Chapter 7-197: To the Caldera (1/2)
Two days passed.
I was gifted with Battlemad/4 and Arcane Archer/4; their Theurgic Levels were assigned to Sorcerer, getting me to Faux Sorcerer/9 and opening up my V Slots. Dexterity Mastery/4 and /5 came with them, and oddly enough, Extra Spell Known I and II for Inquisitor. Interesting choice, but I supposed that I was going to have to take them for all my Spontaneous Caster Classes, so why not?
It had been a busy two days.
The Firelord had noticed or been informed that someone was wiping out its troops out here, and thousands more Fireborn had marched out of the Shroudzone and the nearest volcanoes, streams of animated fire and lava and whatnot creatures. This time it was without the truly intelligent troops, who seemed to be pulling back to the volcanoes and whatever fortifications they’d made of them, leaving this to the bestial or ‘immortal’ servants of the Firelord.
They didn’t know they weren’t coming back, but that was fine. It gave me plenty of targets to work with, and I was spellcasting for hours on end.
Given the amount of fire being hurled at us, I was putting Protection from Fire on the lads and the bikes repeatedly, and the combination with the Resist Fire could get us through literally scores of fireballs and other attacks, even in a swarm.
Said fireball tossers got suddenly and chillingly dead, Salamanders being the primary parties tossing around magic and stuff. They were also shooting with fiery arrows, while swarms of firebats and burncoils and stingfires and charbirds and generally a whole mess of stuff was thrown at us repeatedly.
I set off a bunch of altered Pyroclasms, cold-shifted to Cryoclasms, rather regretfully.
Pyroclasm was an Advanced II spell, in that it was designed to auto-scale depending on the Valence it was Cast from. It was also my choice for second Thematic Spell. When it went off, it looked like a zillion countless blackfire feathers edged like silver razors swirling around and shooting off in all directions, blazing through anything in their path. Very attention-getting, I was soon informed.
Pyroclasm’s claim to fame was not its damage, but its area. It didn’t scale in damage at all, except by increasing the Valence. It did, however, get much, much bigger.
Cryoclasm out of a II Valence did 2d6 damage, which was nothing to write home about... until you started adding all sorts of kickers to it. Like, oh, Penetrating Cold, Banespell/Fireborn, the Holy Metas, Warcaster’s Razor, Clavus’ Enhancement bonus, and the like.
Suddenly, a paltry 2d6 became 4d6 Cold damage, +2d6+42.
That was generally enough to insta-wipe anything below a Six, and definitely took out the small members of the swarms buzzing/flapping/gliding/diving in at us.
My Cryoclasm’s area of effect maxed out at a 100-foot radius at CL 10, 10 feet radius per CL.
Cast it out of a III, it was max 150-foot radius.
Cast it out of a IV, 200-foot radius.
And a V, 250-foot radius effect.
The only drawback is that it was centered on the Caster. So, I either had to move into position abruptly in the middle of the enemy force, or wait until a bunch of stuff charged me, and set it off.
With all those Kickers on there, it was great for clearing massive areas of Fours and less out instantly. I invested hard in Kickers for a reason, and wiping whole clouds of bats, birds, snakes, and bugs out at once so we didn’t have to deal with them was all part of it. Shattered and frozen things of fire died in droves, and Phantom Servants were everywhere gathering Cores.
Rep Counts had advanced quickly with so many targets who would not retreat, scatter, or run away. It was amazingly convenient. They came, we kited, and I reaped my counts.
Sanctified, Sacred, Blessed, Still, Silent, Reach, Extend,Vivic,Banespell, and Delimit for I’s all passed by, with Penetrating Cold simply because I was using it so much. My Fastcast was made Practical for I’s, followed quickly by Paired Spell, and then Chain Spell and Split Ray alternated between them until they were satisfied, then Topped, Bursting, and Energized followed suit. Purified and Consecrated came last.
The Mick shook his head when a Chained Shardray arced through twenty-five targets, snuffing them all. “Oy, that’s even worse than your Shards! Are you sure you want to kill them that fast?” he’d called out.
“You know that if I don’t Spellwarp it to a Ray, it’s going to Chain off every single Shard target, right?” I’d called back.
He pursed his lips as he looked at the burning river of elemental creatures flowing over the landscape after us, Smior sending out bloody Shardings at the tougher stuff that hadn’t died and were getting close.
Thirteen Shards, twenty-five Chained targets...
“Oh, I see. Ye just keep up with that nice, easy restraint of yours, Lady Traveler, and ignore the bloodthirsty ramblings of a demented swordsman.”
“Of course, Lord Mick.”
I’d really hated that I couldn’t work on more than one Meta or Spell per Casting, but when I was getting nearly a thousand Reps an hour, I got over it.
A huge train of burning giant Fire Ants was vomited out of a lava river and scampered towards us in a burning tide, the line of them literally a few miles long and still being sent forth in a swarm a hundred meters wide.
I sat there and did rep counts, blowing off Cryoclasms as they overwhelmed my hampered rate of fire, and rinsed and repeated the tactic for over an hour as they kept coming in mindlessly to the attack.
When they were gone, the Burn Scarabs started up, both flying and on the ground, raging at us in an incredibly loud buzzing, roaring Swarm. Walls of Icefire from Master Fred around us made sure they couldn’t actually reach us as I repeated the exact same tactics, and countless numbers of ravaging beetles as long as my forearm were smashed to frozen ash by repeated Cryoclasms recharged by constant volleys of weaponized Shards and the Ki they generated.