The entirety of the Boston Harbor had basically been turned into a maze and killzone for incoming Aquatic creatures, called the Breakwater Boonies. There were no true buildings or homes here, only mazes of construction to divert the incoming Aquatics, channel the flows of the water this way and that, and create fighting areas to occupy the invaders before they could freely hit the Boston Breakwater Barrier, the massive dam-like structure over a hundred feet tall which now encircled the entire Bay, and extensions of which guarded the shorelines for dozens of miles in each direction beyond.

They kept attacking here, because here there were always Humans to fight. The ground was unfriendly, and the structures here were designed to break apart and isolate groups of Aquatics for the attack, turning mass wave assaults in multiple streams that could be broken down and eliminated piecemeal, if the numbers were not too awfully imbalanced.

Every day was bloody combat, and every day aspiring mages were killed. Only Adepts and higher were allowed to fight in the Boonies, with occasional Mages providing oversight against the tougher Commander-class creatures commanding their lessers in each wave. Constructed buildings were toppled and bashed through in magical combat, spells were going off continually, and then the tide would recede, the Aquatics would stream out, and the clean-up and rebuilding of the Boonies would begin.

Boston was one of the biggest sources of Water Element components in America, if not the world, purely because of the dead Aquatics left behind after every tide. Corpses were sold for good money, processed into even more expensive things (or fertilizer for the local fields), and sold throughout the country and the world. In return, the demand for magical Healing was extremely high here, as well as the spirit-tied Shields and Armor mages used to defend themselves.

Money, components, seafood, and Karma. If all you wanted to do was fight, this place was absolutely Heaven. It and the Baja Slaughter Shore were the two most active fighting locations in the Americas!

Every tide the Aquatics came in and trashed the place. Every ebbing the Earthmages of the Shore Marines would go out and rebuild them, slightly different than the tide before, and there the Boonies would wait for another day of fighting.

Michigan had their Wolverine Hunters. Boston had the Boonie Boys and Bonnies.

I was running a Heavens-Up Display keyed to the Marks, so only our people could see it. It wasn’t that we were in competition with anyone, as there were certainly enough monsters around to share everything, and we weren’t picky; we killed it all, good resale value or not.

Most of it was because there really wasn’t anything here more valuable than a Soul Crystal, and so we stacked up the dead and burned them down, leaving only enough out to make sure we didn’t look sloppy and could at least collect some bonus money.

Closest to me was Tonya, her Burning Ray Wand flaring with Infused power and just now drilling a Espagii eel-crawler in the face with two Topped Rays, frying its skull instantly. She was better equipped than most of the Artificers, who were using Shardwands with Wands as Staves in Ritual Casting Circles, and volleys of Shards were swarming out in glittering, multi-hued clusters to put down their targets hard.

The new wizards were being careful and precise with their own spells, essentially acting as mages of a certain Element or two to build up proficiency in their chosen spells and deflect attention. Still, their array of defenses and movement options had long ago caught the attention of the other Shore Mages fighting here.

Shards was a favorite, mostly because it was simple, basic, flexible, and if your Caster Level was high enough, could be Meta’d quite nicely. If not, you had to work support or rely on your Mage spells until you could wield II’s, and start unloading Elemental Rays to lethal effect.

Combining the Elemental Rays with Lasers was a favorite of those here, especially the Light mages. First level of Arcane Theurgy for the win!

Combat here could be murderous, and it was nerve-wracking to anyone new. Attacks could come from any and multiple directions at any time, and people died in seconds despite their best efforts. It was not a place for the faint of heart... but then, they also had me.

And my Buffs.

Oh, they all considered them to be new Spells of the Blessing Element, and they technically were, but Mass Resist Element, oriented to the fact that Water was the basic attack mode of most of these creatures, was extremely helpful.

So was Mass Force Armor, Mass Barkskin, Mass Extended Shield, and maybe Mass Armor of Faith.

The main secondary Elements the Aquatic creatures used, besides Water, were Poison, Sound, and Psychic, often playing hypnotic mind games one way or another.

Unfortunately for them, both Sama and I were Singing, with Noble keeping the tones of mine going, and Tremble happily counting Ding! Ting!. The Heartsong covered a massive area between the two of us.

That Ding! Ting! was reverberating in the air like a sharp-edged harp being plucked, and I watched many of the Aquatics visibly flinching when they heard it. The disruption to any Sound Magic, and trying to maintain concentration on any Psychic Magic, was well-nigh impossible to overcome as the Notes played on their different physiologies.

Heartsinger Countersongs for the win!...

As for Poison, Healing Magic and a lot of antidotes ruled the day... especially really effective Healing Magic.

At the same time, our respective melodies dovetailed quite nicely, thank you, her ki-fed version complementing my Heartsong for +4 Morale benefits to hit and damage to anyone who could hear both of us.

To any allies who could hear me, which meant anyone within three miles, the Sublime Chord was granting a +4 Caster Level, shocking them with how much more easily the magic responded to the Notes I was singing aloud, and which Noble was keeping steady and unceasing. All the mages around me were absolutely delighted with how much more effective their magic was as the additional Caster Level enhanced the basic damage of their spells, easily doubling the power of Novice-class magic, and measurably adding to even Adept-class Casting.

Briggs and Sama were also Warlording our entire group of fifty volunteers, calling out directions and coordinating fire and defenses, shifting lines as they used my Heavens-Up Display as a guideline and gave out their orders.

Warlording for another +2 to Armor Class and Saves!

The team members all had Implements of one kind or another, and Greater Magic Weapon to +IV on them, along with Bane/Aquatics on top... and either Flaming or Shocking, with vivus being restricted to those who could actually use Vivic Spell, which was basically only the original KIA team at this point.

Unsurprisingly, it had been the first Meta they had learned, their eyes on the Soul Crystal prizes.

Burning hot and cold Darts carrying Healing could zip out for over a thousand feet in any direction, rescuing anyone in danger or plowing into incoming attackers with deadly impacts. I was using them Weaponized now, watching as Topped Darts did variable amounts of damage depending on how many Kickers and energy types were attached to them, decoding Elemental Resistances, Saves, and Natural Armor Ratings as I did so and posting them to a shared database.

I’d been overestimating my raw ability earlier against the Ants and Spiders. While I could easily overcome Servants with my Spell Penetration, Warriors started to degrade it rapidly if I didn’t use Adept levels of Mana to buttress my spells.

But when I started combining energy types, it was the synergistic damage boosts that actually started slicing through their Damage Reduction.

What was even worse for the Beasts were the Divine and Primal energies I was using, which gutted their Damage Reduction almost completely. Their full resistance basically only applied to truly Arcane energies, with half strength at best against Primal energies if they happened to use the same Element I was attacking them with!

Very pointedly, there was no Natural Armor Resistance whatsoever to the Divine energy on anything I’d shot. Only their residual Absolute Resistance had any effect, and that was generally minor compared to what I was hitting them with.

More to the point, if I Weaponized my Darts, they didn’t even get that, as Force sliced through their Natural Armor and then the Elemental damage and Kickers went gonzo on the meat and bone beneath.

Somehow, I was not surprised. There were no true gods here, why would they have any Resistance to Divine magic? Perhaps it might exist among some of the Dark Realmers, but that was all...

I wasn’t doing all that much attacking, because that wasn’t why I was here. A little experimenting if Crab-creatures, tentacled Eel-folk, mauling Shark-men, spike-launching Sea Urchin-men, and a dozen of the other species for just tonight got a little too numerous, with some opportunistic sniping into neighboring areas if I saw they were getting a little overwhelmed.

Being positioned adjacent to our team had rapidly become a favored thing for other Boonie squads, imagine that...

The sea creatures couldn’t fail to see me, as my flights of Darts were as easy to track as tracer fire, given how regularly I was using them and the quite unique eye-catching mix of energies upon them. Still, heading in my direction wasn’t exactly smart, as Aqueous spells had no problems traveling through water, my Detects looked right through the walls and water of the forward Boonies, and Briggs was quite happy to direct people to scissor, flank, and enfilade anything trying to slide between those fighting.

As for Sama and Briggs, they were sort of running around everywhere at inhuman speed, blithely slaughtering everything.

Make that full to-hit roll against the Natural Armor, and sqwiwk, Aquatics came apart. They were totally unprepared for the brutal reality of proper Weapons wielded by supernaturally skilled Humans chewing through them like that, and the crushing beat and the heart-skipping Ding! Ting! of Endure and Tremble respectively became horrible precursors of death coming at them.

Sure, the Aquatics were savage and didn’t fear death, goaded and compelled by their masters to fight. But those sounds hung in the air and rang jarringly in their otolith auditory membranes, echoing and re-echoing as they carried the screams of dying sea creatures and a rapid association with the stench of death and blood. Sama was a freaking master at the demoralizing effects of Heartsong in direct combat, every Note from Tremble a life harvested, while Endure’s Beat was inexorable, remorseless, and merciless beneath it, pushing, always pushing...

The two of them couldn’t be hurt, either.

They didn’t need my Buffs. Both of them were in adamantine Armor, wrought so wonderfully and perfectly functional that even those who had seen them in it still gaped to see the pure and pragmatic construction of their suits. No magical frippery, glowing adornments, force-wings, or other glittery effects for show on them at all; they were austere functional brutality at its finest.

Most any Warrior creature could split normal thin steel easily with their claws, able to rip open cars and boats without reinforced hulls, and they could certainly shred normal armor worn by Humans, or just pulp them inside armored shells, pull them apart, or hurl them around as they liked.

None of that worked against Briggs and Sama.

Briggs just took the hits. They slammed into him and his Named Armor Wut, and he no-sold them. His Heavyfoot pulsed as his Crystal Shield hummed, and he took the magically-enhanced force of their blows, while his Armor just rang and bounced the hits.

Move him? No, he had Heavyfoot for that.

Tear him apart? No, he was far more likely to do that to them!

Slam him around? I watched him casually backfisting Shark-men two and three times his size, sending them flying through the air. Fast? He wasn’t breaking the sound barrier, but that Hammer was effectively weightless to him, and in Versatile Axe-mode Endure had no problem splitting some ogre-sized Aquatic brutes from head to crotch, much to their shock and dismay.

Watching Sama was, as always, an entertaining treat. She was as elusive as a ghost, right until the moment they hit her and realized they couldn’t hurt her, anyway. If the enemy was humanoid to any extent, she literally took them apart, limbs and heads flying this way and that, occasionally gutting stuff, or poking the head or hearts or whatever with uncanny precision for instant kills. Tremble was shifting back and forth in length as her Soulsword edge altered from the length of a dagger to a spear, impaling, cutting, hacking, or slicing. If Sama’s fist or foot occasionally stretched out to put far too much force into a small blunt object, the crushed skulls or ribs or ripping festival of gore that resulted when she used her hands didn’t protest.

The two Forsaken completely ignored any magic of any kind sent their way, said things just dissipating harmlessly into their Forsaken Auras. The startled sea creatures then had to process two land dwellers in Armor charging at them. Pincers came up, claws rose, tentacles spread, maws opened... and then the things died messily and harshly.