Chapter 18-471: Lands Down Under, Part Three (2/2)
I frowned slightly. “They are mostly done with that already. They started about ten hours ago.”
It hadn’t been that difficult. They were a de facto Twenty, and the toughest of the things there were no match for them. Yes, there’d been an actual archmage, of all things, still able to wield those high-Valence spells down below the Strata, and a half-succubi archpriestess as well.
Neither had been able to resist Legion, as was the case for basically the entire drow population. Combining speed and dimension-hopping with the ability to strafe and Consume dozens of them at a time, and the fact that any of the oft succubi-blooded drow that laid eyes on them wanted to do nothing more than to have wild and energetic sex with them, ignoring whatever they were supposed to be doing, meant there was no big drawn-out fighting at all.
It was basically a speed run that got ever more thorough and precise as they went along, their increasing combined knowledge of the city and its inhabitants coming into play. Sure, there were Constructs to destroy in some places, slaves to send out of the city in others, leashed beasts and monsters to sometimes destroy, and spell defenses to bring down or tear apart.
But there was no out and out fighting. Even the more savage and deranged Fiends living there just sort of gaped at Legion and came bounding forwards to start an orgy, not to fight. They died so quickly it couldn’t even be called fighting, really.
The succubi, of course, didn’t have a prayer, nor any of their many fey’ri children.
I had watched Legion clearing out their main temple, kissing and Consuming the guards, acolytes, and Priestesses without any resistance whatsoever from them, and just shook my head. That Nereid Aura was just too powerful in some ways...
“Legion met a fey’ri Pact Patron while investigating an offshoot upriver of the Deepsea. That’s where they got the initial knowledge of the city from. It was called Yvradimyae. Do you know of it?” I asked the Matron.
She nodded slowly. “There are two drow settlements in the High Strata, as it is called. The other eight I know of are all connected to the Hollow World, here. Yvradimyae is a name known to me, devoted to the scorpion-demoness.”
I wasn’t bugging Legion, who probably knew at least some of this, too. “That is correct. Why are you asking this?”
Her obsidian shoulders drooped ever so slightly. “I would like to know if Legion would clear Hrish Vag, my home city, as well.”
I flinched despite myself. “Ouch!” I exclaimed with feeling. “That bad?”
Professor Shellington was the one to answer. “Save perhaps some of the children, I doubt heavily that there are any souls within the City of Silken Lies worth saving. The sacrifices of slaves and battle trophies, the internal strife, the very Evil that seems to permeate the air... these are things that must not be used as a bridge from things outside this world as proof that they can enter and change things as they will.
“The cities of the drow need to die before the Shroud comes down. We’ve heard the tales of the cephalids that are being persecuted by the elite teams, and those creatures are, in the end, only backed by themselves. The drow bring in worship of demons in number, and Hrish Vag has temples to no less than six Princes of the Abyssal Pits.”
That was unwelcome news, and I could only nod agreement at that assessment. “If you have a path to Hrish Vag, or those of the other drow cities, put it in the Map. The Map of the Felldeep here in the Hollow World is very incomplete, and I still have much work to do on the surface, and may never even get down here to do it properly, based on how things are proceeding.” Which meant it would fall to Azaia, or one of the others, to do the job the best they could. It still needed to get done.
“But if we can find those places of the drow, we will do what we must, and save who we can,” I promised, and they both nodded in grim relief.
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I popped up on the Seal Focus next to Legion, Earthjumping down from far below a sand dune in Morocco and emerging smoothly from the stone under the Strata. Without a Lived-line, I’d had to Earthjump down to the edge of the Strata while incorporeal, then Stone Shape a two-mile tunnel down through the protective layer, and Earthjump again on the other side of it.
The young drow on all sides, none of them older than the equivalent of a human eight-year-old, all drew back in alarm at the sight of me.
“Did her skin bleed into her hair?” one exclaimed in shock.
“Something clipped her ears!” another blurted out.
“She has eyes like mama!” a third pointed out.
“Tails! She has tails and wings and horns like mama!”
The last thing these young haror were scared of were horns and tails and demonic wings, as these were displays of power and strength, and the similarity of mine to Legion’s, if more reversed in color, was impossible to miss.
“A pleasure to meet you all,” I Said in Elvish, and magic thrummed all around them, making them jump and widen eyes scarlet, violet, purple, yellow, and orange.
Legion was in full demon-goddess-homigawd form, albeit altered for some fuzzy cuteness instead of Queen of Sexy Doom. The furry fox-ears and nine fluffy tails certainly left a different impression then the poison-spear draconic tails and burning frill. The extra eyes actually looked more like jeweled accessories than anything, and her horns like a crown setting off that glorious cloud of silken hair.
Telekinetic fingers and gentle winds, in addition to all their arms, wings, and tails, were extended out and being touched by all these children. Whether it was the nine infants being held effortlessly in their arms and hair, the twenty toddlers riding on their tails, the two-year-olds hanging onto their wings to stay upright, or the older children reaching out to grasp one of those or simply acknowledging a gentle TK or wind tug on fingers or ears or noses in accordance with one of Legion’s voices in their heads. One way or another, Legion was touching all of them right now, and they were all Legion’s children.