258 Chapter Two Hundred and Fifty-Eight – Death from Above? (1/2)

The attack was pulled back, not that any who had actually entered combat could return. More dragons, giants, and drac arrived, filling the disintegrating swamp around the ruined plaza with massive, angry bodies eager to exact vengeance.

Which was totally alright. The rubble made any kind of a bombardment attack impossible, and the Autobows were more than happy to snipe back with a banefire'd punch behind them, making it an unpopular choice of passing the time. The tossing, I mean. Seeing if you could shoot a drake in the eye at two hundred meters was perfectly permissible, if the drakes dared to get that close.

The magic bombardment was also an interesting tactic. After all, spells had range. The dragons and Hags moved in close to the edge of the Stillflight Zone, high enough to ignore most of the rubble, and of course from every side, so they could attain full coverage of the area the company covered.

So, the attack spells commenced from all sides, dragons and Hags unleashing an arsenal of AoE magic to demonstrate their ire. Surely multiple rounds of direct damage would have the desired effect.

Mmmm. And if the Ironblood and Briggs hadn't been there it might have succeeded, too.

Fire, lightning, acid, poison, death magic, heart-stopping cold, cutting rains, pounding hail, shredding blades... dozens of attack spells went down, filling the area inside the rubble with dust and energy, tossing rubble into the air, and making the place totally occluded by the debris.

The assault lasted a full minute, which meant ten spells from a limited number were now gone. Always nice to deplete the enemy of their ammunition...

Of course, it was completely futile.

Those were Ten Forsaken Nulls, with Nulls of 40+. The only Caster who had any chance of getting through those was Tusk Annie, with her full Exemplar bonus.

And she wasn't going to get through Briggs' Sun with that, especially since she was targeting him and Elder Arg.

It was merely a matter of making sure everyone was standing close to an Ironblood. Elder Arg dropped down to the size of a chimp with Mark-shifting, hooting in disdain, and as the magic tore up the area around them, the blasts did absolutely nothing within the silent field of the Nulls.

And then, it all went to shit for them.

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Our dragons had been getting a lot of Breath Weapon practice in recently, and Captains Fido and Shirley were more than happy to pass on all the interesting things you could do if you were skilled in use of Breath Weapons, which were basically quasi-magical energy sources that could be wielded in much the same way magic could.

And while normal Breath Weapons didn't have much of a range, that's because they were AoE's whose effects start at the mouth of the exhalation. Once they were turned into Rays, for example, well, their range extended... significantly.

And if they linked up and built up power together, well...

A bolt of fire lashed up, scored a searing hit across the hide of an older dragon. Before it could react, another line of cold slashed across the same line, and superheated scales blew apart even as they froze solid, driving jagged shards of the dragon's skin into its own insides.

Two more lines of cold punched up, along with a streak of lightning. The wounded Mire screamed as the blast tore through it, while two other dragons felt their insides chilling miserably-

Two stronger lines of lightning reached up into the super-cooled skin, and went dancing about the insides of the frozen and rather overly conductive dragons.

Three adult Mires went spiraling down from the sky, bellowing in pain and disbelief as they died. Their riders naturally jumped away, floating and flying in the air, only able to watch as their mighty mounts fell helplessly to the shattered and clear ex-swamp waters below.

The other dragons realized they might just be a tad too close, and that they hadn't killed those within...

Then the vohr broke formation, and hit them from all sides at once.

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Approach was actually pretty easy. Each group of vohr flew in formation, covered by the illusion of an incoming drake or dragon, as they preferred. They'd be seen coming from a long way off, but neither Hags nor Dragons have natural True Seeing, and couldn't immediately tell it was an illusion.

Trying to overcome an illusion Cast by a vohr with a Charisma of 40 at a distance wasn't going to happen, either.

They came flapping in leisurely, assessed their targets, picked them out, coordinated spells, and Blinked apart.

Energy Touch is a basic Valence I spell. Does a d8 of energy damage per Caster Level, capped at 5d8. Energy type is variable, usually set to lightning, and is favored by Mageblades who love conducting it through their weapons for a surprise punch. It only requires a touch to activate, so very useful against big creatures that can't avoid it.

Cast it out of a Valence II, the damage cap rises to 10d8. If you get a free Raise out of it, the cap is 15d8, plus attach a free +I Meta if you are a Twelve Caster. Spend two points out of a huge Pool of excess Slots from having such a monstrous Charisma to Top it out, and that's 120 points of gently Laying-Your-Hand damage.

Then spend your 1/day free Fastcast to do it with the other hand, too.

One vohr to the rider, one to the dragon, two hands to the neck.