Chapter 17-442: Sweet, Sweet Waters

Briggs just laughed, and invited Sama to go ahead. She tossed it smoothly at the pool, and then snap-shot it with her other hand just a few feet above the liquid there, the quarrel from Fall shattering the crystal vial as it came down, releasing the sparkling white swirly stuff to splash broadly into the pool.

It all spattered down into the bubbling, boiling stuff, and didn’t seem to do much of anything, but Briggs casually shouldered Boomer, a broad smirk on his face that matched Sama’s. Seeing that, all the men looking on relaxed despite themselves.

They did not, however, lower their Weapons or stop their eyes from moving.

The color of the viscous fluids in the brain-pool abruptly changed colors, losing all traces of green or yellow, and the flow patterns on it loosened up, becoming clearer and faster. The bubbling seemed to change in nature, as acidic reactions of psi-charged chemicals became... something else.

Like a foul wave, thousands of wriggling, writhing larvae-like creatures rushed to the surface of the pool, convulsing in shock and trying to crawl or leap up and out over the rim, clearly unable to control themselves.

A second later the very loud pscream of the akashic-brain itself rippled through air, and hissing water blasted upwards, spreading... a cool, refreshing smell of natural springs and running brooks through the air.

Purest uncontaminated and uncorruptible water hissed and boiled away in reaction to the acids and psychoactive chemicals on the intestine-sized folds of the alien brain, steaming droplets flying from the twenty-foot-long tendrils that were whipping about in a frenzy, crackling against the stone edges of the pool and the columns close by.

Everyone tensed as the hissing water showered over them... but it was just water, and did absolutely nothing to them.

“Who came up with weaponizing an Elixir of Sweet Water?” Briggs had to ask, as Boomer came down again.

“Ah, you know, it’s one of those things you just have to try,” Sama grinned, her blue eyes dancing. “Sure looks uncomfortable, boiling there like that!”

It wasn’t even acidic damage; it was more like anti-desiccation or something. The pure neutral PH of the Sweet Water was instantly cleaning any impure fluids in its area, which was basically everything on or about these cephalids and their slimy skin coatings. Acid Resistance wasn’t going to do squat, and when the pure water was hitting their exposed psychoactive hides, well, it was popping in reaction.

The larvae there were dying of water shock, all the psychic elements in the water ripped away from them, and drowning in the purity as their internal fluids popped and steamed. Suddenly, they all started blowing apart into sludge and goo that was rapidly converted and cleansed away by the Sweet Water.

“Deadshots, liveshots, one, two!”

Expensive null-energy plumbum slugs roared out, ignoring kinetic absorption fields and deflection Auras and not really caring about its natural toughness, either, pounding deep into the cerebral flesh of the akashic brain. A half-second later, as its concentration took a very fatal hit, the Banefire rounds arrived... a good twenty of them.

The vivic fires of the Baneshots found lots of good things to eat in the water, and the residues of the larvae and the encephalic fluids of the akashic brain combined to ignite into a pale white bonfire of heavy white non-fires feasting happily away. Flailing drops of water carried the vivus into the carnage made out of its defending cephalids, who, if they weren’t burning before, were starting to now.

“Cover us, lads, while we skull harvest before the fires take them.” Briggs slung Boomer and followed Sama and Tremble over the edge, her Disk unfolding out of her Masspack to take the harvest to come. Golden light fractured on a soulsword edge like a rainbow, and electrum gleamed as a phantasmal soul-axe materialized around the steady, unperturbed beating of Endure.

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I was riding Sleipner on a mountainside in the Swiss Alps, near the French border, literally two dozen miles above Sama, Briggs, and their Forsaken hit squad.

With the death of the cephalid akashic brain, the obfuscation over the area had instantly cleared up, and my Commune with Nature was following the plunging awareness of the darksea and tunnels in the area.

There was a lot of natural interference to Divination magic wound through the rock, misdirecting and overlaying the area with repetitious patterns and fallback asynchronous disruption of Scrying magic. Azaia could barely power down to just above the layer of real interference, but it took some really brutal Spell Penetration to reach past the level of obfuscation going on down there.

There were tens of thousands of Europeans in particular who winced when they saw what was below on The Map.

The Deepsea trailed off to the west towards the Ukraine. It hadn’t shown up on my Commune when I’d been in Europe before, so the Map didn’t extend much beyond the edge of my Sight... but the Deepsea underlay most of Switzerland and headed east, extending underneath a whole lot of eastern Europe if the wave action I was reading was anything.

And it was twenty-five miles down. Just in the area I was reading. Whole new areas that probably extended much further west were revealed, as the anchor point that was the cephilid sept was broken, de-powered, and revealed everything to me.

It also revealed that clear scans, trails, tunnels, and cavern systems faded rapidly into obscurity even before leaving my range. There was an entire strata about twenty miles down that was exuding a whole series of ‘Natural Wards’, so powerful and interwoven with whatever effect made the Felldeep possible that it couldn’t be broken by brute force from outside.

Well, non-Legendary force. Alas, the kind of epic magic to do that sort of thing would take a lot of time and gold to properly develop, which we didn’t have to the time to do. Or rather, Commander Haru’Ara didn’t have time to do, being busy with building up the world.

The psychic resonances would inform other cephalid septs that this akashic brain was offline, even if they weren’t alerted telepathically. We had a couple Templars under observation who had messed with their cerebrums and were still receiving telepathic instructions, while the Brother Mindrings had confirmed that there was more psychic stuff going back and forth down in these Deeps than anywhere else on the planet.

The thing out in the Deepsea had been a lethomorg, sitting in the water in its own cave about a mile offshore, with a few muuk servants around to be commanded. It had not been happy when a Waterspear popped up and Cut its Life in short order, ripping apart its psionic powers and defenses in remarkably short and surprising fashion.

Thus, we’d not found out if it was spying, observing, or an emissary of some kind. It was totally unlikely that the two races did not know of one another, but we didn’t know what kind of relationship they had. Both species were mind-slaving, brain-eating utter pragmatists, so it was highly unlikely that they did not have dealings, as well as cruel one-upmanship games, with one another.

“Looks like you got through this in one piece,” I /noted aloud, but was really speaking to the people far, far below me. I could have Earthjumped down there, but really, there was no need to.

The Morningsuns had played full-fledged support Casters; blocking mechanical troops, manipulating the terrain, and very importantly, healing everyone and getting rid of the multitudes of nastiness the cephs had unleashed on them.

Happily, those fighting were literally the toughest in the world, and there was nothing here they hadn’t seen before when going up against the Cultivators, only biased towards slugs and worms instead of bugs and snakes. Poison, disease, rot, leeching, acids, parasites; yeah, yeah, they’d seen it all.

The whole psychic shtick had run into Forsaken Resistances that had been VERY diligently topped out as far as they could go, and their obdurate mental states after months working with the phasma had given the cephs conniption fits.

-That White Staff was a godsend. Mr. Burble was on the job!- Sama /complimented the big ooze, who warped up a four-fingered palm to slap against hers, waving the aforementioned Cure Deadly Wounds and Revive the Dead Stave that could bring someone back from death if used quickly enough. From that point, Restorations and Regenerations could take care of just about anything, and with the Morningsuns here, that magic was guaranteed to be available.

There’d been eight deaths, mostly to some horribly deadly swarm attacks that weren’t AoE’d out of existence fast enough, a couple to collapsing traps and spikes in unfortunate places, but TK, Stone Shaping, and similar things made sure they could get the bodies.

They’d all been brought back without having to spend a Life Diamond.

The cephs really hadn’t liked those Vajra-born blanket energy resistances, either, hehe...

Mr. Burble had also contributed some Empathic Healing, absorbing damage from the heavily wounded men that he could just Fast Heal away, not much different from what Sama and Briggs could do, or what Healing Reserve did. It didn’t replace Soak, of course, but what it meant was the men got all bloodied up on their maxed-out Health and mended up physically, instead of having to spend their Soak cushion.

Those who were advancing on Racial Levels naturally had an advantage in how much physical punishment they could take, but they had a much smaller emergency buffer in return.

Briggs was sitting on his Disk right now, staring out into the cave that led deeper into the depths, his thoughts dark and brooding.

The Felldeep was a source of great adventure in many tales, but it was primarily a source of really nasty old things that eventually erupted with world-threatening power. The return of magic had woken up some very old things that had realized they could once again reach up to the surface more actively.

Now, the surface was reaching back down to them. The only problem was a lack of knowledge on our part... and I couldn’t punch through that Natural Ward without the anchor points going down.

Briggs caught my /groan all the way down there. -Cheer up, Trav! It’s fairly obvious that this Strata doesn’t seem to exist under the oceans. You won’t have to rerun them.-

I tilted my eyes to the skies and muttered soft thanks to Mithar and Sylune. I mean, I could do it, but frak, it got boring, even if it gave me tons of Artificing time to make things like Telekinesis and Air Elemental Command Rings... and White Staves.

-The Brothers ready to scout the way?- I /asked quietly, looking over the swirling snows and ice around me as high as we were, then down the slopes at the distant signs of human habitation below.

-Lady Traveler, the Brotherhood was made for this!- Pawlie Blakhamar /spoke up confidently, and there were /murmurs of agreement from his Void Brotherhood brethren.

-The Karma was definitely worth it,- Sama /said, eyeing the ranks of the Fellowship Alliance everyone was in. -We’re gathering the loot. Much of it is just some really disturbing artwork that we’ve pretty much agreed should just help make more Aberrant Baneskulls for the Powered.-

-All those vids at the Pole are going to come in damn useful for some true delving,- Briggs /agreed, tossing a hairy eyeball my way. -You planned this far ahead?-

-Did someone forget that I was Communing with NatureBEFORE I headed down there?- I /asked archly. -So, I just might have known the Felldeep was down there...-

Sama just laughed. -He’s just moping because the whole planet is a dungeon, and he can’t explore it himself!- she /teased her Fuzzy, who didn’t deny it.

On the other end, a whole lotta vids and schematics of the sept were hitting the Markspace and Heavenbound Hall, and the plentiful numbers of Powered not in The Jet and Silver were going apeshit as they realized all the excitement under their feet.

The average citizen wasn’t nearly so happy, of course, but their choices were to cower in fear or support those going after threats from Down There.

There had definitely been plenty of things in the Felldeep to be wary of, but for the most part they were self-contained and could be protected against by the limited numbers of access points.

Now, there were ancient and very, very Evil races with real power and intelligence down here, enough to rival elder gods with their akashic brains.

And we hadn’t seen anything beneath the Strata except in this one little area a Mountainhammer had led us to...