The stormy weather worsened far faster than it should’ve.
Bowling ball-sized blocks of hail hurtled down. Twisting winds roared with hurricane force. Lightning and thunder clamored above their heads.
The calamitous storm reared its ugly side to a supernatural level, as if the heavens wanted to co down with a fraction of the power Zarian’s darkness could achieve.
Zarian imagined Team Arty would have to get creative to deal with the storminess. Or he would have to clear out the storm sohow.
Regardless of the weather, the Floridians traveled through twisted fortress hallways and over imnse rampart ridgelines and along the sides of leaning towers or sotis inside of them.
They had equal chances to brave the weather or get out of it as they took the best land-based route the spectral spiders had scouted for them. They’d decided earlier to go by ground instead of air to keep a low profile, and that was turning out to be the right choice because of the storm.
Now Zarian had no doubts that other grand forces were involved. He thought about calling his wife again, but she hadn’t responded when he tried earlier in the morning.
It wouldn’t shock him if Shadowfell stood in opposition of her husband and the paladins, injecting herself to support the Grimrock Warlock despite who was truly at stake.
It was in Shadowfell’s nature to promote evil and tragedy. More importantly, she would ensure she had sothing prepared to challenge her husband and his friends upon their arrival.
Regardless of all that, Zarian only cared about Bianca assassinating the Pri Archbishop, dealing with Jack, and saving Foodie.
Whatever ca their way, Zarian and his fellow Floridians would smash through, which they were doing right now, really.
The Floridians could’ve faced blue skies and sunshine with how they remained unbothered, because the roaring storms could do nothing to them.
Para pushed her aura out as a force field, shoving aside hail, breaking hurricane winds, and absorbing the aura out of lightning strikes.
The wizard and his parasite had done this plenty of tis the past two months. Nobody batted an eye as the massive storm raged and raged and flailed uselessly against the Floridians while they were safe in the aura bubble Para provided.
They soon ca across so dead monsters that had suffered under the crushing fall of large boulders inside of an eroded mountain keep. The entire structure groaned as the storm winds battered its walls and filled its halls, whisking away the sll of blood.
Zarian recognized the telltale blue webbing that marked the spots where monsters had ended crushed under big rocks. This was the spider scouts’ work. They had cleared the way of any potential nuisances that weren’t worth the Floridians’ ti.
Zarian and his friends continued forward at a solid pace. Even with the front line walking, that was still faster than a speeding car. They were making way to their first objective in great ti, despite so sudden obstructions.
The storm couldn’t get in their way directly, but it could affect the castle mountains, such as shoving a giant spire from a neighboring mountain onto their rampart ridge.
Hannah turned, looked, and dissolved most of the spire within a few seconds. Her body absorbed the stone material as one coursing stream like so pint-sized devourer.
The speed was so impressive that even Gilbert and Naomi slowed to watch as an entire giant spire got eaten up. Of course, they all knew the spire material was in a pocket space connected to Hannah’s Cube Maker Magic 3, which had plenty of room for more. ℝÁＮố฿Ɛ𝐬
A few more structures broke in their way and faced the sa fate, each one streaming and disappearing into Hannah’s body like the last. When an entire bridge collapsed in front of them, instead of taking to the air, Hannah built them a new one. She didn’t miss a beat, regardless of the newly built bridge being large enough for giants to stride over.
It happened so smoothly and seamlessly, Slip strutted boldly on the suddenly appearing edge, as if to see if he would fall. Hannah allowed no such fate to befall the Sleipnir, and Zarian found it nifty with how godly Hannah looked with no true divine abilities.
Maybe this is the true power of an engineering nerd given practical magic, usable knowledge, and an amazing group of buffs, Zarian thought, impressed with Hannah’s new level of craftiness.
Eventually, they journeyed past enough windy hallways, crumbling atriums, tilting castles, and walled ridgelines where they entered a ravine between castle walls and found other humans struggling to brave the elents.
The other humans were also struggling against one lesser aberration despite having thirty n and won.
The lesser aberration was Level 85, while the paladins were in the Level 70s. The aberration was making easy work of the paladins regardless of the numbers, plated armor, blessed skills, and magic weapons.
Like a bodybuilder in a fight against toddlers, the aberration knocked around the paladins without facing too much resistance. Nearly ten paladins slamd horribly against the walls and tumbled down to the floor, one coming short of dying.
With a third of the unit crumpled to the floor, the monstrous amalgamation of screeching goblin bodies fused into a ten-foot-tall freak raised its arms. It was preparing to slam down again and crush the injured paladins.
Bolts, crescents, holy fireballs, piercing streams of holy water, and many other ranged attacks from the paladins splashed off the great toughness and vitality of Shadowfell’s corrupted toys. The paladins lacked enough power to stop the creature on their own, as the corrupted committed to a killing blow that would surely lead to a full wipe out of the paladin unit.
Bianca stepped in and slashed the lesser aberration in half with one quick and shiny hard light cut.
Before the two dying halves hit the watery stone floor, Naomi caught the separated aberration with her mind. She then tossed the remains along with the blood in Zarian’s direction.
Acting in an efficient and orderly fashion, Zarian held watch as Para devoured the aberration and its corrupted blood. Gilbert healed the injured paladins. Hannah built cover high above their heads to block out the stormy elents. She even set so walled partitions behind them to break up the howling wind.
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All of that ca about in less than ten seconds, leaving Bianca shining so light on the paladins as she stood among them.
“Hola! You’ve been rescued! Isn’t that bueno?” Bianca cheered, her beaming smile raising the mood.
The paladins not only seed to appreciate the help, but they marveled at the fast-acting magic happening at once.
Zarian and his party didn’t even have to verbalize their next moves for most cases at this point. High Rune Mindfra 2 and Spectral Spider Network 3 from Zarian combined with Naomi’s subtle ntal buffs made them the most coordinated and on-the-ball party around.
That should be t with admiration. That should be t with celebration and grand interest.
And that would’ve been the case with the rescued paladins until they turned and noticed two antithetical details.
They saw the black and upright goblin skeleton that was Loner standing near Slip. Then a paladin pointed a shaky finger toward the back of their saviors’ party, directing the attention of all thirty n and won to sothing more horrifying to them than a skeleton.
They noticed an armored form covered in coiling darkness, snakes, and monstrous limbs flowing from behind his back.
“Hello,” Zarian said politely from the darkness under his beastly wizard hat. “I’m the Dark Lord. And these are my friends. We’re from the World of Swamps and Princesses. How do you do?”
“ATTACK!” roared a paladin who had recovered completely after the free healing provided by the Knighted Healer.
“Stop resisting,” Gilbert muttered as he chopped his hand behind the paladin’s neck and knocked him out.
Gilbert turned and took a spiked mace to the face that made him bleed a little. With a casual grunt, the large and blond healer returned a backhanded slap that floored the attacker before turning toward other would-be fighters.
Bianca struck one paladin on the helt with a baton of light, which ended up as a knock-out blow. Doing the sa to five others, Bianca fought in a quick, graceful, and fluid fashion that sent paladins falling to the ground.
Naomi walked forward and punched grown n and won into the walls, leaving their breastplates crushed while breaking a few ribs.
Loner battered so paladins with compact but potent bursts of force, and Slip the Sleipnir trampled over so other unruly paladins under his armored hooves.
Hannah didn’t know what to do, so she remained floating next to Zarian. She watched the lee finish up as three Floridians, a goblin skeleton expert, and an eight-legged horse smacked down thirty n and won without too much effort.
“Why do I feel disappointed?” Hannah asked, looking down upon the weak and easily beaten paladins.
“Welco to my world.” Zarian floated forward, with Hannah following at his side.
They seed like two deities who didn’t want to place their feet down on the sa floor as weak mortals. Granted, in Zarian’s case, he really was a deity, specifically a son of ultra gods.
Zarian stopped to hover over the toughest and most senior paladin of the unit. The man spat blood and spittle, his breath coming out hoarse after enduring two light punches from Naomi instead of one.
“You should warn your people to leave Grimrock,” Zarian said darkly, with only a hint of his dreadful nature. “You are too weak. You are too far behind in power tiers. The only reason you remain alive is because my wife is toying with you for her amusent. Hell, she probably sees you as a tragic audience for her newfound ga of active evil. So trust when I say you should vamoose, scram, get the fuck out.”
Other than them being zealots and terrorists, Zarian didn’t care about the paladins overall. But he still wanted them to return ho except for the Pri Archbishop.
The paladins at Grimrock were their most trained fighting force. If they all fell here along with the Pri Archbishop, then who knew how screwed up their entire kingdom would beco.
I don’t feel like getting more refugees from another busted kingdom, Zarian thought. Granted, he was helping Bianca with her assassination for Shadowfell, so evil was definitely afoot to so degree. I can’t wait to see how the assassination bites in the ass sohow.
Maybe he could mitigate the predictable outco by getting the paladins to leave. But the chances of that were low.
“Foul evil! Oh, ye of tarnished heart and apocalyptic darkness! We are all committed to the crusade, to the last man and woman! After the Grimrock Warlock is felled, then you, too, shall face the raw anger of our holy mission!” shouted the man kneeling before Zarian. The paladin kept yelling and spitting blood. “I can’t wait for the day we burn your evil village to the ground. We will put every evil man, evil woman, and evil child to the sword! And then we will have you under the unbreaking hold of the Good Gods forever!”
Zarian sighed. He wondered if he should scare this man close to death or sothing. However, he didn’t have too much ti to ponder before soone jumped in.
“You dogmatic, poorly educated, ignoramus. It’s people like you who will lead us to another apocalypse!” Hannah interjected.
One of her orbiting little golems shot a magic laser. She blasted the paladin’s head and left nothing above the neck, ending the man as easily as she could breathe.
“Hannah, you could’ve said retard for an insult. And that man was subdued,” Gilbert said.
“I will not discuss the use of that word. And I’m not apologizing,” Hannah said stiffly. “I’ve given Zarian quite a hard ti. What makes you think I won’t give others twice or thrice a hard ti for threatening him?”
“Fine then. I’m tranquilizing them and anyone else we subdue. It doesn’t sit right with to kill when it’s like dealing with children. They can’t put up much of a fight.” Gilbert shrugged and turned about to pacify any further resistance with Tranquilizer Touch 2.
As he did that, Naomi raised both thumbs up to Hannah. Of course, the Rumble Psion didn’t mind killing zealots, radicals, and terrorists.
Loner nodded his skull, and Slip neighed in support of Hannah.
Gilbert shook his head in mild disappointnt.
Is Hannah right or Gilbert right? Para asked in Zarian’s head.
About retard? Zarian returned.
No, about killing or subduing?
Neither, because we can let the paladins beco fodder for the kiddos if they are so insistent on delivering us a misguided crusade, Zarian answered privately. Anyway, no point in sweating the small stuff now. There will be plenty of chances to talk morality while dominating whoever puts up a fight.
Hm, yes, I see what you’re saying, Zarian. Now I must ask this. Can I eat?
Zarian let her eat.
After Para devoured the dead paladin, they moved on.
The Floridians already knew where to find the Pri Archbishop. They owed their thanks to the many spider scouts that kept them updated on the crusade.
The Pri Archbishop would be nowhere near as pitiful as these grunts in the trenches. In fact, the leader of an entire kingdom might give Bianca a hard fight depending on if she could muster enough power from her free good 6.
Zarian glanced over at Bianca. She was performing pirouettes and graceful ballerina steps in the corner.
He hoped she could pull through alright. He also wondered if this was the right ti to tell the others WHY they were truly doing the assassination in the first place.
I really appreciate the blind faith, Zarian thought.
Faith is a fickle thing, so it must be cherished when it is genuinely expressed, but beware, for it can be built on stacks of deceit and wrongness, paving way to damnation, Para thought.
Nodding to Para’s wise philosophy, Zarian told the others the main reason they were doing the assassination for Shadowfell – which had everything to do with Shadowfell’s ability to access their old world, even to the point of delivering ssages. Bianca listened silently while making her own internal preparations.
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