Chapter Fifty-Four – From Outside Creation

"It's a true Aberrant, probably from Leng. I believe it's called a Lurker in the Depths. It must have wandered over into Dream and been attracted here by our unique circumstances." I was somewhere between amused and irritated.

Contrary to its movements, I shifted past it, towards the end of the pier, putting it momentarily out of position, but also 'blocking' my way back to the shore. More tentacles raced up onto the stone, which quivered slightly at the touch.

"It's a true Aberrant, with origins from Outside Creation, a servant of the Old Ones. It was probably drawn here by you and I. Sensing unbound souls inside a Nightmare at our Level and depth must have been just like spotting a big fat fish waiting to be hooked, so it invaded the Nightmare to get a free meal."

"I sort of get that." It wasn't coming up out of the water, but more tentacles were slithering over the stone and making it obvious that it could reach all the way to the opposite side of the pier. Impressive. It was also making weird noises.

"Oh, shut up. That isn't going to impress me at all," I interrupted its supposed-to-be hypnotic babbling in Aklo, which did indeed momentarily shut it up.

"Speaks meal, secrets nightmare hag curse feed!" it babbled back at me, even more excitedly, half a dozen tentacles waving about.

"I don't have Aberrant Bane yet…" Tremble noted professionally.

"Enmity to the Unnatural." He complied with that calmly, and a reaving edge arose around him. Despite itself, the Lurker flinched at the hard-blue hue.

"Cerulean!" it babbled in anger, surging forwards a few yards.

"Ah, it's seen the Cerulean Seal before. How nice." I flicked Tremble, and the first Banestar flew out. It didn't have the Banefire, but that was fine. It hit a foot-thick tentacle and hacked off twenty feet of it without any problem. The second one wove and cut past two guarding tentacles and lashed across the flesh-flower of its head, drawing a clear line across it that bubbled out something viscous that began to hiss and dissolve.

Two spear-like tentacles longer then the other ones lunged forwards like rubbery, razor-sharp lances. I slid left, right, flickflick, and their tips went flying off, drawn back as rapidly as they'd been hurled out.

I didn't stop with the Banestars, and they cycled up from Tremble and were tossed out to annoy this bastard. Tentacles lashed out to intercept them, were cut and severed as I began to step forwards, and now it was its turn to pull back and pull in, reducing my targets and evading more easily with the cover of the pier's edge.

My amusement began to bubble. "Hey, it's been two minutes since the lobster there died," I called out in Aklo.

"Time death pain feast soul eternal scream!" it babbled back, probably a little irritated with me.

"Sure, sure. You know, you're an invader, alien, and a hostile here in this nightmare, right? Do you have any idea how powerful the Curse of the Hag is?" I asked it, tossing out a couple more Banestars and keeping it dancing as it readied multiple tentacles for me. "I mean, seriously, you're a deep-sea dwelling piece of crap hiding from the likes of Father Dagon and Mother Kraken, and you're messing around with a Hag Nightmare? You really ARE stupid."

The crab hit it about then.

It was almost thirty feet across, with pincers the size of a Volkswagen. It came motoring up through the water with a crash of a lot of mass, drove into what passed for a body on this thing, and tore out five tentacles at the roots in its first two ripping passes, drawing some really weird ululating cries from this morkothian piece of crap. The alternate reality the morkoth/Lurker represented was far more alien to this Nightmare then I was, and the Hag Curse wanted it gone.

Normally, it probably could have gotten away from the crab. But it was close to the pier, the water was shallow, and I was there.

Its attention successfully diverted, I charged it.

Now, I wasn't going to reach anything vital, as it wrapped tentacles around the pincers and bound them tight, while others tentacles drilled into the crab's underside and began to wreak havoc on it.

And then it looked up with its flesh-flower head from the multiton crustacean it was shish-kebabing, and realized I was way too close and it couldn't avoid me in time.

Fwap, off with the flesh flower. What, the stalk wasn't even two feet thick. Sure, the flesh was too tough for what it was, but, like, giant's necks aren't?

The convulsion of losing its primary sensory organ and feeding orifice didn't go over too well. The few remaining uncommitted tentacles lashed in all directions wildly, while I somehow managed to land on the crab's nimbler small claw and cut through the tentacle keeping it closed tight.

That claw opened and lunged forward, deep into the writhing body that seemed made of conjoined tubes of Ugh and Blah, and ripped it right open as I kicked off to the big claw, and chop-chopped that one free, too.

The Lurker had secondary eyes on the tentacles, but was having a difficult time tracking me, what with all that crab and spraying ichor-stink bomb gas in the way. The huge claw snapped out, and the writhing flesh was mangled hard at the impact. The pincers cracked and clashed and ate their way in even as the crab let out a cry of some pain, and two drilling tentacles actually punched through from underneath its shell in a spray of gore.

I hopped over there and cut them off, knowing it was useless. The serrated edges were roaming around the crab's insides, ripping apart everything, but every piece of mangled morkoth it made, the better.

The crab's heavy, pointed legs plunged into the morkoth's body even as it convulsed, stiffened, and began to settle. The morkoth was still moving, albeit not very fluidly, and I cut off two more tentacles that came lashing for me as I ran down the main pincer arm, and began to hew into it with a transcendentally sharp weapon that, oh, I'm sorry, had Blooding on it, and it couldn't heal from.

I ripped it open with hard lightning, powerfully enough to connect both pincer-wounds that the crab had torn open, and gah, the shit that sprayed out smelled foul to my soul, Vajra keeping it out desperately. I interrupted its rather pitiful attempts to writhe out from under the crab and around the claws, sending two more shredding tentacles flying in passing as I did so, and then I fired off four Shardstars, one after another, into its mass and watched the purifying power of lightning and Anathema do its work on whatever passed for a neural network.

One more hilt-deep thrust went in like a lightning bolt and went out like a spontaneous stinking mess of what passed for brain tissue superheating, and vivic fire blew through the thing With Great Hunger.

The whole Nightmare was hostile to the thing, and it went up like a Roman Candle, getting reduced to a lucid dream and falling apart like the hostile reality it no longer represented. Unwhite fires actually poured into Tremble, and I actually let go and left her there to suck in all the power she could. It wasn't like I wanted the Curse to get it, and strengthen its Nightmare!

Not that I didn't believe it wouldn't do exactly that. Now that the first creature from Outside had come in, it meant others would follow, and the Curse would not be at all adverse to collapsing on anything that came in here, and strengthening itself on them thereby.

Crap, that meant I was going to have to try to kill anything from Outside before the Curse could. Bunuvasitch, as if my life wasn't horribly time-compressed and busy enough as it was…

No, wait, if it was gathering in extra Reality like that… didn't it mean that was more excess power I could siphon off for when I actually got out of here?

I wouldn't even be surprised if the Curse realized I was actually pretty good bait and lured stuff in!…

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The Curse seemed to find some dark inspiration in the death of the Morkoth, because soon there were giant Deep Ones coming up out of the waves, and then two scyllas (dog-heads, hydras have reptilian heads) came piling up after they were done with the multi-headed harassment… and then no less than six nuckalevee came charging out of the depths, decided I was a corruptor of waters, and collapsed on me with lances and whipping seaweed tentacles, and down I finally went to the teamwork play, out of healing and nickel-and-dimed to death.

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When my eyes finally opened, I hmphed a "Cthulhu phtagn!" in irritation, and sat up as I grabbed Tremble.

"That was mildly interesting," Tremble admitted as he lit up, a note of intrigue in his voice. "Did the Curse just spontaneously come up with a bunch of new stuff because of the Lurker?"

"I'm thinking the same thing," I admitted. "I wouldn't be surprised if the Curse pops in the Lurker on its own now, maybe, maybe not." I began my stretching routine, getting that in before the workday of healing Potions and burning goldweight started. Slow and incremental, I was improving, but today was also an important day. "Oh, ticking over to Eight today."

"Wow, we died that many times to the sailors?" Tremble murmured, thinking back to all those sabers hacking me apart.

"Yes, all the /4's were pushed for minimal Karma cost, I can pop Melee/8." And I did.

Another bubble around my soul popped, Karma streamed in to reflect, raise, replace, enhance, and let me know that yes, the ass-kicking was far from topping out. My Diamond Vajra swirled and pulsed.

A bunch of minor changes, but they all added up.

MAB to +8, RAB to +7. Fort save +1, to base +6.

Choice of Stat at 8th, +1 Con, to 36, reflected to +1 Wis, to base 21. Cover Your Weakness, lowest physical was Str, to 20, reflected to 21 Charisma. Weakest Mental, choice of Wisdom or Charisma, pick Wisdom to 22, reflected to +1 Con, to 37.

Forsaken Inherent bonus to Wisdom, +1. Effective Wisdom, 25. Cascade ripples across my Stats. Ki+1, Ess +1. Wis bonus +7, Con bonus, +13.

Base +d10 HD to Soak, effectively maxed with deaths. +14 Skill Points, same skills as I increased at Seven.

Health +4 to 109. Soak +34, to 260. Cockroach of steel.

Null +4, to base 48. Ki, 41. Ess, 40, Vajra 41. I didn't need Guardian now against spellcasters I had Courtiered, and even a topped-out Caster with Spell Penetration up the wazoo coming out of nowhere only had a 5% chance of getting through my Null.

That's right, you bastards. Fight me on my terms, or die…

Melee Weapon Training +2, with Secondary Weapon Group to choose. Picked Crushing/Cleaving Weapons because I didn't have any in my Primary Weapon Group. With Combat Genius, the stacking Training bonus was now actually +3, doubled with Specialization for my Sword, for a Sword Spec bonus of +6/+6. Wouldn't need to take the Weapon Mastery/3's for any weapons at 9, now… meaning my Grandmastery was mostly complete.

With higher MAB, my bonus with my Girdle was now up to a 26 Strength, +8 Strength bonus. More damage on the stack, more armor punch and hide shredding…

Combat Technique, Gifted Combatant. Two additional uses of Inspiration and Vigor per day. More staying power.

Training Technique, Improved Saving Throws. Rerolls per day on any Saves I had the Boosted Technique for equal to my Resolve bonus. So, four rerolls per day at present.

Bonus Feat: Improved Initiative. Opened the Initiative Mastery, a Wind-based Mastery. More Masteries to pay for. The Coming Wind, Take the Initiative, Precedes the Thunder, Follows the Lightning. Ticked over the /2, The Coming Wind, i.e. Superior Initiative, add Wis to initiative. Take the Initiative basically meant move up one place in the initiative order per combat cycle, basically building momentum until you were on top regardless of the opponent. Precedes the Thunder meant a +2 bonus to hit anyone lower then you in the initiative order. Follows the Lightning was +d6 damage to anyone lower then you in the initiative order.

Little improvements, going on the stack. My initiative should be +4 + Dex + Wis + Expertise + Weapon Training, so +23 or so…

And the most important thing was that all my Secondary Classes could now advance one more Level. More minor effects going on the stack…

"So, what do you think? We can't actually stay down there by the water forever. We can either head out the main gate, or use the side access the knights come through?"

"Shouldn't there be another night sequence coming up?" Tremble wondered aloud.

I thought about that as I continued bending myself leisurely in ways contortion masters on Earth would have goggled at.

"We left a lot of bodies behind us, in the metaphysical sense. Why do I have the impression they will all be animating and coming after us?"

Tremble was silent. "Wow, that will be a LOT of undead… zombies?"

"I don't know. Lower class, for certain. Weren't any vampires or wights around to justify spawn.

Zombies would be easiest, but ghouls, now, wouldn't that be interesting…" Claw, claw, and bite routine, unlike rote zombies. Doubted they'd bite me, considering how short I was, unless they went down on all fours… which wasn't out of the realm of possibility.

I wasn't worried about the paralysis, my Null would take care of it. But… that could be a lot of giant undead.

Two more Vigors probably weren't going to close the healing gap with the numbers I was expecting, even if I didn't have to face them all at the same time.

I smiled slightly, shook my head. We'd have to wait and see. Today was going to be very, very busy, I had the feeling…