“They must be good climbers.” I toed the edge of the pit there, which dropped a good hundred feet down. It was scored with deep gouges from chitinous claws and barbs latching into the rock deep enough to support massive insectile bodies coming up the stone.

  “Or they all fly now?” Kris wondered, looking over the edge. There didn’t seem to be any olthoi visible down there, but they could easily be hiding just out of sight waiting for us to come down, which the Mick had assured us was standard procedure all the many times he’d done the Quest in the past against a younger, weaker Queen. “Any virindi?” Kris asked calmly.

  We’d only found a dozen Virindi Agitators during the rather epic brawling battles on the way down, zipping out of side rooms where they were watching over mutated eggs or grubs or the like, completely ignored by their mutate creations. It only made sense that there would be some down here watching over the breeder of their creations, likely taking the eggs and levitating up the wall to deliver them to the birthing rooms we’d popped so many of them in.

  I dropped a Wizard Eye down the Pit, setting up a Holo everyone could see as it fell down and gave us a view of everything that was waiting for us down there.

  The overhang vanished, and I swept the view across the entirety of the room.

  Then I clenched my hand as all of the Virindi turned as one and stared at the Eye, dispelling it before they could reach out and fuck with it and me.

  The stillshot of the Eye remained behind up above, however.

  The sapphire-and-purple form of the Lightning Olthoi Matron Queen towered over everything, naturally enough, a good seven paces tall and twice that long with her wicked tail. Four arms with great talons, crested head, standing tall, lower body bulging with eggs visible right through her abdomen, pulsing and glowing with alien energies.

  There were a dozen more Virindi Agitators around her, the same number of Lightning Swarm Sentinels, and at least threescore Lightning Hive Warriors and Eviscerators!

  “That looks like it's going t’ be quite the fight!” the Mick murmured for everyone, taking in the scene.

  “And here I thought blueslaking or silverslaking our Armor was taking it a bit too far,” King Borelean said grimly, clutching Hoshino harshly. Each Hive Warrior was a massively tough fight for almost any single character, and the Queen would take all of their attention. Having to cope with that while under bombardment from a dozen virindi could easily become catastrophic!

  Lightning Banes wouldn’t affect the Hollow Lightning attacks that were going to be coming in. Alchemical Slaking would, however!

  “I daresay some cheating is in order, Magos,” Briggs stated flatly, making a show of looking around. “Huh. I don’t feel any Interdiction effects in place,” he remarked, his voice heavy with schadenfreude.

  I turned and made a chopping motion down the middle of the gathered formation of soldiers. “Make a hole!” I ordered them, and the men quickly split apart and made room for what was about to happen.

  -Big Guy, get everyone to hit the Array and prepare for olthoi!- I /told the target of what was about to happen.

  There was a happy surge of excitement in /reply, and the motion of bunches of things hitting a floating, glowing crystal that dumped all the Plat-grade Life Protection spells on those touching it.

  Then I dropped the Teleportation Circle… the exit point, as the entry point was a towering arch in Mayoi, arranged on what was called the Plaza of Warriors.

  It was towering because it had to fit who might be coming through.

  It was less a circle than a crack in space, reaching way up into the air. A mighty form in silver Armor forced the dimensions out of the way as he took a big step forward, his massive Club Smasher gleaming with power and readiness to pulp olthoi.

  Eager deep calls echoed off the stone as eight massive black-furred Annihilator Tuskers in heavy silverslaked Armor followed the Tremendous Monuga through the rip in space, led by the towering figure of the Champion of the Tuskers, Mowen, his own enchanted Fists, the Paws, cracking loudly on the stone.

  “Elder Tim, after you!” Briggs stated, Endure pointing into the pit.

  With a bellow of challenge that shook all the stones and the very air, Tim launched himself over the edge, all of the tuskers howling enthusiastically and hurtling right over after him.

  The Featherweight Field caught everyone ten feet above the ground down as we all surged forward after our monstrous allies.

  Tim’s many tons crashed softly to the ground, one step taking him well out of the way of those following behind. He caught sight of the Olthoi Queen Matron standing over there and promptly bellowed a challenge in her direction loudly enough to make all the olthoi there tremble at the waves of it.

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  The tuskers bounded up next to their big buddy, adding their calls of challenge to the cacophony, really riling up the territorial instincts of the olthoi.

  The Queen couldn’t take it. She spread her arms, rose to her full height, tail lashing wildly, a full threat display that even the virindi controlling her couldn’t overcome.

  With a wild chittering, the horde of extremely tough and deadly olthoi charged for us.

  The Vanguards slid between the tuskers like water between breakers, and slammed their Shields down in front of the incoming horde, forming an instant wall of adamantine against their charge. Spear-wielders inserted their Weapons into the cracks between the Shields, and the Shield wall grew many, many thorns swirling with Lost Lights, the Weapons pulsing the green of Olthoi Slaying.

  The olthoi crashed into the line with force and fanatical devotion, but the Vanguards of metal and flesh were anchored with heavyfoot and going absolutely nowhere. Olthoi screamed as hungry Spears lanced out for them, and the fight was on.

  Ramps of stone rose behind the lines as the first Debuffs starting going off on the soldiers, especially focusing on the great figure of Tim there.

  -Tuskers on the virindi! Grapple and bash them down! Tim, keep that Queen rolled up and occupied!- Princess Kristie /ordered, and the whole line of tuskers and monuga charged up the ramps, launching themselves right over the entire line of olthoi in one magnificent show of fur and muscle and strangely agile three-eyed Jotun.

  Behind them, the Archers of the company rose up above the ramps on their Disks, Bows and Autobows leveled and gleaming olthoi green with Slayer Infusions.

  Between them, the Skeeters and Roaches flowed past, also leaping over the olthoi horde, led by the Mick, Princess Kristie, and King Borelean, while Briggs held the center of the line with the pounding, thrumming beat of Endure making every heart pound in time to its beat.

  Moving with incredible bounding speed, the massive Annihilators and Mowen swept into the virindi, smashing into them and bouncing them around to spin like ping-pong balls. Huge slamming arms sent them whirling and ricocheting off one another, herding them together and into one another in crunches and crackles of virindi energies and ringing armored robes.

  Expertly, as if trained for this very tactic, the virindi, the nasty spellcasters of this entire effort, were thrown together by the tuskers and crushed together by the weight and mass of the ape-like warriors. A wall of heavy armored bodies drove them against the stone walls, locking them in place and making it nigh-impossible for them to move, to Cast their magic, or to do much of anything in coordination or independently.

  Silver Magic seethed over Tim, and the Debuffs from the virindi ladled over him were torn apart and evaporated. The Olthoi Queen burst into motion at him, leaping up towards his closed helm, and they crashed together in a devastating impact.

  Tim outweighed her at least five to one, spindly thing that she was, and she was smashed backwards, taking a heavy hit from Smash she definitely didn’t appreciate, and then it was heavy Gauntlets with deadly black Spikes erupting from them against claws, talons, and tail, trying to fight back against superior strength and mass with a vicious array of natural weapons that might just have been enough to win that fight in normal circumstances.

  The Wolfpacks drove into the backside of the olthoi horde, Weapons of the Lost Light driving in as raised Shields plunged into the olthoi and forced them back into their own, not allowing them to scrabble for room or to dance at their preferred combat range. Arcing limbs stretched past those Shields, ringing off Slaked Armor with flashes of purple Lightning, but the first set of Chained Darts swept through them, and my Healing was on the job.

  The second salvo of my Darts was Fastcast, allowing a Platinum Mass Bludgeon Vulnerability to reach out to all those crowded virindi mashed up in a tight circle, flaring over them in a deep reverb of resonant amplifying fields of force.

  The mighty Mowen, blue-green fields of Virindi Slaying on his Paws, clambered up the backsides and shoulders of two of his Annihilators, looming up over the trapped and herded Virindi, who tilted their frowning crimson masks up to look at him.

  He raised the Paws up, staring at the things who dared to enslave so many of his people out in the Direlands, and he began to drum on them.

  Literally. The Princess Kristie had him practice his drumming to increase his hand speed, and he had been getting pretty good with pounding on a grand kettle drum made especially for him and his tuskers.

  He began to drum on the virindi, and they began to break.

  Two more Annihilators, their own Fists treated with Virindi Slayer, bounced up on the shoulders of their brethren, and moved to accompany him with wild cheering hollers.

  Health Qi crackled and spat.

  It turned even worse when the Mass Imperil swept over the virindi, softening them up more, and the three tuskers could even up the tempo a bit more with the better rebound!

  Kris and the Mick swept down the line of the olthoi horde in opposite directions. The Mick’s Imperil Lense flared and flashed with carapace-softening gray light, sucking down his Mana Pool. Opposite him, Princess Kristie was doing the exact same thing, but with the flaring yellow-white of a Piercing Lense instead!

  Forsaken couldn’t Cast spells, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t develop a Mana Pool or hold Valences!

  I knew exactly how much pain it was going to take Kris to refill her Mana Pool after this, as she had to sacrifice Constitution to form the mana needed for her Pool, just like her Valences. It was why I only pulled on her in emergencies, or for spells for her personal use, like the Sendings reporting home to her mother.

  But she had actually trained Mana Conversion up to the highest level she could, just so she could employ Lenses in situations like this, where they were needed!

  She was also a Null Forsaken, and it turned out that she used Constitution AND Self, which was Wisdom in the Matrix method, to form her Mana Pool, just like Briggs also added his Strength in the formula for his.

  Forsaken had ENORMOUS Mana Pools by the standards of Isparians. Until the Lenses, they never had a real use for them, apart from a Bond mage. But being able to channel mana into their Weapons via a Wand Chamber to the device inside? Well, now, that had opened up a whole new can of worms!

  It meant needing a Christmas List of Lenses, but they now had a use for all that Mana on their own!

  Forsaken, always using the hard way to get what they needed… and the expensive way, too! These abominably tough olthoi were now reaping the fruits of it all, however…

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