23 - Arrayed Against Darkness
They arrived at a crossroads. Tunnels ran off in almost every direction. Iliana looked from one to the next critically. "Unless one of you knows how to track underground, we're on our own. These extra tunnels were not here before."
True squeaked and marched forward. Twilight smiled at him. "He's a ranger, tracking is part of his toolset." He nodded back at her then started to examine the passages, sniffing softly before he pointed down one authoritively.
One of the guards nodded. "It's as good as any other. I'll take the word of an ally over random selection. Your Majesty?"
Iliana nodded. "I see no reason not to take his advice. It's better than what we have. Thank you, True Shot was it?" He squeaked. "It is good to have you on our side. If we survive, I will find a cleric capable of restoring speech to you." She advanced with the guards into the cave as she looked over her shoulder. "That was rude of me. Is this a born condition or a misfortune that might be addressed?"
Roll advanced ahead of True, plucking him up in her mouth and tossing him onto her back on the way. "He was injured by the same gnolls that captured his people."
"At least I can do some good, if we survive." Iliana's jaw clenched with determination, an expression shared by her loyal guards.
As they pressed onwards, the darkness of the place seemed to close in around them. The magic of their torch and spells drew closer and closer as if being drowned in the oppression of the place. Their sharp fey eyes could pierce the gloom, but not far, and they found themselves navigating slowly forward, as if they traveled with scarcely any light at all.
One of the guards moved to the fore, even in front of the other guard as he felt his way forward as quickly as he could. Morning moved to join him as a deep light poured free from within her, shining through her gem-like body to resist the darkness, if only a little. There was a patch of blessed light around her, defying the overwhelming dark. "Let the hope of the Old Kingdom protect the new."
The light let them see a statue emerge from the darkness. It looked like a squat crab, each pincer deadly and terrible, with a sword on one, a pincer on the other, a stinger, and rough claws.
Morning backed away from it. "A qlippoth..."
As if it detected it was found out, it broke free of its stony prison and roared as it somehow took on an even more menacing mien, terrible and warped. The mind simply couldn't grasp the full wrongness of it. Twilight, Roll, and one of the guards jerked in place as their fragile minds were abused by the sight of it, left reeling.
Iliana withstood it and was quick to weave a spell, projecting it from her horn, but the magic washed over the crab as if it were oil on water, and it was unharmed.
Twilight tried to react, but everything seemed so wrong. "We should be home, facing interdimensional wormholes to Sunday homework aced!"
Roll tried to lunge at the creature but her body was as misaligned as Twilight's mind and an awful grinding sound announced as she damaged herself with spinning gears.
Iliana felt rising dread. The creature appeared quite physically capable of dealing with them, and was immensely resistant to magic. She looked around for a way out even as Morning began to sing and edged around it to get into position.
It grabbed one of the guards, the one that wasn't rambling to itself and began tearing into him as it held him solidly with a pincer.
"Run!" shouted Iliana. She burst forward, but not before lashing a hoof back and kicking Twilight in the face.
"Hey!" Twilight could think of nothing but getting vengeance for the mild bleeding from her snout, and moved to chase after Iliana. "Pay your taxes!"
Sunset lashed out at the rambling guard before taking off after the queen with her own mad pony behind her.
True squeaked and patted urgently at Roll, and fortunately she came back into working order. Meanwhile the creature sunk a new limb into the pinned guard with a wet piercing noise and began to lay an egg in his barrel even as he screamed and struggled.
Roll winced and ran past the creature, to be joined by Morning who noticed the others had fled. "You won't get rid of me that easily."
Twilight and the other guard came to their senses some distance down the tunnel they fled down. She shook her head as she slowed, but Morning and Roll caught up with her and she got to trotting beside them. "What's going on?"
Roll pointed ahead as best she could while moving quickly. "We have lost a guard, and we may yet lose more. The beast may come for us, and we are badly outmatched."
Morning nodded, serving still as the only functional light source. "The more distance we put between ourselves and it, the better off we'll be."
Just as they were about to pass a crevice unchallenged, a hoof reached out and pulled Morning to it. It was the Queen. "The stairs up are here. We've made it."
"Most of us made it," said the remaining guard with a dipped head. "May the sun warm his soul in passing."
Iliana pointed to the stairs. The darkness did not penetrate into the well and the everburning torches that lined the way upwards seemed to burn unimpeded. Had they truly made it?
The remaining guard led the way, circling around and around before the others as he scaled his way out of their surface. After about twenty seconds of scaling, they heard the angry chittering hiss of their foe and it began to follow them with a rapid scuttling on the stairs. The command to run went out, but who made it was lost in the panic. It didn't matter who had said it, they were all running save True who clung to his metal mount's back tenaciously.
They ascended quickly, the scuttling never far behind. One of them was a little slower, that being the remaining guard. Detecting the others advancing ahead of him, he spun around with weapon drawn. "For the queen!" Despite his brave words, terror thumped in his heart. He didn't want to face the creature, but he couldn't match its pace either.
With deliberate slowness, it slowly crept around the corner to face the quaking pony. It spoke directly in the mind of the doomed, "You will make a fine pet. What shall I turn you into? Would you like a say? Perhaps you are creative." It snapped terrible claws as it approached slowly. "Or perhaps you would rather die? As if I'd give that option."
The guard's shaking grew worse as he backed away. His friend hadn't died and gone to the Sun Queen's grasp. His fate was far worse, and this creature was about to do the same to him. "You will not have... the queen."
"Our message is clear and received. She interests us little, now lay down and accept your fate." It screeched and charged. He screamed and swung almost blindly with what was likely the last attack he would get to make as a pony.
Sunset's ears went down as the scream of the guard drifted up the stairs towards them.
They reached the top where a pony in robes was already waiting for them. They waved for the party to enter and slammed shut the thick metal door. They brought down a thick metal band across the door. "It's good to see you safe, Your Majesty." She sounded like a mare. "Who are these?"
Iliana sagged against a wall for a moment before she pulled herself upright. "Good to see you. I'm afraid my guards... didn't make it... Please see that they are both given posthumous medals... they were... brave to the..." Tears stung at her eyes and she sank to the ground. "They shouldn't have died for me."
Morning set a hoof gently on Iliana's shoulder, drawing a glare from the new pony. "Being a queen means others must, and may want to, be brave for you, but they want you to be brave back."
Iliana nodded at Morning. "Yes, of course." She slowly rose and took a slow breath. "They want me to continue being their empress." She quirked a smile. "And I'll do my best..."
Twilight glanced back at the closed and barred door. "What was that? You said kly fi?"
"Qlippoth," corrected Morning. "You were close. They are creatures of the abyss, truly terrible, as you all saw."
Sunset shook her head rapidly. "Is that something you deal with often?"
Roll looked to the door as well as if expecting it to burst off its hinges any moment. "Negative. Creatures from the abyss are rare sights, especially one so powerful. If we saw more such creatures, the world would not be habitable."
The official cleared her throat. "I'm glad you all made it safely. You will be rewarded for services rendered to the queen, but you sho--"
"They can stay," ordered Iliana firmly. "I will not cast my saviors out so quickly." She glanced at that ill-fated door. "They wouldn't want that. See that a room is made up for them. I need to retire for now, but I will want to see them after I'm updated to the status of Viljatown and the castle." She turned away and marched out of the pantry they were in, the door slammed behind her.
The official let out a slow sigh. "You must have run into some troubling things. Breakfast is served at 8 AM daily. Please, follow me." Moving with far less agitation, she opened the door her queen had closed and led the rest through the halls of what seemed more of a fortress than a palace. Even the windows seemed suited more for defense than aesthetics, but that suited them well. They wanted the feeling of safety.
Sunset moved in next to Twilight. "Look, sorry."
"Huh," Twilight looked sideways at her friend. "The queen's the one that kicked me, and I'm kinda glad she did, even if it still hurts." She rubbed a fetlock over her sore snout.
"Not that." Sunset smiled a little. "For being the wet blanket. There are enough things around us to play the part, you don't need your friends joining in the act, alright?"
Twilight tilted her head. "You weren't wrong. I mean, we do need to go home. As interesting as this all is, it isn't for us." She raised a hoof to gather some of the snow she was making. "I'd trade this away for a ticket home, so let's get that."
Sunset nodded with resolution. "Deal, but if you see another one of those things, then just run."
Twilight frowned a little. "Even if it had you? I'm sorry but I'm not letting it eat you or whatever those things do."
"You don't know?" asked Sunset. "I thought you played this game."
"That doesn't mean I memorized every monster!" Twilight huffed softly.
They arrived at their room and were seen inside to the interior that had many soft places to rest and try to forget part of what they had seen.
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Holy Crud, that thing was leveld up against a prty based around the Queen, instead of the starter crew.
A CL 11 Eh? loks like wont be going back down there without a crew of L15s. Mainly because with my luck a 90% crew has a 50:50 chance of succeeding.
I thought it was the Racksasha ?? that were the Changeling equivalents?
I bet Twilight wont be able to read Hairy Trotter for quite a while now.
Hmm. I don't think I recognize this particular strain of qlippoth. I'll just check the SRD...
Oh. Oh my. That is truly horrifying. And surprisingly easy to pronounce, for a qlippoth.
The guards did their duty, keeping the queen safe, even at the cost of their minds and souls. Plus, now the party is definitely in Iliana's good graces, for whatever that's worth. Still, someone's definitely going to need to clean out that escape tunnel in the future.
Despite the primordial spawn of the Abyss, this chapter was largely free of typos:
Spell.
Also, I think "Abyss" should be capitalized, but that's more of a personal stylistic matter.
7362796 Fixed, with another creeping closeby. I hope I played up the horror of the scene right.
You know a monster is deliberately overpowered when it attacks the NPCs first to demonstrate its awesomeness.
wrongness
True squeaked and patted urgently at Roll, and fortunately she came back into working order. Meanwhile the creature sunk a new limb into the pinned guard with a wet piercing noise and began to lay an egg in his barrel even as he screamed and struggled.
Roll winced and ran past the creature, to be joined by Morning who noticed the others had fled. "You won't get rid of me that easily."
(Poor guards, I suspected there was a reason they didn't get names.)
extra space
extra space
7363070 Typos fixed, but the abyss and its horrors remain.
7362796 Having read through it, I'm coming up with... my rogues can beat it (any above 5th level) but they're all homebrewed so they're a level or two higher than it should be (seriously, using rules from D&D 1- 3.5 and pathfinder makes it really easy to do that. plus I never roll less than natural 10 on a D20. Don't ask. I don't know.) That said...
HOLY CRAP THAT"S A REALLY REALLY MEAN THING WHY IS THE PARTY FACING THAT THEY DON"T HAVE PROBABILITY-DEFYING LUCK OR PSYCHO RULINGS ON THINGS WHO THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD ENCOUNTER FOR THEIR PARTY?!?
Hoo boy... that went downhill fast!
7363113
The nasty thing about stories is that they don't need to adhere to ECL. And it's a lot harder for the PCs to complain when they don't have players to throw things at the DM.
7363322 They pout at me pretty good :(
Truly the stuff of nightmares, not the Night Mare of course but I imagine even she would be disturbed by this abomination.
Typo hunting to resume shortly.
Holy shit, just the dR 10 ALONE is rather nasty, and that is WITHOUT it’s multiple attacks. That thing is one nasty creature.
Frankly is it’s a good thing most of the party made it out alive! Though those poor soldiers T_____T
7363730
The Night Mare is Lawful Evil from what I remember, and this thing is Chaos. Plus it wants to destroy the Order that the ponies have created, which is NOT what The Night Mare would want. Remember she was originally a dark protector of the ponies, and in a certain sense still is. She would totally want to smite that creature.
I... don't think tht word means what you think it does.
Oxford Learner's Dictionary
Urban Dictionary
Perhaps 'clawing' dark would be better?
I think Morning is being generous.
9125551 According to dictionary.com, the first listed definition is:
So in other words, it's so dark that it's unpleasant.