Chapter 7-205: Old Gods (2/2)

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There was an annoying set of dings, and I glared at a bunch of Artificer/4 stuff that was absolutely useless to me at the moment, and turned my eyes to the lip of the caldera.

Without Death Ward, nobody was going up to the caldera. Without an Amulet, nobody was going to go into it, for fear of the spells being Dispelled. Without the ability to instantly vacate the area for the surprises sure to be within, nobody was going with me up that, or even into threat range, until I found out what we were facing.

My Eagle’s Vantage cleared the rim of the Caldera well before I did, but it was Warded to beat the band, so I could see nothing within, to my utter lack of surprise. The inner crater was ten miles across; that lake of fire was bigger than most lakes!

I was broadcasting to those sworn under me, who were Holoing it all up as I did, trying to replicate all the information I was sending out and the fantastic detail as I surveyed everything below.

I was a bit surprised that Briggs and Sama didn’t insist on being here, but they seemed to have discussed the matter and wanted it made quite public that I could take out a Shroudlord. I didn’t want to argue, so here I was, without them.

The Traveling Knights also patted themselves on the back for not being eager to jump into the fray when they saw what was waiting for them.

Burning undead on the flaming skeletons of horses, all lined up and flying over the caldera, hovering in the air there. Bonemares? Whatever. By their attire, the beads and things, spears, pseudo-feathers, I gathered they were the skeletons of Native American warriors, Cheyenne and other tribes, who had died in the area over a long period of time.

Horses hadn’t been here nearly as long as the tribes, but if you were just harvesting dead horse bones, I suppose you could have gathered enough...

There were well over a hundred thousand of those undead waiting for us, daring us to enter. Indeed, if there had been more behind us, they probably would have charged right out and started the fight immediately.

“Pyre Knights, tribal style,” I mused, looking them over, the different patterns and tribal markings, grouping them and changes over time. “Fully corpsecrafted, powered up, ready to kick arse.”

And then, across the miles, our eyes met.

I blew the Moment of Perfect Clarity, and the DC 40 Gaze Attack didn’t blow me to ashes. I fed it into my immediate counterpunch of Shards, doubled the range, and the Shardray blazed out, force and cold and lightning and thunder and The Light. It smashed into the nearest of the pyre knights fifteen hundred meters away, and blew through it there, blasting it into powder. Then the cold, cold Ray bounced crazily around the nearest other undead knights, totally ignoring their burning mounts, and blew them into sparkling, white-flaming powder, too.

I got the Ki point I used to Cast it back, too.

Their leader didn’t look like a skeleton. It was a molten-skinned figure, wreathed in unholy, profane flames that were triggering my awareness of foul power. It looked like an extremely muscular man in an old leathery loincloth and leggings, but with exaggerated facial features beyond the limits of human. Bulging eyes, a massive nose more like a beak, and a huge mouth whose default state seemed to be an eternal sneer were arranged together in a sinister, rather repulsive mix. I eyed the ornamental Shield at his side, his Tomahawk, feathered Lance, and the Bow he had in his hand, which he was currently debating raising to shoot at me.

“Get out of his line of sight now, or he’ll kill you,” I told both of the boys, and like the preconditioned hardened adventurous types they were, they retreated smoothly from the view of those bulging eyes.

-Hastsezini,- someone threw into the /tell, and I watched it proliferate therein, and the knowledge attached to it.

The ancient Native American deity of fire, or one of them, as they changed names. A cruel, violent, and ugly deity, who demanded sacrifices or he would burn villages to the ground. There were no records of him in anything resembling the modern era, but the low magic pre-Shroud could well be responsible for that.

I just glanced at his hands across five miles, how they were twice the size of humans, and looked him straight in the eyes again.

There was another pulse of a Gaze Attack. I blew the Moment again. Another ravening beam of blessed uttercold pulsed out... only this time there were two of them.

Fifty more of his pyre knights froze, shattered, and burned in vivic flame in the next second.

I reset the Moment, and met his eyes again.

Pulse of fire. FOUR beams of blessed cold and shining Light speared out, and a hundred of his pyre knights blew away.

I reset the Moment, and met his burning gaze again.

He lifted his Bow and fired at me in the blink of an eye.

Space burned, and the arrow was suddenly right in front of me, traversing five miles in an instant and aimed at my heart.

I had slid two feet to the side, and it zipped past my shoulder. The next shot was already on the way.

Deflect Missiles, one auto-deflect of standard ranged weapons per round; extra Dodges required a DC 20 Reflex save, +1 per Enhancement bonus of the missile.

My Reflex Save was in the +16 area... but I was using Clavus for additional Deflections. +4 Greater Ki-Bound, +2 Enmity/Evil, +3 to Hit Sun Discipline Weapon. I considered that I should probably have added Bane of Legends earlier, and shrugged.

+25 meant this old god needed a +7 Weapon to have ANY chance of hitting me, and that bow wasn’t +7, or it would have been popping my eyeballs.

There was a lot of force behind those arrows, but I didn’t care. Clavus was there to smash every single one aside, as the blurring molten streaks arced across the miles with impossible speed and accuracy at me.