102 - Pier Pressure
Just a little bit closer…
From behind him, the sound of his ponies fighting was audible over Sonata’s singing, but Lex barely heard it. Still leaning against Aria, his focus was entirely on the open stretch of ground ahead of them, where the wharf terminated and the pier began. Just beyond that, he knew, was the kraken that Aria had called the “Great Lord of the Deep.” Despite the precariousness of how they’d fared so far, Lex wasn’t so unnerved by the thought of fighting the creature that he could resist a sneer at the grandiloquent title. I’ll show you just how great you’re not, he vowed silently.
“I think we’re winning!” yelled Cloudbank, causing Lex to glance over at her, seeing her looking back at where the others were fighting. “There’s still a lot of those things,” she continued, “but we haven’t lost anypony yet! If they can keep this u-”
“That doesn’t matter!” snapped Lex. The rebuke came out harsher than he’d intended, and as Cloudbank turned an incredulous look toward him he quickly elaborated. “Everypony else is fighting to give us – you and me – a chance to end this. If we fail, then they’re all going to die, no matter how hard they fight.”
“Right. No pressure,” replied Cloudbank, her optimism replaced by nervous irritation. Lex ignored her, and a few moments later they reached the pier. The structure was wide, as befitted a city whose livelihood revolved around maritime activity. A half-dozen ponies could easily have walked down it side-by-side and had plenty of room to spare. From the water’s edge, it extended out into the bay, its end hidden as it moved beyond the edge of the light shining from the vanguard ponies’ armor.
“Spread out and cover the sides of the pier,” ordered Lex, and the ponies quickly moved to obey. “Whatever comes out of the water, you have to stop it from reaching me. Whether you kill it or drive it back, you can’t let it get past you.” He knew he’d told them that only a few minutes ago, when they were going over his plan back in the shelter, but he couldn’t help but say it again now to underline just how vital this was. Behind him, he could hear the other ponies slowly falling back towards them, and briefly considered reiterating their orders as well. But even as he turned his head, he saw them move to surround the front of the pier, blocking it off exactly as he’d told them to do before they’d begun fighting.
His eyes briefly flickered to Sonata, who was still singing her heart out, and then over to where Cozy was tending to the ponies whose bodies had been warped by the aboleth, trying to keep them calm. Behind them, the rest of the ponies were still fighting, and he knew that Nosey and the others were among them as well. They were all doing their best, and that had been just enough to get them this far.
They had done their part. Now it was time for him to do his.
“Stay here. Help the others in whatever way you can,” he ordered Aria, pushing off from her so that he was standing on his own four hooves. Ignoring her sarcastic reply, he slowly started forward, silently readying his attack…
Tlerekithres watched as the pony wizard slowly shuffled forward, his approach slow enough that it gave the kraken time to invoke another of his tattoos, activating a powerful ward against electrical attacks. A few other ponies – probably the wizard’s own slaves, considering how they’d arranged themselves to protect him – moved to cover the sides of the pier, while the others stayed behind, holding off the remaining sahuagin and their pets. Even the winged pony with the powerful scythe was hanging back, keeping the weapon at ready.
As the pony wizard came to a stop, Tlerekithres narrowed his eyes. He’d raised enough defenses to feel secure against whatever spell the pony was preparing, but that didn’t mean that he intended to sit back and let the little herbivore attack him with impunity. Even as the wizard raised a hoof towards him, Tlerekithres lashed out, darting forward as he raised a tentacle and began to swing it downward, fully intending to smash the puny creature before it had a chance to act…
Lex knew he was taking an incredible risk by venturing so far forward, but the risk was a calculated one. Although he was completely out in the open if the kraken had any kind of ranged attacks, he was cognizant that it had destroyed their ship with its own tentacles, rather than some attack that could be used from afar. Since he needed to be within a few dozen feet of the creature, he was betting everything that it would try and attack him the same way.
Ahead of him, the murky gloom was only dimly touched by the light from the armor worn by the ponies on either side of the pier, and Lex could just make out a gargantuan mass of shifting shadows illuminated by a pair of glowing blue eyes that he knew was the kraken. Letting out a breath, he slowly raised his left hoof towards the creature. He was going to have to hope that he was within range of the thing…
Suddenly the shadowy mass exploded into motion, and Lex had just enough time to recognize the shape of a tentacle the size of a small mountain hurtling towards him. It had almost completed its arc when he struck, lashing out with the one weapon left in his arsenal, the one ability that he hadn’t completely expended during his fight with Aria and her companions over an hour prior.
“STOP!” he roared as he unleashed the Night Mare’s power.
Tlerekithres had almost completed his strike when he heard the pony shout something at him, as though that would-
The sensation of panic that seized him was as sudden as it was overpowering. Without thinking, Tlerekithres aborted his attack and tried to reverse his forward momentum, flailing as he strained to put some distance between himself and the pony wizard. He had to get away, NOW!
Less than a second later, his intellect caught up to what his emotions were telling him, and struggled to place what had just happened into terms he could understand. Although the pony hadn’t moved, hadn’t done anything except tell him to stop, the impression that he gave off had suddenly become threatening. No, not just threatening…deadly. It was as though there was some sort of terrifying monstrosity lurking just beneath the pony’s skin, waiting to be unleashed.
It had all the hallmarks of some sort of fear-based spell, but that couldn’t be the case. Tlerekithres knew that one of his abilities as a kraken was total immunity to all mind-affecting spells and powers. A spell to create fear should have had no more effect on him than a thrown pebble. Which meant that this had to be something else, some sort of magic that had somehow bypassed his inherent imperviousness to mental powers.
Or…or was it? What if his impression had been correct, and that pony was far more than he appeared? If that was the case, then he needed something else to force him to reveal himself. Fine then, he still had numerous slaves that could be put to use testing that theory.
“Kill him!” Tlerekithres’ sepulchral voice rang out, loud enough to be heard across the bay. “All of you! I WANT THAT PONY DEAD!”
Even before the last echo of his voice had faded, the water around the pier began to churn as his slaves rushed to fulfill his orders. No matter that they wouldn’t be able to last very long outside of the water. No matter that they might very well die in droves. They were resources to be expended, and if they weren’t useful to him then they didn’t deserve to live anyway. Of course, he doubted that they would be sufficient to get the job done, but he had no intention of leaving things solely up to them any longer.
Curling one tentacle around the broken stern of the ship that he’d torn apart, Tlerekithres hefted it in his grasp...and then hurled it directly at the pier.
The warning from Severance made Cloudbank’s head snap up, and she immediately sprinted ahead, the magic scythe that she’d come to think of as her partner clenched tightly in her jaw.
When Lex had loaned Severance to her, she had been awed. She got to wield a major magical weapon that could talk directly into her mind?! How cool was that?! But as it turned out, her enthusiasm had been entirely one-sided. Severance had spoken to her only once before they’d set out, coolly questioning her worthiness to wield it, and remaining quiet ever since.
That had changed after she’d slain the aboleth. Since then, the scythe had praised her, saying that her actions had been worthy of the Night Mare. More than that, it had started relaying information about what was going on around them, apparently able to make sense out of the chaotic melee with ease, which was how she’d been able to tell Lex that they were winning. Now, warned that something was coming and that she should attack it, Cloudbank ran forward, rearing her head back as she prepared to swing Severance-
What looked like a building came flying straight at her out of the darkness, and Cloudbank didn’t have time to think, bringing the scythe down purely on instinct.
The gigantic structure split in half immediately, the two pieces flying to either side of the pier and hitting the wharf with a tremendous crash. For a moment Cloudbank just stood there, before she dazedly turned back to look at the massive piles of wreckage on the shore, dimly recognizing that they had been part of a ship. A moment later her brain started working again, and her jaw fell open in complete and utter shock as she realized what had just happened.
That kraken thing had hurled part of their ship at them…and Severance had cut it in half with a single blow.
For a moment, Lex could only gape at what he’d seen. He’d known that Severance was powerful, but that was FAR beyond what he’d ever seen it do before! But then again, it wasn’t as though the weapon had ever been forthcoming with the full extent of its abilities. Still, to think it was capable of something like that…
For an instant he considered grabbing the weapon from Cloudbank and ordering it to do the same thing to the kraken. But while the scythe’s prohibition on dependency apparently didn’t extend to cutting down what would otherwise be a fatal blow, Lex knew better than to push his luck. If Severance abandoned them now, they would lose.
Of course, that was likely to happen anyway, since the Night Mare’s power wasn’t working the way it was supposed to.
The plan had been that, once he was within range of the Great Lord of the Deep, he’d use the Night Mare’s power to take control of it. He’d been analyzing what sorts of creatures that power worked on, and while he hadn’t been certain, he’d felt confident that the kraken would be vulnerable. Once he’d forcibly bent it to his will, it would have been simplicity itself to have Cloudbank fly up to it and kill the creature with Severance.
But when he’d tried to channel the Night Mare’s power to bind the thing, something had gone wrong. Every time he’d used it previously it had either been completely unable to affect something or made it easily fall under his sway. But this time…this time it had been a struggle. For the first time ever, Lex had needed to strain to envelope a creature in the Night Mare’s power, and even then he hadn’t completely succeeded; he could feel that he had only managed to temporarily cow the thing, rather than dominate it…and he knew that, as with a successful subjugation, that status would only last for sixty seconds.
“Look out!”
A yell drew Lex out of his frantic analysis, just in time to see a crossbow bolt whiz by his head, apparently blown off-target by the wind. Following its trajectory back, Lex just managed to see a crossbow-wielding sahuagin sticking its head over the edge of the pier, before one of the vanguard ponies – the one who’d shouted the warning – kick it in the face and send it tumbling. But immediately another one popped up, jabbing at the pony with a spear. Nor was it alone; all along the pier, the vanguard were fighting frantically to keep the literal rising tide of monsters from boarding the pier.
Gritting his teeth, Lex turned back towards the kraken, its blue-glowing eyes still visible in the darkness. Holding out his left forehoof – the one with the Night Mare’s holy symbol – Lex initiated another attempt to take control of the thing. Again the invisible power flowed around the creature, and again Lex felt that same resistance, gritting his teeth as he tried to push past it. He had to make this work! Just a little more and he felt sure he could-
A series of runes on the kraken’s body suddenly began to glow, shining with a dim purple light that was barely visible in the gloom…and suddenly the resistance Lex felt increased dramatically, becoming impossible to overcome. For an instant, he tried to push past it anyway, but it was like trying to move the sun all on his own, and a moment later he had to abandon the attempt, collapsing in a heap and gasping from overexertion.
Whatever magic that thing had just invoked, it had made it too strong to control with the Night Mare’s power. Worse, Lex knew it had shaken off the rebuke that his previous attempt had dealt it. There was no way to stop the kraken now.
He had failed.
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Eager to see how it goes.
Huh... so he failed the first attempt, the Kraken figured out what was wrong and upped his spell-resistance in response. Seems like a good move, and it makes sense for a Kraken to have such a tatoo since his species is one of the few high-CR monsters that lack SR.
8150600 Thanks! I'm always unsure if the action scenes are gripping enough, so feedback for chapters like these is especially appreciated.
8151063 Strictly speaking, Lex's first attempt didn't "fail" per se, so much as it didn't succeed like he thought it would/wanted it to. That is, he rebuked the kraken, but wasn't able to actually command it. Previously, he'd easily been able to command magical beasts that he'd channeled, but now he's up against a much stronger creature.
In game terms, Lex has a total base Intensity of 16 (base level 9, +6 purchased as part of his template, +1 from Innate Enchantment), and can only roll high enough on the Intensity check table (Eclipse p. 66) to affect creatures of up to 17 Hit Dice. That's not enough, so he used Heightened to lower his Magnitude (which is normally 4d6+21) to compensate for it. That meant that he was able to succeed on his Intensity check...but failed to roll enough Magnitude to command it. He could have used Great Channeling, but since he's never gotten a "rebuked" result before, he didn't realize that he had to.
His second attempt did exactly that (burning two turning attempts, which means that - after using several to bring Aria to heel - he's running low), but Tlerekithres used a spell resistance spell, upping his effective Hit Dice beyond Lex's Intensity check result.
Its getting to the point where a random copper slug traveling an appreciable fraction the speed of light is looking reasonable. Sorry. just me having problems with complex puzzles. Im of the school where its. Press A to hit. You died. Train by hitting flowers till grind enough levels so that can survive the first combat. Heal Up. Grnd and repeat till I no longer get hit. Move onto Teddy bears. Repeat.
TL:DR If I cant slap down an opponant easily, Im not prepared. And the Scouts teach small children. Be Prepared.
8151605 Often, combat in D&D can become something of a grind as well. Obviously, that won't work if you want to make an interesting story, so I'm doing my best to avoid that here.
Well, there goes the lightning rod idea and admittedly, my jaw dropped when Tlerekithres actually stopped and became scared of Lex, even for a brief moment.
Not much to say, still reeling from Lex's actual plan...
8167329 Using electricity is not an uncommon idea against water-dwelling creatures, so it's not too surprising that Tlerekithres would have defenses against that.
The reason he felt afraid of Lex was because of the rebuke that he was dealt by the Night Mare's power. For just an instant, he caught a glimpse of something FAR greater than himself, and that - especially coming from such an unexpected source - was enough to rock him back on his metaphorical heels.
Likewise, now that Lex's plan was revealed, I hope that you're reeling in a good way?
Ooh, the horror, a typo.
"and have plenty of room the spare."
Well, there goes that kraken. It was nice knowing you.
So much for that plan.
Need me one of those for some steel beams...
The platoon has now reached the kraken. The defenders in front are holding their own, just barely, while the archers and mages throw everything they have at it.
8378726
Fixed, though I changed it to "with" rather than "and had."
I'm just responding to the typos, mostly for the sake of brevity.
8379089
aww...
What did you think of my little short?
8379500 In a word, it was amusing.