54 Chapter Fifty-Four – From Outside Creation (1/2)
”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!…