Chapter 17-445: A Moment of Balance

Tibet was almost clear, and tonight was the night that it was happening.

Powered were coming in now, primarily those with Bonded Forsaken who could resist any Fear effects from the throngs of phobos in the ever-thinner phasma. Void Brothers by the dozens were leading Sources and Nulls in the shredding and cancellation of the phasma. The yellow fog was being sliced apart as wedges of fighters hacked and blasted their way through the fog and the horrors within it, severing it, Sealing it, shrinking it, and dissipating it as the massive influence that had once dominated the entire Tibetan Plateau was chopped apart and Sealed repeatedly.

The great temples, monasteries, and palace at Lhasa were now visible in the apocalyptic remains of the transformed city. The undead remnants of the inhabitants of the city were now coming forth, transformed into powerful Leng ghasts under the command of the King in Yellow. Its mummified Servants of Leng and dozens of moon beasts were finally showing themselves to command all these things in service to the King.

The phasma burned white and blue on the yellow, black banefire crawled over undead as cerulean truefire blazed on phobos-nightmare creatures, Leng Servants, and moon beasts. Repeated magic honed on the hundreds of millions of undead in the Chinese and Indian Shroudzones exploded non-stop... and often right among battling knots of humans and the unclean creatures of Leng, as the Forsaken just ignored the magic and let it blast and batter those around them.

The fallen monks of the temples and monasteries, now gifted with ghastly strength and illuminated to dark profound arts over the decades of their enslavement, came forth to clash hand to hand with the Dragon Warriors, monks, and weapon masters of the attackers. Soon the entire city of Lhasa was almost one big martial arts tournament, even taking on a somewhat formal air as different sides sent out champions to contest with one another in death matches... until the ghast-monks kept losing those matches, and decided a mass melee was more in their favor.

Their opponents had long gotten skilled at dealing with undead, however, and while the ghast-monks were deadly, dangerous, and tough, so were their opponents, with Weapons and Armor optimized against their lethal claws and teeth, and not at all unnerved by their speed and agility.

The ghasts were astounded that normal humans could keep up with them. After all, they had twelve Racial Levels in Leng Ghast, and with their fanatical obedience to the King in Yellow, they had believed that with their combat training to enhance this incredible natural killing power, they would naturally be invincible to a mortal, living army.

Nobody they fought was under Seven. None had less than a Funf-Slotted Weapon and Armor at this point, and all of them were using at least ki-based Techniques from all the Disciplines that they could. In particular, Sword Beats Fist preyed on the fact that the greatest weapons of these ghast-monks were their claws, which created all sorts of openings for actual Weapon-wielders to abuse and punish.

The ghast-monks knew how to fight Weapon-wielders and didn’t feel pain, as well as having incredible toughness and even the ability to heal themselves somewhat. The Living knew how to fight non-Weapon Wielders, and had the total edge in Gear and variety of Techniques that they brought to the fight. Greater Ki-Bound Enmity/Evil Bane/Undead Vivic Weapons came in at +VIII +3d6, and were only the most basic things being brought to the table here.

Perhaps the biggest thing was simply that the ghast-monks had not been enlightened to truly Profound Forms, merely a single refined path that yielded some usable tricks, but nothing greater than what any non-Powered could wield. Their ki/magic combinations just made the wielders targets for the Powered Casters, who didn’t seem to be dismayed by the incredibly fast undead martial artists at all.

Also, they were outnumbered. There were well over a hundred thousand Sevens and higher from all over the world in on this fight, and Powered were not in the majority. Weapons burning black and unwhite death to the undead swirled through the ancient capital of the Tibetan people, and slowly and inevitably drove the ghast-monks back. The undead raised from the deaths of the common people there weren’t enough to even slow the incoming Purgers down.

Exploding gunfire volleys proved particularly ruinous, as One-Shots from marksmen and volleys from experienced Gunslingers were both extremely difficult to avoid.

Lastly, they were undead, in the end, and they had vulnerabilities to Divine magic. Priests who had been cutting their teeth for months on undead, although admittedly not as tough as these, were totally happy to show what Healing magic used on the undead could do. Positive Edge’s murderous power against them was totally on display, even as those same Priests and Shamans were healing the wounded non-stop. They were restoring the fallen with Cure Deadly Wounds, and most importantly, vivifying those they couldn’t bring back in time before the lingering power of the black and yellow phasma swirling about them ghastified those who had died and brought them back as undead to fight their former friends, while saving their souls with the Holy tools they carried around to shield them from the Shroud’s untender mercies.

Prayer scripts, sacred beads, and holy water flew about, prayers rang like Thunder, holy symbols shone with The Light, and undead monks died burning.

There were no Life Diamonds consumed in the fight, because if it took that long to Raise someone from the dead, they would be Animated by the Shroud first.

Sama and Briggs had a total ball, of course. The ghast-monks quickly realized the pair were carrying the center of attack, and tried really, really hard to kill them.

It got them a lot of their elites destroyed remarkably fast, and the pair just kept coming. The monks were not happy to realize the duo were much faster than any of them.

The Mick and the Tomb Clans turned out to be naturals at facing off against the ghast-monks, who were a bit shocked to be facing so many very, very tough pseudo-undead. Crimson and Scarlet blood magic was very effective, and the sight of it was quite shocking when backed up by the literal firepower of the Blood of the Irish led by the Morningsun Clan.

Still, the heroes of the day were the Forsaken of India and China, wielding their Named Weapons against undead fighters stronger than any they had ever faced before. Claws rang on Shields and Armor, burning Weapons raged through undead flesh, and they closed in on the final goal of Potola Palace.

---------

Not many people walked up the sloping steps into the Potola Palace.

Lhasa was overrun by vivic fires, cleaning up planar infections, driving back the influence trying to exert itself out of the Palace above them. Reality was, if not fixed, healing itself very aggressively here, and if they could just get rid of the source at the heart of it, things would end up fine.

Briggs didn’t allow anyone up here who didn’t have an Astral Ward and the Sun Saves at +30 with Steady Focus, at least. He just noted the way the phasma here was actually sparking on his Sun, and suddenly all the eager souls ready to take a piece of the King in Yellow decided that investigating all the buildings and being thorough about clean-up here was actually a smart thing to do.

There were no more Tibetans. If anything was going to be preserved of their heritage, it would be what was taken away with the invaders. On the other hand, nobody in their right mind wanted anything of Buddhist heritage preserved at all, so it basically became dual purpose: find all the valuable stuff spread around the place, and then Burn it all as payment for coming here.

It sounded like Astral Wards were going to be a very important thing for people to have in the future. Maybe on a par with the Death Wards that were the primary focus of most of the people here to gain with their goldweight.

It came down to him, Sama, Ai Ren (a Chinese Shadowknife), The Mick, Amaretta, Sir Pellier, Helix, Father Bower, and Azaia Morningwind. There was a second wave of Senior Forsaken and Dragon Warriors who would close in as the trailing remnants of the Yellow Fog dissipated... or as reinforcements if called for.

As it was expected that the King in Yellow could mind control those who got close to Him, nobody was particularly eager to go racing into His presence without appropriate defenses.

It was a fortified palace, but it wasn’t erected to deal with superhuman attackers at the level of a Ten Hagspawn with a chip on his shoulder. Endure chopped into the main doors a few times as Tremble sheared through the iron-reinforced wood, and eventually the doors gave way, the bar behind bounced out of its holders, and the ghast-monks and moon beasts within came out to play.

Blood magic wove with lightning, Weapons burning black and white filled the air, while cerulean flames covered the place and moon beasts died screaming. The moon beasts were the elites of the defense, crackling psychic mind-bending magic reaching out repeatedly to claim and control some new living pawns and servants, and turn them against their foes.

Said pawns were having none of it, and between Forsaken Auras, Astral Wards, and Sun Saves, none of that was successful, meaning the creatures had to rely on the melee fight to save them, which it didn’t.

There were a lot of final defenders to get through, flocking from their stations to the conflict at the command of their liege, throwing themselves into the fight with no regard for their lives.

That was fine, as those attacking had no regard for the lives of the defenders, either, and were plenty happy to send them along en vivus.

The second wave coming in through multiple doors did pull some of these attackers away once the yellow fog was burned back, and back, and back. Conflicts and screams rang about behind the group as they made their way to the central hall slowly, shooting and hacking with every step they took, the yellow fog burning away around them as they did so.

The Mick and Amaretta were alternating between expending spells and Reserves through scarlet strikes. Helix was popping out 18d6 arrows with adroit calm, and occasionally letting loose an AoE Bolt or two to help soften up masses of the enemy. Azaia was Shardcasting in overwhelming flurries of crackling lightning and force, carrying unavoidable streaks of black and white to the enemy over and over again. Father Bower was keeping a circle of virtua sunlight up around them, a Brilliant Halo that was burning at the enemy as they strayed too close, weakening them by the second.

Sir Pellier was shooting Lady Florentine non-stop, silvery flashes of Holy Light accompanying every profound round from an Inspired shooter as Thunder rang out and holy bells heralded the end of the ghast-monks and the moon beasts fighting with them. Ai Ren moved from here to there unseen, and his Helices Cut Time from everything his short Blades touched, crumbling them to dust and ash.

Sama and Briggs were beyond the ability of either of the main minions to stop. Not even when the ancient Buddhist statues, blackened and running with yellow pus, Animated and proceeded to start fighting them with frowning faces and stone-splitting palms did they give an inch. Endure and Tremble pounded and hacked their way through the corrupted Blackstone Guardians, giving them about as much respect as they gave Buddhists in general.

------

They kicked in the closed doors to the main chamber beyond, the armored guards and their tentacled faces burning merrily on the floor where they had been unable stop the intruders.

Yellow fog swirled about their feet, flashing and flaring as vivic Weapons dipped to meet it. Cleared bubbles accompanied Briggs and Sama as they strode inside, pushing the yellow fog away from them, and everyone beheld the cloth-wrapped figure up on the ersatz throne at the far side of the room.

Briggs hardly glanced at the arrogant figure wrapped in silken robes the same hue as the fog sprawled lazily there. “Flanks!” he barked curtly.

Walls of Fire exploded up on both sides of the room, and shrieks came from the columns rising there as the cloth-wrapped Servants of Leng concealed behind them were caught. The Servants stumbled out of the Walls all aflame in three and four colors. Half of them immediately went flying back into the spells when pushed by magic, and the rest found themselves facing down some very prepared Powered with a lot of dangerous ranged attacks.