[D'sP] Griffins Sorta - Chapter 360 (Patreon)

Doyle turned his attention to the floor’s centerpiece. A mock volcano. A mountain both smaller and bigger than in the previous floor. If you only counted what was above the water, sure, it was small. Though on the previous floor the great heights got cut off by fog so most wouldn’t realize. However, under the surface, the water’s surface that is, there was more than enough mountain to win.

Doyle hadn’t ever really been sure how much weight he put on counting a mountain in the sea by the seafloor. On one hand, sure, that was also a part of the mountain. However, you also have to start asking where a mountain stops. He is mostly sure academia has some sort of way to determine that. It is just that he doesn’t know it. Because at some point, you might as well just start counting how far the highest point is from the center of the planet.

A shake of his core and he focuses on something more important. His mountain was a nice bit of stonework. However, there was a decent chunk of it underwater and while the surface section was mostly hollowed, the lower portion wasn’t.

That meant a ton of free real estate to play around with and carve up. Though as he sat there and took it all in, Doyle wasn’t quite sure what to carve. Not a new problem, but still a vexing one. Doyle shook his core, ‘Oh well, I’ll think of something eventually’, and he settled in to observe the floor in hope of inspiration.

As he pondered, up in the town, Ace was readying for a fight, a concerted effort, a campaign against not the dungeon, but a recent threat that appeared in the woods. Well, “threat” might be a little much. Nuisance? Most certainly. And no, it wasn’t the kobolds that had set up shop nearby. Those had kept to themselves and what traps had been found, were snares for small game and not people.

No, what was causing Ace and the others trouble was an invasive flock of griffoniods. Not griffins proper. These weren’t the mythological creatures, half lion and half eagle. However, they were griffins if you extended that definition to a broader range of feline bodies with bird front and wings.

It also wasn’t the meme combo that a couple of the group remembered seeing on the Internet, that of a cat and seagull combo. No, this was in some ways more benign. The bird parts were sourced from pigeons, while no one could quite identify the cat parts, though everyone agreed it was some sort of small wild cat or maybe a strange domestic breed.

Anyway, they are meat eaters and their flock was growing at a disturbing speed. And sure, if the town waited a week or so, inevitably, a predator would show up. Except as the tutorial guides that mentioned it had pointed out, you don’t really want a random predator to show up. This being especially true with pigeon griffins because they could fly and so any predator either would be able to or had a ranged option.

So instead of waiting for something to move in that could control the population of basically double-sized pigeons. Ace and company were going to handle it themselves. The Barrais had already scouted out the main nesting region, all the while removing nests outside of it.

As for why they didn’t just remove the problem at the root? The main nesting area was a decent hike into the woods and covered multiple acres. No matter how quick they go about it or how stealthy they are while doing so, that amount of space and number of griffins nearly assures some will get away and start the problem over.

In fact, after Kelly dissected a few, she was certain these came from deeper in. This flock likely ran away from some greater threat. Which might make you question why being thorough was important when more could just show up. The answer to that was simple.

Right now, they were in a single flock with very few outliers, all of which the Barrais had culled. If they only killed most of the griffins, the survivors would spread out and instead of one central nesting ground, there would be many of them spread around. Ace considered it quite lucky that they had settled in one large flock. They could have just as easily spread out, making any attempts to cull them futile at best.

After all, it isn’t like they have much use for their bodies. While pigeon wasn’t the most exotic of meats, the fact the bulk of them looked like a cat put it off the table. Besides that, they didn’t even have all that much magic, most being simple stuff based half around enhancing lift and half reducing their weight. Worse, that magic wasn’t centered anywhere in particular such as to make a useful magical component for crafting. Instead, being spread through their entire body and all jumbled together.

Even their feathers sucked as fletching. About the only use for a dead one, is to throw it in the dungeon. Not that anyone had done so yet. It was sort of inevitable but Ace would rather not find out the dungeon could use these pitiful attempts at a griffin’s majesty to make a true griffin.

Not that the pigeon griffins lacked uses. The simple fact was, they, in theory were worth a ton more alive if properly trained. So part of the clean up would be to secure at least a few pairs and as many eggs as possible.

Pigeons have a long history of being used to deliver messages and these griffins showed even more promise. If only because they could carry so much more even if they were still smaller than a normal house cat. Magic assisted flight sort of threw common sense and physics out the window.

The biggest problem of this all was when to strike. The pigeon part certainly preferred to be out during the day. However, whatever feline was added in had certainly been nocturnal. This messed up their sleep cycles something fierce. All day and night, various sub-flocks would be out and about.

Jim ended up observing them for a good week before a time was decided. Around an hour before false dawn, was when a majority of the flock was home. As for those which would still be out, Ace could only gather even more people to help. Thank goodness the plan was simple.

Ace watched from his office, a scrying spell that saw through tree hollows providing the view. While technically the main event would start a couple of hours later, the more stealthy bow hunters began their bloody work early. As marked groups left, the griffins would be followed and wiped after far enough the smell of blood wouldn’t make it back.

Jim didn’t take part in these early preparations. His job was simple. Once the main culling began, he would make sure no griffins escaped by air. It was a challenging task and he only had to cover the sky. The much more annoying task went to the Barrais who needed to cover any griffins that attempted to sneak out under the canopy. Whether by crawling through the ground cover or hopping from branch to branch. At least those who flew up would be much easier to spot from his current hiding spot, the very center of the nesting ground.

The old tree Jim was standing in had at one point been home to the griffins that likely started this whole mess. They had sported nasty scars and feathers that hadn’t grown back quite right. Now they were dead with a quick twist of the neck so no blood was spilled to alert the others.

Ace’s eyes seemed to bore through the copper mirror. A mirror created by pouring the molten metal into a natural tree hollow that had been cut out in one piece. It would have been able to reach further if he had managed to source a hollow from a century old tree killed by a lightning strike, but you worked with what you had. All that for later, it was time.

Fire was a common spell type in town. Half because of the work Ruby and Kelly, but mostly because humans seemed to be addicted to seeing the world burn. In this case, the over abundance of fire magic was useful, even if they couldn’t exactly just light the forest on fire.

From about 16 distinct points, balls of fire rapidly ascended into the sky, only to hang there. Night turned to Day as those fires lit up surroundings. The casters all sit with legs crossed and focus on maintaining the flare spells.

At first the night goes quiet in the unexpected light. Then griffins burst out of most of the trees, making no attempt to control themselves as leaves are stripped of branches. Kellinger watches this display from the branches of another tree where he has a fine collection of fertile eggs and five pairs.

While using his magic like this had a nasty tinge to it. Kellinger also knew that his actions hadn’t been morally gray in the least bit. If anything, some might say he saved this flock from annihilation, what with him catching a few for the town to raise. Kellinger sighed, even after the world ended he still ended up caring about the environment, nevermind how much of an upheaval it must be going through.

All the while, griffins fell out of the sky like rain. Such a thing isn’t easy either. Even a solid wing shot isn’t always enough to take them down right away. Magic readily takes over for the physical. Sure, there is a limit on how long the griffin can do so, but they don’t need long to escape.

Except, as noted, they are falling. Everyone doubling or tripling up on a target with others to make sure not just a wing shot, but something else gets hit. The monsters are not given a chance to recover themselves.

And yes, with magic, their bones aren’t hollow like birds, but such a sudden drop is still going to break a few bones. It doesn’t matter if the original fall was simply from getting a couple arrows to the wing fluff. They would lose their chance to easily escape. Which when the Barrais are shuttling back and forth underneath those very same trees the griffins just took off from? Well, any difficulty soon translates into a more permanent loss of escape potential.

Not that all joint attacks succeed or even manage to hit. It isn’t like Ace fielded all the highest skilled delvers in the town or something. Most are actually part of the various sixth floor farming teams. Ranged combat being preferred as hitting a cow from a distance is quite easy and the myconids poisons do a good job at allowing melee fighters to go and coup de grace those that are affected.

However, Ace didn’t have to include any other heavy hitters besides Jim. Those regular people, many of whom Ace was trying to hire on as guards for the town, did their jobs adequately. And Jim? Despite being in the center of the whole mess, was more than capable of taking down every stray flier that managed to get through the two layers the town had set.

While Doyle didn’t really get to see this side of Jim, he was a much deadlier opponent when given a bit of range. His arrows might not reach the horizon yet, but he was the best in town when it came to reaching out and touching someone. Even more so than the magical folk. Each arrow leaves his bow going faster than should be possible thanks to paths and skills working in harmony. Despite this and all the help they gathered, it still took Jim and company almost half an hour to fully clear the pigeon griffin nesting ground. Each tree needing to be swept for stragglers.

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