The Power of Ten
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BECMI Chapter 142 – Annealed by the Annelid
🕑 Added 2025-07-27 00:51:40 +0000 UTC« Chapter 141 | Index | Chapter 143 »
“It’s some Immortal creature of Entropy, which probably isn’t supposed to be here, at all.” I let my eyes drop down, comparing the results of multiple Communes to what I was seeing here. “It comes from deep beneath the ground. It might even have been the thing that has eaten the stone away to form so many of these caverns.” I reached out to touch the dark granite around us. “The trackers know there is something not right about the stones of many of the tunnels we’ve gone through, especially the larger ones. Not formed by water or fire of any kind, not properly wearing down with age… and I can confirm that no natural force ever Shaped a great deal of the rock that I’ve closed off to isolate these caverns.
“I told you once that an Immortal must have made the Beastials for their own purposes. I think that thing out there is what created the homes that they grew to expand in.”
“How do they survive in its presence?” Prince Ukker asked sharply. “Just looking upon the thing is like having shit spewed across my mind!”
It needn’t be said that my ability to look at it was impressing the heck out of them.
“Technically, they didn’t survive. Their minds are pretty much gone, just echoing the waves and dark dreams of this sleeping thing in front of us.” They all blinked. “Aye, it’s sleeping, calling out blindly to its own kind, trying to rouse them up and eat the world, and being forbidden to. There’s a very powerful effect keeping it somnolent. I imagine the same Immortal that used it to make this underground world roused it, used it, and then forced it back into torpor.”
“And… just left it there?” Sir Horn asked sharply, his brown eyes grim.
“Yes. Uncaring of the problems it could create now, or in the future. Probably no real evidence who used it and why, it was just a happy coincidence all these caverns were left down here by something. Someone else’s job to take care of.”
Expressions rippled over the faces of those here. All of the clerics had by now inspected hundreds, if not thousands of Beastials of all ages with Detect Evil. The sheer fact so many of the infants were born Evil had shaken many of them with altruistic leanings… and those with altruistic leanings were most of them, because that was how I picked them.
Damned before they could live, a reincarnation as punishment… and most of the dead choosing not to be reincarnated this way again, abandoning whoever called themselves their Patron for a true shot at another life.
Immortal shitassery at its finest, although, to be fair, this was exactly what Entropic Immortals loved to do most.
But the energies keeping this thing torpor weren’t Entropic. That meant other Immortals were suppressing this thing… and likely whatever kin it was calling for, too.
These things were literally world-eaters. I don’t know why the megalith hadn’t crushed them all out of existence, and could only assume a) it was forbidden to or b) it couldn’t sense or feel them at all, like invisible parasites that would eat it alive until it collapsed.
I suppose c) it was so damn big it hadn’t noticed what they were doing, was possible, too, although Immortal creature eating another Immortal creature, I found it was unlikely.
The fact a plunging trail that faded into obscurity as it rose towards this cavern led right down to that mantle-sheathe of molten lava and through it, yet had not been filled in by the magma, was damn suspicious, too. One, the fact it was not filled in by the expanding molten stone told me something was keeping it open, which might well be the megalith. Two, it was like an arrow pointing to this thing, if someone bothered to look.
For some reason, I doubted any Immortal had casually bothered to look. They had other things to be doing, after all. Even the one who had used it had basically dropped it and left it where it lay, head sticking up out of the ground like a massive triple-jawed worm of horrific aspect, its squirming black skin enough to give nightmares even without the mind-shredding psychic pressure from the thing.
Altars had been built around the thing, and there were always Beastials wandering up, falling down in worship, exhaustion, or adulation, and others getting up and lurching away on whatever missions the thing was giving them.
“We can’t do battle if we have to stare at that thing. We’ll all go mad,” Hanvol stated utterly, the third strongest mage of the party quite clear on that. “Are you using an Astral Ward to withstand it, Lady Edge?” he asked respectfully.
“One Upcast through a IX Valence, plus one for Earth Spell, and viewing it through Baneflames against Legends. The last is stripping the Immortal nature from its psychic waves and rendering it down to merely a very oppressive mental attack,” I confirmed for him. “It appears I will have to kill the thing before we can eliminate its underlings.”
The cavern was basically stripped bare of anything natural growing, but the number of worshipers around the thing numbered in the thousands. The numbers didn’t bother us, we had plenty of experience against large numbers, but boosted fanatics combined with basically having to stay blind was a no-go as far as fighting the things went… and I was pretty sure that there were a great number of undead in the place, too, the cave seething with unholy energies reminiscent of the most vile of cathedrals to Entropics.
Beyond this thing? A large secondary entrance to what promised to be the largest and original cave system of the Beastials, their true underground homeland.
Nobody said anything about me being able to kill the thing. My Free Company (especially Cirru) knew I’d killed the Avatar of an Immortal, and three demons!
“Mistress, may I look upon it?” Cirru asked me respectfully, but did not jump around the corner in arrogant defiance. I had warned all the others, and they were still regretting taking me up on it.
“Enter Waking Meditation with the storm around your mind,” I ordered her. She was in her drac halvyr form, so as to move more quietly and not take up so much room.
She bowed her head, and indigo lightnings began to seethe gently inside her white-streaked dark blue hair, faint snaps of them arcing between the spires of the bony crest of white and blue that arouse on the back of her skull.
Her steps when it was time were strong and deliberate. Her palest blue eyes opened, rippling with voltage as she spun in behind me and looked out over my shoulder.
I heard her growl something unclean in Draconic as her eyes fell upon the thing. Her glowing eyes didn’t waver and she didn’t clap her hand to her head, but she also pivoted back away from the sight without much delay.
“I believe that is an Annelid,” she spoke up, the word in Draconic evoking images of insectile burrowers tunneling through mountains in greedy ecstasy. “Mother spoke of them as ancient and vile beings of nightmare and dark dreams used by Immortals to devour their foes, slaves to greater wills, long sent to eternal slumber and roused only by their masters for specific tasks. She had thought they were denied access to the surface world long, long since…”
Given time, I could doubtless make a custom spell building off Protection from Evil that would completely block all effects on mortal minds and eyeballs from the thing, but that was something I’d have to do in the back of my head. The Immortal source was also a problem for mortal magic to some degree.
“Any particular vulnerabilities?” I inquired coolly.
“It is a thing of darkness, rendered almost helpless by the light, and so confined to dark places deep under the earth,” she recalled after a moment of thought. “They are supposed to be buried so deep no mortal should ever encounter them…”
“I doubt an Immortal that would raise an entire race of incarnated Evil souls upon the mortal world is much worried about such casual courtesies.” I stared at the thing, weighing my courses of action. “It is likely immune to mortal magic, and of course completely subservient to real Immortals, so it doubtless it thinks itself invulnerable and unkillable.
“I think I will kill it easily.”
The thing was colossal, over two hundred feet long, a body at least twenty feet thick, with writhing cilia in places, coupled with hundreds of legs recessed underneath the slick squirming hide, ready to come out and drive it through earth and stone with unstoppable force.
But it was vulnerable to Light. Really, what more was there to say? Radiant Energy was one of the higher-order energies, and one of the absolute best forces to attack undead with. I was nearly as familiar with it as I was with Force energies.
“Wait for The Light,” I told the others, my eyes narrowing as I blew into mist on a wind that was streaming directly towards the dreaming Annelid.
-------
I didn’t know how much Health this thing had, but that probably wasn’t going to be an issue.
I could attach Immortal Power to a spell through Dread, which would summarily bypass the Immortal-imposed mortal Hit Die limits on magical spell attacks. I had an effective Caster Level that completely exceeded Class limits on Caster Ability in a manner that bypassed Immortal Restrictions, even if I couldn’t use it all the time.
So, what was going to happen, just like against the demons, was that this creature was going to be hit with an attack containing Immortal power, at a Caster Level higher than a mortal could put forth, meaning I couldn’t possibly be the one responsible for it.
Even my Staff, if it qualified as an Artifact, couldn’t possibly be responsible for what was about to happen.
Consecrated and Topped Spell would make sure both Kickers and main spells were at maximum damage on the dice.
Purified Spell increased that damage against undead and Fiends, the latter of which this Entropic thing qualified as, by one die-type, i.e. d6 to d8. Or in the case of Greater Shards, d8+8 to d10+10.
Elemental Sheathe to Fire/Radiant Energy, Coruscating Cacophany, Elemental Mire, and Raging Elements all had the power of adding +1/die of damage to the Element they were attuned to.
Spellwarping turned a multi-Shard spell into a single Ray.
Split Ray and Paired Spell turned one Ray into four.
Fastcast Split Ray added another pair to the ensemble.
Another +9 per die from my passives. +10 damage per Spell Level from passives.
Maxed out Kickers from double Banes against Fiends and Legends, and +5d6 from Holy, +d6 Vivus.
Another +20 from Positive Edge boosting undead-killing positive energy, and +11 from Warcaster Razor.
Pierce All Defenses to punch through its Anti-Magic.
No saving throws due to Ray attacks needing to hit it.
Improved Invisibility to not become visible to the undead spirits in the area and the living mindless shambling about below.
Set up the Coruscating Cacophany, a tinkling, crystalline harmony about the thing which harmed absolutely nothing. The Elemental Mire was a sparkling fog of mirror-like particles that was impossible not to see.
Arcane Fusion to get the Elemental Sheathe and Raging Elements off concurrently, surrounding us up in the air with a glittering halo and Aura of pulsing Light.
Sudden Fastcast Greater Arcane Fusion at IX to get off both Shard spells and bring the hammer down on that thing.
+50% damage for its Vulnerability to Radiance, and Disruption enforcing the double damage rule it so loved against negative-energy creatures.
They had approximately one second of warning as we lit up in the air above them, the Sublime Chord painted the blackness with searing triple-spectrum rainbows that turned eternal night into a radiantly Heavenly day, and then The Light came raining down.
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Comments
Robert Drouin
Fixed!
AussieLauren
Her steps when it was time were strong and deliberate. Her palest blue opened, and were rippling with voltage as she spun in behind me and looked out over my shoulder. I wonder if it should have “her palest blue eye(s) opened” Improved Invisibility not to become visible to the undead spirits in the area and the living mindless living below. Live living mindless, mindlessly living below, but perhaps only one adjective required? Or a synonym for the second living. (Dwelling/residing/gathered)
Robert Drouin
fixed!
J B
"and I can confirm that no natural force every Shaped a great deal of the rock" every -> ever
