Chapter 17-441: Hungry for Septs (1/2)

Briggs ran right down the side of the wall from the cave, landed on the water, and started forwards at a trot. Sama was right on his heels, Tremble in one hand, Fall in the other, also remaining silent.

Behind them, lightfooters moved along the walls, the rough terrain along the shore, or across the waters. Some of them piled into Mr. Burble as the shoggoth shaped itself into a translucent, low-hulled longboat, and powered soundlessly after the others using an organic hydraulic jet to motor along.

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Surprise was complete, and when the Pstatic Obelisk that Mr. Burble had brought along sent Pscreeching psychic interference into the skulls of anything trying to use telepathy, recovery was anything but quick in coming.

Too many of their Constructs had been implanted with the modified brain tissue of the central intelligence, a fact the alert Pawlie had noted. If everything went well, it meant the whole sept of cephalids could coordinate instantly and completely, like a well-oiled machine under the complete guidance of a single intelligence.

Without that level of communication, having to work on very inefficient vocal communication that was rapidly getting swamped by screams of pain, shouts of rage, squeals of panic, clashing orders, and the explosively loud disorder of mass combat, the resulting response was... not quite so impressive. The way the Constructs just stood around waiting for instructions on what to do as everything died around them certainly didn’t help matters. When the attackers finally turned their attention to the various figures of bone and stone and flesh and other things, specialists with ready Scarabs and Bane against Constructs took them down before their self-defense programming could even kick in.

The way the ground was thrumming to a Hammering beat, Words slicing up the air with a weight and power that cut into ear membranes and stuck in the breathing passages didn’t help things, either.

“You endured the dark and the endless night,

Your exile in tombs beyond the light.

You plotted and planned against the sun,

Against cloud and moon and schemes undone.

Once again, they’ve come to call,

The mortals who once made you fall.

Bury you deep, down you burned

The Land!

It hungers! So long it’s yearned!

The time, the time, has come at last!

A proper meal, a fine repast!

Open your thoughts where now you stand,

In timeless hunger, now FEED THE LAND!”

Their hides were pulsing with shades, colors, and patterns none of them had ever seen on one another, as humanoids bearing thundering Firearms and blazing Weapons with flames that stabbed their lidless eyes with Anathema and endless hunger opened up new avenues of dread for them to experience. It was a yawning appetite that they’d never felt directed at them before.

The terrible idea that the Land was hungry for them was a terrible thing to infect the cephalid psyche with, considering how arrogant and proud they were of their own intellects. Even with the pscreaming that shook their skulls if they tried to use telepathy, the idea wormed into their akashic resonance and took root there... along with the Song pounding out in Aklo and carrying harsh and hungering fear with it as it did so.

There were plenty of psychic arts unleashed, alien energies wielded, foul arts of artifice and alchemy exercised, mutant creatures kept in pslumber awakened and hurled forth at their enemies.

And they died. Everything died.

Their mental assaults, driving through the Pstatic and feedback, seemed to fall into black holes and go nowhere. Discharges of psychic energies from devices or those of sufficient skill just faded away as they reached the intruders, about as effective as glowstones in stopping them.

There was none of the vaunted magic the cephalids instinctively expected, although the thunder of guns and crump of explosives going off was more than destructive enough. The ancient cerulean flame of the Sigil of Creation, wrapped with a pale white fire that seemed to gape wide open to their lidless eyes with an endless, unquenchable appetite for the cephalids and their servants, burned through the air in terrifying counterpoint to all their attacks.

They had never seen such a force of humanoids so terrifyingly competent in their savagery. They were skilled, fast, powerful, coordinated, and moved with the oiled speed of those who had fought together many times, their teamwork not something that even the finest mental domination could duplicate, as each individual could respond and adapt to every situation in a positive way that others could build off of.

Pslaves died in droves, chewed into exploding fodder with gunfire, or hacked and impaled with the speed of the all-hungry flames. That Song hammered at their wills and morale, and the cephalids, boiling with the colors of terror and fear that they’d never seen on one another, pulled back, and back, and back again, setting off their traps and tricks and horrible surprises... and watched them all fail.

Sama and Briggs came after them coolly, Endure and Tremble leading the way with Songs so powerful the stone was carrying them.

Legendary Weapons, the first forged on this world since the Old Gods had wrought their own arms in blood, fire, and war untold ages past.

The first Legendary Arsenal effect they’d both picked was Heavenly Thunder, which was the +4d6 per damage blow of Thunder damage enchantment. Then they’d combined it with Thunderphasing, one Weapon giving the Beat and the other the Song, and the Sound of both Weapons carried with terrifying force.

When they hit stuff, the stuff exploded, too.