am-books Chapter 150 - Apophagorga
Chapter 150 - Apophagorga
at first, the myrvite hunters seemed frozen. even with the orange flare flickering bright above the myrvite titan, no one was taking action.
"aim for the head. fire!" mirian snapped, and at last, the riflemen seemed to break from their daze. their rifles cracked out, first in a volley, then in a chaotic chorus as the hillside echoed with gunfire and the music of sliding bolts and brass cartridges.
patches of black ichor erupted on apophagorga's head as the high caliber bullets impacted. it let out a hiss, then turned its massive body to the side so that its thick shell faced them.
hearing the gunfire, the arcanists finally went into action. she saw the dazzle of lightning and fireballs streaming through the air.
"switch fire to the front leg until it presents a better target! we have plenty of ammunition, and don't want to have to lug it back with us!" mirian called out. she launched her remote eye out to examine the battle at closer range.
the first thing that became apparent was that direct spells weren't having a small impact; they were having no impact at all. apophagorga ignored them like so many biting insects. it had turned its attention to the casters who were bombarding it with fire spells and was now lumbering toward them, the doom doom doom of its footsteps shaking the ground. as it moved, it shot out bursts of arcane energy that intercepted the fire spells before they hit.
is it using counterspells as natural magic?
fortunately, the captain of the flame team had been paying attention, and that team ceased fire and began a running retreat into the trees. mirian's arcane eye peered at it. the kinetics team had attempted to use force drill on the shell, but she couldn't even see a blemish.
"switch all attack spells to indirect flame and kinetic-launched boulders. aim for the fleshy bits, we're not getting through that shell."
the assistant hesitated.
mirian closed the eye she was using to look through her arcane eye. "that's red, white in quick succession, then a green sparkler to indicate targeting."
"right, sorry sir!" he said, and loaded the next flares.
as they whistled through the air, mirian checked the divination equipment. barely any readings. the spell resistance is just too high.
annoyed at the fireballs and rocks now peppering its side, apophagorga had turned to chase one of the other teams, which in turn retreated as the flame team reemerged from the shelter of the trees. that team retreated, while annita's team moved forward. mirian caught sight of a boulder streaming through the air that cracked against the back leg of the beast, which must have been the elite hunter's spell.
"it's working!" the arcanist on the hill exclaimed. "who would have thought classic pack tactics would bring down something so large. it'll exhaust itself!"
closing her eyes, mirian embraced her focus and pulled out specter's curse wand. it wouldn't be enough to have her spells penetrate the resistance alone. she needed to bind the beast's soul. the nice thing about second cairn was they regularly killed myrvites, so she had seven fully charged soul repositories. her limit had only been how many repositories she could make. she started casting.
apophagorga was clearly annoyed. it started stomping the ground, sending out tremors. a small landslide of loose dirt cascaded down the hill. it looked at mirian—looked—right at her, red eyes glowing.
it knows, she thought with total certainty.
the bonds she'd attempted to layer over its soul snapped, and the myrvite titan whirled again and charged the flame team, and this time, when they hid in the trees, it didn't stop. its tendrils grabbed and uprooted the tree, sucking the souls out of some of them, simply discarding others. the beast's strength was incredible, more than just a sum of muscle and size. with its body it slammed into another grove of taller trees, sending them toppling.
the arcanist who had been cheering a moment ago got wide-eyed. "oh shit," he said.
a tree crushed one sorcerer. then the titan reached out with a tentacle and snatched another as she ran, then a second, then a third, feeding them all into its mouth. the team finally remembered to scatter, but as they did, apophagorga let out a roar. mirian could feel her aura being abraded from hundreds of meters away. for the arcanists right next to it, the feeling must have been crippling. two of them fell to their knees, while the others stumbled on. the two that fell were snatched up and devoured.
"fuck," mirian said eloquently. flame team was gone. there were three survivors, but there was no way in the five hells they were going to stop running.
"sir, we don't have a clear shot anymore," one of the gunners reported. as if she couldn't see that.
"hold fire until you do."
she kept observing with her arcane eye. the beast had gone out of range of most of the casters. the death and rout of flame team had caused several other hunters to start retreating without orders. there was really nothing to be done about that. she could order a renewed assault, but she knew too well that most soldiers would not follow suicidal orders. myrvite hunters would be no different.
mirian needed a way to rally them. fortunately—or unfortunately, apophagorga had set its sights on her hill.
"ready the orange and green flare. we'll indicate a renewed assault as it draws into range. rifles, aim for the eyes and mouth."
she exhaled hard. "yeah, you're right. but i have to keep going. the only way forward is through."
***
down in cairnmouth, mirian tried something she hadn't tried before: she talked to ravatha about hiring an assassin. the price, she found, was surprisingly cheap: 500 doubloons to kill troytin. a bargain, she thought. he might have seized key positions in the conspiracy, but authority took time to spread. the syndicate had never heard of him, so they had no problem snuffing him.
with that done, she got to reassembling her attack force.
as she worked on forging seals for letters of credit and reassembling her divination equipment, she considered what she learned from the first fight.
the coating of soul energy on a spell pierces spell resistance. but it also prevented the beast from using its spell-nullifying power. that wouldn't have worked against a counterspell. is apophagorga projecting its own soul energy?
she thought back to its last charge forward, and its enhanced blows that had sundered stone. she'd checked with viridian before she left torrviol, and from what they could estimate using myrvite strength-size tables, even a beast that size couldn't sunder stone like she'd seen.
its soul magic must be instinctual, like the magic of any myrvite. the forms of a dervish are just modifying soul flow and resonance—perhaps it naturally can do something like that.
she paused her work and sat back in her chair, looking around the makeshift workshop, but not really seeing it. she was visualizing the battle. at a certain point, it stopped nullifying spells. doing that must be energy intensive—it would be drawing from its own soul. its soul is massive, to the point where the curse bindings couldn't even touch it. but it's a living thing. it can't drain too much of its own soul. it has limits.
dealing with the beast's dimensional travel would be more difficult. she started working on a model that would help her conceptualize how it was moving. there had to be a way to constrain and stop it.
just before she left for second cairn, mirian received a delivery package from a nice young man who didn't at all look like a criminal. in it was a severed ear. that was gross, but it was also fantastic news. don't have to worry about that idiot akanan this cycle, she thought. i can accelerate my plans.
***
this time, they arrived on the 25th of solem, which gave them plenty of time to prepare. mirian had also hired on a mercenary contractor, bringing twenty additional rifles into the mix. she had the arcanists help lift stones into place to create barriers that each team could retreat through. it wouldn't stop the myrvite titan, but it would slow it down while the other teams harassed it.
she'd also bought extra rifles to hand out to battlemages who ran out of mana too quickly.
"i'm, uh, not trained on rifles," one of them protested.
"point it at the creature and pull this thingy," mirian said. "believe me, you don't need to know how to aim to hit it."
the mage gave her a quizzical look. she ignored him and moved on, ordering contingencies. if the beast was moving about in four dimensions, she thought there was still a way to pin it down. "the most critical flare to watch for is orange-blue at your station. if you see that you must advance along with the fourth hunter team and focus fire on the legs. captain, you have the document?"
the captain patted a scroll case at his breast. "yes, sir," he said.
"good. you're also in charge of wards on the northeast side. scimitar lions have been spotted in the area, so don't go walking around alone."
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once again, annita approached her at the command station.
"correct," mirian said, as she opened her mouth.
"you know what i'm going to say?"
"yes," mirian said blandly. "and you're right. but i can't tell you more. perhaps after we slay the beast. it emerges tomorrow."
annita gave her a look she was now all too familiar with, the look that had a thousand questions beneath the surface. but she didn't ask them.
the next morning, near dawn, the ground began to tremble, and mirian steeled herself for the fight.
round two, she thought.