The Power of Ten

Chapter 17-441: Hungry for Septs

Briggs ran right down the side of the wall from the cave, landed on the water, and started forwards at a trot. Sama was right on his heels, Tremble in one hand, Fall in the other, also remaining silent.

Behind them, lightfooters moved along the walls, the rough terrain along the shore, or across the waters. Some of them piled into Mr. Burble as the shoggoth shaped itself into a translucent, low-hulled longboat, and powered soundlessly after the others using an organic hydraulic jet to motor along.

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Surprise was complete, and when the Pstatic Obelisk that Mr. Burble had brought along sent Pscreeching psychic interference into the skulls of anything trying to use telepathy, recovery was anything but quick in coming.

Too many of their Constructs had been implanted with the modified brain tissue of the central intelligence, a fact the alert Pawlie had noted. If everything went well, it meant the whole sept of cephalids could coordinate instantly and completely, like a well-oiled machine under the complete guidance of a single intelligence.

Without that level of communication, having to work on very inefficient vocal communication that was rapidly getting swamped by screams of pain, shouts of rage, squeals of panic, clashing orders, and the explosively loud disorder of mass combat, the resulting response was... not quite so impressive. The way the Constructs just stood around waiting for instructions on what to do as everything died around them certainly didnt help matters. When the attackers finally turned their attention to the various figures of bone and stone and flesh and other things, specialists with ready Scarabs and Bane against Constructs took them down before their self-defense programming could even kick in.

The way the ground was thrumming to a Hammering beat, Words slicing up the air with a weight and power that cut into ear membranes and stuck in the breathing passages didnt help things, either.

You endured the dark and the endless night,

Your exile in tombs beyond the light.

You plotted and planned against the sun,

Against cloud and moon and schemes undone.

Once again, theyve come to call,

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The mortals who once made you fall.

Bury you deep, down you burned

The Land!

It hungers! So long its yearned!

The time, the time, has come at last!

A proper meal, a fine repast!

Open your thoughts where now you stand,

In timeless hunger, now FEED THE LAND!

Their hides were pulsing with shades, colors, and patterns none of them had ever seen on one another, as humanoids bearing thundering Firearms and blazing Weapons with flames that stabbed their lidless eyes with Anathema and endless hunger opened up new avenues of dread for them to experience. It was a yawning appetite that theyd never felt directed at them before.

The terrible idea that the Land was hungry for them was a terrible thing to infect the cephalid psyche with, considering how arrogant and proud they were of their own intellects. Even with the pscreaming that shook their skulls if they tried to use telepathy, the idea wormed into their akashic resonance and took root there... along with the Song pounding out in Aklo and carrying harsh and hungering fear with it as it did so.

There were plenty of psychic arts unleashed, alien energies wielded, foul arts of artifice and alchemy exercised, mutant creatures kept in pslumber awakened and hurled forth at their enemies.

And they died. Everything died.

Their mental assaults, driving through the Pstatic and feedback, seemed to fall into black holes and go nowhere. Discharges of psychic energies from devices or those of sufficient skill just faded away as they reached the intruders, about as effective as glowstones in stopping them.

There was none of the vaunted magic the cephalids instinctively expected, although the thunder of guns and crump of explosives going off was more than destructive enough. The ancient cerulean flame of the Sigil of Creation, wrapped with a pale white fire that seemed to gape wide open to their lidless eyes with an endless, unquenchable appetite for the cephalids and their servants, burned through the air in terrifying counterpoint to all their attacks.

They had never seen such a force of humanoids so terrifyingly competent in their savagery. They were skilled, fast, powerful, coordinated, and moved with the oiled speed of those who had fought together many times, their teamwork not something that even the finest mental domination could duplicate, as each individual could respond and adapt to every situation in a positive way that others could build off of.

Pslaves died in droves, chewed into exploding fodder with gunfire, or hacked and impaled with the speed of the all-hungry flames. That Song hammered at their wills and morale, and the cephalids, boiling with the colors of terror and fear that theyd never seen on one another, pulled back, and back, and back again, setting off their traps and tricks and horrible surprises... and watched them all fail.

Sama and Briggs came after them coolly, Endure and Tremble leading the way with Songs so powerful the stone was carrying them.

Legendary Weapons, the first forged on this world since the Old Gods had wrought their own arms in blood, fire, and war untold ages past.

The first Legendary Arsenal effect theyd both picked was Heavenly Thunder, which was the +4d6 per damage blow of Thunder damage enchantment. Then theyd combined it with Thunderphasing, one Weapon giving the Beat and the other the Song, and the Sound of both Weapons carried with terrifying force.

When they hit stuff, the stuff exploded, too.

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Pawlie had done an excellent job circling through the cavern city and plotting out all the main chambers and tunnels, especially the two others that actually showed signs of traffic running away from this place. Hed gone as low and high as he could without being caught, staying away from the central and best-defended chamber at the heart of everything.

There was probably an escape route from there, if they had time to use it. It was a given that it wouldnt be as easy to leave as it had been to come here. Having strong defenses could be nasty that way.

Sundering, Breaking, Shattering; Sama and Briggs tore into the psi-reinforced Doors leading to the central chamber with energy and power that neither Portal could defy. The organic stone, infused with psychoplasm, bled and was torn apart, every fracture point and weakness instantly apparent to the two attacking it, while Helices ran over its structure, preventing exercise of psionic power and self-repair as the doors were pounded open and apart with appalling speed.

The boom and crash of Briggs pounding out the middle sections of the foot-thick doors was more like a wail and a scream than just falling pstone going lifeless and hard, and the cracks that shot through both sides of the doors broke a hinge and left one slab of a Portal hanging there limply, like a broken lithic corpse.

Of course, absolute psychic hell promptly descended on the two of them, in all the wrong colors.

A year ago, even six months ago, this might have been something they would worry about, if only because the blasts could get past them and strike those beyond if their Forsaken fields couldnt handle them. They were resistant or immune to a lot of energies, and tough enough to withstand, quick enough to evade, or obdurate enough to defy most of the rest, but that didnt mean those behind them were.

But now, they were Nines, with Null and Source rated at least 40, and there just wasnt much on the planet that had the Penetration to get through to them.

An explosive assault of psychic powers that should have blasted flesh from bone, mind from souls, and shattered the bonds of molecules fell into nothingness ten feet from them. The energies simply vanished back to wherever they came from, Reality a bit too strong and really not liking what it was seeing there.

I gotta admit, I never saw an alien brain that big before, Briggs said casually, strolling forward into the assault whose edges had torn through the last supports of the pstone Doors and sent them crashing brittlely to the ground. The troopers behind happily and carefully came in over the crumbling remnants, making sure to stay behind the pair of them and their Forsaken Auras, looking up and around as they did.

Briggs pointed with two fingers. Actions racked, and Autobows twanged as Shotguns roared.

Plumbum rounds that totally ignored the psychic defenses of the creatures floating in the air and thinking themselves safely Warded from missile attacks tore through the levitating silhouettes like the practice targets they were. Only after all of them were full of holes did one of Briggs footsteps resonate along the Veil. King Gravity glanced over at this location, where a lot of things had come down through a lot of holes nearby rather awkwardly recently when their ability to levitate wouldnt work, and snapped his metaphorical fingers, expanding the Stillflight Zone that had helped cripple the cephalid defenses.

If they werent riddled with ranged fire and just floating there as corpses, they died when they all fell from the ceiling regardless.

There was a big splash from below in the broad chamber, and the fusillade of attacks against them faltered for a moment.

Godsdamn I love Stillflight! Sama grinned nastily, eyes fixed down below as she and Briggs slid to the left and right in tandem. Shooters scooted up along the walkway in double rows, filling the area between them with ready Shotguns and Autobows.

-PRIMITIVE MONGREL LIVESTOCK!-

The pshrieking announcement from the massive alien brain-thing splashing with its six lobes and six psi-charged tendril whips in what looked to be a pool of encephalic acidic fluids was very loud, very alien, and yet still couldnt hide the notes of outrage and disbelief in its pspeech. It probably hoped to frighten them away, but the men around just looked utterly bored at the strange voice in their heads.

Theyd been putting up with phantom whispers in their heads for, like, months now.

There was a circle of cephalids around the pool, including two of the senior six-tentacled ones, as well as two of the encephalic golems, these two under actual management and ready to take action if attacked.

But they didnt charge, because that would leave the big alien brain and its six lobes of infuriated outrage open behind them. It had been levitating there awesomely and aloofly a moment ago, and now was just floating in the fluid haplessly.

Evolution was a total bitch.

Adamantine on the golems, Briggs ordered coolly, drawing Boomer from his shoulder sling, making sure it had slugs inside it with a tap, and patting his Scarab for the Anathema bonus. First volley, fire! he stated, watching the shades of those cephalids turn a very bright yellow-green.

He took the first shot, the golem-shooters followed him. Adamantine slugs and bolts on Construct-crushing modes hit the thing made up of cast-off stone-hard brain tissue, and the thing looked like it detonated. First its head and eye-tendrils blew apart, and then a half-dozen more blazing shots blew off its squat limbs and broke its chest apart as if it had been hit by grenade launchers.

On the other side, the first volley of E-plumbum rounds drove into the nigh-defenseless cephalids in their fine robes, and yellow-white blood sprayed as bodies went flying in shock as their Shields, Fields, and Wards were punched right on through, and the incoming fire was not absorbed, reflected, or deflected back on the shooters.

Fire two! Briggs said on the heels of his first shots, turning the barrel of his Big-Bore Shotgun on the brain golem that was starting to get into motion, but much too slowly.

The other gunners let loose with normal rounds. These the banefire and vivic fire could cling to, creating a brilliant show of fireworks amid the roar of gunfire. The cephalids were totally unable to maintain their defenses after the first volley, and the second one tore their entire lines apart.

Second row cover! Front row fire at will! He racked Boomer hard twice as the second golems remains crumbled, and they all had an open shot at the floating brain... which abruptly realized the fact, and sank into the not-waters of the boiling, steaming pool that was filling the air with an alien acid-lightning tang.

Banefire shots ripped out as the second row of shooters racked up plumbum rounds and waited to see if any of the cephalids could send up any psychic nonsense. One of the six-tentacled ones actually had spiked sheathes on its long tendrils, and leapt for their firing line as its robes were blasted away, revealing sparkling armor beneath.

The armor couldnt soak the plumbum shots, a half-dozen of which emptied into its tall, skinny chest, stopping its charge and knocking it backwards in midair with the force.

A one-handed Autobow probably shouldnt have generated enough pull to propel a bulb quarrel, until one realized Fall was Mighty and Sama was far, far stronger than she looked. The egg-sized head injected precisely into the ubercephs round lamprey mouth, and it turned yellow-green from orange-red in just the second before the lightning bomb there blew apart, flash-boiled its blood, and its bulging, pulsing skull fried rather violently in a display of pink and green electricity.

Hey, you kept the skull intact. Nice, Briggs complimented her, as bits of brains and stuff fell out the massive steam-popped circles of its eyes.

Got a special delivery for the big brain. Her hair reached back, drew a white crystal vial out of her Masspack, and she shook the glittery contents at him. Guess what this is! Sama grinned.