251 Two Hundred and Fifty-One – Milking Them for Everything (1/2)

And then, there were the elves.

When I learned what they were planning, I rolled my eyes at what a Cha 50 half-drow alu'ri-turned-succubus could do, especially after being anointed as a Favored of the Goddess of Silver Magic.

She had recruited them all. Most of that power sucked out of the fungi zones wasn't for the Elixirs, which got their power from the Mu Goop. Nope, it was to help alter the elves.

Elf exchanged into vohr, linked to alu'ri, and so into native Soulborn succubus.

Yeah, it meant a gender change for half the elves, who were much less hung up on gender to start with. It exchanged their Ten Elven Racial Levels for Lilithi Levels.

Now, they didn't get all the demonic goodies, particularly the spell-like abilites, like teleporting at will. What happened there was all those Elven Caster Levels they had were transmuted into Sorceress Levels, with a Celestial Bloodline indicating Sylune's approval. Then, the extra two Levels left from the Eight of a base Succubus were linked to the standard Lilithi Favored Levels.

All such Caster Levels powered by Charisma. And who had just received a +20 bonus to Charisma?

Levels in non-Favored, non-Sorceress Levels were converted to those, keeping Caster Levels constant with Levels, their AB as Outsiders equaled their Racial Level, so their combat ability also went up, and while Succubi weren't massively strong at +4 (only twice as strong as they looked, natch!), the +8 Dex and +10 Con were massive bonuses.

And so, the entire company of elves were now silver-haired, starry-eyed, silver-winged (feathered!) Favored/Sorceresses, with devastatingly potent magic, and a lot more of it.

They all broke the Ten Level. They'd be forever locked to Fourteen when they reached it, barring Divine intervention, but that just meant they'd be more powerful than their King and Queen were now. Exemplar Lite came in, and since they didn't have side Racial Levels, there was no problem, it applied perfectly.

Yes, Sylune now had a full corps of maturing, devastatingly beautiful winged angelic vohr in the model of the delighted Wayfair, who was naturally the head of their new Order. How about that?

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Just to hasten the process of clearing, Exemplar-boosted lightning bolts were exploding down the length of the tunnel, frying and burning the giants who had little way to resist or dodge. It was merely to make the killing of those behind easier, as they swarmed in fearlessly on the giants and ogres, who found, to their great dismay, that their much smaller opponents were now just as strong, or even stronger, then they were!

The howls and growls coming from down the hacked-through corridor easily matched up to bellows and shouts of the ogres and giants eager to press their way in. The only problem was that the line in front of them was not moving, and the sounds of the fighting seemed to be getting closer...

Then the crackle and boom of lightning lit up the area ahead of them, and the Hagspawn, who actually had a modicum of intelligence compared to their kin, blinked in shock. That magic didn't have nearly the range to go the length of the tunnel, so what was happening?

Why was the growling and roaring getting closer?

The quintuple roars of dragons overwhelmed all the yelling giants, sending shivers down the spines of even the most battle-hungry brute with how it seemed to echo and drag on. Even as it faded, the hunting howl of a wolf, filled with unnatural power, chilled the blood, and was instantly joined by a chorus of other howls so powerful it was shaking the mushroom walls and ground.

And then the lions rang out, and even the giants had to wonder what they heck they had stirred up by doing this...

Fire, cold, and lightning filled the tunnel ahead of them, now visible to those outside, incredibly strong. Some of the wiser hagspawn and their mothers backed away, telling those with them to prepare rocks and spears for throwing. They were finally realizing that those within were coming out, and they could only be doing that over the dead bodies of the hundreds who had swarmed in there earlier...

Right about then is when my team showed up. All that noise and light was a great distraction for a wedge of Forsaken coming in at sixty mph, and lighting into the back of them.

Coming in through the ravaged air and decaying mushroom forest, we hit the back of the giant lines and ripped them open. There was a distance to go to reach the primary force around their tunnel, but that was fine. Letting them know we were coming was the whole idea, as was splitting their attention. If they wanted to be holding onto rocks when we plowed into them, that was their own choice. It just helped them die all the quicker.

The slaughter was similar to that which we had executed earlier, but our targets were a) anyone nice enough to think about throwing things at the company coming out of that tunnel, and b) any Hags, of course. Brother Firesword volunteered for Hag-hunting duty, it was politely passed to him, and he was gone, flitting over and through the mass of giants, hunting down sources of magic. Oh, he ran into some shaman Casters, too, and politely disposed of them as well, but his zigzag course was taking him from Hag to Hag, who were not at all happy to see him coming.

We hit the line of rock and spear tossers, and hilarity ensued. It was a good thing we kept moving, because the amount of bodies that were falling was creating all sorts of impediments to travel, and if the vivic fire hadn't been eating them, wow, there would have been blood literally everywhere.

A One-Two cleared the tunnel of anything living with deep screams and a lot of smell of burning flesh, and the company came screaming out.

The berserkers led the way, all of them with golden fur and streaming manes, clawed, toothed, and a good foot taller, meaning the least of them was over seven feet tall now. They were fast, they were powerful, and they were having a really good time. The Exemplar Lite DR of 5/- stacked on the normal 10/silver of a werebeast, but that was okay, because Crystal Dragon DR also stacked with all other types, which meant they were sitting on at least DR 20/Silver or so at this point... and the giants didn't have silver weapons, oddly enough.

Yeah, giants hit hard, usually in the neighborhood of 20-30 points for the varieties that were here, but combine that level of Damage Reduction with 5 points of Fast Healing every six seconds, and those berserkers could last an incredibly long time.

The Rockborn came next, moving at a pace you just don't expect on anything that short, and were about as resistible as moving boulders... with spikes. Their beards bristled even more than before, all their eyes were golden, and they moved with even greater natural teamwork and coordination. They pushed, and pushed, and ogres and giants were forced back in disbelief, hanging on the Spears impaling them, as the dwarves cleared the way and set up the safe zone for everyone else.

Ironblood to the sides, eye-poppingly beautiful angelic vohr down the middle. Bows that had for some reason been magically empowered in the past to match the strength of their wielders sent burning arrows out with brutal power and accuracy over the heads of the dwarves, building a wall of burning corpses in front of them that started to grow with amazing speed. Ever obdurate, the dwarves advanced up the corpses, their foes two to four times their height came pounding up for some fun, and the elves shot over the dwarves' heads with impunity at basically an open field of targets.

The Ironblood savagely opened up the fighting area, fully confident of being able to take on all but the Exemplars of the other side... and such only needed a moment of attention from a dozen or so vohr archers to lay that problem to rest.

Growls, snarls, and roars competed with the aghast giants, watching these short folk shredding them.

Then the dragons, hellpoodles, and griffons, plus riders, came stalking out of the tunnel.