Chapter 8-235: A Long Road Outta There (1/2)
The next few days were very dry and boring in Reality, but as I had thoughtstreams that thought dry and boring were perfect states to be in, it wasn’t that bad, and Sleipner was always very comfortable to ride.
Also, when you have an Allegiance, and Blessings and Marks flying about, there are always people to talk to, advice to give, and things to do on the logistics end.
Quiet Wishes to make, too, but we don’t talk about those around an Efreet who would be horrified to learn I could do that. He came out once a day to grant Wishes on our behalf, looking around in great interest in discovering that we both were and were not on the same world under the Haze. I let him know we were in Hyperborea, and he got both excited and very nervous, probably for the same reasons, and headed back into his safe little Genie Prison.
I guess there were a lot more Old Gods running around here...
We went all the way overland to the shore, no flying, making a solid Lived-Line connection all the way to the sea. Some of the natives did see us in the distance, but we didn’t make any contact, and they could only turn us into wild tales to tell their friends and neighbors.
Once we hit the sea, it was a straight circumnavigation, thousands of miles of riding over the waters, staying within a mile of the shore to chart a pretty exact measurement of the area for a distance inland via Lesser Commune, with landfalls every hundred miles or so for Teleport drop-offs, if I was so inclined.
We did stop to do our Infusing for the day; spending goldweight and converting untrustworthy alien mana to something predictable and useful never ends.
The Allegiance was growing, not the least because the knowledge of Marks and Blessings was starting to spread. I was going to have literally thousands of them to give out when I got back to civilization, and Sama and Briggs were each spending two hours a day making Marks, focusing on non-Powered who wanted to join the fight, become Forsaken, and take the fight to our enemies.
Oh, and to prep for whatever came after the Shroud went down. Everybody was going after Levels!
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The New York March was being eroded slowly and thoroughly. The overeager got isolated, swarmed, and had to be put to vivus. The patient and the careful picked off their targets, pushing the undead back and back and back, the numbers of basic undead falling as precipitously as the incorporeals had.
There was no mass undead marching out to the Walls anymore. Instead, the undead waited for the hunters to come for them!
Spellcasters who could track and sense the presence of undead were nigh-on priceless, and Sir Pellier was spreading the Eyes of Heaven Disciplines as fast as he could, extending the Range of Detect Evil among his fellow Paladins, Inquisitors, and Heavenbound so they could hunt all the more effectively.
Very careful attention was paid to the Shroudlord and any powerful Bishops under it. If they moved, forces were warned urgently to fall back. If the living didn’t, they never got the chance to, as a Swarm of Buffed incorporeals swept over them, and their souls joined the Shroud.
Such fools naturally then informed the Shroudlord of exactly what was going on if they couldn’t be promptly killed, and just made the situation harder for everyone else, which really pissed everyone else off.
The Horde of the Hall, equipped with Death Ward Amulets, and/or Dawnstopped Death Ward spells if they had reached Seven, were naturally the safest people to be around. They didn’t have to fear the life-draining of incorporeals, and they were specifically equipped to slaughter undead. They got their kills first, then watched over the other teams and squads as they cleared more area, ordering them back into reserve positions as the number of daily kills needed to Level and Invest Names was reached, pulling everyone back in good order.
Given the way the undead were rapidly getting organized more intelligently, soon enough none of the Hunter teams wanted to strike out alone. The Eastern and Western teams slowly cleared ground and advanced on the Bronx and Hart island, wiping clean the undead mile by mile as they did so. Advance teams would actually get themselves set up in the zones where the undead emerged after dusk, just so they could be certain of getting kills and clearing specific terrain before the undead could flee, hide, or be marched elsewhere, helping disrupt the undead lines of command and closing the noose.
Naturally enough, the Shroudzone was contracting as tens of thousands of undead were cleared away every night, and the Shroudlord streaming out every night with his cohort of restless spirits couldn’t stop it. With any amount of decent warning, Mass Disks and a flying Caster could evacuate a whole crew quickly, and if the undead followed, they’d just get picked off by vivic Weapons or spells kiting them to clean them away.
All efforts were always made to kill any incorporeals seen. It was far too dangerous to have them running around. Thankfully, being bound to their places of death made it considerably easier to hunt them, and whole districts were being staked out to clear them of undead soon enough.
The first couple days of pushes had gone well, driving the undead presence back, and had set up a nice buffer zone. The stupid died, made the situation worse for everyone, and professionalism took back over from over-enthusiasm. It was a marathon, not a sprint, and every spot of whiteness on the ground, driving back the Shroud, was a tombstone for a dead person finally laid to rest.
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Sir Pellier had firmly moved into position as the organizing voice of the entire campaign, both the military and the Hall’s forces listening to his dry advice and stern commands. Nobody was dumb enough to think a Paladin was a gloryhound, nor that he didn’t want to get rid of the undead faster.
The living are more important than killing the dead fast, he repeated to them over and over. They would kill them all, there was no need to rush. Speed would increase with Levels and Named Weapons coming online, getting stronger and putting the undead down forever.
They watched that happening as Weapons did indeed progress, day by painful day. Ghost Touch, Undead Bane, and Vivic, the trifecta called True Death to the undead, and it only got better from there. Even one Level in Monk was enough ki to get Ki-Bound empowered, and start a Profound Weapon, too.
All little things, all stacking, improving. Tokens, Baneskulls, Favored Enemy bonuses, Necropotence... it all began to add up.
Those who could one-hit an undead with black flames on it were gravely respected if they could do it repeatedly. Helix, especially after stopping at Detroit and getting a Stormbound Pact (a very rare Powered to do so) was popping out 14d6 single shots repeatedly and quickly, crackling blasts of lightning-shrouded arrows that the undead were anything but happy to see. His style of flit-move-flit-move had made him a lot of fans, and with the whole Leveling paradigm named after him, everyone sort of expected him to be an expert in the advance schema... which he just laughed off and asked them if they wanted to trust the advice of someone who had to get wraith-Drained about how to Level properly.
They went and asked other people, leaving him to satisfy his daily Karma before acting as oversight for the teams of people below him.
Two hours of combat, pull out, no exceptions, and retreating instantly if an incorporeal Swarm was seen coming their way. His ability to spot such things, snipe them, and evacuate everyone soon became very well-known, indeed.