Like me, the other Casters were focusing on Healing and Revitalization of the combatants, conserving mana rather than spending it on War Magic. There was a lot of math involved in that, as everyone wanted to be blasting apart olthoi heroically… but the same amount of mana used to Imperil effectively wiped out a third to half of an olthoi’s Health by accelerating the speed at which damage was done to it. A Pyreal Vuln effectively dropped the Health by another half!

  At the same time, pumping stamina into a flagging Melee effectively doled out additional damage every time that stamina fueled another swing of his arm, a total that was literally dozens of times higher than most War Magic, it just took longer to be dealt.

  Likewise, Healing a Melee meant he was dealing additional damage all that extra time… and taking damage the mage did not have to.

  Support Casting was thus far more effective than combat Casting over any period of time. Only if you had effective no-cost offensive spells should you routinely shoot things like I might.

  Debuff, let the Melees and Archers do the killing. Heal and Revitalize, keep them in the fight. It all maxed the use of mana, and mana management was what it was all about.

  The Wolfpack techniques at the back of the horde, two or three on one, were having the desired effect. The Mick and Kris were constantly moving to the next olthoi when one chittering bug fell after another, the Wolves jumping to the next target… and Kris flitting past on their shoulders, chopping down into carapaces to get off the Pierce Vuln for them, while the Mick flowed by below, in and out of their formations smoothly and precisely to do the same with Imperils.

  Tim and the Olthoi Queen Matron were rolling and ripping at one another energetically, meat and armor and carapaces crashing into the stone of the wall as the Queen found our Tremendous Monuga to be every bit as tough as his reputation, if not tougher. His incredible Fast Healing was keeping up nicely with the damage she was doing, he had far more Armor and Natural Armor now than he’d had a year ago, and he was slamming on her consistently and forcefully, not letting her go. His wrenching and tearing at her was shredding her Health Qi at least as fast as her multiple attacks were dealing it out of him.

  Briggs had a Piercing Lense inside Endure’s haft and was doling them out to the olthoi by both bashing olthoi in front of him with Endure in Pick Mode, and opportunistically tossing his Hammer out, crashing into an Olthoi and delivering the Vuln for the attention of the Archers waiting for those targets and zeroing in on them instantly. The olthoi in front of them were being impaled by the Spears working to either side of him, and the center of the horde was depleting at thrice the rate of the rest of the Shield Wall as a result.

  It was a shame he couldn’t bounce his Hammer around and deliver multiple Vulns, but he could only prep the Lense for one Vuln at a time. The Casters behind him focused on the Imperils when they had a moment, and soon enough pretty much every surviving olthoi in the horde had been double-tapped with Debuffs.

  I glanced at the tuskers, noticed three of the extremely tough virindi had been shattered and another six were in various stages of being drummed to death. When three more of them had masks crack and shatter and vivus erupt over them, I noted that to Briggs.

  -Three tuskers on the Olthoi Queen! Tie down her tail and hind legs for Tim!-

  Three Tuskers who weren’t needed to press in on the remaining virindi promptly turned and rumbled over to help their big buddy in his nasty grappling of a fight.

  I didn’t bother to Debuff the Olthoi Queen, as she had self-Dispels of great power she could get off with a thought. Blooding Weapons would have to do the job of beating her down against her natural Fast Healing… and just pinning her and heaping up the damage.

  Tons of monkeys threw them into the fight, tackling the Queen’s lower extremities, clamping on with their armored Fists to her legs and tail and immobilizing both of them.

  Tim bellowed, grabbing her upper arms and ignoring her jaws as he twisted her. The tuskers rolled with his move, forcing her to spin over with his superior strength and their mass, and suddenly Tim was behind her.

  The Annihilators nimbly kept out of the way of his boots as he lifted them and brought them down on her secondary arms. Steely chitin cracked and was pinned to the ground. His gauntlets closed on her upper arms, and he pulled back and up, bending her up and backwards as she screamed and writhed, trying to get free of him, but the Annihilators kept her legs and tail in a death-grip, and she wasn’t going anywhere.

  The masks of two more virindi shattered, vivus devoured the rush of virindi energies, and Mowen leapt from the shoulders of the Annihilators there. Four of the six Annihilators wrapped up a virindi each, pinning them with fists and feet, leaving only the masks exposed as they drove them against the wall or floor.

  The two Virindi Slayers concentrated on one virindi at a time with pounding enthusiasm for the task.

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  Mowen raced right over to Tim. Completely ignoring the queen’s lunging jaws, he rolled over her shoulders and seized her upper arms below Tim, bracing against her back as Tim let go.

  Smasher spun through the air to Tim’s waiting three-fingered grasp. With a roar of appreciation for all the gouges she’d put into his exposed hide, he brought his colossal Club down onto her skull.

  THAT was when I dropped the Bludgeon Vuln + Imperil Combo on the Queen, because she was going to be far too dazed to get off any Dispels while Tim was playing whack-a-mole with her head.

  She was incredibly tough, there was no doubt about it, an easy half-million of Health Qi and Health to pound through, body reinforced by virindi energies and shielded by the same.

  Under the relentless pounding of a Tremendous Monuga, the pinned Olthoi Queen could only sit there and take it, splashes of electrified luminous yellow-green olthoi blood erupting and vanishing in flashes of expended Health Qi.

  The horde tried to turn around and get to their queen, but two-thirds of them were dead, they were still being pressed together, and now most were being attacked from two sides, driving the Wolfpack slaughter even faster as Attacks of Opportunity were handed back and forth, while the Olthoi Hunter Archers picked them off one by one with murderous focus.

  A virindi died. The Annihilator rolled over, and leapt to go help Tim, racing up to the side of the Olthoi Queen and proceeding to start pounding his Fists, gleaming with green Olthoi Slayer Infusions, into the side of her thorax with energy and enthusiasm. Thirty seconds later, a second virindi died, and another Annihilator raced to help out Tim and his buddies.

  A breath after that, Kris and Briggs lunged forward, two Hive Warriors died, and suddenly the olthoi line was cut in two places… which gave the two of them targets to either side to ladle more attacks into, and to trigger more AoO’s into.

  The shredding of the last of the olthoi horde reached a whole new murderous thrusting crescendo as the lines achieved full encirclement, multiple Weapons coming in from every side against the olthoi now. The last twenty olthoi died in about a quarter of the time it had taken the twenty before them.

  “Vir Slayers on her limbs! Tim, get in front and Pendulum! Other Annihilators on her back!” Briggs ordered, leading the run towards the Olthoi Queen as the tuskers finished up with the last two virindi.

  The tuskers leapt quickly to obey. The Virindi Slaying tuskers grabbed her lower arms and rolled the broken things up, allowing Tim to step over in front of her and change his stance. Without Mowen in front of him, he could now swing back and forth instead of just up and down.

  CRACK, Smasher came in. CRACK, it came back. CRACK, CRACK, CRACK, the crested head was batted back and forth in eruptions of Health Qi.

  At the same time, the last two Annihilators had jumped onto her back under where he’d been standing, and were joining the drumroll just behind Mowen’s iron grip.

  The Olthoi Queen couldn’t even scream properly, even when the Isparians, Lugians, and Gear Knights spread out to deal with the many, many eggs scattered in rooms extending off the Queen’s chamber here.

  -----

  CRACK RIIIP.

  The Lightning Olthoi Queen Matron’s head, already lolling limply, was torn off its chitinous neck and went flying across the chamber, bouncing, rolling, then sliding across the floor as hissing, sparkling, and acidic olthoi blood boiled and bubbled on the stone.

  Her body still writhed and twisted, but her Health Qi was done, and her carapace plates either shattered or separated from one another, gouts of her blood soon spilling forth.

  Spilling forth, and then rising in a glowing stream and plunging into a big glass jar there as I salvaged it for the future.

  The air trembled with her psychic death cry, and distant chitters seemed to carry through the Hive as the olthoi here lost their reason to exist. The virindi might be able to order them around, but they’d be little more than automatons at this point.

  In counterpoint, down came Glory, reaping our own reward as the Olthoi Queen of Marae Lassel was finally and permanently dead.

  Vivus was making sure the virindi couldn’t Respawn her here, like they had in the past. She was truly dead, and her Hive, and all the olthoi on Marae Lassel knew it.

  Only when nothing was moving did the Annihilators stop their pounding and loosen their grips, calling out their victory in great rolling bellows with Tim and their fellows.

  “Brute Squad, evac!” I stated crisply, bringing up the outbound Teleportation Circle. “Healers are waiting for you!”

  Only a little bit wobbly from their exertions, Tim, Mowen, and the Annihilators headed out the circle in space that Tim levered open into a full rift, opening to the night and brightly-lit Plaza of Warriors beyond quickly.

  “We are on salvage mode! As many olthoi plates as we can gather from here, move it! Kris, Item that head! Roaches and Skeeters, chop up the Queen! Vanguard, wall across the entry for the death-rush that is coming! Archers, back them up! Spears, how we doing on the eggs?!” Briggs demanded quickly.

  “We’ve got about two hundred eggs not crushed in the fighting, Briggs!” Borelean called out, clusters of the sparking, glowing things being brought out on Disks.

  “The Alchemists at Freehold are waiting for them! Finish gathering them and Casters get them out of here so they can be held in Quintessence and preserved for future use as needed!”

  And not used to birth more mutant olthoi. Olthoi eggs were actually really good eating if prepared right, and useful in a broad array of alchemical cooking and Potions. It was like each was their own Royal Honey, or something.

  I set up the Focus Seal for the Teleporting out for the Casters who could do so, the magic of the Wagons providing the link back there required for them to do so personally.

  The rest of the goods, including the carapaces still mostly intact from all the dead olthoi going slowly vivic, went into a box which was Tapestried, Itemized, and stowed away.

  Elements of the hive came raging down, possibly spurred by virindi. Many of them broke carapaces and limbs slamming to the uncaring stone floor of the Queen’s chamber. Still, they dragged themselves to what remained of their limbs and attacked the waiting line of Vanguards without thought for their own lives… which, in the end, didn’t help them at all.

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