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Arc 7 Chapter XLIV: Tentacles I Say Thee Nay!
🕑 Added 2024-06-17 01:43:55 +0000 UTCA/n: Enjoy the gift of le chonker! A good 3.1k words, just couldn't find a good place to stop so I went "Fuck it" and just wrote the whole thing lol
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(Reyvin's POV)
As the wave of steam equivalent to an archmage's spell slams into my wards my lips twist into a grin, finally I could focus on something fun instead of worrying about a gods forsaken tentacle monster!
"Everyone but Edrassa pull back, you will only serve as a distraction for this thing!" I quickly give out the command and blast the ten meters tall centurion with a wave of telekinetic might, toppling him backwards to buy time.
Or at least I attempted to do so because the moment the spell touched it, a shimmer of bright blue bubbled all over its surface and simply absorbed the spell, completely negating my attack. Being a most thorough murderer I quickly tested out every element I had on hand and found that it resisted them all equally, picky little motherfucker isn't he?
My head twitches to the right, a massive ballista bolt slamming into the wall behind me as it attempted to brain me in response. Seeing as the thing was magic absorbent I quickly summoned a bunch of spikes and spears from my personal hoard and target the thing's joints, buying a bit of time for my people to react as it staggered in place and... started to regenerate the damage.
'Oh boy! We might be in a pickle!' Scorch grins pretending to be scared.
I only let out a dark chuckle at that.
"What do we do against this thing?!" Edrassa asks as she runs up, the rest of the expedition holding back further back in the tunnel.
The centurion goes to get moving again but I slam a spinning spear of orichalcum into its neck and push it back again "You harry it, I kill it. Simple, isn't it?" I turn to her, my arms spread welcomingly and my face still split by a grin.
Her eye twitches "Of course you would consider this fun..."
"Come now, miss Moabain, where is your sense of adventure?" I ask merrily and kick her out of the way of yet another barrage of ballista bolts.
She grunts in a mix of surprise and pain but gets up quickly and starts joining me in my bombardment "What about the automatons?" She asks as we block yet another wave of steam coming from the giant's mouth.
"Leave them back." I shake my head and start spinning another spear "There could be other automata in here waiting for an ambush."
She tsks in annoyance and mutters "Of course."
I spear the centurion in the knee, forcing it to buckle slightly and pull out my sword "Keep targeting the joints!" I give my last order and jump into the almost arena-like circle in the middle of the grand chamber.
Immediately, the giant reacts to my presence as its two massive ballista hands (without the bow funnily enough) are joined by another pair, one wielding a massive greatsword and the other an even less minimalistic hammer.
It moves in immediately, going in for an overhead swing with the hammer and a wide slash with the sword, a respectable tactic for forcing someone to take at least one of the blows but not a fitting one against someone who could teleport.
So uncaring for fairness, I blinked atop the giant's shoulder and quickly slammed Blasphemy into the joint connecting it to one of its ballista hands, its defensive field tried holding my strike back but unfortunately for it, Blasphemy was not your usual sword and it soon found its arm not responding in its entirety. As if that was not enough Edrassa decided to justify her persistent rebelliousness with some competence for once and slammed a massive steel spear into the same joint but a moment later, almost removing the hand in its entirety.
And just as I thought things would get easier, the world decided to prove me wrong as whatever was powering the gigantic automaton pulsed with power, reattaching the entire arm in the blink of an eye and forcing me back with a blast of steam from its mouth as it almost seemed to glare at me as one would glare at a bug.
Well at least I could say for certain that the power source was a chunk of aetherium.
As I levitated away, pretending to have been flung back I breathed in and blasted it with a perfectly pronounced "FUUS RO DAH!!!" the tonal magic being more than enough to send it stumbling back in what almost felt like shock.
But I wasn't done yelling "TIID!" Time slowed to a crawl and I spread my magic perception all across the chamber detecting every single non-essential piece of metal around me and imposing my will upon them.
Every screw, every nail, every sheet of metal started to buckle under the pressure of the veritable mountain of Magicka that I now was, all of them falling off the walls and levitating in place as I started mass transmuting everything into a sea of spears and spikes.
Time snapped back into its usual flow, a moment passed, almost as if it were a foreboding blink, before the sea of spinning metal fell upon its target. The cacophony of the clash almost sent me reeling but I kept focus and finished casting dragonskin with the last large portion of my Magicka, before unfurling my wings and charging the now downed giant with all my might.
It tried getting up but it was too damaged to do so in any reasonable amount of time and I quickly found myself slashing at its chest, the place from which its power flowed into the rest of the body, like a complete madman.
It tried regenerating, even using the pulse power it had previously, but my onslaught was too much for it and as if passing a dps check I soon found my altered hand piercing its core and pulling out the small chunk of blue alloy, about a tenth of the crest being the quick measurement.
As the giant started powering down I could hear its commands outside of its internal systems and what I found out almost made me laugh out loud "Fucker was still following the command to kill all Chimer." I snort.
Edrassa, who was approaching me slowly from behind, almost stumbled at that "Truly? It still saw us as our ancestors?"
I shrug and turn to her "What do generations mean for something which is timeless?" I quirk an eyebrow and she nods quickly "Besides, this fucker was built by Kagrenac himself, or so its resonance proclaims, and the command placed by that same cunt. I doubt any product of his would be left in a place as important as this if he had fucked up."
"So it is confirmed?" The ex Telvanni asks with a mix of excitement and fear "We found the forge?"
"It would seem so" I mutter, tossing the chunk of aetherium in my hand and catching it repeatedly like some toy.
Before I could comment further, the rest of the group soon joined us, most of them avoiding the hot metal above the pool of lava we were standing on, almost all in fact. All save for Katira of course, who ran to us without a care in the world, not even bothering to hide the fact her unenchanted leather boots were somehow not melting in the heat.
"You defeated it, oh how marvelous!" She claps her hand and gets into my face "Did you learn how it worked?"
Forcing my frustration with her presence down I shrugged "It was simple but efficient by tonal architecture standards."
She stopped moving altogether "You know their art?"
Ah fuck "Studied it a bit, not terribly proficient in truth."
"Is that so..." She mutters and her normal mood returns as she gets out a journal and starts sketching the fallen giant.
Making sure she was distracted I summon a piece of metal and quickly morph its surface into a message "Keep everyone away from me and her, this might get bad."
The now very concerned Edrassa quickly gave it a read and being that she wasn't an idiot she gave Katria one last sad look before offering me an understanding nod and joining the rest of the group, whom I had just noticed were a bit bruised and battered but lacked any greater injury.
A small squad of patrolling cleaning spiders had gotten to them, not a hard fight but there are always accidents.
Ignoring the confirmed Hermetic I made my way to the maws of the forge... well maws may be a bit of an over exaggeration as it was in truth just an extremely complex collection of tubes and enchanted plates made to converge onto a singular comparatively tiny point.
Discerning, vaguely at least, the functions of the different parts of the forge took me a good minute and a bit, the complexity of the tonal enchantments present going well beyond anything Mzark had left for my use.
To be fair to him this place probably belonged to the head of their order, Kagrenac himself. I highly doubted the god complex having dumbass would leave the production of aetherium to anyone but himself, or at least the final stages of it.
A quick search through the command prompts within the forge told me why one was only capable of using the aetherium to create a crown, shield, and staff in the supposed 'canon' timeline. I almost laughed my ass off at the fact those three were available because they were simply at the top of the list and you had to essentially 'scroll' down to see the rest.
It was obviously not quite as simple as 'scrolling' but the jist of it was the same.
Soon I found what I desired and after a bit of modification, as much as I could get away with really without compromising the initial design, I placed the aetherial crest within the forge and activated the massive thing.
The entire chamber started to pulse with steam and power and the forge got to work, sucking up a downright unholy amount of lava and blasting us with enough heat to make even a Dunmer uncomfortable.
Aaaaand Eldor and his fellow snow elves fainted, great!
"Get them out and into the residential section!" I command a quintet of guards and they immediately march out with the unconscious Falmer in tow, a squad of spheres following after them.
"So you lied to me!" I force down a snarl of frustration as Katria appears behind me, no doubt having used either magic or Daedric blessings to watch me work "You do know the architect's art!"
I turn to her slowly, almost forebodingly "I fail to see how this is any concern of yours."
"Why wouldn't it be my concern?" She blinks and tilts her head "Are we not partners in this?" Her tone is almost as innocent as it was when we first met but there is a tinge of mania hiding just behind it.
The constant staring, the hunger in those eyes, the obvious otherworldly creature hiding just behind... I was getting far more irritated than I was scared, and I was about to do something rather dumb.
My eyes narrowed and I spoke "Was your goal not to confirm the existence of this forge? Why are you suddenly so interested in how it works?" I lean into her face and the human side of her is scared by the sudden proximity "Our deal was that you would record the history of this place and confirm the information in your book. Our deal was most assuredly not that I would have to explain anything to you."
The mortal woman was cowed quite quickly, the Daedra however was not. Katria winced half in pain half in resignation as she offered me a weak smile "I am afraid that our deal needs altering."
Understanding that she had no choice in the matter I offered her a single understanding nod... before lunging at her with Blasphemy in my hand, intent on impaling her on the blade and banishing the Daedric influence.
Hermaeus Mora had other plans however, as Katria's body fucking exploded before I could reach it, the chunks of meat flying all over the place as reality itself was sundered and a sea of green eyes appeared across the entirety of the chamber, all of them staring directly at me.
My people started screaming and Edrassa, once more showing that she was in fact not retarded, immediately started pulling them out, not even pretending to believe she could help me in this situation.
Unfortunately for a good number of them, some of the eyes were suddenly replaced with tentacles and six were grabbed and pulled into the holes in reality. I did not hesitate for a moment to cast a bolt of crimson lightning for each and every one of them, liberating them from a fate worse than death.
The sea of eyes radiated a feeling of amusement, idly sending out a few more tentacles to grab another group but they were far enough that I had the time to react and destroy the things, letting them get out of the range of the Daedra's influence.
It would seem he needed either a cultist or their sacrifice to project himself, and even then the range was rather limited.
"Hmmmmm..." The familiar voice of the tentacluar fuck came out in a low curious hum "Yesssss.... you will do." It spoke with a disgusting slurp "Both quick and powerful, just what I ssseeek in my pawnsss..."
Focusing my gaze on what I thought was the center of its mass I flipped him the bird "Fuck off Squidward."
It paused for only a split second "Ahhh, defiance..." It drawled "How wasteful."
"Ahhh" I pretend to imitate his voice "Arrogance... how unoriginal."
A brainnumbing number of the eyes blink while another glares and another folds in what may or may not be amusement or irritation "I see now that you have dealt with my... brethren before mortal. You will... find that I am far less... forgiving to those who defy my will."
"Forgiving?" I blink "Motherfucker you are the one who has made the first move here."
"It matters not." The hentai actor scoffs "You will serve, willingly or not. You will tell me all you know of aetherium and of the lost arts of the deep ones, and then you will seek to further understand it in my name. Your rewards shall be great should you but simply submit... too my will."
I scoff "As if I would ever relegate myself to being a puppet to any one of you degenerate fucks, how about you listen to my counteroffer instead?" I ask with a growing grin "How about instead of making your empty offers, you fuck right off back to your disgusting little library and I don't swear to destroy you once and for all hmmmm?! Sounds fair, doesn't it?!"
I feel it stare at me, the previous mix of emotions disappearing to reveal only pure malice no longer hidden behind the thin veneer of civility "A puppet or a servant, they both very well the same to me. And who am I to deny you your prideful idiocy?" Seeing my complete and utter lack of reaction to the not so subtle threat, it lets out something akin to a mix of a growl and a slurp "VERY WELL THEN, IF YOU WILL NOT BOW THEN YOU WILL BREAK!"
I prepare to strike it with what little divinity I have within me but the moment I so much as try to move I felt as if my brain was about to explode, my hand moved to my nose on instinct and I found it was bleeding. No, my nose, my eyes, my ears, and who knows what else, everything was bleeding under some kind of mental assault. The fact I could even think in this situation was a bloody fucking miracle.
A miracle I would not waste.
The tentacular fuckhead's plan was a pretty good one, all things considered: just overload my brain and knock me the fuck out, all the while blasting my mind with suggestions of servitude to him.
Too bad for him my ego was no longer contained within my body and following that my mind was immune to such influence.
My soul blasted outside of its confines, the engorged form of Blasphemy blazing with grey fire as I held it aloft with both of my hands. The sea of eyes and tentacles paused in surprise, it did not know the extent of my power when it decided to show itself.
The entirety of my form was now covered in grey fire, the little spark of divinity held within blazing with the fury I felt at the filthy creature that tried to own me as if I was some kind of pet or toy. "YOU THINK YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE WHO ISN'T FORGIVING?!" I scream out as I slash the closest apparition and shatter it, eliciting a pained roar from the demon god creature.
Immediately I move on to the next one and merely backhand it out of this plane of existence "YOU THINK I WILL LET YOU SLINK BACK AFTER ALL THIS!?" I grab a massive tentacle and pull at it, drawing out more and more of the Daedra's form only to cut it off with a slash of Blasphemy.
"BE SILENT MORTAL FOOL!" Hermaeus responded with a veritable sea of attacks, the numerous tentacles attempting to grasp and pierce with unnatural precision and most definitely prescient aim "YOU WILL BE MINE OR YOU WILL BE NOT!"
And yet just as quickly as they came, the extensions of the demons will were shattered by myself and the growing pressure exerted by the covenant of Akatosh, pressuring the calamari looking ass more and more into retreating "FUCK OFF YOU IGNORANT TWAT!"
That of all insults seems to enrage him the most, and I feel him attempt to shatter my mind in what he no doubt thinks is just my transformed form. He fails utterly as I had no true brain for him to shatter.
I feel a duo of familiar massive golden eyes staring at the two of us and realize that I had very little time to do as much damage as possible, and so I let my guard down fully and just started slashing, and slashing... and slashing. Like a complete madman I ran from every single opening in reality and forced every single bit of Mora into my territory even as he attempted to retreat, realizing his folly.
It made no taunts and spoke no self aggrandizing platitudes as it fled back into its realm of Apocrypha, it only stared at me, the million million eyes promising vengeance and torment unimaginable.
I merely scoffed and spat on the ground.
And then the world started spinning.
Comments
Nazarickk
Thanks for the chapter
Blake
FUCK THAT BRAIN DEAD OCTOPUS, HELL YEAH!
