章節 264: Chapter Two Hundred and Sixty-Four – The Hole

"So, what are we looking at?" Briggs asked for everyone, as multiple eyes, including some powerful Casters from multiple races, were tuning into this, getting Brother AA's impressions. Sure, Brother Shadowknife might have been the perfect choice, but he was listening in and could contribute regardless.

Black and grey Helices brimming of vanished ages past rolled over the knife-sharp expanse of thrumming nothingness in front of us. Visually, what was in front of us was equal parts darkness fading down into nothingness, and mists rising above into infinity, with what was up and down subjective between eyeblinks. Just looking at it was enough to stir up headaches, and send more of my thoughtstreams into overdrive on dimensional physics.

The eyes of a lot of things from Outside and Within Creation had been drawn to this place. It was simply too big a breach to the mortal plane.

And probably how the Hags reached the entities they were playing favors with...

"It's pure creation and destruction, timelessness incarnate," AA said calmly. "We've got both Ethereal and Astral influences coming together, and it's drawing energy from both Dream and the Akashas.

"I can feel it rippling and destabilizing at a very subtle level, but its accelerating. Brothers, go ahead." Everyone waited while Mountainhammer pounded, and some flying feet smashed into a lesser Obelisk's top. Wahhhh, fall down go boom.

Everyone felt the spike, however subtly, ripple across the wall in front of us in response. -Yes, their Great Formation has been holding this stable, both draining off excess energy and preventing it from expanding or contracting. With the pressure from the Wake, spreading along it, it's definitely weakening on many levels,- Brother Shadowknife /confirmed for everyone in Marktell. -If we complete a Wake circuit around the Hole, this rupture should be forced close. It won't immediately close all the reality shards in Yle Tyorm, but their time will be limited.-

Timelessness was an unusual planar trait. Basically, it meant time didn't pass age-wise, yet you didn't slow down, you were able to act as if time was normal. It thus combined super-speed and ultimate slow time traits. Ripping timelessness apart is what had created the variable time zones in this place.

-As far as I can determine, the spatial paradigm holds true... as you go in, there's more and more room. Basically, it's an omnidirectional portal from the mortal world into whatever tweenspace this rupture comes from.

-Without the support of the plane behind the barrier pushing back against reality, the spatial zones will slowly compress, and the unreal energies the stuff within is made of will slowly unwind back into Dream as it does. If we take the stuff out before it does, it becomes as real as anything else...-

"So each Shard is like a mine." I nodded. "What we have to do then is loot each and every Shard down to the bones before that happens. By concentrating Nulls in each section without actually breaking open a path for a Wake, we can focus the degradation in an area following their progress while slowing it on the other areas, so they can be looted in turn."

There was a shocked pause from the Marktell. The bigger Shards were like large countries, the fifth Shardring was like continents. What we were talking about was looting them down to the bones, because they were all going to go away if we didn't...

All in all, it was being given carte blanche to strip an entire world clean, and take it for ourselves. If we didn't, it was all just going to go away.

-There are plants and animals in these zones that are not found on our world, some of them with extraordinary potential, and others that just have to be killed and cannot be let out. They have wealth that can be taken, yet it will all vanish if it is not. They are sources of Karma that can contested against to gain in strength for our own, that will simply be gone if we do nothing.

-And they are recruits, that if we are merciful and open-minded, may be able to leave their doomed lands and stand with us.

-Yle Tyorm is a nest of great evil that has festered within itself for a thousand centuries. Out of this evil now sits before us an opportunity that likely we will never see again in this life. We will purge this cancer from this land, this yawning wound ripped into our reality, and we will be rewarded for doing so!-

The plunder of nations, the loot of empires, the hoards of evil opened to the day. They had brought down a great Nation of Unity, and now, from their own wealth of Empires of Evil, such a thing might rise again.

Hope springs Eternal, and Hope was one of the great powers of Good.

We could rebuild. We could make it better, stronger, grander...

The theme to the Six Million Dollar Man was breezing through my head. Briggs laughed on the side, the Minstrels and Bards made notes, and very soon it would become the theme song of what was going to follow, all inadvertently.

They had done great evils, they were going to die and get away with it? No, they were going to become the stepping stones for the successor to what they had buried in Hag-spawned darkness and lies...

And of course, we had to prepare for it. The corner of my mouth quirked up in a smile, as I began to lay out the things that would need to be done to do the job the right way, and it was nowhere as simple as loot and send the stuff out...

"There's something out there."

My eyes shifted back to the yawning emptiness of yin-yangness in front of us at Briggs' words. I frowned, not seeing anything, but not doubting it.

He was feeling pushback against his Oath. Stuff had to hammering on me personally to get that attention from me.

I turned my eyes down. "Mountainhammer said there is actually a hole under the city. So, it's probably something from down there."

His eyes dropped, and both he and AA nodded after a minute. "We are sure the Formation doesn't exist below. So, the benefits of it likely extend down, and something has been profiting off it. Given how much of the stuff here seems to have emigrated from the Felldeep, it's no surprise," Briggs mused.

"It is likely something beyond our power to deal with," murmured Ancientaxe, rather sensitive to such things.

"Seriously?" AA nodded somberly to me. "Well, ain't that a hoot. We'll just have to give it a nice surprise when it comes up."

The Wake was splashing and spreading against the dimensional wall. Our secondary mission was complete.

"Let's finish out the day, and let what happens, happen." The boys both agreed, and we turned to get back to running. It wasn't our downtime for the day yet.

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The way out had long been secured by Lord Grey. Wayfair's once-a-day trips from the inside basically meant that every four minutes or so she was appearing outside the Camp, the city of Split, a dwarven mountain, or deep in elven lands with a massive haul of loot, as she moved between the different fighting groups and spirited their excess loot away.

It was astonishing that the wealth being discovered was actually staying ahead of the Investing curve. That meant over two hundred thousand gold worth of loot was burning away, every single day... and we were still generating excess wealth. Well, given that we'd started the process by clearing a zone full of giant and dragon hoards, and then an Imperial city zone of the same, I wasn't all that surprised... but those outside sure were!

It was night time Outside, and the daily Warpband fights were mostly over on our side. So, Wayfair opportunistically opened Portals with Tremble to the other imperial zones, to finish the process... and give thousands of fighters Outside about half a year to gain wealth and fighting experience. If there was an emergency, well, one day Inside was four minutes Outside, and they could reassemble for an external fight with effectively blinding speed.

Even some of the more reliable and self-reliant mercenary bands were allowed to come in and clear some of the less populous and smaller zones. After all, there was an entire continent worth of stuff to loot, and it was a good way to build up ties. Just having an angelic vohr or two around to provide that Cha 40 support basically insured a steady stream of converts...

Which was also one of the goals on the side of the drow. If they could be converted and rise above their origins, they would be a formidable force in the future. Of course, finding converts who were older than the youngest children among a society steeped in demon worship was highly unlikely... but in an empire now in the throes of some very serious civil unrest and power struggles among drow fighting free of Hag influences, young dark elf children being cast aside were very commonplace.

Wayfair was like the ultimate example of how to rise above everything the drow here represented. Succubus demon, totally beautiful, incredibly powerful... and risen above anything and everything their society that was tearing itself apart represented.

Still, bound in fanaticism, addiction, and thrill-seeking, the drow were largely happy enough to fight any invaders with all they had, dying with masochistic grins on their faces, odd lights in their eyes, and mushroom spores on their lips.

The forces that had been fighting the Warpbands in set-piece match-ups were now suddenly gaining Levels and wealth very, very quickly during this one short night...

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One hundred and eighty days didn't necessarily mean one hundred and eighty Levels, especially with two other fellow Tens hungry for that precious Karma.

There were a hundred potential Empire Zones, measuring 300x900 miles in size, which could be broken up into nine 100x300 major zones, or up to a hundred 30x90 mile minor zones. Generally, it was a mix of minor and major zones, but the one constant is that all the Obelisks had at least one Pseudonatural creature protecting them.

Thus, they were the primary targets of, like, everybody.

The second batch of Hag realms was on the opposite side of the Shardzone of those we had already taken down, smaller kingdoms with only medium or small Obelisks, sitting on dozens of parallel ley lines coming off the 250x Slow Shardzone to clockwise.

Still, we'd picked the primary and correct Shardzone to annihilate. It seemed a great many evil characters who'd fled justice and vanished over the past centuries had come here and been offered lands by the Hags. They usually died and ended up becoming undead slaves, but there were magical beasts, vampire lords, random dragons, Evilborn, and other long-lived creatures that had built kingdoms and realms in here to desport themselves in their own versions of gilded cages.

What goes around comes around, and we were coming around. Clockwise, as it were.

Without their Obelisk down, those born here or turned undead here could not run or flee. At most, the ruler of the small zones could flee... but could they run from us?

Age had made them strong, and they'd sucked essence from the Land to make themselves Legendaries, with Health Qi to bolster themselves.

Naturally, it did not save them. We went in and exterminated them, appropriated their very ill-got gains of centuries, and brought unto them the ruin they brought upon countless others.

Our plunder was as great as the carnage we wrought, and naturally exceeded what we could use. Of course, I had a great use for working capital, so Wayfair came in, removed it all, and we went on.

Mountains of gold, barrels of gemstones, random stacks of magical items, some very powerful (and often quite Evil), that broken down were worth scores of goldweight... it all just flowed by, fuel for the mill. The powerful items were the ones that got burned down first and fastest, removing temptation or the thought that Relic X belonging to Dread Power Y was now back in circulation. Nope, nope, it was now dust on the wind, so sorry...

As for the stuff that couldn't be destroyed easily... ugh. The Void Brothers took them, and nobody asked what was going to happen to them. It seems they had some experience with the matter. That is, if asking Heaven or other interested parties how to destroy such a thing didn't get some interested and entirely possible results for the valiant Quest-minded...

We weren't totally clearing the Shardzone, but we were picking all the low and medium hanging fruit (and digging out the valuable high stuff, if possible). Zone after zone opened up, and in our wake, conflicts over borders, and those fleeing the doom they might be able to feel coming, began to rise up.

The apes were fighting every day by now, but that wasn't an issue. After seeing all the incredible stuff that had happened to their brethren who'd brought down a Hag Empress, they were raring to prove themselves, too! And Behemoth Bloodlines were slowly going to be spreading to those who proved themselves to Elder Arg...

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There was only one more zone to finish out now, and the Wakes in the sky were growing, groaning everywhere, teasing and tensing at the sky, driving the natives wild as they began to panic at the feeling of impending doom washing over them.

Outside, it was just minutes to dawn.

And this last zone... was not a zone...