All in all, about twenty days and thirty goldweight to get everything into place on Dread that I wanted, for which I was very happy. It would have been like four months and over two hundred goldweight-equivalent on the Matrix side of thing. It really was cheaper to make Weapons here.
It meant I finally had a tool worth taking into a fight, and could actually start working on the Weapon Mastery side of things with my combat aspect.
Now, being a brownie wielding a stick doesn’t sound that impressive, and it’s all very true. However, Versatile UA and Profound Weapon/Staff meant that I could do all types of damage with my stick, including cutting and slicing… so my stick was also a sword and a spear, especially the latter. I wasn’t going to do much with Sword forms, no matter how much the elves here loved them, but Spear forms, sure enough, I could do that.
Sun Dragon was my default, and the Spear Mastery line of charge and anti-charge defenses were classics that were going to come in very handy, indeed, especially with a Staff that could grow and shrink as needed!
Also, I could do a remarkable amount of damage with a stick, especially a +V stick! As a lot of creatures were going to find out…
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The cavern the Sternvult was located in was immense, almost fifty miles in diameter. Not only major rivers, there was a lake nearly thirty miles across in some areas, the water black and still and filled with pale subterranean aquatic beasts. There were areas of hills, actual underground mountains, desert areas, badlands, and of course the massive forests of fungi gradually cleared away for the farms that supported the city.
To the east was a major lavaflow and firefall combination, red-hot magma bubbling up out of the ground, flowing for a hundred miles, and then descending once more into the depths in some completely unnatural magical ecosystem, not even spreading poisonous gas into the surrounding areas.
So much subtle magic used to support so many massive underground realms, and the ones inhabited by my people weren’t the only ones, as the humanoid races dominated caverns higher up, breeding until their homes couldn’t sustain them, then going raiding and exploring for other areas with food and slaves to exploit.
I didn’t like to draw instant judgment on other intelligent races, but everything I’d run into with the humanoid populations was basically spot-on, biased as it was.
One of the Verses of Gaebrel promised that he would send threats at them constantly, and so every member of the people served in the military here in one job or another for at least several years of their lives. It meant the entire population was armed and had the spells available to use in combat situations, yet the threat of rebellion and armed gangs was minimal, due to a combination of esprit de corps, survival instincts, and religious zealotry.
The ‘nicest’ humanoids I’d seen had been some some hunter gnolls who were Grays, Chaotic Neutral, and they would basically hunt anything that walked, perhaps not eating other humanoids, but by the trophies they had, certainly not sparing humans, and I highly doubted elves.
Goblins of several tribes, hobgoblins, furry bugbears and gnolls, militant kobold clans, four different clans of brutally combative orcs, hulking ogres, and incredibly dull but eternally hungry and violent trolls formed the bulk of the humanoid threats, with rarer species like urds, xvarts, and giants either not making it down this far or sticking to fairly defined areas in the case of Jotuns.
99% percent Evil. 85%+ Chaotic within that Evil, bowing only to strength and power, tied only to their own kind and survival, owing precious little loyalty to anything. It wasn’t too much different from what Aelryinth knew of on Terra-Luna, but was depressing to see regardless.
Still, it meant that they would all kill me without batting an eye, looking at me more as a meal than anything like an equal or something worthy of respect. Almost all of them that had risen to adulthood had killed another intelligent being, often a member of their own tribe or clan, even family members, and it was a laudable thing to do, ensuring they survived.
Thus, meeting humanoids meant fighting, and if I didn’t fight, I’d better run, because they certainly were going to try to fight me!
Commune with Nature only gave me a picture of the land for eighteen miles from where I Cast it, but that distance did include up and down. Thus, I was also getting a picture of the surface lands above, as well as the cave systems above, steadily building a larger and larger picture of the many tunnels and caverns winding through the rock with absolutely no natural reason behind them, so much living area down here somehow, obviously made by intelligent hands trying to hide the scale and power of what they were doing down here, and all of it so damn impressive and manipulative.Stolen story; please report.
I could see why the humanoids lived down here. The surface lands above were broken and dry, with little life, and so living up there was constantly clawing after food, fighting others to survive, and competing with other creatures that didn’t want their own rich lands taken away from them.
Still, elves had alternatives, and were not meant to live down in the depths. Gaebrel’s manipulations kept us down here long, long past the time we should have returned to the surface world.
My Lived-lines snaked all over the place down here, giving me assured Teleport access to any place that I’d been. I generally only knew rough areas where I was going if I went into child form and asked any local shadelves I passed by, often farmers or patrols of soldiers looking for skulking humanoids or any monsters trying to sneak into the caverns.
Still, I explored a lot of things and areas that many, many elves would not do without good reason and a lot of friends to help them out, and my map grew, and grew, and grew.
Being able to ride Duum around did attract attention, but my Familiar wanted to fly and carry me around, stretching out his wings and proving his strength, maaaaaaybe finding the locations of more than a few female bats to impress.
Also, he liked to beat on wild skinwings, the great leathery lizard/pterodactyls that were often domesticated as rides for elite shadelven troops. If we ran into some of those troops while out flying, he enjoyed flying circles around them, racing the soldiers while I whooped and waved at the soldiers who couldn’t catch me or him. His unique coloration was soon making the rounds, and while everyone wondered who my mistress was, my child form and Duum were soon recognized as harmless, and Duum himself as quite dangerous, which he was absolutely happy to prove by tearing apart skinwings in midair in a ripping murderfest of claws and teeth, shadowy blades and fangs edged in crimson growing out of his own natural weapons as Arcane Strikes made his every attack incredibly brutal and dangerous and quite showy.
Thus we adventured across the landscape for at least a few hours every day, expanding my lived-line, filling in my Map to finer detail, killing everything hostile that got in our way with extreme prejudice, then going back into town and selling the corpses for food, salvage, or material components, whatever made the most money and the most sense.
I roved out further and further, as much to get away from shadenelf patrols and observation as anything else. There was no doubt Duum attracted attention and everyone wanted to know who his master really was.
Karma, gold, Karma, gold. The wheel of virtuous benefits turned round and round on precious metal and far too much combat…
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Why was there an elven city up there?
I was on the shores of the Lorfyr Depression, sniping down flamesnakes, salamanders, particularly unfriendly fire elementals, mephits, elemental phasms, fire lizards, and lava worms of great size, all of whom were remarkably attracted to me once I started showing off my Cold Bloodline and hurried over to do urgent battle.
I started doing a lot of staff and spearwork against them, even small size as I was, getting that practice in, getting batted around, and using Arcane Strike to buttress my damage.
I wasn’t very strong, but I didn’t need to be with the additional damage, spells on back-up, and fighting finesse style, because of course I was. I also killed a lot of humanoids of the various tribes in personal combat, along with any pets they had, because that was the fairest way to face them down. I could alternate with cold spells, and Dim-Door out of danger if I needed to, so this was basically exercise, practice, and population control of extraplanars. The Land had no use for them, and the magic which controlled the lavaflows seemed to operate very independently of their presences, so I had no qualms with removing them.
Up above the churning mass of lava that led up into the main caverns of the humanoids overhead, there was a city built of stone, churning just above the main flow of lava there in a veritable wall of steam that had to make it very difficult to see and find, and its stones bore the marks of elven hands.
Idhemong, the city swallowed by lava, remembered on the second day of the month of the Shaman as a day of ill luck, still existed far above us? My ancestors had definitely drilled very deeply indeed!
And it was inhabited by humanoids. A LOT of humanoids, particularly orcs!
I surveyed the cavern and the city through the awareness of the Land, and I was not amused in the slightest.
The city was replete with dark powers, devoted to an Immortal of Entropy of some kind, fed on bloodlust and sacrifice, and basically ruled by the shamans of that Immortal. The craftsmanship of my ancestors had somehow endured the ages, and even been expanded upon to contain the tens of thousands of humanoids who lived therein.
I considered it calmly, knowing that I would have to destroy it. There were some powerful shamanic spellcasters in the city, and no doubt the warrior-chiefs would be both powerful and cunning survivors… but they wouldn’t be gamers, and they definitely wouldn’t be optimizers. They would likely be utterly amazed at the speed with which I could wipe them out, just using Elemental Dart Cantrips with the appropriate Kickers Chained through two dozen at a time… in triplicate.
But that would mean playing a numbers game, and I wanted to destroy the whole city, not just slowly wipe out the inhabitants, although that was definitely something I wanted to do, too.
This time, I wanted to make it permanent, although there was nothing that said that the Immortal reigning over the place couldn’t just preserve it and bring it back in the future.
Eh, I’d know it was there, and I could do something about it at that time, too.
My choices to get up there were to the ride up the column of lava flowing into the cavern roof using magic to survive, or finding my way up vertical miles through countless tunnels and cave systems, doubtless having to kill many things along the way, and establishing a lived-line trail that was usable.
Naturally I chose the latter plan, as it would be far more useful for strike-and-fade attacks. I always had things to keep me busy, and I did not feel I was at the level of power needed to take out the city. I would have to do a lot of exploring there to find more out.