The Run began fairly quietly, but it got pretty loud, pretty quick.

AA, Briggs, and I tore open the Barrier, letting in normal space/time into this 100x zone and starting the collapse that would literally rip the zone apart and send huge portions of it tumbling back into Dream or Leng.

The smiths had all headed out, nearly a year of labor under their belts for only three days of time outside. They’d all made tremendous contributions, and the joint efforts and sharing of lore had all helped them advance their craft.

Some did look longingly at the wall of the next zone, so far there in the distance, the land flat and seemingly going on forever. Then they thought about running through nine hundred miles of fun, and kept going on the path out of there. There were a couple somewhat slower Zones that they could make it to, and take advantage of time still, although who knew how long they would last...

The magic of this world was gushing out. In one full day of outside Time, it would link up, and forcibly synchronize. At Aru’s Great Renewal, the spatial collapse would drive forward under the rays of the sun, returning this area to the proper amount of space here, where so many millennia had passed.

Some of the creatures that were strong enough were going to be left behind. They would first fight one another, then they’d flee into other time zones, trying to get away from the sticky, slow chronality they found themselves in.

Or, they might go wandering around to vent their ire on something else.

Our job was to make it to the next barrier, and if we did it right, get it and this realm to collapse at the same Renewal. The only way to do so was to make a trail through the unstable time/space all around us, running ahead of the wave of synchronization going on behind us, outrunning it, and doing that for nine hundred miles.

Killing everything in our way. The extra vivus would help solidify the connection.

We couldn’t fly, as without the Land as an anchor, any such trail we made would just disperse. No, this had to be on foot. We could be followed by fliers, as was appropriate, but us three Forsaken had to be the tip of the spear, driving the nail of reality into this unbalanced place, and in our wake a whole universe would be expanding inside.

We had twenty-four hours until Time synched up, and then to the Great Renewal after that. We actually did not want to give our enemies a lot of time to work with, if they could see this coming... and we knew there were spotters on both sides of the barriers, for just this reason.

Still, there was a lot of ground to cover, and we were going to create a lot of havoc.

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Knowing this was coming, both AA and Briggs had been investing very heavily into Lightfoot and making sure their Con was raised. Technically, they didn’t have to run this... I could do so, and push or drag them on Disks. That was certainly what we were doing with a number of people, including the North Wind, and my little sisters. Hazé could Linejump or Gemjump and catch up to us without much problem. The dragons were flying overwatch ahead, helping scout the path and alerting us to any problems.

Errant and his Heavenbound were on griffon-back. With Heavenbound buffs, those griffons could fly rings around anything in the sky. They’d spent a lot of virtual months getting a lot tougher alongside their riders, too. The Amazon he was training, Trella, was riding the Valor Dragoness, Kumusa, putting Lance or Bow to use as needed.

The optimal path was naturally AA leading, Briggs following, and me solidifying the temporospatial path they were blazing. AA tore apart what was there, Briggs burned away the energies supporting it, and I made the solid funnel that was going to be the chisel that would break this entire place wide open.

And so, off we went, the boys in the lead, and me trailing a flying wedge of Disks at multiple levels. Behind us, lines of hardened Men, Rockborn, Elves, Gnomes, and even Hyn waited for the flood of retribution and unrest that would be coming behind us.

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This was all about movement speed and endurance now. The best overland lightfoot was the Wave-Skating Step, because it ignored terrain modifiers like rough ground, mud, water, and the like.

It didn’t ignore vegetation and undergrowth, which is where Barus came in. Druidic magic in Ritual Format could put out a Pass Through Woodlands Growth that could last for hours... and doubled, an entire day. So, we could basically make most of a beeline for the far side, following rivers if they were convenient, crossing mud puddles that had grown into lakes, while constant Detect Locations from Liiss and the Dragons watching above made sure we didn’t stray off course.

Base movement of a human is 30. Fast movement as a Class alternative is +10’, to 40. The Fleet Feat was increased by Armor Mastery, +5’ to base move multiplied by Armor Mastery, which was base 2, increased to 3 by Combat Genius for +15’. Lightfoot is based on spiritual and ki development, which we all had topped out now, +1/3rd of base movement for every three Monk Levels or points of MAB. So, doubled at +10 MAB.

Base 55, doubled to 110 with lightfoot. Add Swift Soul Feat, +5’/Essence to speed when running, 4 Essence invested. Cruising along at 130’ movement, which meant 520 feet every six seconds running, and we could sprint to 650 if needed.

It worked out to an overland speed of about sixty miles per hour, which wasn’t bad for being on foot.

We all had the Endurance Mastery, and Con scores of at least 30, by hook or by crook. Couple that with using Revitalizing Strike on creatures in passing to eliminate fatigue, and we simply didn’t bother to stop.

We didn’t get into pitched fights. We were there to run, and only the fastest things in the skies could possibly stop us... and the fastest things in the skies would have taken a look at five dragons up there and griffons flitting about like swallows, and decided they had something better to do.

Even a good ambush predator would have a hard time dealing with us, considering that any jump from us was going to span at least a hundred feet, about as easily as skipping a step. Running into a web simply wasn’t going to happen, and by the time a snatch-and-grab ambusher could even sense us, we’d either be right on top of it or past it, so there was nothing.

Under Barus’ magic, up there being towed behind by AA as he concentrated, the thickest of thorn patches, clusters of vines, walls of ferns, fields of reeds, and mazes of roots opened up just enough to allow us passage, and we zipped on through. No matter how dense or unreal the vegetation was, we went right through it.

The rest of the broken terrain we simply handled with lightfoot. No matter how broken or wet it was, we could skate over or through it, and cracks and crevasses, unless they spanned over a hundred meters, we could simply jump and skim down and across without a problem, arcing and sliding through the air.

In our wake, we pulled a thread of reality, which would only grow as the weight of the universe came in behind it.

Did I mention the Hellpuppies were pulling up the rear? Oh, that’s right; they weren’t on Disks, either.

Hellhounds with Monk Levels. They hadn’t wasted the last year, either. Mastery of Breath Weapons and Monk Levels had been the big things they learned. Base 50’ move, buy +10 of Fast Movement, add +5 of Fleet, Run, and then +4 Swift Soul, and they could cruise at 600, easily able to keep pace with us.

The biggest thing we had to worry about was all the bugs hitting us... but everyone was wearing Bracers of Force Armor at +5, which was basically drawing the equivalent of a suit of chain mail all over us, and the many, many bugs just splatted against us. On the Disks were shields breaking the wind, helms, and bowed heads against the draft, if they didn’t have the same.

I would have liked to say the scenery was fantastic and strange and I could ooooh and aaaah about it... but it wasn’t. Sure, the trees were freaking huge, and when you’re running down a mile-wide river and there’s thousand-foot trees rising up to either side, that’s certainly impressive. When you’re skipping across tree roots that span half an acre, that’s nice, too. Seeing spider-webs a half-mile across, witnessing a land wurm measuring two hundred yards in length sidling between them... yes, yes, all quite fantastic. There were rocs up in the sky that veered in to investigate, got three blasts of lightning to the face, and decided that maybe land wurms were better to play with.

There was a whole lot of stuff that got very excited when we blazed through and past them, massed fire from the Disk Train occasionally popping a critter or two for that nice shot of vivus to help the Land out. Some were creatures I didn’t know about and had never seen before, and just filed away for reference.

None had much time to do anything about us. When you’re traveling two hundred yards in six seconds, and putting out a respectable amount of firepower, first instincts are to flee and/or hunt cover if you are an animal. By the time they peeked out again, we were well past them and vanishing into the distance.

We did pass giants on more than one occasion, wandering among the trees and surprised to see us. They didn’t try to chase us more than a few steps before realizing they couldn’t catch us, but they did chuck stones after us in irritation at us not stopping to slaughter them. I did avoid them conscientiously, debated satisfying their urge to die, and kept on going.

I noted to Hazé that this was the biggest waste of nine hundred miles of lived-lining in like EVER, and now I could actually take advantage of it! She laughed at me with no sympathy...

Ahead of us, the turbulent wall of 400x normal time loomed ever closer, extending clear across the horizon and up to the sky.

Nine thousand more miles to the Hole past that. Not that we were going there right away. No, this run was to make sure the Land got all the way to this Barrier at Renewal, and started on the process of tearing it down when we broke it open. If we needed to make it to the Hole to bring it down, well, we could do that... but our mission objective was off to the east, such as it was, and the three key Obelisks that had been put up there.

Testing on the other shattered spatial shards had shown that the Land only resolved them slowly if a wake like ours wasn’t put in place. There was simply too much distortion, possibly being fueled by outside sources. Putting to vivus a whole lot of stuff sped up the process nicely, however, but unless we punched all the way through to the Hole, wrapping up the space was a slow process.

There was a caveat. There was no telling what was going to happen when we took those Obelisks out, especially if we led a Wake right to them. If they went vivic, and that vivus flowed along the Wake, well, things could break down rather quickly.

If and when that happened, things were going to get very interesting, indeed.

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Eighteen hours of skating, fading, jumping, pumping, sliding, gliding, veering, steering, sprinting, sideswiping, dashing, almost crashing, diving, and skidding, our destination was in front of us.

So was an army of about two thousand dragon-blooded lizard-men. Mire blood, too...

It might have been because a very narrow but perceptible line of blue sky started following us on our grand trip, splitting the clouds above us visibly. Given the flatness of the land, it was visible from a great distance away. An hour was plenty of time to muster a response, and this area of torn-up ground formed a natural chokepoint that we had headed right towards.

But you know, that was okay. The dragons saw them way ahead of time, and really, there was really no reason we had to face them. They and the drakes and dinos they were riding certainly weren’t enough to catch us, and we could have gone around them.

But we needed a warm-up, and overpowered lizard-men were definitely one way to get the kinks out of our muscles...

Acid resistance all around, Shamans identified, and the whole shebang started off with five dragons diving down on them, which certainly wasn’t good for their morale.

Each dragon had two riders: one lancer, and one ranged. As they made the best lancers and support in this area, all of the lancers, save Kumusa’s, were Senior Paladins from assorted Orders, brimming with pride to be chosen as Dragon-riders. As they made the best dual-duty ranged attackers, all the second riders were Elves who were excellent archers and Casters. The combination had been proven repeatedly in combat in the air and ground to be immensely effective, and the trios had gotten a great deal of practice in together.

Estemar and General Moonriver were riding the big male Valor dragon, Ligaii. Estemar had been branching out in many directions, as Powered could, and the amount of support he could dole out was impressive, while he hadn’t let his fighting ability slide at all. General Moonriver had put a lot of effort into upgrading the killing power of his archery, above and beyond what he had achieved as a Ten, and a year of slaughter in the 100x zone had certainly helped with that.

Down they came, and it was on.