253 Chapter Two Hundred and Fifty-Three – Hi! We’re the Diversion! (1/2)

So, it was just the three of us crashing our way forwards, working on the assumption that having nine hundred miles of ground to cover, losing most of the leadership, and most of those who fought being dead putting a severe crimp in the ability of dear Hagmom to actually tell what was coming. All those Nulls totally effing up the scrying and divinations would be giving them some nosebleeds.

Really, all we had to do was show some Helices, and all them stories about the glorious slaughter of the Void Brothers from a few relative years ago resurfaced urgently, and well, hey, they could see us coming. We were like, Right There. Taken down two major Obelisks with overwhelming force, annihilated two Hag Empresses, and treated Mu Spores like our personal gold mines. What was not to believe? We were just that awesome, and we were coming for them.

There were a lot of dragons in the skies as we started killing our way forwards, and needless to say they started gathering in on us as we worked our way through the startled hill and swamp giants forces that were in this area. Yeah, yeah, there were ogres, and we breezed on by, and there weren't any ogres.

There were a lot of drac-blooded dinos, drakes, crocs, lizards, and whatnot, and man, my heart was bleeding sooooo much watching all that good fine leather and scale and blood and hearts and brains and teeth and fundamentallums going up en vivus. It, it was like gold getting dumped down a white hole, and I had to grit my teeth at the sheer waste of it all.

After all, we had better than four hundred miles to cover, so dilly-dallying to loot properly just wasn't something we could afford. I waaaaaaahed silently as I hacked through one black-scaled and very overconfident mire dragon's head. I mean, it would only take me minutes... and there was a squirming pack of giant black-scaled and winged crocodiles coming our way, and I just couldn't...

It didn't make me numb, it made me angry. I started pounding out cash totals as I started to really get into the slaughter, to the endless amusement of Briggs and Brother AA, who pretended to have stern expressions and not appreciate the volumes of numbers I was running up as we killed.

Every single one of these drak-bloods was worth at least a goldweight, usually two to four. The actual dragons, at least ten!

AAAAGH...

Damn, the Land is greedy. I needed an army of telekinetic gnomes following me with adamantine butchering tools and Infinite Jars of Blood Accumulation to reap our rewards properly. Mama Land could have the rest, it would still be most of the thing... though even dragon guts were in demand for acid-resistant ropes and ties and stuff...

Still, it was carnage, a lot of it, and we got to see surprised drakes and dragons and drac-bloods falling down out of the sky so often I began to wonder if it was their default state of mind. Naturally, King Gravity was proud to lend his mighty hand to our endeavors, and The Land was right there holding steady against the vertical charges, never failing to stop them cold as he sent them on their way.

The Wake in the sky grew bigger, and we slaughtered our way forwards, giving the Hags time to arrange a really big welcome party for us, and try to figure out what to do with us.

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Naturally, I could see everything that was going on with the rest of the company. They were keeping their heads down, illusions overhead making it difficult to stop them from above, and quickly slaughtering anything down low that might raise an alarm. The area I was in was the Empire of the Hag, which meant giant-dominated with a strong dragon presence. The area they were heading into was the reverse, with even more dragon-blooded things spread around, and the dragons were also bigger and older.

However, there was no alarm going on over there, both because of the zone barrier not encouraging easy exchange of information, and because the things in the sky tended to be the drakes, not the dragons, and so were of much lower intelligence, scarcely above the living-to-fill-the-belly stage.

Since they were trying to keep a low profile, it just meant watching out for fliers, avoiding large groups of stuff on the ground, and leaving any surprise encounters either dead or confused behind them. Druidic magic by Barus had Pass Without Trace going to full effect, and they weren't even leaving a scent trail.

So, we were of the opinion they'd get to their objective way before we got to ours, which was totally okay.

We were still coming. We were still killing everything in our way. Horns were blowing, giants died. Dragons were bellowing and roaring, and going ominously silent. Those leather-winged forms in the air behind us were seeing a long line of unwhite devouring the dead behind us, and moving forwards at rather ridiculous speeds for things on foot.

We were old hands at this by now, used to working with one another, able to divide and come together, attack across one another, anticipate one another's moves, and idly chat about the scenery, point out fashion deficiencies in our opponents, comment on the sour disposition of the swamp we were running through, try our hands at some new stanzas with wild variance between amusing hyperbole, outright boasting, dire solemnity, and aghast complaining at the waste going on.

Some members of the Company in the distance overheard my running totals of foregone earnings, and hastily demanded that I add the value of their kills to the total. The elves and gnomes pounced on this, the dwarves began to double-check my math with some shock, and wow, did a bunch of new, deeply lamenting verses get spun up quick... even as they tallied the kills and somehow made accounting for slaughter and organ salvage a deeply amusing, instead of a dry, morbid, and horrible, subject.

It also really passed the time. All the good marching songs do.

(Oh woe, oh woe, another goldweight gone,

That drak done died by Jungbo's side, and our bonus is burning whiter.

Oh weep, there be four more now lost,

Two drac-bloods flew at the Valor, too, and couldn't even fight her.)

Was I amused that they took over my raging tally of lost mountains of goldweight-equivalents and turned it into a satire? Maaaaaybe. The only reason they didn't actually start pulling out instruments is they didn't want to give the enemy any warnings.

After all, Hagmom was at the top, and she'd be spouting at least a 28 Intellect if she was truly an Exemplar Hag. She'd tune to something funny going on pretty quick once she got any warnings at all, but that was fine. We expected it.

And yet, the Wake was Right There, and what it meant was really, really ominous. Did she even have a chance to fix it? Could she snip away the crushing force of Reality coming into turn this whole Temporal Shard back to normal within another three hundred relative days?

Maybe if her Formation was working, they could accelerate things and finish what they were trying to do...

Huh.