Ta-ta-ta-TMP-TMP-TMP-ta-ta-ta-TMP-ta-ta-ta-TMP-TMP-TMP-ta-ta-ta-TMP! The deep sound was felt more than heard. It sent the men in the pen into a panic. They cowered down and shivered, although they looked with more fear at the ground beneath them than at the area around them.
"Secondary shields underground now," Reed ordered. They could see the demihumans of other regions coming for them above ground, but there were none for their own region. Hitting the shields below ground would make them come up to be fought directly.
The demihumans swarmed the pen and everyone was lost to the battle. Reed learned to pay attention to the drums. They directed the attack sequence of the demihumans, particularly those of Ccoa's. For the initial part of the battle it was defense against mass attacks. As they neared what should be the seventy-five percent level of the demihumans as a group, Reed paid even closer attention.
The drums told it, though. They changed to a constantly rolling sound and the men in the pen fell on their faces and put their hands over their heads. A blackness rose up with the rolling of the drums that made it difficult to see. With an intense boom there was a flash of light that split the darkness. Something moved during that darkness, something very large. A noxious smell came from that place on the battlefield.
Phillip cast a light spell over that part of the battlefield, but it barely glowed faintly through the dark mist. Whatever had been there couldn't be seen. Still, Phillip cast other light spells around the area, as did other Sorcerers until they had a circle of lights, pale as they were, around the pen.
The next time the drums pounded out as if a strike of lightning, the flash drew eyes and the lights made it a little easier to see there was a large creature that moved through the darkness there, on four legs, as tall as a one-story building. The putrid smell came again.
"What's it doing? Can you tell, Phillip?" Reed asked.
"No status effects yet that I can see," Phillip answered back. "It hasn't directly attacked the outer ring either."
Reed frowned. He knew the latter, and he was watching to see if it was getting inside the pen. It wasn't doing that either. "The smell means it's got to be doing something. Life Support see if it's trying to do something to the ground to get past our shield below the surface."
After a bit of time for research, and one more round of the creature showing up and leaving the same, Life Support came back on the party chat. "It looks like the ground is being cursed, but I'm not sure the shield around the pen is the reason."
"I've got a wind elemental request ready," Avionics informed Reed.
"Go for it." They needed to be able to see what was going on, and it was only evening, not dark yet outside of the artificial cover.
Avionics had apparently been taking the time since the smokescreen had gone up. The effect of the wind spell was rather large. Everyone was a little discouraged when they could finally see what the four attacks had done. The demihumans were back up in numbers again, having risen up from the putrid ground that had been cursed. Even more scary was they'd been sneaking up to be within only a few feet of the party around the pen.
They were immediately jumped and swords were swinging again. The magic users were caught a bit off guard and many were injured before they could get their proper shields and attacks in place. There wasn't time to grumble, although a few got out a few choice cuss words.
The next time the drums pounded, they saw a large striped jaguar appear out of thin air and land on the ground. A putrid smoke rose up from its feet and the grass around the feet withered and blackened. Those closest to it that weren't in direct combat immediately cast purification spells both at it and the ground where it was standing. It leaped away and disappeared into thin air again.
"Damage to it was minimal, it was too fast," Reed reported, "but it looks like that helped the ground." Only a small number of demihumans were rising up from the farthest out part of the cursed circle the jaguar had left behind.
Phillip reported in that there was a likely pattern to the appearance of the jaguar and gave his best guess of where it would show up the next time. Reed set several to creating purification binding spells to trap the jaguar with. They wouldn't really want the ground to be cursed too much, but they needed to hold it still to do damage to it. The two at the section that it was expected to appear in conferenced, then created their spells.
When Phillip called out the expected timing, they began the cast. As soon as the lightning flashed, the trap was triggered and a larger purification spell went off underneath what the trap had caught. The jaguar was gone again, but this time Reed had seen just enough. "That worked well. You managed to hold it just long enough to get reasonable damage on it, and it centered better on the ground underneath it. Copy it around the circle."
That meant that everyone else who could cast that combination of spells got the pseudocode that had been used. Reed let Phillip continue to call out location and timing for reappearance of the jaguar so he could return to focusing on the battlefield as a whole. He was concerned about what the deities of the other regions would be doing now as well.
He finally frowned. "Izanami...are there any other deities fighting against us?"
He only heard her voice, but that wasn't surprising. "Yes, but assume what you have done to one you have done to all of them. It was simpler to translate every battle into one than to make all of you see properly the full chaos. Minor differences are negligible. You won't see them. Major differences will have to be accounted for, and you will see them."
"Thank you," Reed answered in some relief. He would have been unhappy to learn that one of the other dark deities had snuck in behind their backs.
They continued to work on both the jaguar and the demihumans. Eventually they managed to get the jaguar down to its seventy-five percent level. The drums changed to the first one of general attack. This time, though, when the jaguar showed up, it landed in the middle of the demihumans who were trying to attack the shielded pen itself. It lowered its head and ate four demihumans in one bite, then disappeared.
That happened three times. When the jaguar appeared the fourth time, it was standing outside the pen and it opened its mouth. Out of its mouth came a fog that smelled worse than when it stepped on the earth. The fog headed for the shield. It did damage to Adventurers and the shield alike and the demihumans pressed the advantage. The defenders inside the pen ran to that location and did their best to reinforce the shield and heal the party members on the outside of the pen.
Reed was relieved when Phillip said he had that series figured out. It was bit on the brutal side for a sneak attack. He worked on a counter-attack with those who'd set the purification trap for the prior set of attacks.
It took three rounds to get one that worked well enough to do some damage to the jaguar while at the same time decrease the damage done to the party members in the line of fire. The inside defenders had to do a lot of running, the pen was so large. It was good they were high level.
Things went back to nice steady, if slow decrease on the jaguar and numbers of demihumans until they hit about the sixty percent level on the jaguar. It took about four rounds for Reed to understand what was going on. Reed was concerned. With the next set of blows, he was sure of it. "Izanami, why has our strength decreased? Have we been cursed?"
The answer took a bit to arrive and again it was only a voice. "You asked to be strengthened through the Caretaker's love of all creatures. The Caretaker is loosing her love and her anger threatens to overwhelm her."
"Why?" Reed asked, immediately concerned. "What can we do?"
"MeowLi has been taken hostage by her enemies through their pawn, Ains of Honesty."
Reed drew in a sharp breath. "But...surely Shiroe left behind support and protection for MeowLi?"
"Yes, but it is difficult for the Caretaker to turn her ears from the cries of her own child."
Well, Reed could understand that. He'd likely see red if any of his own children was threatened, even if he knew the final outcome was okay. Particularly if they cried with just that right tone of voice that set him on edge and was made to make a parent react to instinctively defend their child.
"Caretaker, please," he said. "MeowLi will be okay. But we won't be for the loss of your attention and strengthening support." He was pretty sure he got a flick of an ear, but not much more than that. Purrcy was already too distracted.
"Okay, Bards. We've dropped in power and strength because one-fourth of our support is distracted in the wrong sort of way. Now is the time, before Hahaue becomes truly angry."
"Ah, right. An angry Hahaue in the middle of all this would be very bad," P/R agreed.
"Singing in the middle of all this is going to be difficult," Schedules pointed out.
"Do it anyway. Maybe some of the calming effect will bleed off into our enemies to decrease their attacks, and to increase the support to the People of the Land," Reed ordered.
Everyone took a breath, prayed to the Inari for the protection they'd need to sing and fight, prayed to the Caretaker to turn her attention away from her anger, and followed P/R and Schedule's leads.
They'd barely made it half-way into the first stanza when the drums they'd come to hate began to beat, making the earth under their feet shake and thrum to every beat. It interrupted the tempo of the song they were trying to sing. It also set the People of the Land to keening, wailing, general panic, and trying to climb the walls yet again.
The party as a whole had to stop singing they'd been so thrown off. If only they could have started the song just a little earlier, perhaps everyone would have been calm enough and they wouldn't have lost the support they needed. One quarter less strength was rather a lot for them.
As fast as the drums increased in tempo, the difficulty of defending their charges increased as well until they were nearing despair that they could win out in this battle.
-:-:-:-:-
Michael looked around the battlefield in volcanic South Amerka. Things were not going well, and he had rather the sense that Purrcy wasn't paying much attention to him. He wondered what had happened.
His own focus was rather distracted as well. He'd paused to shake his head and try to get it back. He focused on one of the the things he was feeling and suddenly realized he'd not taken into account something small.
He was feeling MeowLi's panic. The link he'd had Purrcy give him to each of her children in the Gate of Time during the last level was still in effect for her now. He tried to send reassurance down that link, but he couldn't go answer it himself now. That was Tetorō's responsibility this round so that Michael could focus on his own battles on this side of the world.
Setting that panic aside as best he could Michael took another deep breath, trying to get his focus where it belonged. Reed's voice said in his ear, "Mike, we're dying here and not going to win our battle. We need your help."
Michael's eyes went wide and his head swung around to look at Reed. He was in the middle of fighting and surely hadn't said anything at all. They were hard pressed, but not in that dire of straights. It had most surely been Reed's voice, though.
Michael stepped just inside the realm of time. Not enough to completely stop time for himself, but enough to give himself a little breathing room. Reed's voice sounded in his ear further, "Purrcy's been distracted too strongly by MeowLi's worry and we've lost her support for our battle. That's taking too much of a toll on us. We can't afford to lose."
Michael intended for a visual chat with the Reed he was hearing, focusing hard on it. He was looking at a battlefield around a large pen of men. He looked for the squadron and saw each one had an assistant - Twin Falls - and that more were down than up at the moment, and a lot of them had five on two, or more.
Blows looked slow and weaker than they should. It was worse that it was demihumans and they kept breaking through to get into the pen and attack the people inside. The few defenders inside almost couldn't stay alive long enough to kill them once they did get in.
Michael drew in a breath of worried shock. "What do you need, Reed?" he asked.
"Please, go back in time to when MeowLi first gets worried and do what you can do to keep her calm through this battle so Purrcy's worry doesn't get the better of her."
Michael, already in the time realm anyway, stepped to Akiba as ikiryō. "Tetorō, what's the status?"
"MeowLi's been captured. We're doing everything we can to protect her and get her out, but she's a Person of the Land. She can't hear me when I step as ikiryō, nor can we contact her since she can't chat. I'm keeping watch over her, but she's been praying hard to her mother and is very frightened," Tetorō answered. Michael frowned, then his eyes opened wide and he groaned. This was hard.
He'd hoped Purrcy would be able to use her own formidable strength, stubbornness, and the knowledge that Log Horizon was watching over MeowLi to break the specific flavor text of the kami that required them to answer any request of a petitioner. But if MeowLi was that panicked it would be creating a rather high level petition. And because MeowLi was Purrcy's daughter that would only make it that much worse and harder.
He rubbed his hand on his head roughly, trying to get his brain to function. Maybe...if he stepped in as the answer to the prayer, choosing to answer it himself instead of Purrcy sending him, it would be a sufficient break to the flavor text. "Right. Let me read your history, from the time things started here."
It didn't take long for Tetorō to get that going. Michael paused it early and rewound it a bit. This part wouldn't be hard or long. He opened a sound window in time to the MeowLi of the past right after she'd been captured and was alone and afraid and replayed Minori's prayer of comfort to Purrcy so that MeowLi could hear it. That way she would know for sure her friends were working hard to help her.
Michael listened to the plan that Minori had put together, then turned to Tetorō. "Do you need to be out here? Or can they afford to have you inside with her?"
Tetorō stared at him, then practically jumped up and down. "You'd take me in there? We didn't have a way since you weren't here, but yes! We'd much rather I was inside. There's so much I can do to help her and us if I'm inside."
"Good. That works for us too," Michael said firmly. He put his hand on Tetorō's shoulder. Tetorō quickly called in to Minori to let her know the change of plan, then they were following the link to MeowLi.
By the time they arrived, Michael was covered with an illusion of an Avenging Angel. MeowLi would be most comforted if she felt her mother had actually answered her prayer. Before he put Tetorō into the base realm, he entered the hidden closet himself.
"MeowLi," he said. She calmed quickly. "Your mother has placed you with a guild who cares about you and who've been trained by the best Adventurer strategist there is. Your lack of faith in what your mother has done isn't becoming of a daughter of the goddess. All creatures must go through trials and tribulations in order to grow and learn strength. You're still young and have much growing yet to do. Don't assume that you are free of such growing experiences."
MeowLi went from open-mouthed surprise at being scolded before being rescued or comforted to hanging her head humbly. "I'm sorry," she said.
"There are reasons why such things are allowed to happen even though we don't understand them at the time. Bear it patiently and have faith in your family and friends, and in particular with your mother who knows your situation and loves you. Would you really have the Caretaker of all kill for your selfish wish?"
MeowLi froze, thought seriously about her very real and strong fear, and then more soberly about what her mother was and represented. Her hands clenched tightly together in front of her and her head bowed, she softly said, "No. ...But it is much harder than I ever thought it would be, to be so afraid."
Michael nodded sympathetically. "It is. It's very hard to be afraid. That's why when we are we hold our breath, do our best to hold on to what we know is the right and best thing to be doing, and then walk forward until we've passed through the fire and reached the other side.
"When it's hard, remember you have friends who've been watching over you this whole time. Remember that even if you are in this room alone, you aren't alone. Others are working to reach you. They also already understand how frightening such an experience this is for you. "
MeowLi's hands clenched a little tighter, then she took a beep breath and gave a nod. Michael put his hand on her head for a moment to encourage her, then returned to the realm he was holding Tetorō in.
They watched quietly until MeowLi said, "I'm sorry, Hahaue. I'll try harder to have courage and to remember the family you left me with tries hard, too." Her ear turned and she bit her lip a little. Meekly she said, "But still, I would wish to have someone with me so I wasn't quite so afraid."
Michael let her go through the building fear again, watched her take a deep breath to try to get rid of it, then become a small cat and curl up in a ball, trying to be patient. Michael fast forwarded time for a bit.
"Why are you making her wait?" Tetorō asked.
"Because what I said is true, Tetorō," Michael answered mildly. "How many of us were rescued from the catastrophe immediately upon first asking? What strengths have we learned in our trials here? Easy answers quickly given make our souls weak. That was a lesson Hahaue and Chichiue made them learn almost daily in the Gate of Time. This isn't a new lesson for her, and she should learn what she can do." Tetorō looked like he wanted to argue it, but couldn't.
Michael was looking for something specific as he sped them through time. He was also listening, making it open so Tetorō could hear. It was the combination of Ains' order and Minori's concerned request to Tetorō that made Michael back up just a little. "Okay Tetorō. Here's your stop, a little before what we just heard. Good luck." He gave Tetorō a brief hug of support, then placed him back in the base realm in the hidden closet with MeowLi.
-:-:-:-:-
Michael returned to his own time and body in the place he'd left it at the edge of the time realm. Reed's next sentence came to him: "The Caretaker asked us to sing a calming song to her but we missed the window. We don't have Brenner here and the Inari didn't let us know that Hahaue was desperate about MeowLi until I asked what was wrong.
"It was too late then to sing to her. We've been overwhelmed since. Please, the one most helpful thing to us is to give us the warning early enough to be able to answer her request properly."
Michael paused him there. Because he was himself standing at the boundary of Time, he focused with intent on Nyanta, knowing he would also be standing his post to support his wife, and wondering what had gone wrong there.
"—chael-nyan, please." Michael was shocked that he'd entered the chat in progress. What had interrupted it from Nyanta's side? "Only mew have ever been able to stand between her and her anger, to purrotect her from it."
"Nyanta-san? What is it?" Michael asked, focusing hard to make sure he made it through the other direction, wondering if his own confusion just prior to him stepping out of the battle had been a cursing to prevent him from acting to help keep Purrcy calm.
"Purrcy is too angry with Ains. It is too many times he's interfered blindly with her attempts to be kind to all Adventurers. She is trying and I am trying, but it isn't enough. Her power from the wishes of all the Adventurers and People of the Land to be free of their unfair and painful captivity has been fed even more by MeowLi's wishes for the same. Hahaue's anger is more than the Caretaker can overrule."
"Hold on just a bit longer," Michael requested. "Tell her I am standing in the way so she has at least that image. Perhaps it will be just long enough."
He didn't stay, although he did try to keep a little more tuned in, just in case Nyanta needed to contact him again. Instead, he was rewinding through his own history. He cut and pasted Nyanta's warnings just now into a string that would properly warn Reed, then read Reed's history to see where the fateful moment had been that had been the turning of the tide for their battle.
He roughly estimated how long the song the Eagles would sing was, worked out with some heavy thought where before the fateful crashing was that it could be fit in, pleased it didn't look too far before that moment, then took a breath. With careful intent, he opened up a chat link through time to that Reed and fed the audio of Nyanta's plea to him. Just in case he'd gotten it wrong, or Purrcy slipped again, he stayed and recorded the song.
Be still, my soul: the Lord is on thy side.
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain.
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In every change, He faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul: thy best, thy heav'nly Friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.*
Somehow Michael wasn't surprised to hear the song again at this point in time. He'd warned them it might be necessary and he completely agreed now was it. Even he felt calmer after listening to it. Surely they'd added in Bard magic to it. Likely if they'd been asked for it ahead of time and known it would be sung in battle, they had planned for it.
He paused in sudden thought, then sent it through time and space to MeowLi as well, to help her in the middle of the lonely frightening time she was in. That might help her to also not get spun up again. Keeping her calm through her ordeal would keep Purrcy calm through her requirement.
As Michael returned to his present time, he saw something he hadn't seen since his experiences in the Gate of Time. He was standing in one timeline and there was another next to it. In calming Purrcy, which had been essential, he'd created a split. One timeline continued the angry Purrcy cycle. That timeline was still waiting for him to return to it. The other timeline was now one where Purrcy had remained calm and he hadn't had to go and do all those things.
His heart fell. He'd finally done something very stupid, but he couldn't do anything other than that. The people he cared for, the world goals, the very Code he held to, had required that he repair what had been done. He wasn't one who could change what had been the consequences of that, though.
Michael bowed his head, took a breath, steeled his heart, and stepped back into his own timeline. They would fail for sure if he didn't go back. Perhaps he could do some small thing to make the world not fall apart in that timeline. If not, then at least the other one would go the way it should.
"And please, Mike, don't despair and give up. I know what asking for these things is going to do to you and this place." Michael slowly lifted his head in wonder. "Please take care of yourself, and be patient for just a moment."
Then he heard the most wonderful thing he'd heard for a while. Reed's voice continued, but it wasn't to him anymore. "Inari, you have the power of Time. It's still too early for there to be multiple timelines that could cause great damage into the future.
"Please, allow our Guardian to remember what was done in both timelines, but erase the one in which we almost failed. He knows how to walk the realm of time, so it won't harm him. We don't want to make the people of Theldesia miserable in our broken timeline."
Michael bowed his head and humbly said, "Inari, please, if Reed's willing, then I'll echo it as well. If it's already too late, I'll submit, but I'm sure I'd rather just know and be grateful we were able to fix the errors."
There was an odd warping and the memories had to recombine into his psyche as he was rewritten in an odd way to be recombined into one psyche. He had to blink and work out where he really was, where he'd been going, and just what order was next since he'd not been directly walking the peaceful timeline himself just then. It didn't take too long, though.
He checked in with the Reed that was in the other space, just to make sure. "We're holding," that Reed said. "Thanks for asking." There was a pause, then, "Thank you, Inari."
"Yeah, thanks, Inari," Michael echoed. "You know even now?" he asked Reed.
"Well, I already knew that if you came checking up on me, not knowing where I was before now, then we'd have failed at least once. Expect it to happen again if we get underwater again. It was the only way I could see to not fail, given how hard our battle is. Sorry."
Michael went looking again, and this time he could see all the spacial layers they were fighting for. "God. No wonder. Let me know if you need me for anything."
"I will," Reed promised. "You make sure you win down there, first."
"I will," Michael promised back. "Thanks, Reed."
"My pleasure," Reed answered. "My abuse of you, too, but that's the way it goes."
"Yes," Michael agreed. "My pleasure."
"Thanks," Reed was looking directly at Michael. Michael smiled at him and Reed smiled back, then returned to hacking at the attacking demihumans. Michael left him alone, but he left a prayer and the intent of a blessing on them behind, if he could be so bold as to hope one of the kami would pick it up and help them a little more this round.
-:-:-:-:-
Reed felt the blessing come from Michael as he disappeared again. With just that much - the vision and the blessing - Reed knew the deed had been done. Inari had used that excuse to make whatever change Michael needed to become the kind of deity Inari needed right now.
Reed hoped he could undo it. He'd planned that in, too, but Inari was sneaky. Reed sighed and let his frustration with that part out on the next five demihumans. Then he was too busy focusing. The drums had begun again and this time, the demihumans were determined.
There'd been several waves and they'd managed to get the song off between the second the third. That had seemed to help the People of the Land quite nicely, and given the Twin Falls group a boost as well, since their own efforts gained a bonus when they fought for their own God.
This time, though, the drums beat a little differently, and the frenzy that came over the demihumans was even more fierce than normal. The People of the Land got more concerned as well. "Reinforce the shield," he ordered. "Add intent of rock if you can this time."
"Granite would be nice," Clocktower muttered. Grim smiles of agreement went around the group.
They had just enough time to finish it and then the demihumans were howling and moving as the massive wave of enemies they were. They flooded over and around the Eagles, who'd set up at the edge of the shield. Once again they attacked with purification weapons in one hand and purification spells springing from the other to slam into the enemies between the posts.
The Twin Falls party was working up their larger spell in preparation. This time when the giant jaguar appeared, it didn't come and attack the pen directly. Instead it held back just a little and studied the layout.
"Hold," Reed said quietly on the chat. "Next level of the boss. Let your attacks build up. If it's headed for you specifically, let loose when it's right on top of you. Point blank suicide is acceptable on this round, but we want to have as much of a group full-on attack as possible once we know what this attack looks like."
The jaguar growled at them a long and loud growl right in timing with the fastest beating of the drums, then it was running. This time, it didn't just swallow up a single mouthful of demihumans. It took out the entire swath in its path, then turned and ran around the pen, getting closer and closer, taking out every demihuman with it. Reed hissed a breath. "That's rather a lot of points it's collecting," MasterChiefS7 said.
Reed narrowed his eyes and calculated very carefully. "Western quarter, on my mark," he said. Timing might take a while given the slow-down of multiple spaces, but he'd get as close as he could. He let the jaguar god get one and a half more laps in, then counted down. "Now!" The Twin Falls group on that quarter let loose all at once. It blew the jaguar out three circles-worth from the pen.
It landed on its feet, shook and growled again. The drums beat their fast tempo and the People of the Land prayed hard. They'd do that now every time there was a good hit against the deity. Like before, it gave those who had just cast a decreased cool down time. That had been very helpful every time.
"Northern quarter on my mark," Reed ordered this time. As he expected, the jaguar ran the opposite direction this time, but still killing its own to increase the power and HP back up. It moved just a little faster this time, too. His eyes narrowed in concentration.
"Now!" One got off a little late, so the deity only went two rounds out, but the demihumans that continued to flood into the spaces got taken out, so it wasn't a complete loss.
"Southern quarter next," Reed said. He was holding his own position for last. He expected the deity to back off again after that last one, giving everyone the time for him to be resurrected if his group went down from the deity being too close for comfort.
The third time all the attacks hit, thankfully, but it still started at the two lanes out. They had to keep the penalty then. Michael took a breath and worked to let it become instinctive this time. The speed on the jaguar was too fast to count it in the short amount of time they had. "Mark. Set. Go!" He was casting. The jaguar took it square on and retreated into the air over the pen. "Anyone with range, and arrows. Heavy fire." The artillery went off heavy and furious for three rounds.
The jaguar growled and the men in the pen fell to their faces and shook. Reed opened his mouth and growled right back and his men did as well. That surprised the jaguar and it paused just a moment. It opened its mouth and cried, "FEAR ME! I AM DEATH!"
Reed intended for loudspeaker and cried back so it echoed just like the deity's had, "NEVER! WE ARE ADVENTURERS. WE CANNOT BE HELD DOWN BY DEATH!" He was rather amazed to see that had a negative affect on the deity.
He knew his grin was skeletal. "WE DANCE MACABRE. COME, DANCE WITH US AGAIN." The Eagles all hooted and jeered. For every point lost by the deity, they received a point each.
The jaguar growled more of a roar this time, and the demihumans were whipped up into even more a frenzy. From the ground arose the same demihumans it had just killed. It had Call From the Dead as they'd expected. It was why the flood of demihumans was even possible. By now, they'd have killed every one of the ones in Central Amerka - likely several times over.
"Why don't they stay dead once they're purified?" Hue asked in a whisper, although he wasn't afraid, really, Reed suspected.
"It's the form of the spell, and even worse, it's the flavor text. All deities of hell control the souls of the dead, particularly of their followers. This god is rather insidious since it's also a nature god. It can create new anima from the dirt to put the souls back into on top of the calling the souls back."
Eyes looked at each other, then they all nodded. BillyBoy said. "Right. Earth purification on the side opposite the attack to keep it from preventing us. Go around the circle this time, Reed."
"You got it," Reed answered. It was worth a good try. They'd have this cycle and one more, since triads of attacks was still the most common form being followed by this deity. They all worked hard to keep the deity back the full three rounds. When it was over, they watched carefully and the sword swingers kept a rough head-count.
"Minor respawn down by twenty-five percent," was the rough feed back.
"Sweet," came back.
"We might be able to take it down after the final round, then," Reed said back after his calculations.
"HERE, KITTY, KITTY, KITTY," Reed called. "THAT WAS A BEAUTIFUL ROUND. COME PLAY WITH US AGAIN."
The jaguar was dancing back and forth this time, its tail swishing its upset. It hadn't liked what they'd done to purify the building material around the pen. It's head bent down to the earth. "Purification shield head on. Billy, same purification spell but on the soil in the pen, as fast as you can get it off."
The Eagles threw up their favorite purification shield from Purrcy's book. As the miasma came to curse the earth again, it passed through the filter and holiness came through instead and blessed the land in that swath. The jaguar paced around the pen and for every time it lowered its head to curse the land, the land was blessed instead. About the time it was lifting its head to call for the drums and the demihuman flood again, the Twin Falls group had purified what they could get in one casting inside the pen, and were cueing up for the third round.
"Looks like down forty to fifty percent on demihumans," was reported as the flood hit. Reed gave a satisfied nod, but his eyes were locked onto the deity. It was faster again this round. He had to work hard to keep his orders in the proper tempo so people didn't set off their spells too soon or too late, now that they'd already learned the slower tempos. Still, they lost one circle around the pen.
Reed was relieved to know that the Twin Falls group had still been casting to bless the earth inside the pen. Once the heavy artillery against the jaguar let up, it did indeed try to get demihumans to rise up from the ground inside. The few that managed to start rising up from the ground that hadn't been in the purification range were taken out quickly by the guards in the center of the pen.
"YOU ARE NOT A GOD." Reed's taunt rang out. "YOU ARE AN EVIL DESIRE BROUGHT TO LIFE BY TOO MANY PEOPLE WISHING THE WRONG THING IN THE WRONG WAY. THEREFORE, YOU CAN DIE."
That made the deity angry. It roared and all the standing demihumans roared with it. Reed cast the voice increasing spell on all the Eagles and boosted it and their roar rang out louder. Ten percent of the demihumans disappeared, as did ten percent of the yellow bar on the jaguar. Reed was quite content to let Inari give them bonuses wherever they saw fit. With the final taunting, the jaguar dropped into the just below twenty-five percent range and it disappeared.
"This is it, ladies. Last round, I would think. Tank up." When Reed had recovered just enough, he bowed, clapped, and bowed again. "Inari, because you have control of time and this is our last round coming up, please confuse the gods we fight against, without adding chaos to Shiroe's count and timing, and allow us to have a double rest time this round before we begin again." He bowed again.
While the Eagles rested their bodies, they met inside the code realm for a final pow wow. "Admin. We want to be able to tie him down and hold him still." They nodded and got on it. "Operations, I want a silence spell over the People of the Land. They'll feel the drums, but I don't want them to hear anything that comes out of his mouth, nor the sounds of the demihumans." They nodded and got on it.
"Maintenance, I want that shield not only rock solid, I want it flexible. If he breaks through, it's got to heal like the Monstrous Jelly we took on as the final on the Yamato Sea." They took deep breaths, nodded, and got on it.
"Safety and Intel." Reed looked at them soberly. "Find his weak spot and chip away at it. He's got to not want to come back out of the Gate of Time again. You'll attack the most fiercely when he's tied down, but be the bee in his bonnet and the flea he can't shake off. We're going to switch you to inside the pen this round so you can focus on that."
It removed an entire party of Eagles from the outer protections, but they'd still be working hard. They'd reached the point that the Eagles hit hard and heavy and tried to make as short as possible. It wasn't worth living through high numbers of rounds of the last level of a boss. That was just too hard. It was easier to hit hard and fast and skip most of the pain.
He added one more order. "I'll likely be handing out miracle request requisitions to all priests this round. Pay attention and move up into the uppermost level you can reach to get it out as fast as possible. I expect them to be on the fly and speed to be essential."
"You going to keep Izanagi for that one, too?" he was asked.
Reed shook his head. "I expect that the miracle rule will hold. We'll be one miracle shy, or it will be on hold to be the last one...I hope."
"You thinking of asking for them to come as one of the miracles?"
He shook his head again. "I hope it won't have to be one, but...who holds the only tool that really works against the deities?" They all gave each other looks. "We'll see," Reed said. "I don't know how far we're going to have to go and I don't know if that counts as a failure of a test to see what we can do without them. Work hard and maybe we'll get lucky."
He got started on intent for his own miracles - just the requisition request, not the actual details - and rested his brain. As both Commander and Strategist for this battle, he was worn down. A tired brain the final quarter wasn't wise.
-:-:-:-:-
A hand was shaking Reed's shoulder. He was slow to wake up, feeling very weary. "Sorry you don't get your full hour," BillyBoy said apologetically. "They did double it for us, but a twenty-five minute nap isn't really enough, I know."
Reed sighed. "No. It will be just enough, I expect. Waking up is the only hard part. Report. Maybe that will help me finish waking up."
BillyBoy smiled, understanding. "We got the final patch in the middle of the pen blessed properly, and we've done a real priesthood blessing on the whole of it, turning the whole thing into the same sort of purified ground the temples and other places of safety out west were for us."
Reed raised an eyebrow. "That was intelligent. Izanagi can use that already since he made it possible from the beginning."
"Yeah, that's what we thought, too," BillBoy nodded. His brow went into a worry wrinkle. "Do you think it will still be broken through?"
"I do," Reed pushed up to sitting up and leaning against his post (the literal one he stood by to direct traffic from, that held up the gate to the pen). The worry wrinkle had stayed on BillyBoy's forehead. "I've had the boys make it flexible. If he breaks through and we get him back out, it will heal back up. Assign someone to watch over it. If it looks like too much miasma is being left behind, we'll have to have Druids cleaning it up. Intent is still for purification of whatever miasma gets left behind in whatever material."
BillyBoy was satisfied with that. "We've taught the People of the Land a few simple prayers with the intent that they will add more specifically to things we need, like MP boosts to us, and not just HP reduction on the boss."
Reed rubbed his chin. "I like that one. It breaks up what the Inari have assigned and teaches more flexibility plus what we need. It's still limited, like simple first level spells, though, stacked?"
BillyBoy nodded. "It will be small, but it seemed like those small additions until now were rather important."
Reed frowned slightly. "Hopefully it won't take away from the HP reduction calculations Inari did before now. I'd told them that small movements sometimes made the difference." He pondered that, then said, with firm intent, "Well, if Inari directs the prayers to effect what needs to be most helped at any given moment, it's still got that level of control. If it still weights heavy to HP reduction, that's okay. The flexibility might be important at this point in the game."
BillyBoy looked relieved it would work out okay. "Really, Billy," Reed tilted his head as he inspected the hobbit, "you do have a good head on your shoulders. Humility is good, but it's also okay to accept the confidence of experiences gained. It's more that one should be and act sure so that everyone coming behind, or above that needs to be convinced, just runs with it, particularly when it's important. Then if there is failure, you're humble and accept the blame.
"We all know no one's perfect. It's the level of experience and the natural ability to just see what needs to be done and jumping in to do it that is what people follow. You've already got both in spades. Relax and let it come out of your mouth instead of fighting it all the time."
BillyBoy gaped at Reed for a moment, then closed his mouth and blushed a little. He gave a nod. "I've been trying, but to hear it said that way...I'll try more."
"Good, you do that," Reed said. It was progress that BillyBoy just jumped in and said what he was going to have his boys do now in the middle of battle. His instincts had yet to be wrong and Reed hadn't interfered with him doing just that - opening his mouth to say useful things and get useful things done, like the earth purification this last time. That had been spot on and given a sweet result. The conclusion to it was natural as well, and highly beneficial.
"Pass on to your boys: we've also put a silence spell over the People of the Land. They'll probably still hear you and us, but not Ccoa or the demihumans. I don't need them being negatives to our bonuses this round. I think we would have gotten a higher bonus that last one but a lot of them pulled us down for not believing like we do.
"Plus expect his final form to be scary to them at least." Reed wrinkled his nose a little. "As long as it's not Kuthulu, I think we Adventurers have seen almost anything ugly, stinky, horrible, undead, and unholy possible to see. Too many Overwritten specials will do that."
BillyBoy laughed. "No doubt. We've got a rest hymn set up to boost us all in the middle of things if we get any breathing room and generally are down in points too far."
"Is it one we would know?" Reed asked. "Getting us all to sing one together last time was very effective."
BillyBoy named it. Reed shook his head. "Not on our list, but we'll hum after the first verse and have the chorus by the second round if it's more than two verses long."
"Good enough," BillyBoy said rising to his feet. The air was getting tense again.
Reed stood up also and dusted off. "We'll likely be asking for the miracles this round. If all else fails and we all fall, call upon your God. Maybe He'll grant us one, too." He didn't smile. He was quite serious.
BillyBoy looked up into Reed's face and gave a solemn nod. "If any of us are still standing, we'll all be praying for it."
"Us, too. Us, too," agreed Reed. He looked up towards the direction the drums were sounding from and BillyBoy trotted off to his own post, passing on the info to his team as he went.
*Be Still My Soul, Kathirna von Schlegel, 1752.