Amdirlain's PoV - Atonement

She arrived a few million kilometres from where Nazha and his father were sparring atop the building. Amdirlain had expected as much since the Plane's automated processing of souls left them little to do. As she started to plan her next steps, the evening spent listening to Verdandi's sorrow continued to niggle. Though the conversation had helped lessen her distress, Amdirlain knew from personal experience such issues weren't so quickly settled.

Amdirlain set the matter aside with a frustrated groan and, instead of getting Verdandi more help, she focused on her own goals.

I should push Psychic Bastion and Ki Guardian higher, and then rely on magic in Hades to improve my Mana Mastery. Overall goal is to get two Tier 7 prestige classes to maximise benefits. Right, stop putting this off.

The theme of Atonement rang through her, and though it scratched and rampaged sour notes, it finally caught hold.

[Planar Attunement Success

Primary Home Plane: Culerzic

Secondary Home Plane(s): Pandemonium, Ûbuthan

Attunement Target: Atonement

Override Primary Home Plane, or accept the target as a secondary Home Plane?]

Primary

[Primary Home Plane Set: Atonement

Secondary Home Plane(s): Culerzic, Pandemonium, Ûbuthan]

It seems the intent of the Plane isn't 'evil' enough for it to be easy for a Fallen to set this place as home. With that done, I need to make some other preparations.

She reconstructed the buildings beneath her, molding and shaping them to duplicate the chambers at the cloister of the Fallen.

"Atonement is currently my primary Home Plane. I will expand the facilities here and cycle some more before I go to Hades." Amdirlain released the message to Sarah, and received a cheerful response that provided no clue what they were doing. She exchanged messages with Livia updating her on the situation with Torm.

As she cycled Ki for the healing technique, she not only expanded the facilities for processing souls and added devices to create more weaponry automatically, but she also released more armies towards Hades. Her only relaxation was time spent creating millions of energy reservoirs. The surge in levels into Psychic Bastion and Ki Guardian didn't put the energy pools reserved by the achievements under anywhere near the same pressure, leaving the Tier 6 still available.

Did the Prestige Class weaken my achievement because of how much stronger it makes me relative to others? Or because my attributes strengthened the evolved base classes that much?

The week of cycling didn't help overcome the blockage with the past lives, the elven group all seemed to possess the same draw. Rather than spend further time and risk the souls within Hades, Amdirlain exited Atonement into the Chaos streams between planes, letting the wild energy wash away all traces of her origin. Despite no lingering trace, she pushed the limits of her Ki Flight trying again to blend the technique in. With distance in the stream hard to judge, she hopped again only after five hours spent flying.

I don't want to emerge in a combat zone, so I'll start a few million kilometres away from the Domain.

She emerged from the planar threshold and took in the grey bramble that covered Hades. The sour feel of the Mana in the place prompted her to cut off all absorption. While the dreary emptiness of the Plane was unappealing, it allowed her to expand her senses, taking in millions of square kilometres at once. The clash of armies on the edge of her perceptions showed she judged her arrival correctly. Amdirlain observed the stone edifices ahead that marked the boundary of Hades's Domain. Tall looming statues of the same Grecian man faced outwards, his armour and weapons that of a hoplite with breastplate, greaves, a large round shield slung over his shoulder, and a spear loosely clasped in his right hand. The ongoing fighting had destroyed hundreds of them, leaving flattened sections of ground, or the stumps of ankles jutting up from rubble and fallen foes. A curling mushroom from a kinetic strike bloomed on the horizon, only to be yanked inwards by a gravitational pulse. The energised dust cloud rushed over demons, killing more than the initial attack. For now, she left them to the battle and considered the Domain with a diameter roughly 1.6 billion kilometres across.

An attempt to free some souls of the old realm brought a painful backlash that punched hard against her control. While she could tell it was fruitless, the themes within the Domain clarified the souls could only be released from within.

A thousand kilometres out from the Domain, she looped around it, conducting radar sweeps of Resonance filtered for the common mechanisms that could restrain souls. She filtered out those souls bound by the Domain itself with steady practice and sought those held by force. She found thousands cursed by Hera and other Greek gods, but the Domain kept her from reaching out and freeing them, blocking access to anyone without. Her progress grew faster with each hop and scan, yet there wasn't a trace of the souls she was after nor containment devices. As her senses continued to translate the landscape within the Domain, Amdirlain stopped and double checked.

With her mind having twigged to the likeness of the patterns, she soon recognised that Hades had cheated with the interior of the Domain. He had taken continental Europe and expanded it on a monumental scale. What should have been minor hills were larger than Vehtë. Her scan of its interior had lined up with a version of Spain that was light minutes long. As she progressed, her idea was confirmed. Assorted souls faced punishment by continually drowning in the Atlantic, freezing in the northern ice, and burning constantly in Icelandic volcanoes, among other sites.

She continued the loop around the exterior, past his version of the Russian steppes and the Black Sea. A concern that they'd hidden the three souls she sought beyond the reach of her senses began to grow. She hit pay dirt as she passed across his expanded version of Crete. Precognition screamed success as she took in the carved soul prisons. The statue of a hideous woman cradling two separate monstrous abominations in her arms stood in the Minotaur's maze beneath the land mass. It was in the labyrinth's centre, surrounded by arcane and divine defenses. Amdirlain heard the binding magic within the stone, but the souls weren't detectable beneath the shielding from her current position.

Insult to Injury.

On the surface far above the statues, masses of souls milled about a metropolis in an imitation of life. Yet Amdirlain put them out of mind for now. She tried to grab the statues from the Domain, and experienced the same results she'd got with the other roaming souls. Her first attempts with True Song slid aside, with as much effort as a healthy adult restraining a toddler with an open palm against their forehead. After the third attempt, this easy dismissal escalated to a retaliation that split bones and sent her sprawling.

Okay, not the approach to take. That statue could be a trap. Even if it isn't, I know where they are, but the only way to get them is to go inside.

Amdirlain retreated from the border and waited out her healing. When she returned, she focused on an area where she felt a few hundred thousand demons preparing for a probing attack. Fresh construction had put kilometres of floating pontoons partly across the river Styx—the last bone-wrapped floatation devices bobbed within a metre of triggering her army's defensive algorithms. Piled debris and bodies downriver showed that it had been information that had been costly for the demons to gain.

I need to mix things up. None of the troops recognise the hollowness of their existence, seeking only violence and carnage.

The demonic troops were the usual unpredictable amalgamation of species, with appearances ranging from spiders to half-flayed animals and massive reptilian beasts. Some looked almost Human or Elven except for additional appendages.

While she considered the forces in the demonic probe, Amdirlain dispatched a Message. 'Sarah, just about to head into Hades's Domain, unsure how it will affect getting messages to you or our mental link.'

'Take care, sweetie. I'll know not to worry if it cuts off.'

Though even her current toughness was far short of True Song Crystal, Protean transformed her into a crystalline figure. Amdirlain set a concealment in place, to mimic its resonance to any detection. With that done, she teleported to the back line of her army, facing the pontoons.

As a fresh surge rushed towards the river's far bank, the expanded size of Amdirlain's True Form allowed her to become a weaponry tower. To utilise her mass to the utmost, she kept the interior a scaffold structure and layered the areas above the colossi with thousands of eyes shaped by Spell Gaze. She twisted the Mana from her pool into them instead of using the ambient energy the construct army drew on. Beams of Primordial flames and bolts filled with Destruction raced from the eyes to cross the river and crash into the front line of troops. With the demons still on the other side, her constructs didn't react before Amdirlain had obliterated thousands and even cut down two demon lords. Her mind worked faster than they could respond. A second set of attacks ripped through the air towards them, even as the first bodies disintegrated. The surviving commanders of the demonic forces tried to regain their balance against this new foe. Before orders were issued, Amdirlain had already vanished, reformed into a Human-sized figure behind the largest Colossus.

[Combat Summary

Demons, Least x 25,237

Demons, Lesser x 15,954

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Demons x 8,123

Demons, Named x145

Demons, Greater x33

Demon Lord x2

Total Experience points gained: 134,558,224

Psychic Bastion: +67,279,112

Ki Guardian: +67,279,112

Mana Critical [Ad] (35->36)

Mana Mastery [S] (148->150)]

I said I needed to be rougher to attract attention. I'll be going now, but maybe I should bait them.

Amdirlain released two messages using the fading songs of the slain lords. "Better luck next century, moron."

With that done, she ordered all the armies to fire on any Demon or Devil who left the far shore.

That should piss off those just passing by and potentially bring in other forces. They'll see this massive siege and be ready to grab whatever 'treasure' they wrest free. When I cause the armies to decay, they'll follow them inside. Now for the stupid part.

Behind her was a mist-shrouded entry to the Domain. As the army started firing on the remaining demons, she hopped to a point just before the wall of mist and stepped forward.

The ground beneath her feet squelched, and the mist swelled out to enfold her completely. Her mental link to Sarah shredded instantly, and the place's music seemed muffled and distant, filled with distorted echoes. Inside, she could tell a truth that hadn't been discernable outside. Its construction had occurred in another realm—another realm and at a place and time when Hades's strength had been that of an actual Deity. The thick mist around her also blocked True Sight, allowing her to see as clearly as a Mortal in a dense ocean fog.

I'm inside its rules now. The realm translated it, but this is a god's playground, and my strength isn't that of a god.

Amdirlain sniffed and relaxed fractionally when her internal music translated the scent of clean water and wet grass fine. She extended a tentacle from her ankle and further relaxed when it registered the chill in the water and the feel of soaked grass.

Protean works fine. The effect obscures my surroundings from sight, but not my normal senses of hearing, touch, or smell. Why is my ability to hear the music muffled? It's a type of sight? I can't hear the boundary line.

She extended a tentacle from her back and hit a cliff face a metre behind her. More tentacles slithered slowly out in arcs ahead of her and found more wet grass, low scrubs, and tree trunks.

"Hello."

As soon as she spoke, Amdirlain crouched. The word echoed oddly in the mist, but there was no response or incoming attack. The surrounding themes gained a hissing distortion and reverb effect, so Amdirlain restricted her senses to the limit of her skin. As she did so, the thick mists lessened and, experimenting, she also deactivated True Sight. A rain-soaked grass field came into view, split by an overflowing stream that drove into a thickening forest. The forest was a tangle of twisted, stumpy cedars with broad green canopies, straight pines, and firs. Low shrubs crowded all the spaces between trees, making the only pathway an animal trail along the stream bank. Behind her was a cliff that stretched higher than Mount Everest without a trace of how she'd arrived standing before it.

I should have learnt more spells.

Grey clouds overhead smothered the place in an oppressive gloom. A flash of lightning among the clouds illuminated the silhouette of a giant eagle with electricity crackling around his wings as he swept through the storm clouds. Amdirlain quickly calculated a rough estimate of the planetary scale the eagle would require to be visible so clearly. Various attempts to cast Teleport and use her Greater Teleport didn't shift her so much as a centimetre, and even with her senses restricted to the surface of her skin, she felt the wards restrict the Power. The upper tier Spell 'True Scrying' from her Far Perceptions Spell List showed her the statue of the woman and babies she'd sensed from outside the Domain.

I don't have access beyond a standard Petitioner to the Domain so I'm not jumping around. The issue is I don't know where I am relative to where the copy of Crete is located in the Domain.

Only too well aware of the futility of racing blindly, psionic patterns pulsed and dowsed to find the direction of the statue from her scrying. The first faint twitch of her attention came from far beyond the cliff. Ki laced with Primordial flames compressed through her muscles and Amdirlain raced up the vertical surface, transforming into a smoke cloud by her second step. She crossed thousands of kilometres in a minute. Partway up the cliff, she got another faint return and steered slightly to her left. Amdirlain faced a rocky expanse crowded with fragmented statues when she crested the cliff top, and beyond was another thick forest. Precognition tickled with the recognition of foes, yet with the weakness of the warning, she continued straight ahead. With each step, she slipped between tilted legs, or hopped over the torsos of stone hoplites. Before she got halfway across the rocky terrain, ranks of phantasmal defenders surged towards her from out of the tangles, and the eyes of the broken statues opened. Body fragments snapped together, thousands of constructs rising with ghostly weapons clutched in their fists.

Amdirlain flared her senses outwards to gauge their strength, but every note was warbling and amplified.

She activated a Power she hadn't touched since her species change. The world around her turned grey as her Enervating Aura inhaled. All the plants and lichen growing among the statues died, and as the aura reached outwards nine kilometres, the leading edge of the forest turned to ash. With the statues and the leading ranks of phantasmal figures untouched, Amdirlain disabled the aura. She slipped by the blades of the closest statues, drove barbed tentacles in through the seams where the pieces had clicked together, and flung them apart. They clattered across the ground, skipping off rocks and other statues before pausing mid-air and pulling towards each other again.

Spears with screaming faces contorting on them jabbed at her, and Amdirlain didn't want to risk their touch without further examination. She continually reformed through various monstrous shapes, avoiding the edge of probing spears and the short blades that some stabbed at her tentacled limbs. Though they were far slower, their sheer numbers reduced her options, so Amdirlain lashed out. An Octopus-inspired tentacle seized a Human-sized figure and Greater Mana Drain caught hold. As energy rushed in to restore her reduced Mana pool, Amdirlain formed eyes across the other limbs. Though the mass of attacks against the demons had increased skills, she gathered information on both sets of foes as she decided on a surgical approach.

[Species: Hades Construct

Level: 120

Defense: 172

Health: 2,760

Melee Attack Power: 132

Combat Skills: Gladius [G] (23), Spear [G] (337)

Details: The spiritual energy and Mana of the Domain reforges these statues from their smallest fragment, requiring destruction to stop them.]

With each statue Amdirlain tried, she got the same details, so she moved on to check the phantasmal figures. Those foes varied as they were each a spiritual construct of remembered heroes from the golden age of the Greek gods. Her Precognition reinforced the feeling of dread and danger that the weaponry's motif tried to invoke.

[Underworld Spear

Details: A conduit more than a weapon in itself. Any contact with one of these spears, regardless of protection, sucks health from those touched.]

The various blades returned similar descriptions, and she worked defensively. A tentacle wove between the statues along the ground she had just covered. When it reached the cliff, she reformed around at its tip. Wings extended out ten metres to either side, covered in glowing eyes extended from her back while Spell Gaze empowered each one. With the formed irises handling the details of the spells, Amdirlain focused on the flow of Mana, and the precision of her targeting with each strike.

With hundreds of spells a second unleashed, the closest constructs vaporised. Those further away had oriented on where she'd been standing when they rose. She repeatedly fired, even as she sent tentacles tracing beneath the cliff's lip in both directions, and set them to a colour to match the rock. She quickly established tendrils of her flesh adhering to the cliff face in an ivy creeper arrangement before the constructs turned on her. With those tendrils spread for kilometres, Amdirlain caused her body to shrink and regrow at points along the cliff's edge. It gave the appearance of teleporting via a sleight-of-hand approach. The assault took longer than needed to shatter their forces as Amdirlain experimented with fine-tuning her Mana control a few hundred shots at a time.

[Combat Summary

Hades Construct x 7,430

Guardian Phantasm x 6,312

Total Experience gained: 67,814,024

Psychic Bastion: +33,907,012

Ki Guardian: +33,907,012

Mana Critical [Ad] (36->40)

Mana Mastery [S] (150->155)]

As the last remnants of their bodies disintegrated, the weapons also vanished.

From overhead came a deafening screech, and Amdirlain glanced up to find the eagle diving towards her body's apparent 'current' position. The halo of lightning forming around it made it look like a living eclipse.

He is not much bigger than how he appeared in the clouds, so visual distortions are in place.

[Name: Aetos Kaukasios

Primordial Tier: 4

Defence: 98,842

Health: 24,559,240

Magic: 87,947

Melee Attack Power: 138,378

Combat Skills: Lightning Strike - Emperor [G] (227), Rendering Gouge - King [G] (310), Affinities: Air, Lightning

Details: While unable to progress naturally, having fed on Prometheus for millennia, he is more potent than many static Primordial beasts of his Tier.]

Spells of protection against electricity boosted her hard-earned resistance. With his dive-bombing run speeding towards her, Amdirlain prepared to release her hold on the cliff.

As he sought to snatch her, Amdirlain speared a tentacle up to his screeching maw and clamped onto the beak's edge. Locked on, she changed again. Her body became a muzzle and harness, wrapping around Aetos Kaukasios's head. Amdirlain read its body with Protean and adjusted to use the most vulnerable spots. Blazing spikes pressed against his throat, eardrums, and a cluster stopped just short of penetrating his eyes, searing the feathers they touched. Vines like those she'd grown along the cliff face latched onto the leading edge of his wings.

'Fly me to Crete.'

Amdirlain projected a map of the area in question into his mind and circled the island.

Shock surged from Aetos Kaukasios, and even as he climbed, he spun wildly through a barrel roll to throw her off. She stabbed barbed spikes into his neck, deliberately missing anything sensitive but delivering an unusual experience to him—pain.

"I can fly, so you're not throwing me to my death. If you won't behave, I guess it's time to eat you instead. Your choice. Do you want to be my meal or fly me here?"

The words hissed in his ears with an icy determination that rippled panic through Aetos Kaukasios's brain.

As he considered ways to resist, she hissed. "I know what you're thinking. There are no Greek gods left that care you are here. Not choosing right now gets you dead."

Amdirlain's Willpower magnified the pain of his wounds into a sensation she was familiar with—brain-numbing agony.

[Seed Doubts [M] (24->28)

Stimulation [M] (33->37)]

Unable to speak, Aetos Kaukasios desperately levelled off. Once he stabilised his flight, Amdirlain stopped the pain. With a low screech, he carefully wheeled in the direction that matched her demand. A mountain range filled the sky ahead of them, and he started climbing the thermals to clear it.

"Good. You're heading in the right direction so you can fly faster now. The faster we get there, the quicker you're released. If you get us there really fast, I'll reward you."

She withdrew the barbs from his flesh and healed the wounds. Then she formed a cross between a falcon hood and a superhero cowl over his head and held on.

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