention to the Eye amid the clatter of bones, swirl of vivic mist, and eye-catching show of the blazing ghoul frying in so many colors of Kickers trying to outrun its pain and not quite succeeding.

  A basic layout of the area ahead scrolled past before the Kickers Burned out on the ghoul, leaving it at less than 20% Health, and giving us an excellent idea of what we were waiting for.

  Then a massive undead figure it ran past grunted, there was a blur of motion, and I snapped the Eye’s connection closed just before it was torn apart, saving myself some bleeding from the eyeballs.

  In the meantime, the Annihilator had gotten back up and come charging down the corridor towards where the attack had come from, looking for something to fight. But it actually had to turn two corners to do so, sapping its momentum and making it a great target as the two men in front raised Weapons to brace for it, Bows and Autobows centered, and the scarlet flash of the Fire Vuln V went off.

  ---

  Going down the side corridors and restricting attacks to the front and back was the proper way to foil a multi-pronged ambush, leaving Shields between us and them, and the size of the tuskers and tusker ghasts preventing them from doubling up on us in the corridors.

  I was plenty happy to knock Devastators, Annihilators, ghouls, and ghasts off their feet with basic Shard Attacks, also softening them up for the burning missile volleys slamming into our attackers at point-blank range.

  The stench as the ghouls and ghasts tried to close in to melee range was indescribable, if you could smell it. The Roaches were biting into their masks for dear life at just the slightest whiff getting through the filters of the eye-watering fumes, but vivus and flames did manage to devour the worst of it as they perished with great speed.

  There was no teamwork on the part of the enemy, the tusker Summons basically just sacrifices for the undead trying to slip in close and get to us, and the undead didn’t cooperate well, although they didn’t attack one another, either.

  They still Burned down and away as we worked our way through the defenses, Seeking Darts zipping out to fall upon Spawn Points and Seal them, as well as setting all the bones en vivus.

  It became a bit of a grind, obvious Summons being ordered in from ahead of us, forming a wall of meat for us to get through to advance, even as we wiped clean and clear all of the tunnels behind us. Bones fell to dust, stone was washed white, and we entered the final tunnel to the main holding area.

  The bones of Isparians were more common than ever before, and we were all wincing at what we were going to see and find. It was plain more of them were women by their sizes, and the area of the final stand was coming up. The biggest and most brutal tuskers had been sent to attack it, and their echoes were coming at us, even as the undead drew back and waited for us.

  ------

  The final room was spread wide in front of us, the largest and most open so far. Once it had been flowered and ferned, with tables and chairs, a bar against the wall, a hot pool at one side, and cheerful lighting and banners all around.

  Now, it was piled with bones, and a lot of those bones were of children. Their skulls were universally crushed, all their bones snapped to flinders, but it was pretty plain what they were.

  The Isparian dead outnumbered the tuskers in this room, where all the non-combatant women and children had fled, and the tuskers had killed them all.

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