Ghoul Ketnan started launching spells in at us, an impressive achievement considering he hadn’t been known as a spellcaster at all. I could only assume the Isparians who’d been brainwashed by the tuskers had taught him, and as a matter of survival he had learned incredibly quickly.

  That, and he came from a family with known affinity for magic, and maybe he’d just been hiding it all along.

  He was not happy when I Countered his Vulns and Imperils, stopped his Drains, and then I began to run Chains of Shardrays through the declining number of undead raging at us. The Chains leapt them over and up to him to speed the whole process down by channeling the damage back down to his minions.

  It was hard for him to Cast spells on us when he was on fire in six colors and trying to put them out, and my spells kept hitting him over and over. Even Healing up instantly as he displaced the damage to his minions was extremely distracting, and the very unwanted spell support from him was quickly strangled before it was dangerous to us.

  Ghoul after ghast went falling back in flaming arcs into the big pit behind them. It certainly wasn’t big enough to keep them down there, and they were strong enough to punch their claws into the stones and make their way back up. Their problem was that they kept taking damage, the Kickers on them kept getting refreshed, and already injured, they were being smacked by newcomers falling from above so they couldn’t climb out as they were falling to vivic dust.

  The last undead Devastator was smashed backwards, chest and arms on fire, Burning missiles in its face, and its neck and chest a charred mess as it was flung backwards over the edge of the pit and crashed down on the Burning, dying undead below.

  Ghoul Ketnan, still up on his ledge, saw us finally advance out of the tunnel, the Mick orient on him. While the rest of us spread out around the pit to bombard the occupants mercilessly, the Mick charged him, right up through the air, treading on wisps of vapor from his Cloudstepping Sandals, not needing to run or leap or take the ramp or anything.

  His charge took the startled Ketnan square in the face with his Shield Clan, Bunita’s Kiss driving deep into the ghoul on the charge, crits exploding, Valorous Charge damage multiplying, all the fun stuff as the mass of stinking, Burning undead flesh down in the pit fell apart with great speed. Claymore against claws and jaws began to have its way.

  I wasn’t worried about the Mick, as no matter how much Ketnan seemed to bounce and bend and try to get away from him, the ghoul went nowhere. Thorned Stance and Standstill kept the undead merchant locked in place, Sword beats Fist triggered for extra attacks, as did Opportune Sneak Attacks, Riposte, and Defensive Sweep coming in from multiple angles, free shield bashes from Clan stacked on top, and Ketnan began to die.

  I didn’t bother to Debuff him, because that would have triggered automatic Buff spells to counter, and maybe to auto-Dispel what I had laid upon him. The Mick tore into him, and he began to take the injuries as the last of his minions blew explosively into vivic dust below, and then it was all on him.

  The Mick was putting on a textbook display of containment swordplay, not allowing the lightning-quick ghoul to take so much as a step away from right in front of him. His Flaming Claymore was slashing and stabbing in a gorgeously ornate flurry of blows that only seemed to be accelerating as Ketnan tried to get past his Shield and blazing defense, steely claws raking against adamantine plates and finding no real way through, and having no advantage of strength against his living opponent.

  A flicker of a feint, another Defensive Sweep, the explosion of a critical and a Flaming Burst going off concurrently, ripped the ghoul completely open from neck to crotch, extended tongue going flying and disintegrating.

  Ghoul Ketnan staggered, scooping at his withered flaming internal organs, and hissed, “Adventurers,” with deep contempt and yet a smugness, knowing ‘he’ was going to live again.

  Then his head was flying off his shoulders, and flames were Burning on him.

  Noticeably, vivus was not among those flames there at the end.

  “This enough to bring him back, lass?” the Mick asked, breathing deeply as he sucked in oxygen while his boot toed the horrific sneer and leer caught on the dead Ghoul Baron’s face.

  “Yes, although the spell will have to create a new body. We’re going to make a nasty Baneskull out of this sucker.”

  The Mick reached down onto the charred corpse of the ghoul, lifting away the satchel at his side. He levered it open with interest, and saw within not just the M notes we’d given him, but quite a heap more notes, mostly MMD’s, stuffed inside and not remembered at all by the ghoul.

  Plunder from the dead, more than likely, hoarded to pay a debt to someone likely long dead.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  I floated up behind the Mick, pointing behind the throne. The Mick peered around the side, and saw a massive treasure chest, easily four feet high at the top and roughly plated with scrapings of gold, garish and showy and meant to be seen.

  “What’s a tropical paradise without some hefty loot?” he asked meaningfully.

  “Well, it won’t keep reopening with different loot like they did in the old days, or the same loot items repeatedly, but he should have a key on him,” I told him.

  The key was made by assembling two dangling charms on the ghoul’s ornate bracers together, and everyone stood back as the Mick inserted it and opened it up, stepping back swiftly in case there was a trap that neither one of us had been able to find.

  No such reactions, although there was a lot of glitter in there.

  We all crowded up, and looked upon the collected spoils of the deaths of the Isparians of Aphus Lassel, and whatever ornamentation the tuskers had carried and left beyond.

  There was quite a bit of it. Casting Implements of all sorts were part of it, but there were lots of stacked semiprecious and precious stones likely carried as mementos, along with a lot of simple jewelry of all types.

  Weapons and armor didn’t seem to be part of things, although there were a few skull-like Helms and tusker bone Swords that were definitely made from tusker parts.

  “Tusker Slayer Weapons,” the Mick stated, pointing them out, his gaze turning thoughtful. “Gor, I ain’t thought about that treacherous little bastard in nae twenty years.” At my arched eyebrow and those of the Roaches, he elaborated. “The servants o’ Aerbax made up an infiltrating tusker they called Mudmouth, using him to poison the Tusker King an’ eventually try to kill an’ replace him with a false Tainted Bobo. Those Weapons are made from the bones o’ those two critters.” His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Bobo was actually the first Prodigal, but he was made by the virindi from a common tusker, who were already enslaved by them, where the rest of the Prodigals were made by Aerbax. Gotta wonder how things worked out with two factions of virindi both with designs fer him, an’ if their little creations might’ve actually gotten through t’ him.”

  “Do you care to investigate his Dungeon to find out?” I asked him calmly.

  He actually considered that a moment before saying, “I have the impression the northern island is mostly abandoned by the tuskers because o’ these ghouls. That gives us an open period t’ clear out the entire island o’ tusker spawns before the tuskers further south realize the ghouls be dead. That cuts out a lot of work an’ a lot of Summons for the tuskers to use in a fight.

  “There are a LOT of tusker Spawn Points we have to Seal up as fast as we can. We should bring in a lot o’ help to take care o’ that problem.”

  I just nodded. “Let’s do that, then.”

  ------

  Orders went out in Markspace, troops were mobilized with speed, and I Teleported back to the mainland north of the old Falcon Clan training camps to start shuttling Hea, Aun, and Isparians with spears and bows across to the islands, keeping a safe distance out of observation distance from the southern island.

  Culling of the tusker Summons began quickly and quietly, Spawn Points noted and vivus applied to each as the many, many Summons died. There were some Phyntos Wasps, both real and Summons, and those were also zealously hunted back to their nests as soon enough hundreds of soldiers were working down the length of northern Aphus Lassel.

  No actual Fire Weapons or spells were used, being too easy to see at a distance and thus rouse the curiosity of the tuskers. Piercing attacks worked almost as well, and the fighting forces progressed with speed and energy, being used to this Summons-clearing work and having little mercy for the tuskers who had wiped out their former slaves so viciously.

  Restrained by their own fear of the ghouls and ghasts sweeping out to kill them, the tuskers to the south didn’t bother to investigate the quiet deaths and disappearances of the Summons. Any that were visible on the beach from the shallow shores were disposed of quietly during the night so any watchers from the southern side a mile away would see little to nothing.

  Also, conjuring up a wind to send a nice rendition of the stench of the ghasts wafting across the waters to the tuskers was an excellent way to dissuade them from investigating anything. Indeed, a rough line of tuskers was drawn up along the shores of the southern island in an attempt to dissuade any of the undead from attacking. As the undead didn’t need to breathe, their infiltrations could be done underwater and come up literally anywhere, likely to the intense detriment of the tuskers there.

  It was not our problem, in the end.

  -------

  “The ghouls were busy for years,” Hadon, the head of one of the other Scout teams, reported to us, shaking his head. “Total confirmation from every Dungeon on the island, Lord Mick. There’s dozens of tusker bones in all of them, although the Summons were still there. The living tuskers using the lesser Dungeons as dens were slaughtered wholesale.”

  The Dungeons were already being earmarked for training purposes, being fast-spawning and exactly mono-Summons, and thus very easy to prepare for. The Summons there came in large numbers, tended to cluster up, and were incredibly predictable.

  There were no material rewards, but for training purposes and Karma, they were some of the most useful Dungeons we had ever run across for training, a purpose they had also been earmarked for in the past, the Mick informed us smoothly.

  Just advancing up the line of tuskers from basically teenaged Minions to the young Females was a guaranteed method of Level-appropriate training that could easily get even the less ambitious sorts to Level 100, albeit with experience against only the one kind of foe, which wasn’t ideal.

  Still, it was a good resource to have. We just had to keep the rest of the tuskers from coming back and reclaiming everything, especially reopening the landscape’s Spawn Points if they were capable of doing so.

  “Something feels incredibly off about all of this,” Briggs stated firmly. “I think it all hinges on the fact there are still Isparian Summons in the Dungeon of King Bobo, despite not being anywhere else in the islands. That says that something is in there that isn’t killing Isparians out of hand, while the tuskers basically went, eh, ape on them.”

  “Knew it!” the Mick swore. “When that damn Mudmouth popped into my head, it were like something were pointing at me fer the damn bastard!”

  ============================

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