BECMI Chapter 315 – Big Surprises
Kavva’s attention was on the floor as the Mick moved, looking at the damage to it in his tremblesense, drawing inferences that escaped the others. -There. Those.- Her mental discernment made the images glow. -THOSE are footsteps. Three claws in front, one in back.-
Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was once again his bondmage and lover Laurentine who recognized them. -Gargoyles?- she /asked hesitantly, seeing the way the stone was punched so readily.
-There’s wounds on the crawler. But I’m not feeling any magic Weapons among those scattered about,- the elfin /went on in her vaguely superior manner. She had come from out of the west, her clan driven forth by the actions of some human tribes or nations or something out there that had cost the life of her husband, and could be said to have an excessive level of competency at traditional elven Warrior skills, and not much respect for most humans.
That was very much not evident in her dealings with Commander Briggs or Grandmaster Sama, of course, nor most of the higher-ups. Those souls going Golden, Silver, or Rainbow were hard to criticize, and, well, Sama could boot her around effortlessly, while Lady Edge, although nearly two hundred years younger, had completely outstripped her in power and skill.
She was one of the elves who was both a critic of the Ranger program and surprised by just how effective it was. All those humans running around with Corellin’s blessings really were ambassadors of goodwill for elvenkind.
The Mick liked her skillset, and enjoyed having her on his team. The way the petite, raven-haired elfin saw humanity through a different mindset and was totally willing to criticize human stupidity and aggression he saw as an asset, not a liability, and she actually fit in his team pretty well.
Lady Edge had remarked that Kavva’s set of Gear was actually made up of elven heirlooms, even her Cloak and Boots being over a thousand years old. She was wearing a collectible fortune other elves would spend hundreds of thousands of gold to secure for their people… which had meant that a Hat of Disguise to conceal that value had become part of the petite raven-haired elfin’s attire, too.
-Gargoyles. For all their pride and self-reliance, this be a fair poor dwarven clan, relying on mundane smithwork and mining to sustain itself. I be not remembering seeing aught of Weapons among them?- the Mick /commented. It would take magical Weaponry to harm the gargoyles, so even if they were less dangerous than the troll, the dwarves would simply be meat waiting to be harvested.
Those who knew of Naming Karma and the full secrets of One a Day and the like were with Eismoor or were leaders in the Eismark Federation that was developing here in the North. So the dwarves not having magical Weapons was a factor of them not having the wealth to spend on making them… a foolish thing in a magical world, and left the Mick wondering how they had managed to survive so long in a world where so many things could only be harmed by magical things.
-Eshauna, think you could get close enough to touch that tentacle with a Topped Shocking Grasp? Chekwort, snipe the eyeball when it bursts free. Laur, we’re going to need Free Action on everyone if there’s more than one of these suckers.-
-Gliding in,- the Giant Slayer Ranger /murmured, her Daisho partner behind her as they both crept forwards, using Flight to stay just above the ground. The Mick stepped away and further along the body of the creature, his Tremblesense flicking out and looking for gaps in its chitin shell, signs of injury. That particular break there looked promising…
Eshauna invoked the spell, electricity ignited around her Blade, and she stabbed out precisely, snapping into clear visibility as she did so.
The oversized creature saw her, but couldn’t react before the sizzling yellow and green voltage blew down its tendril to its head. Spastic nerves sent dust, dirt, and rubble flying as the other tentacles buried there writhed free in pain, but the Ranger was already tugged backwards and out of range as they went stabbing for her, Jace backpedaling with speed.
A shaft trailing pale blue Banefire to Aberrations shot past them both and plunked straight into one unblinking black eye that had torn free of its camouflage. The carrion crawler jerked back on instinct even as the bolt buried itself to the feathers, and the Mick reached out and touched the back half of the creature as it writhed up from the rubble.
Laird almost lovingly slid in between two chitin plates and was levered up.
Caustic yellow blood spurted out, but the Banefire that had ignited on his adamantine Blade deflected it as the main artery and nerve path were both severed, eh, paralyzing the back half of a creature known for paralyzing its victims. Its squeal of pain indicated just how damn tough it was, however, as it still wasn’t dead, and those eight tentacles, slicing like whips and able to paralyze with an envenomed touch, were still dancing… although it couldn’t bend back sufficiently to lash at him now.
With which knowledge he took the step of simply levering Laird in a full half-circle, edge sharper than a razor forcing its toughened and strengthened flesh away as he sawed the creature right in two!
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Company!” Jace snarled behind him, as three somethings moved at the end of the passageway, scuttling over the ground as they came to investigate the cries of the dying one.
“Bounce the lightning!” he shouted, watching as the struggles of the dying crawler tore itself the rest of the way off the back of its body, pulling out innards and sprays of weirdly slick yellow blood as it did so.
Chekwort drove another thick bolt into its whining mouth with pinpoint precision, while the Mick flattened himself against the wall of the tunnel.
Eshauna Cast her spell, blue-violet Lightning bouncing off the stone and zigzagging down the corridor at the level of his knees. The narrow bolt, which normally would have only caught one of the creatures, instead bounced back and forth and caught them in a solid V in its loudly crackling path, before bouncing out of sight down the connecting T-intersection there.
He was pretty sure he heard something big bellow down there, too, in a deep, stony roar of pain.
Well, not surprising when you get hit by a 20d6 bolt of Lightning, he considered. The crawlers took the hits like champs, not managing to evade the bouncing bolt, but they still kept coming.
The Cinder Storm that came pounding from above, not so much.
He watched as flaming rocks came crashing down from the ceiling like burning hammers, cracking chitin and superheating the armored plates of the creatures, setting their flesh on fire and drawing more screams as they were heavily damaged by the spell, their screams almost louder than the stone-smashing cacophony of the assault raining down in tight, stony quarters as it echoed and re-echoed very loudly, indeed.
Hissing missiles adorned with unnatural pale blue Banefire zipped past, punching into softer undersides as the crawlers rose up in pain, finishing the job of the pounding Cinder Storm that had been as good as a fine military band in announcing they were here.
The reverberations of the heavy footsteps he could feel coming through the ground confirmed that something big was on the way.
Oddly enough, he didn’t feel that worried, imagine that.
The shadows loomed as they came around the corner, filling the fifteen-foot corridors leading to the Forge of Power of the dwarves. Clawed hands grabbed the edges of the wall on each side, and the two incoming Gargantuan gargoyles snarled and snapped at one another for getting in the way.
They were over twenty feet tall, made in the classic mode of gaping fiends, slate gray and fanged and clawed and whatnot. When stony wings and horns and a tail were added into the package of their stony bodies, the unnatural things had to basically crouch down nearly on all fours to move around. The corridor was also barely wide enough to fit them, but snarling and clawing and quite eager to add to their massacre tally, they both squeezed into the tight quarters.
Obviously not having a lot of experience with archcasters tossing combat magic.
The Paired Fireball and plain Fireball from Laur and Eshauna respectively blew right on top of them in a deadly inferno that swept past him and didn’t breach his Null at all. The blasts were enough to render the stone in the corridor molten for a few seconds, and the gargoyles screamed as they were hit harder than they likely thought was possible.
They also happened to be right next to him, their eyes going right past him as an errant shadow, so when he stepped out under the wing of the one on the right, moved into position, and started cutting, they didn’t have the slightest idea what was going on until Laird sheared into their right and left legs respectively in one circular slash. Both gargoyles collapsed to the side in shock and fury as their legs gave way.
Laur’s follow-up Firebolt took both of them square as, crippled by his Null Stroke, they couldn’t cover themselves in time against the forked stream of Admixed and altered lightning damage. The smashing force of the spell actually blew away their opposed wings and limbs in the middle of the corridor and sent them wailing and falling away, shattered and already starting to fall apart from eating that much fire magic that quickly.
There was silence as everything stopped moving. The crawlers had been completely incinerated by the combination of the inferno and being crushed down by the weight of the gargoyles’ stony bodies. Basically the whole corridor was remarkably clean of detritus now, anything not belonging there completely vaporized by just that much fire and heat.
Fire magic being what it was, the stone was already cool to the touch, although it was plain to see where it had slagged and deformed under the momentous power unleashed through here. Aye, the lasses could have used Of the Invulnerable World, but a little cleaning up and a display of prowess left behind on the stone were always useful things to use when making an impression.
Also, he could definitely see the gouges of claws much bigger than those of the gargoyles, leading around the corner to the right.
-Troll didn’t take the bait and come crawling. Figure it be waiting for us in the only place it might not be crawling through.-
-Ah, it is in the Forge Chamber. I have three pyroclastic loads waiting for it,- Chekwort /nodded, the bulbous alchemically-enhanced naptha loads having proved very effective at frost giant and white-dragon killing, and would be equally useful checking the regeneration of a massive troll.
Laird rippled tellingly, shifting to Giant Bane and now ready to activate Firephasing to really give the creature a bad day.
-Eshauna, you still got that Fire Shield memorized?- he /inquired of her calmly.
-I do,- the Ranger /nodded. -Weave it over all of us and go right in?- she /asked.
-Aye. Let’s see how well it wants to claw and bite things that be on fire,- the Mick /grinned. The spell wouldn’t last long on himself and his fellow Null Kormac. -Ladies, Searing Rays to the face o’ the bastard, I don’t think ye’re going to miss.-
Kavva, Laur, and Eshauna all nodded as the team regrouped, only the Hound Bestie having stayed back giving the power and nature of these enemies and the close quarters.
Deep crimson flames licked over all of them as the Fellowship Weave shared the spell Eshauna Cast upon all of them. The four men took lead, the Mick and Kormac out front, Chekwort and Jace flanking, while the three women prepared to punch white-hot flames into the face of the massive troll.