“Now that is rather a lot of tuskers spawning there. The Hell?” Princess Kristie asked, hands on her hips as she surveyed a circle of a good twenty of the bright orange Tusker Guards and Slaves favored by the virindi. They were about a half-mile away at this point, and we weren’t looking at getting any closer.

  The spawn of Rynthids possessing Minions and Marionettes had proved about twice as tough as the Mick remembered, but they were not much more dangerous on offense. The Vanguards, Briggs, and Kris soaked up most of the magic, and teams took turns bringing them down, testing their defenses and getting a feeling for them, erratic movements and irregular behavior notwithstanding.

  “Huh!” the Mick murmured, examining the cluster. “Twenty years, an’ they still have the trainin’ camps…” His brow furrowed in thought. “We’d call ‘em fast-spawns now, I be thinkin’? Lazy folks would sit near them an’ wipe out the entire spawn, then pace themselves killin’ the respawn fer hours an’ hours. Worth doin’ for the Karma an’ not havin’ t’ run around, if ye were a bit brain-damaged. Er, disciplined an’ focused, right, right,” he corrected himself, to the amusement of everyone.

  “Roving spawn coming from the west!” Selena sang out from atop her Disk. “Looks like a trio of virindi,” she went on, her silver and gold sun Mask of Clarity down and enhancing her eyesight. “They are working around the shade, undead, and rynthid spawns, but the other virindi, tumerok, drudge, banderling, and lugian spawns are all ignoring them.”

  “Now isn’t that interesting,” Briggs murmured, stepping up into the air on Cloudstepping Sandals for his own view over the Summons in the way and the odd hexagonal crystal pillars jutting out of the fused black earth here. “It seems spawn neutrality doesn’t work for the virindi here?”

  “They are known for clearing paths in the Dires with their larger forces,” Kris reminded him. “The undead, too, as I recall?”

  There was a flash of magic in the distance, and something flared, popped, and died as the Whirling Blade chewed through it. “Wisp bought it,” Rogar murmured calmly. “Not neutral, either. No golums in their path, or random Fragments in their way…”

  “Ignored by only more than half the spawns in the Dires. Horrible imposition on them,” Kris grunted. “They are heading for the spawn circle?…”

  “Quick way to get an escort, especially if they are coming this way. Bright trail an’ all,” the Mick said, glancing back with everyone else at the swathes of white behind us, and the striped Markers stuck in the ground there.

  There was motion among the tuskers there, the Summons turning around at a silent command and running over to join the virindi, forming a rough throng around them. A moment later the virindi turned around and headed south, ignoring us as it did so.

  “One wonders where it is headed with its new escort,” the Aluvian Skeeter Fendro wondered, watching it go with all of us. “Also, it’s not deviating for stuff anymore.”

  There was a flash of Vulns and Imperils going off, and the tuskers thundered forward into a trio of Diamond Golums, bashing them apart before they could really fight back at all. “That answers the question about the golums…”

  “Shit!” I blinked, everyone turning to look at me, and I pointed. “The Summons! They respawned!”

  Everyone’s heads snapped around, watched as magic surged and flashed, and more Tusker Guards and Slaves materialized off the ring in the ‘training camp’.

  Eyes bulged in disbelief. We could still see the other Summons!

  “Well, fuck,” the Mick summed up for everyone, puncturing that with a low whistle. “That be not good news, methinks?”

  “They’ve worked out how to sever the link between a Summons and its Spawn Point, while keeping it extant?” I slapped my hand to my forehead. “Did all of the virindi depart with that throng?” I demanded instantly.

  Now all the scouts were looking hard that way. “There’s five virindi in the center of the ring. There were only three before!” Selena stated hurriedly. “The tuskers are moving…”

  We watched the new tuskers turn and peel off under silent command, following another virindi directly after the first group.

  “Damn,” hissed Briggs, staring at that. “First respawn really fast, none since renewal. If it’s a Fast Spawn, then five minutes to the next one.”

  “What happens if the controller is killed? Do the tuskers come back here?” Kris asked urgently.

  “We don’t know. This is unprecedented,” I stated coolly. “Kris, go camo and follow them and find out. They have to be fighting an intelligent foe to do that, who’ll focus on taking out the virindi.”

  “Done.” Her dark hair swirled like a cloak, shadows drew together out of nothing as she flowed into motion, and then she was gone, like she’d just melted into the background somehow. Even those who’d seen her do it before were impressed by it.

  “Hiding in Plain Sight. Always a pleasure to see,” Briggs half-smiled, making no move to follow, totally confident in Kris’ ability to evade notice. She infiltrated Aerefalle’s Keep, after all.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  I, of course, would be sensed with absolute ease by the virindi, as would the other Powered wielding any magic.

  ---

  Five minutes passed with inexorable impatience… and nothing happened. Briggs glanced at me.

  “That might signify something. Another five to a normal spawn. You’re absolutely sure that’s a Fast Spawn site, Lord Mick?”

  “Nope. But I be absolutely sure it WERE a Fast Spawn site twenty years ago, aye.” Which was an important distinction. “I also be noting… the Virindi had three Dungeons what were inhabited by loads an’ loads o’ tuskers, the Black Spawn Dens. All of ‘em were Fast Spawn Dungeons.”

  “Close?” Briggs asked, frowning.

  “Aye, actually. About two miles that way…” His own Mask came down, black and green, rather catlike. “Were right about… aye, big pit leading out o’ sight…” he squinted. “Ah, fuck me.”

  Everyone looked in that direction over the blasted landscape. It was a good couple of miles away, but with Masks down all around, everyone could see a couple virindi leading a whole train of tuskers out of the place.

  “Slaves and Guards again. Almost identical, obviously Summons,” Briggs grunted. “There’s at least fourscore of the things…”

  “Aye, were plenty o’ them in the Dungeon,” the Mick agreed somberly, turning his head to scan the area. “I don’t see any such numbers ahead o’ them, might be a first batch?” he hazarded.

  “Which means the second batch should be really fast,” Briggs nodded at the point. “Be a delay in gathering them, likely.”

  “Aye. Lady Roaches, eyes on that Pit, mark the time. Lads, on the landscape, looking for motion.” The Mick squinted as he looked around. “They didnae bother taking any o’ the landscape spawns,” he noted professionally.

  “Said spawns are impediments to others trying to get through the area. If they are killed, they might respawn as anything else, right? They only exercise real control in the Center,” I spoke up.

  “That be true.” The Mick scratched his jaw. “There be another camp, but it be miles south an’ west o’ us. The other BSD’s are north o’ Ayan and way north and west in the north Dires.” He shook his head. “Gotta be some limits on this, Commander. This be too strong. We’ve not been in the Dires t’ see all the conflicts here, aye, but the virindi would be rolling out endless armies without needing to go back t’ Spawn Points for them.”

  “They are fixed Spawn Points,” Briggs observed coolly. “So are Dungeons. Are there any other Dungeons that could qualify?”

  The Mick considered that for a minute, running through old Dungeons and adventures in his head. “Two Dungeons flush with Minions: Tumideon an’ Sotiris. One to the north o’ us, other south an’ west.”

  “Across the canyon?

  “Aye, probably five miles as the crow flies?”

  “So it might take them a while to get here, even if they don’t get tired. We should still see the chorozite effect from a good distance, however.”

  “They weren’t Fast Spawn, as I recall,” the Mick pointed out.

  “The spawning rate might be important, might not be. Fast Spawn will be twice as quick as normal and make a better resource by default. If it is NECESSARY… that’s something else,” I interjected.

  “So, no Minions might mean it’s not possible, or it might mean they just didn’t take any from there. Seeing some, however, means that the fixed spawn is the important thing, not the spawn rate,” Briggs nodded. “So, we wait and see, while Kris sees just who exactly is fighting who and why.”

  “And if they send more virindi to gather more forces for the fighting. If they do, they are also showing they are willing to make this a real battle.”

  ----

  At about the same time, a new spawn of tuskers popped up around the camp, and a virindi promptly led them off. Selena then called out that more tuskers were coming out of the Black Spawn Den Dungeon in the distance, following after the first line of tuskers heading south.

  Ten minutes after that, the pink and blue flashes of refined chorozite fists were visible in the distance, and we watched the jerking, twitching purple and green forms of the scarecrow-like Tumideon Minions heading south behind a virindi.

  Ten minutes later, the twoscore minions were followed by a second run of them.

  It was a full twenty minutes before the camp respawned again, ten minutes for the Black Spawn Den, and twenty minutes before we saw another run of the Minions.

  The next spawn was a full forty, twenty, and forty minutes, respectively.

  The last spawn took a full eighty, forty, and eighty.

  “Doubling every time. Apparently keeping severed Summons intact takes a load on the System to build up more power. Do you think Natural Renewal wipes them away?” Briggs asked me neutrally.

  “That does seem reasonable, as that’s the point a Spawn Point will reset. At that point, any Summons not actively tied should just dissipate with the dawn. We won’t know until we witness it ourselves, however.”

  Briggs looked south, but the uneven, blasted landscape hid any activity going on in that direction. “Signal to Kris that we’re pulling out of here. We’ll come back tomorrow, check the activity of the Spawn Points that we marked up, and if we have to Light up a path through to the Bore at the Center, so be it.”

  “Firefall incoming from the Bore!” the Mick sang out, and our eyes turned to a winding, whirling chaotic flux of magic that was starting to build up to our south-west and the larger line of hills that surrounded the very center of the Obsidian Plains. “Ten minutes, be thinkin’,” the Mick said.

  “Magos, get us out of here. We’ve all got better things to do than wait around watching virindi march reinforcements around.”

  “Yes, sir, Commander Briggs!” I acknowledged without batting an eye. He resisted the Kris-urge to noogie me for being so uppity about his rank, and instead just watched as I Shaped up the Circles, everyone picked them in in groups of three, everyone Powered them up, and we were out of there.

  ------

  Princess Kristie Rantha…

  The run was nothing, staying unseen wasn’t hard. Just keep her Null up and the virindi couldn’t sense her as anything more than dust in motion at best. Kris shadowed the virindi and tuskers as they raced across the landscape south at a good clip, the tuskers easily keeping pace with the floating virindi.

  She was surprised they ignored many of the spawns of virindi, Minions, and tuskers scattered around, but they did clear away any golum, wisp, shade, or undead spawns that popped up, leading with Imperils and Bludgeon Vulns that made all such things easy prey for the tuskers who raced to the attack to pound them down for their masters.

  Five miles in, however, the virindi grabbed several other spawns they passed by, the Master taking control and using the lesser virindi to buttress its Casting, probably to save some mana. It looked like they only took the virindi, but the servants came along regardless for a short time, then ambled back to the Spawn Points without new orders, making sure that if the Summoned virindi died, new ones would just spawn in at that point.

  Good logic and efficiently keeping more virindi on the landscape.

  ============================

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