A Repeating Nightmare...
Ten more deaths had passed.
I hadn’t managed to get past the ghosts yet. I had killed fourteen of them, however.
Today, four key things were happening.
The first thing was Tremble had earned its first Slaughter alternate Bane today, and Bane to the Undead stamped itself into my Sword. +2 to Enhancement, +2-12 damage… so, like adding a greatsword along every sweep of my Blade, punching harder and deeper.
“You really do sleep too long once they kill you.”
The vibrato voice was equal parts amused, concerned, dismissive, and curious.
Tremble’s Item Familiar powers had reached the point where he could speak. Still a long ways to go on stuff... It also meant that his Detect Bane power was up and working.
“Good nightmare to you, too,” I replied. With my continued refining, he was looking less and less like half a pair of scissors and more like a real sword. But I always had something to do, every day.
I crossed my legs and laid him down on top of my Vajra as he entered Firephase, and I began to ripple my Vajra through his solid-fire form. He swirled as my nails passed over and past him, and tittered.
“I had no idea you were ticklish,” I commented.
“Oh, you are like the best masseuse ever,” he acknowledged without missing a beat, as I worked at moving around the fiery substance that had replaced his steel, refining the flow of power and crystalline structure while he was in this more mutable form.
“Flattery gets you a higher QL,” I answered calmly.
“One can only dream,” he shot back in total deadpan. I smiled. He was a snarker. “Are you finally going to make it through those ghosts today?” he sighed softly.
I sighed back, “Yes.”
Third item, I ticked over Winds Mastery/2, my Ki rose to 23, and my Diamond Vajra to 45.
Fourth item, I ticked over Diamond Vajra Resistance/1, Negative Energy.
“22 points of Negative Energy Resistance online,” I informed him blithely.
“I am not sure how effective that is, but it sounds impressive,” he admitted after a moment.
“An average shadow does 1-6, a spectre 2-12, and a ghost 10-60.”
“Wow, that is a huge damage jump!”
“Shadows also do Strength damage, and wraiths and spectres drain Levels. Different manifestation of the energy, pure Negative Energy Resistance doesn’t stop it. But I’m almost immune to that with my Null now, so it’s not a concern of mine.”
“So instead of taking 35ish damage a hit, you’ll be taking 13? That will be much, much better!” Tremble worked out, the flames making his hum sound like a rushing crackle.
“Yes, and I should be taking no damage from the earlier waves whatsoever, so I’ll be meeting them in top condition. Additionally, my Damage Reduction is ki-based, so it resonates with my Vajra. Since this negative energy is an actual attack, my Crystal Dragon Way of Iron will stack right on top of it. Only four points, but 26 points of negative touch resistance is nothing to sneeze at. If they only graze me, I won’t feel a thing, and if they stick an entire arm through me, that’ll hurt, but not as much as before,” I agreed.
“Tremble, She comes…” hummed my Sword, vibrating just above my knees with palpable eagerness.
“We’re going to need a stanza for ghosts here soon.”
“In Necrus!” Tremble replied cheerfully.
“Can’t terrorize the undead without it.” Undead were nominally immune to fear, unless you jumped through some hoops. A mnecromonic Weapon that recorded everything that died to it and was Bane to them did the job nicely. Only had to overcome the -20 penalty to affect something normally immune to fear. Blaring at them in Necrus while they felt the liberation of so many of their kind en vivus was enough to shake even the brainless undead.
My Intimidation modifier was maybe +15 or so right now, with Tremble in hand, so not likely to do anything to them. I was fighting crap way above my Level, after all.
“Foul in life, fouler in death, chains a-rattling with every still breath,” he began experimentally.
“That doesn’t actually rhyme in Necrus…”
“Oh. I need to learn more languages…”
“No reason you can’t have a version for all the human listeners to admire,” I reasoned, as I continued at my task.
“Oh, true, true!” he agreed happily. “Damned ghosts, a score of spirits groaning, vivus to the face, their cursed fates bemoaning…”
“Their deaths, their doom, it came at last, end of the endless, all too fast…” I supplied.
“Free of pain, unlife burning, free in horror, undeath churning…”
“TREMBLE, SHE COMES!” we belted out together.
“Gotta get the notes right,” I observed.
“Right, right. But I can’t hit the right notes while in fire mode,” he crackled.
“True. I guess we’ll just have to practice while on the job.”
“So, how does that sound in Necrus?” he asked curiously.
I opened my mouth and began to croak a truly disastrous litany with a melody that sent chills up my own spine at the sheer inhumanity of it. Tremble listened with professional interest.
“Wow, that sounded like a hellhole gave birth to a constipated toad,” he informed me after I finished.
“Ghastly?” I noted acerbically.
“Argh! I hath been punned!”
“Word structure in Necrus is pretty fucked up in regards to Human, but taking liberties with it is one of the ways you really upset the undead, who aren’t big on change.”
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“We’re going to make a twenty-tongue masterpiece stanza someday, just to show them all how not to fuck with us!” he promised dramatically.
I laughed lightly. “Yes, we are. Once we get out of here. What kind of accompaniment?”
“Weird flutes for humans listening. For undead, hmm…”
“Water glasses?”
“Ohhhh…” he seemed to like that. “With silver jingle bells. Ostentatiously cheerful stuff.”
“Something spritely. Just combining that with Necrus will crack them.”
We chortled together as we brainstormed a melody for the new stanza upcoming. Of course, had to add in dolorous iron bells for the Human version…
------
My fist came down, and solidly thumped onto the Ghost Reaver, driving him into the floor as my Null stopped him from phasing through it. He had no effective weight, and next to no effective strength against physical force that could actually lean on him.
I smashed this guy and his pirate’s attire into the wooden floor, splaying his ectoplasmic face across the oversized grains. His other hand was held in my hand, Null and Vajra keeping it from touching my flesh, spirit on spirit.
“Pipe down, fuckhead. You’ve killed me six times, this is just the start of me getting some payback.”
My foot drove down onto his face as I pulled his arm back out behind him. With his skull distorted like pudding, it was kind of hard for him to think properly.
I brought his incorporeal hand across my skin very deliberately. If he was moaning and wailing and writhing under my heel as I bent his arm past what was physically possible, well, he was an ectoplasmic spirit, so it didn’t really mean anything.
Next to his bulging eyeball, Tremble played a discordant tune in water glass and jingle bells, crooning softly in Necrus. We so had to work the pirate angle into that stanza…
There was a hiss as my skin necrotized, and my Diamond Vajra rose to fight back, pushing back against the necroic aging of his touch as I touched his hand to my arm.
Again. Again. Again. Again, and again. Alternating long and short bands of whiteness burned across the bronze of my skin, hissing softly, and making the distance between soul and reality paper-thin. Blood began to flow as my Vajra-nails scribed Runes into the very cells of my skin, and my first set of Tats began to light up.
I switched hands to repeat the process on my other forearm. Twin sets of seven lines hissed and bled on my forearms.
“Congratulations!” I told the Reaver Ghost in Necrus. “You just became a power comp!”
I snatched up Tremble and drove it down through his nexus as he wailed away. He shrieked as vivic flame exploded across him, and then I ripped his disintegrating form off the floor and drove my arms into him.
Holes were punched through my forearms as I opened the arms chakras right into my new Tats. The world’s fattest blisters were lanced with cold and hot fire, the pain a lash across mind, body, and soul that sent my knees slamming to the floor as I lost control of them. I just rolled my eyes up and let the scars burn as my soul squeezed out through the gap, widened it, and my Vajra swirled with two new points of power on my arms.
“That looks like it really hurts,” Tremble noted from where he was stuck in the floor next to me.
“Two minutes…” I managed to hiss, as my arms shook from the pressure of my soul squeezing out of them.
The first long and short lines lit up slowly on both arms, vivic flames burning over them as they ate the essence of the Reaver, and the Blood-runes were buried under the white scars.
Philosopher’s Might. +2 to UA damage and all strength checks per Invested Essence. Twice as effective as Soul and Fist… but they also stacked, and Chakra points were harder to Invest in than Feats were.
The majority of my Soak was gone, and my Health was actually in single digits before I popped the Vigors and let my Healing Soul go to it. Excess healing splashed over to my Soak as the burns on my flesh and internal organs from the withering attacks of the ghosts washed away in the power of pure spiritual energy accurately applied. 12 points 4 times/day wasn’t a lot, but it basically gave me all my Health back, and another 48 Soak back was definitely a much-needed cushion.
Tremble was mumbling something about misty plumed tricorns and spectral sabers as he worked out an extra stanza. I could feel steam rising from my skin as accelerated healing had its way, and my body was forcibly restored towards it most optimal state based on my Kirlian Aura.
I reached out for Tremble as I slowly forced myself back to my feet. He hummed in readiness, Undead Bane and Vivic burning black, unwhite and Gold with Soul Essence.
My hands flexed, and I could feel the power of my Vajra moving over them as the new Tats hummed, granting me a new strength and power I had been long missing, almost an exo-shell of magic humming and solidifying at contact points. The Essence of my Soul energized the Runes, just like Tremble, and brought the magic into my hands and arms and body.
And my Sword was an extension of my hand.
The combination of Philosopher’s Might and Bane meant I could now reasonably two-hit an average ghost. What was coming next might be even tougher, but that was fine. More Karma and more testing was always good for me.
The dark didn’t let up. More shadows gathered, and this time they seemed to be burning.
My lips curled up. Oh, oh you sweet Curse, you…
The witchfires, the souls of undead Hags, began to condense out of motes of the ghastly moonlight, gathering the puke yellow-green flames about themselves, actually manifesting as the attractive women they might have been if not for the Curse, letting them know the beauty that might have been theirs and further torturing them.
My Fire Resistance was at 26. I was not afraid of a Witchfire. Sure, they had a ranged attack, but my Null would take care of that. They had no choice but to attack me in melee, and when they did, I would kill them. I might take some damage, but that was fine. I couldn’t stop smiling as Tremble began to belt out our song and really unnerve them as the sixteen of them took flight, focusing on me, and let their burning rays of witchfire fly.
None of those Rays got within five feet of me before directly fading away, Nulled and gone.
Volleys two, three, four went by. None of them touched me, and I mocked them in Aklo, Necrus, and Jotun. Their spells came in, and none of those touched me, either.
They brought up the will o’ wisp Summons, and suddenly I had twenty little balls of I-can-be-invisible lightning to deal with.
Unfortunately for them, the only restriction on Vajra Resistance was level of Vajra. Naturally, to qualify for a Diamond Vajra, I had to meet the limitations for Vajra Resistance/5. Fire, acid, lightning, cold, and sonic/thunder, yep!
So, their little lightning attacks as they converged on me at the direction of their mistresses did absolutely squat. 26 points wasn’t a lot for dealing with magic, but it was more than enough to handle minor effects like this.
And while they were shocking me wildly with all the bolts of lightning, like ersatz Christmas lights and spark globes from Hell, I reaped them all in under twelve seconds. They weren’t that tough, and while they might be tough for someone else to hit, going all in on just trying to hit the dancing, dodging little bastards meant Tremble shrieked through them all in magnificently short order.
They were Summons; they couldn’t run, and could only shock me ineffectually and die in swathes and arcs of sword work as fast as I could move my arms. Whirlwind Attack and Cleaving AoO’s basically did for the lot of them, killing them as fast as they could converge on me.
I let the last of the sparking bastards burn away, noting to Tremble that we needed to add Aberrants to Slaughter, and he agreed softly as I stared at the witchfires above me. They sent a few more bolts of puke-fire at me, and I ignored them like burning butterflies.
“If you want to kill me, Aunties, you’re going to have to get your nails dirty,” I grinned at them fiercely.
They all had 10 HD, but higher Charisma than ghosts, so they were tougher. Three hit territory.
One of them couldn’t take it, and dove down, her delicate hands spread wide to burn me with those unclean flames.
She died in some astonishment, impaled on Tremble and her Nexus shattering in an explosion of hungry unwhiteness.
“Oh, wasn’t she the impressive one. Must have been a fluke. Come on down and have some tea, Aunties!”
Two tried to. One’s burning fingers cut across my chest, raising welts, before she died.
The rest realized that they would have to group up to attack me, like the constructs at the beginning of my runs had started to do now that I could basically dispose of the single ones. The remaining thirteen came at me in a horde.
Of course, I didn’t want to take all their attacks at once, and moved to make sure they could not instantly encircle me. Whirlwind, Riposte, Sword Beats Fist, Hold the Line, a second Whirlwind, and they began to die in swathes. Cleaves, AoO’s, and wrathflames sheared through their balefires and delivered mine Aunties unto uncineration vivic as they wailed. The multi-hued, clashing flames died down in less than thirty seconds once they charged, and it was all over.
Of course, I was now burned all over, not wearing much clothing, and gasping, knowing I wasn’t going to make it through the next batch… but also pretty damn happy, as this was the first time I’d made it through one of the new Spawns immediately after experiencing it.
Of course, the banshees coming up didn’t much appreciate that.
14 to 18 HD of lovely screaming elf-maiden kill-babes. Charisma at least 26. A Death Scream that could punch through my Null, and a touch attack of at least 14d6 of negative energy.
I had to laugh. Damn. Well, let’s see if I could take down one of them before I bought it…