The smell was bad, but it was being cleaned up by vivus, so it was just tolerated as the endless number of corpses burned constantly. Given the necroic empowerment, they were staining the ground white even here, underneath the Rift, and it was easy to see where the fighting was the toughest by how brightly white the ground was.

Regardless, the ground would still return to normal by morning.

Casualties were higher than the previous day, as expected, but more killing had taken place. Even among the less experienced troops here, there were improvements. They rested, and they digested their feats of battle, took their Karma, and they leveled.

If they knew how to Invest or Infuse, they took their spoils of war, burned the cursed, possessed, demonic, daemonic, and necromantic treasures of the enemy, and turned it into strength of a different sort for themselves, and got that little bit stronger that they could.

There was a lot of loot to burn. Everyone had seen multiple instances of what happened if you claimed the shit for yourself, so nobody was that stupid. Burn it, make something useful, get ready for the morrow.

The Healers and the Traps and Tremble were on the job, not resting until wounds were closed, and as much Soak as possible could be regained on the side.

Many more Lesser Baneskulls would be adorning Weapons today. Many Weapons were Named and opened their First Slot, to the disbelief of their wielders, who were suddenly far more expectant of the battle coming today.

-------

Bottles of pills were passed around. Just one, because they weren’t healing pills, and the effects would last until at least the morning. They were handed out one by one, because they had a very specific and useless effect that not even greedy people could really find a use for otherwise, but they weren’t going to be wasted.

The Rift was swimming with gay pastels. Amourae was coming.

Amourae was the Warp god of sensation and obsession. His followers were all about new experiences and sensations, of the satiation of any and all desires, and then going on to new ones. More, grander, more appalling, no reservations and no hesitation about pursuing extremes of desire and conduct, nothing getting in their way, fearlessly going about searching for that next impossibly extreme experience.

To the normal eye, they were crackpot loonies. They preyed on the senses of opponents, with charm magic for the eyes and ears, taking control and drawing them into a mad dance of gleeful sensation. They didn’t fear death, because it was just another sensation, dragging bodies wasted by drugs and deprivation up along spears and swords with gasps of pleasure just to feel the blood jetting out from their killer’s throat. They wanted to look good and feel good and trample all their lessers before them, unclean inferiors only suitable to look upon them and die in new and artistic ways.

And they freaking dressed in pastels.

The wild riot of gay colors had hidden meanings and power behind it that could twist minds, as could the wild, frantic horns and pipes swirling in the air, trying to draw you in to enjoy the blessings of Amourae, freedom from all inhibitions and able to act as you pleased.

The pills were swallowed quickly.

They had two very simple effects. They shut off the color cones in everyone’s eyes, making everyone color-blind. They also affected hearing, making the ears less sensitive, totally cutting off the higher notes.

In a stroke, the hypnotic allure of the colors of armor, banners, mismatched clothing, waving flags and flitting skirts, swirling mists and sparkling lights... was all black, white, and grey, and looked pretty drab. Likewise, the singing and piping and whispered words on the wind were too high and faint to be heard, which meant that goblins, kobolds, elves, and women were a bit hard to understand if they spoke... but those half-heard promises were not being heard at all.

As for the pheromonal fogs and perfumed mists, the vivic braziers popped them just as they had the clouds of flies.

There was going to be a lot of Charm magic used, but given the communication problems, it was probably not going to be as effective as the Luvvers wanted...

Of course, the Void Brothers, Briggs, and I didn’t care at all.

The Dancers came spinning to the attack, attended to with crazed, happy music, celebrating their unflinching devotion to their art.

Apathy cut through them, just more targets to be disposed of, whatever beauty they had an illusion and glamour covering corruption and waste, truth unimportant in the face of appearance. They burned with all the rest.

Where the Riggors were relentless and tough, the Luvvers were quick and deadly, almost artistic in their fighting, every blow meant to show off their skill and strength, the star of the show for the eye of their god, celebrating the pain taken and inflicted, glorying in the conflict that would bring them to new heights of insight, uncaring of the cost it might take.

Yeah, loopy fanatics, all of them. Them often being bombed out of their heads on drugs, magic mushrooms, and mutated and warped into inhuman forms to experience new sensations of the flesh... yeah, there were a lot of just plain abominations out there, once-people mutated into squirming things of flesh, multi-limbed, swollen with power and pain, no two alike, only running forward to fight and finally experience the great bliss that death would bring.

They were very reliant on music, and were basically always singing. The fact they all sang different songs didn’t seem to matter, it all blended into a chaotic chorus infused with mind-bending and inspiring power, able to both seize the minds of the enemy and help their own sides, raising morale, inspiring them to fight, and telling them how to move and where to strike all at once. They had tats and piercings and body mods and ritual scarring and just all the fun, fun stuff you’d expect of bat-crazy psychos.

A lot of it we just couldn’t see and hear to appreciate now. Too bad, so sad. They should have had more reliance on armor. Life was better in chiaroscuro.

The direct Charm attacks were the most fun to deal with, but that was what layered Dispels are for. They didn’t seem to appreciate weather magic too much, and actually looked kind of miserable when a light rain made all that gay pastel clothing get wet and sucky.

Still, they did have some battle magic, and weren’t afraid to use it, since they were looking for those screams of pain and exultation in seeing how much damage was done by their power... and then basically a Brother zipped by and chopped them dead, or a thunderbolt came down and blew them into superheated chunks. Physics is mind-blowing, after all.

Their armor was seriously picturesque, since if it didn’t look good, they didn’t want to wear it. They had a whole unit of body-builders in armor so bright you could comb your hair off them, and they certainly went in whole hog on the codpieces... because they were needed. Of course, once they were dead, they shrank down to these wasted, blasted ruins of flesh and bone, consumed by the power that made them model-pretty and steroid-juked, but, hey, it’s only their soul getting burned away to feed to the Land, what’s there to worry about?

The combat musicians and their sound attacks probably would have been more effective if we could have heard better, and the thunderclaps kept overwhelming their mid-battle jam sessions. Their music critics had their own light shows and points to make, and their critiques were career-ending.

------

Tactics for addressing these guys was easier because they didn’t wear quite as much armor overall, performing to look good and feel good. That was great to see, the archers really enjoyed it. There were spears on the other side of the trench line, archers behind shooting at basically point-blank range, really slamming those beribboned riders off their braided demon steeds and mutant mounts as they came up for us to admire them.

Because they could move faster, they were more athletic, and could actually jump the trenches, if given room on the other side. That was cool, they drove themselves onto the Spears waiting there, and were soon mounded up into hills of bodies that sent other leapers sliding down into the trenches to a quick demise there. There was soon a lot of vivic fire burning down there.

We let them have their victories, pushing us back with the gleeful sacrifice of their mind-blown fanatics, advancing over their own burning dead as their horrific Warped abominations led the way, lurching, squirming, flinging, and hopping their way forwards to open their way for the singing and dancing twits behind them.

Fighting Klawites was all grim savagery and bloodthirst. Riggors were about tenacity and endurance. These guys... it was all edged with unreality, like you were participating in a staged fight, or a gladiatorial duel, or some sacrificial combat rite. The soldiers felt like the battle kept falling away and trying to devolve to endless one-on-one fights, instead of using proper teamwork and tactics to kill these weirdos.

But that’s what proper Warlords do. Yes, he’s in chainmail and charging at you in a tutu. Stop him with your spear, and your buddy can stab him in the neck. It’s perfectly all right, there, there; now kill the four-hundred-pound blob in fishnets and heels...

Yes, it was a very surreal experience. Painted faces and heads trying to experience higher states of mind while engaging in mindless, childlike slaughter and funsies. Even the most professional and disciplined of them were prancing and striding and posing, displaying something all the time, so much that you had to fight the urge to just watch them strut their stuff... which was all part of how they killed you, of course.

What’s that buffed Will Save as a Warlord? Oh, +10 to everyone? Stop looking at them posing and just kill them, there’s some good lads...

Me, Briggs, and the Brothers just kept with our normal stuff. We killed a lot of demon Dancers, a lot of Casters, a lot of musicians who wanted to play some mind-blasting music, and a whole lot of Abominations who I couldn’t be sure were happy to be fed to the Land or not. Regardless, explosive collapse of magically-twisted adherents of Amourae, burning innards everywhere, unique experience of having all that you are discorporate and reduced to basic energy for the Land to feed on... well, enjoy!

I’m sure if we were anything resembling a normal force, this would have been horrific. Soldiers turning on their own, sitting there gaping stupidly as they were cut down, going batshit crazy as things got into their head... all that stuff. But the basic precautions of color blindness and muffled hearing took care of most of it, vivic braziers others, and then it was just fighting against low-armored but skilled fanatics who didn’t appreciate group tactics.

Sucks to be them, I guess.

The Abominations were their breachers, being capable of doing things like breathing out acid, digging through the stone walls, becoming living ladders to allow troops up there, and even tossing up fighters to the top of the wall to annoy us. They were pretty magic-resistant, and all their vitals were pretty deep, so they had to be way hacked down to actually kill them.

Which was fine. We had plenty of people happy to do that job. The chakon flexed the razored edges of their battle-paws and were happy to grab limbs and start the ripping process with great energy. The Ironblood raised their Axes and got to work with vim and vigor. Berserkers laughed softly, Rockborn lifted Spears, and ExLites moved swiftly and precisely to the attack.

As for the Hellpoodles, dragons, griffons, and the Kings? They were waiting to see if they were needed, working back-up out of sight as needed.

After all, there was still one more of these idiot gods left.