Chapter 13-356: A Polite Trail of Ruin (1/2)

They were pretty certain that some sort of alarm went off as they chewed through the stone golems outside and the bone golems inside. Oddly enough, there were no undead. The Illuminati must have figured that anything that could get past the undead outside would not be stopped by any inside... and that probably included themselves, because nothing showed up throwing spells at them, either.

They still had Traveler’s Spell Resistance on them, so direct attacks would not have been very effective, and direct energy attacks were going to be difficult, too. They had the full Fire and Cold treatments from the Zones, popping over to the Firelands with Traveler during one of their down periods in India, making them immune to Fire and Cold.

That meant they could move their Warlock Resistances around. On top of that, being able to draw on the nature of a lilitu meant they were also functionally immune to lightning. That meant of the primary Elements, they only had to be concerned with Thunder and Acid.

Thunder and Acid Resistance were both choices, along with Cold and Lightning, for Heaven. Acid, Fire, and Cold were choices for Hell. Thunder, Lightning and Cold Resistance were the choices for Storm, naturally, and Acid and Cold were the choices for Water.

A Warlock generally had two Resistances per Pact, and they stacked. So, they had doubled up on Acid and Lightning Resistance, and had supplemental single Resistances to back up their immunities, just in case an enemy had access to Divine or Primal energies.

Like, oh, Traveler did. Watching her burn down Fire Elementals had been instructive...

They really, really liked being this strong and fast. Uniting their understandings on how to fight under Master Fred, throwing things weighing tons around or hacking right through them, crushing and breaking them... how could anyone not enjoy it?

Well, Master Fred just considered it all a tool for the job, refusing to be impressed by it, especially at the cost it came by. Despite themselves, they could only agree with that... which still didn’t stop them from enjoying it.

The stone wall in front of them right now had been lowered to stop or delay them. Idiot kindly Morphed into a Pick, and they went to it with a will. Wrath crashed into the reinforced stone with every blow, tearing at the magical reinforcement and the structure of the granite, sending shards exploding in every direction with every slamming impact.

Their hooves were anchored with heavyfoot, and they were driving a foot deep into the stone with every crashing blow, strong enough to lever Idiot’s unbending pick right through the rock as eldritch energies tore into it. The Pick slammed into the door impossibly fast, pounding a path right through three feet of stone with enough speed that a drilling machine might have been envious of them.

Cracks spread through the stone, and they began to alternate Pick and crashing Hammer, their Wrath blowing out any rubble so they were not impeded.

It took them thirty seconds to pound a hole to the other side, and then thirty seconds more to smash the opening big enough to get through. Head-sized and larger chunks of stone were scattered behind them, rent and torn off the protesting wall.

Idiot returned to Dagger form as they jumped through, not touching any of the sides, rolling and back on their feet, tail switching as they looked over the chamber.

Their hooved feet were noiseless as they glided across the stone within, Mask of Clarity up and studying everything.

Especially the pit in the middle of the floor.

There were three other tunnels leading out of here, all of them currently sealed. They considered the closed halls for a moment thoughtfully, wondering where they had been lowered from, and being wholly unwilling to leave something behind themselves.

The pit was indeed directly over the tunnel leading down, but they obviously weren’t going to throw themselves into it. That was a hugely inefficient way to get down to the Hollow World, possibly even lethal if it was cut off part way.

Indeed, what if they had to fall a hundred miles, or a thousand, to get to the destination? A total waste of time. There had to be a better way, and the Illuminati probably had one.

Behind one of these lowered walls.

Smiling in anticipation of wrecking things belonging to the necromancers, they started for the one to the right, Idiot going back into Pick form.

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The right side was some personal quarters and what seemed like storage areas for necromantic components and some basic magical supplies and reference books with an unsurprising focus on necromancy. The furniture and knick-knacks were very obviously hundreds of years old, and might have some antiques value. They certainly didn’t get used much, and they had been treated with necromantic processes to totally kill them and so make them immune to natural decay.

Legion really wanted to try lifting the left side barrier, but the screw-style pistons stopped that idea, and given they could be raised from the other side, there was no incentive to wreck the mechanism once they pounded their way through it.

Now this area was more macabre, with definite labs for experiments, a very pricey Summoning Circle, undead servants of various kinds, Animated Construct helpers, and raw materials for building more golems of various types.

They calmly annihilated everything that had a semblance of life, as well as the standing magical spells and phantasmal Servants standing around, and they wrecked most of the chambers, too. If any of the Illuminati came back in after this, they were going to be twitching their lack of eyebrows at everything Legion had done. The spell-resistant rooms and their expensive magical reinforcements were thoroughly ruined, goldweight values ticking past them with every swing of Idiot’s Pick.

That naturally left the last barrier, the one opposite the way they’d come in.

There were actually two dropped barriers here, which is why they’d left it for last. The near side was still elevated, and the lever to do so was right next to the hallway. The far one was activated from the other side, which meant this route was made to be sealed from either side as needed. The only reason to do so was if something unwanted would come from that direction. There was a similar barrier on the Summoning Room, and a couple that could be dropped in the hallways of the left section, to buy time to vacate the area.

They probably just commanded the Phantom Servants inside to raise the barrier from out here as needed.