“So, we’re going after the OP next?” I had to ask. The strategic considerations of securing the south of the Direlands against massive attack was behind the elimination of the strongholds of shades and undead there. Both forces had over ten times the number of forces in the northern Direlands, leaving everyone wondering how Fort Tethana had ever managed to survive there.

  The virindi, conversely, were centered in the Obsidian Plains. Neither the undead nor the shades were going to lift a finger to save the axiomatic hive-creatures, aberrant outsiders that they were. They were unwanted in the first place, and simply shouldn’t have been on this world at all, let alone for a good two generations.

  “No. The Valley of Death.”

  I frowned. “Two Dungeons in the Valley, one dangerous, one not really, but the toughest land spawns in all of Dereth. They’ve never been seen outside of there, so why are we worrying about them?”

  “Personal favors, more than anything.” I lifted an eyebrow. “There’s Tremendous Monuga spawns in there, which means TM’s slaved to the System. Tim would like the chance to speak to his elders, if we can release them.

  “There’s also an incredibly tough tusker called an Obliterator. King Bobo would like speak to it, if at all possible.”

  “Okay…”

  “There are powerful lugian and Hea champions there, stronger than any others in the Direlands or elsewhere, yet nowhere in their tales are there any so powerful. King Kresovus and the Hea shamans would like to know if they are enslaved souls enhanced like the Withered are, or champions of their peoples who can also be freed.”

  I sighed as I put my palm to my forehead. “Being heroic types is such a goddamn pain in the arse at times. We opened such a can of worms recovering those souls.”

  “The first of them should be regaining their mortality within the month now, including Bunita,” she reminded me. “They’ll be extremely motivated to grow stronger.”

  “They should be motivated to have more children,” I sniffed in return. “Bringing back the dead is is not the best way to increase the population, and there’s a whole lot of land to be occupied we don’t have the numbers to hold… or the people to hold it for.”

  “Not arguing, just noting the reality of the situation. Most interestingly, we have a similar request from the dragons concerning the gromnies in the Valley of Death.”

  “The gromnatrosses want to know if they can recover gromnies from the System?” I asked, shaking my head. “I imagine the gromnie spawns in the Valley are near the level for sapience, then…”

  “That’s what they passed on.” She glanced at me curiously. “You’ve made exactly zero attempts to meet any of them, which hasn’t gone unnoticed, especially when you’re the one who brought the Viridian Rise back into the world.”

  “I have no plans to get myself involved in the inscrutable aims of dragons, benevolent or otherwise. Let’s just say I inherited a cool disdain of dragons from Aelryinth.”

  “There’s dragons back on Earth?” she asked, surprised.

  “Invaders. Like all the other invaders, they are killed when they are found. Unsurprisingly, dragons don’t like being treated like vermin. They went and tried a direct strike against Ael’s home and killed his firstborn daughter.”

  “Oh. And by your expression, using a method where she couldn’t be brought back…”

  “They had help from both the Unseelie and Hell.” Those memories were really vivid and painful, because Ael had REALLY high Stats on the mental side, and his emotions about those things were superhumanly intense. “Ael and his wife both have Dragon-names, given to them because of the number of dragons they’ve slain. I don’t have that Name, but I have no doubt I have the echo of it, and dragons are one of the few creatures I actually enjoy killing.

  “The gromnatrosses are described as noble and fairly benevolent. Nobody needs them feeling the echoes of the deaths of dragons about me and wondering in horror how I killed so many of their kin.”

  “I’m sure they would understand the circumstances, especially the fact that dragons elsewhere are no better in their behavior than their savage children, while being just as smart as they are?” Kris offered.

  “It’s something I’d rather not put up with until I have to, given how much other stuff is on my plate. The rage involved in those memories would likely kill a normal person, Kris. You’ve not had to put up with that manner of loss yet, but can you imagine your or Briggs’ reaction if one of your defenseless children was slain in front of you?”

  She looked away, considering. “Post-30 Charisma scores?” she finally answered. “Everything quietly gets put aside, and then whoever did that dies, and any who stand with them.”

  “Right. So every time I see a dragon of any kind, I see one of the things that killed his daughter. I have a very unfavorable attitude, and I don’t need to be showing it if I’ve the choice.”

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “Understood. They are isolationists, regardless, and if they don’t want to get themselves involved in our problems, then doing little favors for them is all we’re going to do in return.”

  “In any event, I think the odds that their spirits are salvageable are little to none. There’s been no normal gromnies found of that size, probably meaning it takes a long time to evolve that level, and none have done so in any Isparian records,” I pointed out.

  “Just like there’s never been a wandering Obliterator seen anywhere…” she nodded in understanding. “And only the one Tremendous Monuga Aerbax managed to mutate, and it had to be put down.”

  “Outside the Colosseum.”

  “Outside the Colosseum,” she agreed. The late room with double spawns of three Tremendous Monugas had been quite unforgettable for those involved… but that was back when Armor and Life Prots could bounce twenty tons of mass stomping on you somehow.

  “I will go, of course. Just let me know when. Are we clearing the Spawn Points there?” I inquired.

  “Of course. We’re not sure if they’re going to stay that way, of course, but we can at least try to do so.”

  The Spawn Points being more powerful than normal also tracked. Who knew?

  “I’m going to get in contact with the Mick’s uncle and Master Ben, and have some additional Cursed Dead gather in Holtburg. A hundred a day should clear all of them up in only a month, I believe.”

  “Not wasting any time, I see,” she grinned.

  “You were talking about some motivated individuals becoming available…”

  She laughed.

  ---------

  The Valley of Death was an area in the Direlands, just north of the Obsidian Plains. It wasn’t a single Valley, more of a spread of them through the unnaturally steep mountains that made up the area. More than a few of those thousand-foot mounts had Spawns atop them, or Dungeons in the craters of them, in addition to fairly dense spawns of the toughest monster variants in Dereth.

  Some of the most vulnerable, too, once their armor went negative and your good friends were using the right Element type.

  Mercy and Merciful Spell weren’t things we commonly used, but they were appropriate in this situation. Both changed inflicted damage to non-lethal subdual damage, which was enough to give us the opportunity to inspect the Summons that we wanted to see if they had intact souls within them.

  I inspected the Aura of the lugian in front of me. These VoD lugians were actually famous, for they’d been the ones who’d started the whole trend of negative Armor and massively magnified damage. If you used the cold damage they were usually resistant to and their armor went negative with Imperils, their armor magnified the damage done to them by a factor of seven or so, and they died with incredible speed.

  The local rhino-sized gromnies and gator-sized armoredillos died pretty much the same way. Most of the other creatures had to be double-tapped with Vulns and Imperils both to soften them up to a reasonable level of x4-5 damage.

  “There’s a very old soul in here,” I admitted. “Based on the pull, I’d say a minimum of five hundred years dead.

  “The Aura is also Brown, basically at the level of a trained animal. There’s no Name that I can see or discern here. By one means or another, this soul has been largely wiped of identity and is just a tool of the System now. Using vivus would be a mercy, releasing it to the Land and reincarnation at this point.”

  Vanguard Kopf sighed heavily, standing there as the lugian representative of this inspection. “That is horrible news from a moral standpoint… but not as disappointing as having to finish off the Gotrok Summons in the Direlands,” the big lugian said roughly.

  “Not finding lugians loyal to their kin and kind slaved to the System after death was actually a very, very good thing in my eyes,” I replied softly to that. “To think I had been killing loyal heroes who died defending their king and people, dragged out of the past and made to serve the System… that would have been horrible, Elder Kopf.”

  The big blue guy’s jaw worked a moment at that observation. “I had not considered those two facts. The knowledge that we are not releasing the Gotrok enslaved to the System save to their proper warrior’s fate is another blow to the leadership of the rebels.”

  “Indeed. I regret this is not good news of itself… actually, this is very bad news on the higher level. The System has had access to lugian souls for at least five hundred years…”

  Kopf grunted, then sneered. “A true thief of souls, stolen from our homeworld?” he realized. “Ancient heroes, back when the Tukora were truly valiant, caught and doomed to this fate?” I watched him shudder as I finished my inspection of the second of the three here, shook my head, and moved to the last one.

  The results were similar. Ancient souls, the last one at least seven hundred years old, wiped out by either time, multiple incarnations, or the power of the System, just a programmed shell to gather ectoplasm around.

  Once a soul headed to its afterlife, now caught and tasked to slavery by the System for who knew what reason. How the lugian had come here was another consideration entirely. How long had the System truly been taking heroes from other worlds like this? There were no Isparians among these spawns, and the only spawns with them we’d found were basically based on those who had immigrated here, none taken from Ispar itself.

  At least that we knew of.

  I got to my feet, looking over as the team hacked down enormous grievvers, larger than any I’d seen elsewhere in Dereth.

  The Lenses in the Wand Chambers of the Roaches were spread between all the Elements now, allowing everyone to take up Debuff duty, depending on the proper Element to use on each foe here. Hundig had the Slashing Lense, and had softened up the massive spidery creatures for the rest of the team, with the Mick handling the Imperils for them for the moment. Kris usually focused on opening up Attacks of Opportunity for everyone on multiple foes at once, driving the Wolfpack Engine to greater killing speed.

  The Lenses were the new hot item for everyone to imbue with their pyreal bar allocations once their value was made apparent. Tool-users using their best tools, and helping free up the Casters to put their mana where it was needed… which now could include more War Magic as desired.

  The Mick was having fun taking on these old foes again with his new equipment and tactics, and yes, he had soloed several of the spawns here with enthusiasm. The creatures going negative Armor were particularly vulnerable to him once he had the right Element going…

  I surveyed the area, unworried about the Roaches. They had become a lot more melee-focused of late, although none of them were anything but deadly archers. The Lenses and the Wolfpack techniques made personal combat much more more effective, although it demanded more Healing on them… but that was what Healing Edge, Combat Vigor, and such things were useful for...

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