Three males, two females…

  The Fiun were ‘aliens’. They were humanoids slightly shorter than most Isparians, with more slender bones and bone structure, moving with an eel-like grace once their spasming insanity was fixed with the glands regrown into their brains. Their skin was pale white to off-blue, with no body hair whatsoever, and wide dark eyes with red pupils that faded to black once their insanity was relieved. They had only a blank rounded area for a nose, and large mouths that forcibly brought to mind sharks with their size, shape, and pointed teeth.

  They were primarily fish-eaters and enjoyed the water immensely, the old stories of the few survivors of the Viamontian harvesting had said.

  We watched the five Fiun in their ragged clothing totter off towards the Tower of Ayabar, a good defensive position they could hold against any Eaters. With their harvested gland Regenerated, they were suddenly the preferred prey of the Eaters again, who would go out of their way to kill and eat them to gain it.

  The other Fiun Summons would still not attack them, and they could shelter in the place away from any Eater attacks without much trouble. The presence of other mad Fiun in the entry was a better way to dissuade the Eaters from entering than a stone gate would be.

  The Fiun could be brought back. Even now, the least of the adults could Cast Pyreal, and most of them could reach Platinum, and those without components. The amount of magical knowledge they might have, and even that which they only knew was possible, could be extremely valuable.

  They’d been broken of their pride and hubris, and they were not a violent people, regardless. If Mithar knew of them, He would want them saved… and if they were a normally peaceful magical race, Sylune would be extremely attracted to them as potential followers of Silver Magic.

  -The System here is interfering with the proper dissemination of souls,- I /mentioned in the Markspace. -Creation itself might have been looking for a solution to this, not just Mithar playing chess.-

  Princess Kristie favored me with a thoughtful glance. -Now that sounds like proper Divine Quest-pushing,- she /agreed. -Recovering an extinct race brought low by their own arrogance, wiping out an interplanetary biovore, interfering with a planet of interest to multiple Mythos entities, potentially something Huge underneath this place, avenging old evils, making peace among multiple sentient species, introducing a decent pantheon to said sentients...-

  -Oh, so we finally have something worthwhile to do,- Briggs /added in a flat deadpan, and Kris and I both snickered. -Thank you, thank you. I was feeling so bored and underworked.-

  We turned back to the north, and the pass that beckoned there, only a couple miles away from the Tower.

  “This just got a whole lot more tedious,” Kris announced for everyone’s benefit.

  “What was it ye said? Good folk do the clean-up the others let lie an’ don’t give a shite for,” the Mick appended to that.

  “Good people have a nasty habit of doing things the hard way and the right way, instead of the heartlessly efficient way,” Briggs corrected him sourly.

  “Sounds terribly exhausting,” Master Oswald voiced his opinion, but he didn’t say no.

  “It doesn’t take just good men to do the job right. It takes Damn Good men,” Kris stated with at least as much iron in her voice as when she talked about killing Varicci. “This is the kind of job Knights of the Lost Light were made to do. We bring the Light to those who need it the most, we don’t wave it around like a gods-damned happy magical trophy.”

  Every single knight there promptly grew another inch at her words. Almost magical, it was.

  “Ryin, how are your Resurrection obligations?” Briggs asked, everyone knowing of my commitment to the Cursed Undead of Mayoi and Hebian-to.

  “I head off to do the Ceremonies in an hour. That takes an hour, with another half-hour to fully recharge for the return.”

  Adso, the grim, dark-haired Hunter who was Master Oswald’s right-hand man, suddenly called out, “I can see the edges of an Eater horde coming in from the east close to the mountain there.” Everyone turned to look at the motion there in the distance, a couple miles away at this point. “In two hours, they are definitely going to intercept us if we head for the pass.”

  “Good,” Briggs stated. “We’re going to reach the middle of their path, the Lady Magos will make us a hardpoint, and we’ll keep ourselves nice and busy while she does her thing. We’ve proven we can kill these things, and we will kill these things. Unlike the western islands, there’s no need to keep them alive. Butcher them, feed them to the Land… and maybe save some Viamontians and Fiuns we want to save.”

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Then you should be clearing a path north from Ayabar’s Tower,” Master Oswald pointed out. “The Fiun will want to retreat along it as we free them.”

  “Good enough. Let’s get into position, free who we can as we do so, and Ryin will make us the hardpoint before she leaves.” Briggs started forward, reading the ground and pointing. “Up there looks optimal for our purpose…”

  ------

  It was almost three hours later when I returned, and popped right into the middle of a quietly resting bunch of warriors enjoying warm stew over cooking on Briggs’ Floating Forge.

  Kris just handed me a bowl of chicken stew I technically didn’t need, but Briggs had made it and the bread, so I just accepted it to enjoy it.

  The stone of and the ground around the hardpoint I’d made was all white as chalk, the ice washed clean and clear and what churned rock and dirt was visible all cleaned by vivus.

  The corpses had pretty much all Burned down already.

  “Impressive. What, a thousand of them in only ninety minutes?” I asked her between sips at the wonderful broth.

  “Yeah, we’re getting pretty good at this, and the Silyun knights are improving quickly. They need to have their Weapons Buffed a bit, but that will change.” They were already Soulbound, the Lost Light gave them at least some nominal bonuses, and they were forged by Briggs and her.

  Knights and Blades were only going to improve every single damn day.

  “How’d the Ceremonies go?”

  “Six more Cursed Dead freed of the System and their Curse,” I said quietly. Kris held up her fist, I bopped it without looking. “It’s a long, slow, tedious numbers game, Kris.” I could only shake my head. “It’s a lot of Diamond Hearts, but they are very committed to it, and the senior undead are taking out lots of them every day from Candeth Keep.”

  “Cursed Dead, Viamontians, Fiun, and now potentially Isparian bandits… and that doesn’t even count things like the Aun, Hea, Gurogs, and Lugians who might be trapped in the System,” Kris shook her head.

  I could only nod. So many souls caught and captured by the System. The number of undead might even number in the millions, given how long they’d been here. At some point we’d Purify them all clean and any captive souls would be gone, leaving only truly templated and blank Summons, which would require far more energy to create and endow with power than building upon a captive soul.

  “Can you use Divination magic to locate Bunita if she’s incarnated?” she asked me softly.

  “I was unable to reach her soul with probes to see if I could grasp and return it. While the Fall may have messed up things, the Mick said she died in his arms, not at a Deathstone. Her being incarnated is at least as reasonable an explanation as her soul having escaped the System.” I glanced in his direction, joking with a couple of the Viamontians curious about his martial exploits since the Fall, especially with the much less formal attire of himself and his Scouts, for all their very apparent skill. “Her wedding ring is the socket for the Elemental Stones on his guard, right?”

  “Yes.” She’d made the Sword, after all.

  “It’s the perfect connection between two souls.”

  Kris nodded, inclining her head in the other direction, where Queen Mother Elysa and her daughter were speaking with Briggs about something. “Might want to tell her ahead of time that you are going to try that.”

  “I’m sure she’ll tell him to go to her, but yes,” I agreed.

  “But not until after we get Sir Bellas. That’s too cruel, making him delay.”

  That I also agreed to.

  ---------

  The remaining mile to the Pass was slow going once we started. As Master Oswald had said, there were a LOT of spawns around it, and clustered close together in multiple numbers, with literally hundreds of them filling the Pass proper.

  “Was it quite this bad before?” Princess Kristie had to ask, looking at the scores of heavily armored Viamontian knights of all ranks, the commanding Hands very obvious in their bright coppery armor; Ruschk barbarians with their pale blue skin, veiled faces, and icesteel Weapons, and packs of Eaters interspersed with numbers of nearly man-sized penguins (so far from water, so strange), crowds of lurching Fiuns, and the bright blue icy forms of Glacial Golums.

  No wisps, undead, skeletons, banderlings, or shades, however.

  Even Master Oswald hesitated, looking at the forces spread across the snowy and icy land, the crudely spiked short walls for crude fortifications, and the ground we had to cover.

  “At least half again what I remember,” he admitted after a careful moment of analysis and recollection. “Perhaps the real forces of all involved who died during the Fall were added to the, ah, garrison?” he theorized.

  “Logical. Okay, we pull the Eaters, vivisize them, Ryin Seals the Spawn points. Repeat on the penguins, then on the Ruschk. Devoted Fire Weapons for those handling the last two.

  “We take the Fiuns afterward, then the Viamontians last. If our Casters need to rest to regain mana, we make a hardpoint in case an Eater horde decides to come through.”

  “If there are so many spawns, even a horde must be advancing slowly,” Briggs observed grimly. “With respawns, this area could indeed take care of multiple Eater hordes. They’ve just got over ten miles of mountains to circle around ceaselessly…”

  “That means we’re never more than five miles away from a horde if there’s at least four of them, and there could be more, extras spilling out into the outer area from the richest hunting area here when they become too numerous and run up on another horde too quickly,” Master Oswald contributed pragmatically. “Based on the lines of traffic, I believe they are rotating counter-clockwise.”

  “Dungeon up on the slope there.” Heads turned at Kris’ pointing figure, seeing a bulge on the snowy slope high atop the western ridge forming the pass. “What’s that?”

  “That is the temple to the Ruschk god Thrusk,” Master Oswald stated calmly, eyeing it considerately. “An avatar of it dwells within, there to test the skills of whoever thinks they are worth crossing blades with a god.”

  The Mick blinked. “Him! Aye, ye had t’ kill and collect scalps from a bunch o’ Ruschk t’ earn the right t’ fight the god. Killed ‘im a bunch of times back then…”

  “If he’s a real avatar, he’s going to be much, much more dangerous now than back then,” Briggs opined, hefting Endure thoughtfully. “Later,” he added, catching Kris’ hungry expression. “Work before play.”

  She pouted extravagantly, but said nothing. There was indeed a lot of work to do…

  ============================

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