Ch: 124 Beat The Drum Slowly
The small band slipped and slid down a short decline of loose scree and silt, to a rubble choked passageway. Simple, worked stone blocks formed the tunnel, sloping gently down.
A rough floor of shattered and crushed stones led deeper into the shadows, cut with channels and coated with damp, slick silt washed down from above.
Liam’s harsh whisper brought their quiet chatter to a stop, as something moved in the darkness beyond. “Shush, hostiles.”
They quickly formed up, getting weapons and armor ready for action. Tallum brought up a big, tower shield and a short ax, while Liam wielded his spear and a round buckler, strapped to his left arm.
Leather clad Ivy, also had a mace and round shield out, while Becky and Tawny held stout, thick staves. Khan and Herlick both had short, recurve bows in hand, scanning down the hall from a slight elevation on the rubble pile.
“Undead, skeletal.” Liam whispered back, as the sound of movement approached.
A slow marching phalanx of small humanoid skeletons stomped down the passage. The front rank bore small tower shields, while the rest bristled with cleavers, kitchen knives, hatchets and primitive, stone headed maces. Each small figure wore a battered, stained, brimless cap of reddish brown felt and ragged, hobnailed boots mounted with metal toes and heels.
Their boots scraped and clanked on the uneven floor, setting off an awful noise. They were only three feet tall and little more than armed bones, but there were a lot of them… an awful lot.
The stench of old blood and rotting flesh that rode the dank breeze from the depths turned stomachs and watered eyes, until someone deployed a stink ring.
“Bless whichever one of you did that… ready now, here they come.” Liam spoke crisply, no longer concerned about stealth.
Little Axio hid behind Khan and puffed a truly huge cloud of spores into the area, dusting everyone and everything with whatever he was all about.
The figures approached, with their steady and measured tread, crunching and scraping on the stone and silt. About ten yards away they paused, locked their tower shields into a solid wall and began to move more quickly.
The simple weapons stopped waving idly and became the jagged and menacing teeth of the tight formation now rapidly approaching.
“Redcaps… undead redcaps…” Khan muttered in disgust. “Don’t hold back kids, these things won’t…” An arrow zipped past Tallum, shattering a skull right out from under its bloody, reeking hat. The soft boney clatter of the thing collapsing set the whole mob off, marching at speed into Tallum and Liam.
The frontliner’s shields clashed, as weapons jabbed for vulnerable points around the living mens’ defense. Liam’s fancy footwork and agile spear blocked the weapons reaching for him, as his boots skidded backwards under the mass of skeletal horrors.
Tallum ducked behind his shield and held the line, while Ivy, Becky and Tawny defended him with their reaching staves. Tawny bashed a quick jab into the eye socket of the first little monster to try and get around the big man, as Becky deflected a rusty knife away, by shattering the arm holding it.
Arrows flickered in the dark, thinning the back line of creatures with dreadful efficiency. For each monstrous childlike nightmare that fell, two more shambled up from the depths, clanking up the hall mechanically and joining the fray.
“Hold on guys, lemme get something going…” Gary called, falling back to the archers, for more room to work.
His weapon vanished, replaced by his Banshee teleblaster. Wailing notes and chords shivered into the dank, dark, underground melee, joined by a bass and drum kit that appeared between eye blinks, along with a quartet of odd shadow musicians.
She's not a girl who misses much
Do do do do do do, oh yeah…
The soft, plaintive voice that sang out in the dark was slightly nasal and high, but the emotions hidden in the sound made up the difference.
The man in the crowd with the multicolored mirrors
On his hobnail boots
Lying with his eyes while his hands are busy
Working overtime…
“Relax and listen for the key and tempo changes… don’t try to anticipate.” The madman sang during his solo. “John, Paul, George, and Ringo will be keeping us on the beat...”
Those familiar threads of magic and music wove among his little family, sewing them into a single unit, bolstering their offense and defense, with the magic of teamwork.
While the sudden changes to the beat pulled the living group together, those same threads entangled and interfered with their foes, shaking the near mechanical focus of the things.
Gaps appeared in their shield wall, which Liam and Tallum expanded with quick, economical attacks. The big man’s hatchet did terrible things where it struck, shattering bones and weapons with ease. There were already two fewer shields on the opposing side, one split in half by a hatchet blow. The other, Tallum planted a boot on, before another small corpse could take it up, from its shattered owner’s remains.
The back line did fine work as well, staves thrust out in time to the strange song, bashing and cracking against weapons, shields and bones wherever the opportunity presented itself.
Ivy concentrated on battering weapons away from the big man, slipping from side to side with fluid grace, working in tandem with her massive partner. He held the bulk of the hallway, pushing his small opponents back with slow, relentless strength… at great cost. Even with Ivy’s hard work, he was bleeding from a number of ragged cuts to his legs and arms. The little shits were good at finding gaps in their armor… too good.
During the chorus, Gary stretched his magic out farther and found what he was looking for, hidden away in the dark. Tendrils of cold, dark sorcery were writhing and slipping from the shadows, guiding the things, manipulating them.
“Oh, crap… these are puppets, just animated bones… let me find the ones controlling them…” He handed his teleblaster off to his shadow, who stepped to the right and became a dark skinned, fluffy haired Gary, with a wide collared shirt in all the colors of the rainbow.
“Follow Jimi, gang. He’s got this. Becky, fall back, we need your harp.” Gary’s weird musical baton joined the song, as it shifted in tempo and feel.
The musician slid up behind Liam, taking Becky’s spot, just as she wrenched her staff out of a collapsing skellie with a boney rattle.
“Pull our friends out of the shadows love… we need to thank them for the warm welcome.” He called, while using the spinning, singing rings on his staff to grind a skeleton into dusty fragments.
Gary put his shoulder to Liam’s back, steadying him with his mass, after bashing another little monster down hard. Together, they pushed the last yard to form up with the big smith and plug the hall fully.
Big T and Ivy nodded with relief when they cleared the flanking monsters away with vicious strikes and kicks. “Advance?” Tallum asked, he grinned savagely when the smaller man nodded.
“Gary, switch!” His brother gasped, with his spear tangled in a ribcage… just a ribcage, the rest of the thing was on the floor in bits.
With one fluid move they swapped places, Liam spun his spear, clearing the entangling body parts, while Gary spun his staff, throwing more bones around wherever it struck.
Becky’s harp found its place, as Jimi took the lead in the complicated, fast evolving all star jam sesh. Ringo cackled madly and threw ever more complex beats at the guitar screaming out into the dark, under the ghost’s flying fingers.
The colorful guitarist sang in a joyous, roaring wail, hurling everything he had into it, shaking small stones from the walls.
Well, I'm a voodoo chile.
Lord I'm a voodoo chile!
Well, the night I was born,
Lord I swear the moon turned a fire red!
Liam reversed his spear and took a terrible toll with the weighted iron ball mounted at the butt end. He shot it out from behind Gary with brutal jabs, rattling the bones of anything that tried to slip inside the musician’s fast spinning guard.
The big smith and his partner pushed the enemy back slowly, while Gary and Liam shrank their numbers with aggressive action and relentless forward pressure.
They traded small cuts and dented armor for shattered skulls and flying limbs, dealing destruction wholesale to the legion of tiny abominations.
Tawny’s wand flicked out, touching the combatants in turn as they fought, bathing the fighters in protective, cleansing and refreshing spells. Herlick and Khan sent arrows into the backfield, sending broken skulls clattering to the floor with regularity.
The battle stretched on and on, with more of the terrible little turds clattering up in twos and threes from the hallway, until Becky let out a triumphant laugh.
“Got it, let me drag it out into the light!” Becky shouted, drawing a glare from Jimi.
…Alright,
Now dig this, baby,
…You don't care for me
I don' a care about that!
“Sorry buddy, I stepped on your line… my bad.” Becky’s freestyle skills were a little weak, but Jimi smiled and sent a ferocious riff sailing out in reply.
Yeah, get on with it, baby,
That's what I'm talking 'bout…
Now dig this!
Together the musicians, alive and less so, dragged… something, into the dim light. Dark, slimy and ever shifting, the thing tried to avoid any sunlight. Its tentacles were ropy strands of semi transparent darkness and oily murk, wiggling along the walls and roof. Each tiny combatant had a thread of viscous ichor, leading from the thing, reaching down into its blood soaked cap.
“Good work, gang! Cut the threads and move forward! Khan, can you do something about the leader?” Gary shrugged as Khan’s first arrow, glittering with a tiny bead of light, flashed by and buried itself in the struggling thing, while he was still talking.
It twitched and writhed, but no more than it had before. After a moment, Khan’s arrow clattered to the floor, almost unnoticed in the din of music, shattering bones and clashing weapons.
Liam’s spear point came into play again, now that there was something to slash at. Gary swapped for his sword and round shield, clipping one cord of icky magic after another with his golden wang.
“Taste my swinging dick!” Gary roared, enraged and excited, lost in the horrible din and pushing forward hard. Behind him, Jimi, the fab four and Becky were jamming on an improvisational ‘Little Wing’, holding the vile entity in place and in reality.
Faint sparks and glimmers of golden light began to glow from the thing, gently illuminating the nauseating entity. Long and squat, it clung to the curving roof of the hallway, dangling its threads of magic into the fray. Ten or twelve feet long and dripping with inky snot, it resembled a smoky, semi transparent slug with tentacles and eyestalks everywhere.
A pair of small human skeletons… babies really, floated in the abhorrent thing like the saddest jello mold. Two tiny waifs, their arms and legs tangled together in a grisly embrace revolving and orbiting in the disgusting monstrosity.
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Caught up in music, fury and magic, Gary let out a terrible yell and surged past Tallum, advancing aggressively, perhaps recklessly. His pervy sword flashed three times in just a few heartbeats, cutting two shield skellies down on the way as he bashed another to flinders with his boot.
With no more shields on the enemy side, Tallum dropped his and swapped out for his bill hook. He began harvesting the little creeps in earnest, working hard to keep up with Gary.
Blind with rage, the big musician took a number of blows, trusting his armor and pure aggression to carry the day. Not that he was really thinking anymore. His attention was all on the slug creature, desperately trying to turn about and flee, as its army crumbled.
Slug guy was not winning any foot races, its slow motion escape plan offended what little rational mind remained in the big musician, sending him hurtling into any gap that presented itself.
He bashed and smashed his way through his small foes, cutting magical cords with scything, inelegant slashes and cuts. A dozen and more went tumbling to the floor under his furious onslaught, before reaching his chosen prey. Hiding back among the carrion army, the thing jiggled obscenely in its attempt to flee. He leapt the last line of ossified assholes with a shout of pure hatred, ignoring them entirely.
His headlong flying leap stabbed his highly inappropriate blade into the tenebrous mass, Gary ripped into it with a howl of savage joy getting absolutely coated by its gross, mucous layer. He thrust his blade in, all the way up to the bronze ballsack between his quillons.
Dreadful, stinking sparks flared and sizzled in the thing, as Khan’s magic took greater hold, spreading fast from where the boy’s golden pecker was fucking the eldritch thing, deep, hard and long.
Like rotten bacon in a skillet, it popped and spattered filth and ichor down onto Gary, where he stood beneath the wounded horror. Its magical threads and pseudopods began to smoke and sparkle, while the tiny battalion of corpses tumbled down, one after another with little more than a rattling clank.
“Bloody fool!” Khan barked, as the combatants trampled the bones in their rush to rejoin Tallum and their pet idiot.
Finally, The dark, wretched beastie fell from the roof, directly onto its shouting, cocksword wielding foe.
The living warriors charged into the dim corridor, where he was still struggling with the nightmare squid-slug thing, even as it weakened and more lights sparked in its inky flesh.
One hand was on the hilt of his dickblade, levering it to and fro in the wound, to distress and abuse his opponent. His other hand tore off chunks and tentacles, which he shoved into the shadow of his own body, even as faint as it was, in the dim hall.
“Stay back…” He snarled at the team. “Toxic slime, it dissolves living flesh on contact… and some nasty diseases too.” He tore another fistful of the thing out and shoved it into the darkness below him.
With a gaseous eruption, his sword split the thing’s ‘head’ in half lengthwise, shearing through the pitiful skeletons trapped in its disgusting body.
Gary staggered out of the cloud of reeking, greasy smoke, coughing and gagging in disgust and pain. “I popped a stitch in my grundle Tawny…” He moaned “I can feel blood in my shorts.”
“Serves you right, I’m telling Shai!” Becky yelled at him from her place, back with the rapidly vanishing band.
“Enough chatter, we withdraw and plan.” Khan snapped, still watching the darkness beyond his team. “Form up and move, redcaps are a class C threat, undead protocols as well.”
Tawny, Becky and Ivy pulled out bags of ritual salt and began broadcasting it, while Tawny sang a short blessing. A gentle thrum of power whispered through the field of tumbled and broken bones as she finished.
#
Up in the sunshine, they pulled back to the house, once Tawny made certain no one (Gary) was bleeding out. She quickly and efficiently led the band in a first aid session, with uninjured warriors cleaning and binding the injuries of the less fortunate.
Gary kept away, holding his friends back with claims of ‘nasty stuff’ and insistence that he was ‘just fine’. The fool boy stumbled along, smiling and distracted by a wad of violet goo he was kneading in his fingers.
“Stop playing with boogers ya mook!” Becky grumbled. “Fool all the way through. We should have let them cut you up, we could build three full idiots from the parts.”
She pushed forward, holding a first aid kit, while Tawny and Ivy checked over the others and the veterans watched the ruin warily.
“Really, stay back Becks, I have some nasty stuff all over me, really nasty…” Gary smiled sheepishly and mumbled something that sounded embarrassed, but he kept his distance and kept playing with his snot. He reached out and wiped his ball of sticky ooze on his own forearm, interrupting Becky’s attempts to clean a pretty bad cut while on the move.
“Damn it Gary, what the hell?” She demanded, while he grunted in surprise, followed by a pleased smile.
“Experimental topical healing potion, it’s my own blend.” He said happily, in his regular voice. An instant later he burst out, like a carnival barker or loud used wagon salesman.
“New from Wardco labs! The amazing new Goblin Goo!™! It’s the: antiseptic, anesthetic, antifungal, self sealing, quick healing, smells appealing, full of good feeling, wonder snot.”
He chanted his pitch, while wadding up another ball of light purple ooze. He smeared it on his wrist and cheek with a few deft moves, then spun and wiped the rest on his left thigh, stumbling in the process.
“Gary, stop flailing about this instant, you are bleeding from your everything… great lumbering oaf…” Tawny had enough, as had the rest. She marched him inside and tattled to Shai shamelessly.
#
Liam swiped his pouch of ‘Goblin Goo!™’ and took over administering it to the numerous cuts and scratches they had all collected. “We will be discussing that name too… ‘Goblin Goo!™’ indeed… it’s not even green. Why can’t I say it without sounding excited?”
The bag contained a few dozen small cubes of the stuff. It had the consistency of firm beeswax at first, but when kneaded, it softened until it reached the desired texture, from stiff wax, to slippery, slimy oil. Adding saliva or water made it even more slick and wet, while blood congealed and clotted the stuff quickly.
He slipped into the public bath side, stripping off his contaminated armor and clothing with relief. The slimy, crusty residue sluiced away under the hot shower, while his purple gunk remained, stubbornly resisting even the not exactly water in the baths.
“Goblin Goo!™ is going to be super popular, trust me, and the name speaks for itself… also, something in that monster’s snot might be mildly narcotic… everything feels… really good.” He sang happily, while blood from wounds he couldn’t reach made the water run pink.
It took a few minutes to realize Shai was yelling at him, even longer to figure out that the rest were unhappy as well. Except Tallum, the big guy looked deeply satisfied, slathered in violet goop on his forearms and legs.
“I’m really high right now…” Gary whispered, to the entire house and garden. “Bath, then a jam session? Jimi played some interesting music.”
“Ohh that’s a good idea! What about snacks? I’m hungry!” Tallum agreed.
“You shut up too big fella.” Ivy cooed to her man.
#
About an hour later, Gary woke up in the grotto, feeling better. He stumbled outside and into a planning meeting.
“Ahh, are you sensible enough to give any insight into what that thing was?” Luna asked sweetly, while Shai glared daggers at him from her seat with Becky and the kids.
“Uhh yeah, sorry gang, I got a little overwrought. I took that thing personally, my error. It really set me off.” He mumbled and fidgeted under their combined gaze, until Shai relented.
“Aye, he has learnt… or at least, he best have.” She grumbled, still just a bit sore with her fool.
He got busy, digging through his accumulated messages. “Let’s see what I have on that slimy… so and so.” In a sudden flash of wisdom from beyond space and time, he decided he’d best not irritate Shai any more, especially with salty language in front of the kids.
“Hmm.. no… ah, here we go.”
Istyrithiassis, The Mucosal Marionettist and Harbinger of Plagues, demon, outsider, summoned entity, semi corporeal, semi intangible, innate invisibility to normal sight, threat level, extreme/mild, intelligent, aggressive, hostile, unnatural undead entity, venomous, toxic, poisonous, infectious, vector of disease and plague, caustic, vector of undeath.
Warning: You possess personal immunity to many of this entity’s greatest threats, proceed with caution.
Warning: toxic mucous, intoxicating, poisonous, hallucinogenic, caustic, carnivorous, infectious, vector of undeath. Personal immunities: some conditions do not take effect. You are not immune to hallucinogenic intoxicants.
Warning: Toxic Mucous: you are intoxicated. Repeated exposure will increase duration/severity. Mild visual and auditory confusion, synesthesia, euphoria, pain resistance, physical and spiritual resistances impaired.
Warning: contagion; Heartworm, parasitic nematodes. Your alien form is inhospitable to this parasite, condition does not take effect.
Warning: contagion; Incontinent Leprosy, bacterial infection, resulting in fatal explosive evacuation of the bowels and related organs, you are immune to this effect/condition.
Warning: contagion; Erectile Malfunction, contagious malignant genital cancer, you are immune to this effect/condition.
Warning: contagion; Malopecia Vulgaris, viral mutagen. Your hair resists growing in as aggressive venomous serpents, you have resisted this effect/condition.
“Ok, I got some info on this guy… it’s pretty gross.” He printed the other sheets out, but held off on the last one. He got a little queasy when he tried to read it for himself.
Congratulations, you have slain: Istyrithiassis, The Mucosal Marionettist and Harbinger of Plagues.
You have consumed this outsider entirely! Your Soul/shade/ghost/spirit is currently digesting this entity. Further developments will be reported as they occur.
That was a lot to take in, especially the last part; ‘further developments’ sounded interesting and terrifying.
“I have one more, guys and maybe more incoming… I guess I ‘consumed’ that creature…?”
#
“He does eat everything…” Becky muttered at the end of a long and thoroughly inconclusive debate on the meaning of that last message. “Don’t come crying to me if you get eldritch diarrhea or something.”
Shai was more practical, she dragged him to the bath, stripped him and went over his body in detail, poking and prodding anything that looked even vaguely suspicious. She did a little poking for funzies too.
“Tis still a darling color of pink…” She mumbled, while he was still paddling away from her probing digit. “Great bairn that ye are, I do get poked with bigger and longer regularly… as ye well know!”
“Hey, that was an honest mistake… it was dark and I was new…” He complained sourly.
She caught up to him at the edge and squirmed into his lap, aiming for maximum skin contact.
“Tis a risky job in all, boy of mine. Take it seriously an dinnae hurl yerself at foes. Remember the cards we dealt wi Streeka? T’was many did caution thee against folly and o’erweening pride… ye were careless twice. There willnae be a third… Aye?”
“Yes dear.” He intoned, displaying greater wisdom than most would credit him.
“Good, now let me see yer pretty backside again, I like how ye did squeak when I nudged ye.”
#
“There’s nothing wrong with a little light tushie play…” He told himself, while they recovered. He was surprised to find it was true, yet another shattered taboo.
“Aye, nothing wrong at all…” She cooed in his arms. “Dinnae get any aspirations wi that thing lad, t’would nae fit… comfortably.”
“I hear there's a good kind of discomfort too…” He giggled with naughty glee at the thought.
“Vile an depraved… that’s what ye are. An mine too.” Shai nipped him on the shoulder just enough to leave a mark and slipped away, gathering a robe around herself. Dress yerself, we are nae done wi this task… summat yet lingers in this place.”
“Brutal, the working conditions are just brutal!” He complained as he dressed, pinching her bottom whenever a curve presented itself. The saucy minx kept him busy with those wiggling hips and the pale curving moon that sailed through his dreams every night.
#
Dressed and back in the common room,Gary and Shai joined Khan’s lecture and briefing on the plan so far.
“Skullipedes are a very rare mutation of a common monster, the tentepede. Dannyl has a drawing of one.” He paused while it circulated in the room.
It was not a pretty sight. A forest of pointy legs carried an armored, segmented body about eight feet long, the sting tail was barbed and looked really ugly, with a veiny, gross poison gland prominently displayed at the root of its weapon.
The head was a pulpy mass of feelers and grabbers with a sharp beak, hidden among the forest of horrors.
“This creature is an ambush predator, though a highly selective one.” Khan lectured the group, in the foggy morning hours.
“The creature is a burrower, it has a soft, squishy head, ringed with grasping tentacles and a scorpion tail, packing a deadly sting. It will lurk for years, or even decades waiting for just the right prey. They only attack humans with whom they are compatible, spiritually.”
He nodded with satisfaction at his attentive audience of greenies. “The partial soul trapped in the monster will seek a compatible host, if the prey kills or drives off the creature, they will absorb its incomplete essence and grow significantly stronger.” He nodded at the interested looks flying his way from around the room and continued.
“If the creature slays its victim, both perish, though the victim’s soul will absorb the creature’s anyway, becoming stronger in its next life... or so the lore says.”
He grimaced with displeasure and continued. “The Skullipede is the result of a tentipede attack on a human child. Almost invariably, the creature slays the poor child, but the immature soul cannot accommodate the monster’s essence… they become entangled and rise as what Gary described. A scuttling undead insect with a child’s skull and a grasping hand with a stinger. Any living creature stung, is doomed without prompt cleansing from a cleric. The venom enrages and deranges living beings, slowly transforming them into undead servitors, enslaved to the creature.”
“Thanks, that’s gross.” Gary complained, rubbing his still tender parts. “What about his army of shitheads? Redcaps? We had something like them back home, dumb, violent and only a threat in large groups, can’t resist red hats…”
“Redcaps are a clan of gnomes, yes, the happy, friendly little fellows that love good food and drink…” Luna explained, while Khan had some breakfast.
“Redcaps are violent fringe cultists that worship their dark god with cannibalistic rites. They dye their caps in the blood of their victims and glory in torture and suffering, the way most gnomes enjoy a nice garden stroll.” She glared at the band with her one blue eye.
“They travel in packs of up to one hundred, making them a real threat to outlying farms and small villages. Kill them on sight if possible, report any contact to the guild.” She grinned happily. “Fortunately, these assholes were already dead.”
After that, Liam explained the plan for the next steps:
“We go back down in the morning. Gary… Support Monkey. If you draw anything more deadly than a banjo without need… I’ll tell Becky.” Liam was super strict too, he was going to be under someone’s eye at all times now.
#
After dinner, Becky found her big brother in the garden, kneeling in a quiet spot beside two small ritual circles, drawn in salt. She waited while he finished whatever creepiness he was on about, watching from a nearby bench with interest and mild disgust.
Each small circle held a pile of human remains, one was a small skull, certainly not an adult’s. The other contained a pile of tiny mingled bones, with two distressingly small skulls, peeking out from the tangle.
He swayed and sang something soft and plaintive, drenched in antique sorrow and the grief of uncounted ages:
As I walked out in the streets of Laredo…
As I walked out in Laredo one day…
I saw a young cowboy, wrapped all in white linen,
Wrapped in white linen, as cold as the clay
His sad song made little sense, but they seldom did, it felt right though.
Oh, beat the drum slowly and play the fife lowly,
Sing the death march as you carry me home.
Take me to the valley, there lay the sod o'er me…
As he wrapped up and put his twelve string guitar away, three tiny black birds darted into the sky, arrowing for the distant moon so bright and high above.
His broom and dustpan appeared, as he cleared away the now vacant bones, reverently tipping them into the stream running to the ghost pool, to vanish forever.
“Thanks for waiting Becks, those kids were stuck here long enough. What do you need?” He asked with a contented, slightly sad smile.
“That crazy baton of yours… teach me how to use it. That thing chewed through the undead like Dannyl’s whip through straw dummies.” She grinned with a savage hunger. “That thing is brutal.”
“I thought you’d never ask, Becks…” All traces of melancholy washed away from her silly, mercurial brother, as he got super excited.
Souza’s Mace: enchanted staff, musical instrument, weapon/magical tool, Etheric Enchantment, Iron rank plus. When empowered by a source of etheric magic, wielder may control the various tuned rings and chimes integral to this construct.
When empowered, weapon/instrument gains significant bonuses to impact, abrasion and cutting effects when employed against: undead, constructs, non corporeal entities and outsiders. Low mana and stamina cost, minor ongoing maintenance costs.
Skills, gifts and spells empowered or influenced by wielder gain enhanced effects against non corporeal/intangible entities, undead beings and constructs.
“It all comes down to finely balanced mana control and a little jazz theory…” He chanted, while passing her the strange weapon, already wailing its sweet metalic song.
#