“The resurgence o’ Tenkarrdun supposedly deactivates the Wards around Aerefalle’s Fortress, allowing invaders entrance fer a short time. Of course, it always reset before very long, the Portal in never lasted long, an’ the one to her deeper abode didnae last long, either,” the Mick went on slowly. “That’s… all changed now. Do we even need t’ run the quest t’ get t’ her?” He cocked an eye at Kris and Briggs.

  The two Forsaken looked at one another tellingly. “She might believe it…” Kris said carefully.

  “Can you even Death Attack someone with that much Health Qi?” I had to ask. Even Briggs had to lift an eyebrow at that.

  “It depends on how much she misses the Save by,” Kris said slowly, running some mental calculations. “She’s an undead and a mage. She’s got shit and crap for a Fort Save by any measure, and no Constitution score. She might take it on Charisma, but that’s if I let her. I’d have to go for the physical nexus and ignore her magical one entirely.”

  “A Null Strike would do it,” Briggs nodded. “Which you’ll probably need to neutralize her personal Wards and Contingencies in any event.”

  “Can you get to +XI?” Kris looked at me sharply. “XI is absolutely Eternal-level, exceeding the base ten Slots on a Weapon.”

  “I’d… have to pay it in as an Arsenal option, but yes, I could do that,” Princess Kristie Rantha nodded slowly. “And it will up the Fort Save even more if I do…” Left unsaid was what the Blackfire Stones might also be adding on.

  “Greater Soulbound. Vivic. Blooding. Undead Bane. Bane of Legends. Enmity to Evil. Ruby. You’ve got two Slots to spare. Do +I and add Blessed, also. I think the condemnation of Heaven is perfect for what is coming here,” I told her.

  She actually smirked at me. “Alrighty, but that means a two-day delay as I go out and do some hunting for Naming Karma for Quaver here.”

  “Oddly enough, we need to do so to set-up for our Tenkarrdun run,” Briggs rumbled. “Can’t imagine that might take a couple days or two and all, given the running-around required.”

  “Dare we hope to meet Scold and finally get to kill him?” Kris asked, pale violet eyes still focusing elsewhere.

  “That would be nice, but not our priority. The best thing to do would be to wipe Aerefalle without being caught at it. If she dies, we can probably expect some form of retribution,” King Borelean interjected. “And remember, she is not the true head of the undead.”

  “Rytheran will definitely react,” the Mick agreed. “It’s well-known that he’s been in love with her fer millennia. If we take her out, then we’ll have to head inta the Graveyard to kill him as well.”

  “Leaving Prince Geraine without his two primary underlings, and plenty of subordinates who might finally be able to gain positions of power after ten or twenty thousand years,” Briggs grunted in satisfaction. “The undead position is going to be very close to civil war, even if not outright fighting one another, for this chance. Some are going to see it as literally the only chance they might ever have to raise their status. They are undead because they could not give that status up. There WILL be violence!” Briggs stated firmly.

  “And certainly the shades will not be moving while the undead are in an uproar, not that it will do much good anywhere to anyone…”

  “Unless we come in and start making those deaths permanent to all concerned. But they WILL band together against us if that happens,” I pointed out. “We are getting stronger, and they may be uncertain, but we don’t have the numbers to fight all the undead at one time. Our people WILL get massacred, there is no doubt about that.”

  There was silence at the table.

  “Then I guess there better be no eyewitnesses to the death of Her Eternal Splendor?” Kris grinned nastily and confidently.

  “And you best be seen to be somewhere else than where she dies, too,” I nodded, and heads bent forward as plans were made.

  -------

  The cycle of the Aerlinthe Quest was: Get the Bellows in the Crater Caves; Get the Pyreal Bar in the Foundry; Give the Pyreal Bar to the Forge Golum in the Reservoir; and finally Give the Bellows to the Smithing Golum in the Foundry.

  The last portion triggered the surge in Tenkarrdun and powered up the volcano. From there originally the Questers ran into the Tenkarrdun’s crater, killed the Hellfire that spawned there and perhaps looted the Infusions, potentially killed the Behemoth Magma Golem for Minor Blackfire Stones if they wanted them, then ran to the Relic Town, killed the Relic Watchman, and finally entered the Portal to Aerefalle’s Keep the Watchman had held shut. Then they fought their way down to Aerefalle’s Handmaiden, killed her for a key, recovered the spells they wanted from the keyed loot chests, or headed deeper through a Portal to kill Aerefalle herself and gain better loot and a Major Blackfire Stone.

  So, part one was making it to the Foundry Dungeon and getting the Pyreal Bar.

  Even trying to minimize encounters, it was a lot of fighting, and we didn’t dare to use vivus to Seal the Spawn Points and open a path for ourselves, knowing there were a lot of undead watching us and we’d likely trigger a massive assault and have to run if we did, likely rousing the whole island against us.

  More adventurers just running a tried and true Quest to see how far we could get, however? Just another boring day watching mortals repeat their mindless actions over and over again. The undead couldn’t be bothered to care, and like jaded spectators in an arena, or maybe simple-minded sots loving the blood and violence, they watched from the tops of the hills and from among the many undead spawns as we tore a path through the enhanced Spawns.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Briggs, Kris, and the Mick led the effort, I was along, we’d recruited Kopf and Gros again, and exactly three others: King Borealean, Queen Mother Elysa, and Princess Fan, all determined to be in on this and blaze the way for others.

  It was a nine-person Fellowship, the classic limit for an adventuring band. The Royal Family had their armor magically re-colored, and if there was no way to hide who Briggs was by his size, he was always in the open about such things. He and Kris and I had definitely never run the Quest before, nor had any of the Roaches or Skeeters, so it was easy to understand WHY we would do this after the quick scouting runs from earlier.

  With little hesitation in the matter, we powered our way brutally across the island. Elysa, Fan, and I were the only devoted ranged attackers, but that just meant we had a brutally effective melee front line, and the Imperils and Vulns I ladled out were put to good use.

  I had to do a lot of Healing, but it was expected, and really, Healing Edge on the Named Weapons of everyone involved actually took a huge amount of the load off on that matter. The Wolfpack tactics were becoming hard doctrine among the Senior Melees now, and the lethal power of their teamwork was not to be underestimated.

  Thus we powered our way north and around the first hill there, went through the valley cutting through to the harbor, down to the waters, ran along the T-shaped harbor, crossed the static hot lava flow that came down from the volcano but never expanded or filled in the harbor at all, and then went up the west side and around the mountain on a simply ridiculous path that no supply or trading caravan in their right mind would ever set up, all in order to reach the Foundry Dungeon, all crackled up and bulging out of the side of the mountain with its four Ancient Armored Diamond Golums guards sitting outside.

  Instead of just running past them or luring them off with one person while the rest piled in, we killed them all and went inside.

  The Dungeon within was likewise far more dangerous than Lord Mick and the other old-timers recalled.

  Inside were the same upgraded Gas-based, Magma, and Diamond Golums as were outside, as well as toughened Fire Elementals and some of the Plasma Wisps… and there were easily thrice the number that the Mick recalled from his many, many runs through this place.

  Regardless, behind a lot of Coldphased beatdowns and Hammer-blows to the Diamond Golums, we fought our way down and through the place step-by-step. In this place, we dared to shut down the Summons and Spawn Points. If they wanted to free them up, let the undead come in behind us and do that… or more likely, cycling up Tenkarrdun would probably pop them open, but at least we wouldn’t have to worry about them on the return trip.

  Hopefully.

  The Smeltery area itself was a blast furnace of heat, manned by golums of gas and magma working the place… or trying to, not having anything to work, so basically just sitting there basking in the incredible heat of the lava pool on the other side of the wall the smelting furnaces were tapping.

  The creatures died frozen and crumbling alongside the random Fire Elementals that popped up, and the Mick stepped over and picked up the Pyreal Bar laying on the floor there, gleaming like it had just been ejected from the furnaces.

  We waited five minutes, more than enough time for another one to reappear given the backlog of energy built up, and there was nothing.

  This was going to be the last Aerlinthe Quest run, unless there was a way to make another Bar. Maybe by feeding the furnaces some pyreal ore, which we didn’t know the location of, nod nod, wink wink.

  Once there were Portals leading outside from down here. Instead, I Dimension Door’d us out of there and to the side of the mountain, away from the AA Diamond Golums which had already respawned at the entry to the place, but still on level ground.

  It had taken us all day to get in and through the place. We could have camped inside, but nobody felt like being surprised by Spawn Points potentially reactivating at a random time because, like, there was a volcano RIGHT THERE.

  Instead we struck up a fire and made for a simple camp, Disks making decent beds if reconfigured.

  If there were undead watching in the distance as we made a fire and even set up a Ward along the trail to warn us of anything else coming, they still didn’t react. Mortal adventurers running around doing silly and stupid stuff.

  If I popped out for an hour to do my Resurrections a bit late in the day, they didn’t need to know that, either.

  ------

  Come the morning, we headed right down the hills towards the mounded area where the entrance to the Reservoir Dungeon was, the entry-point now sitting atop a massive sprawling mound and buried formation clearly displaying that there was stuff waiting down below, it was not just running into a Portal anymore.

  What they didn’t see was Kris receiving an Invisibility spell from me and never going into the place at all.

  Just like they hadn’t seen her get another Invisibility spell from me, sprint up three thousand feet of Tenkarrdun’s slopes and down into the crater to about halfway down the place, well past the area where Ancient Relic Bones or Grieving Phantoms manifested, and then come racing back to reunite with us and replace the illusion that had been fighting in her place for those ten minutes.

  She was now heading to Aerefalle’s Keep, sitting up there on its sprawling stone foundation in the center of a lava lake and surrounded by crackling Wards that would defy any magical attack or physical entry.

  Except one from something as basic and non-magical as a Null Forsaken, who could crash right through those Wards, get stripped of her Invisibility, and put it instantly back up from the Wand inside the Wand Chamber of Quaver as she dove towards the lava pool below, her heels sprouting mist and running down the sides of the lava moat, then across the lava itself without breaking stride.

  There was nothing down there to watch as she headed right to the basalt stone base of the keep enduring the lava patiently. If her Invisibility was stripped from her again, she was already on the stone, clawing her way up as she shut down her Tats and Gear, then drew her Null in tight. The black of her cloak and attire blended in just fine on the stone, and she swarmed up in the dancing shadows without hesitation, aiming for the walls above.

  Once at the high windows, she popped a Potion of Gaseous Form without hesitation, and as she dissolved into a sparkling mist that flowed through the shadows inside, she brought up the maps of the place as the Mick remembered, which might well be very out of date.

  Nothing but mist in the shadows with a Stealth modifier in the completely unnatural area, Princess Kristie Rantha flowed through the gates and under the doors quickly but smoothly, heading ever down and through Aerefalle’s Keep.

  If there were at least four times the undead and golums crammed into this place as there had been previously, well, they didn’t notice the smoke stealing through the shadows above the magical torches, either, and there were plenty of shadows abounding in Aerefalle’s Keep...

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