A zero percent chance of HIM starting battle and we picked up a nice weapon for our sla... err followers (damn noble intentions) not to mention a reserve amount for getting swim II incase things head south.
Dice fucking hate me, but I think a 25% chance is good enough. I vote we loot 5 guys so as to reduce the chances of our impulsive mermaid fuckbuddy dying horribly in the looming combat.
has one edge that will cut anything and the other edge can open doorways into other worlds (with a bit of training and focus on the part of the user). It's an incredibly useful artifact if we can keep hold of it.
B and E (Run!) are tied. Dracador was the only one to understand the significance of the Subtle Knife, so his vote swings it.
----
"We should free some of the prisoners!" you call out. "They could help us against the Anglerman!" You neglect to mention that it probably won't be in any capacity beyond 'living shields'.
"Not many though!" The stream of bubbles in the center is looking extremely ominous. "Maybe 5?"
"OK!" she replies, darting over to the furthest cell away. You prepare a magic blast to fry the lock on the first merperson's cell, but the Mermaid catches sight of you.
"What the hell are you doing?!" she shouts. Blimey, it's all getting a bit fraught. "I've got the knife!" As if to prove her point, she runs the knife across the bars of the cell in front of her - and it slides through the metal as though it were water. Gawping, you watch as she cuts a square out of the bars, slices off the manacle holding the shrunken merman to the back wall, and backs out of the cell in a fraction of the time it would've taken you.
OK. Swiftly revising your plans, you decide to keep watch over the rising collumn of bubbles whilst the Mermaid frees the remaining Merpeople along this row. You can just about see a faint aura emerging from the darkness - and it's a big one.
"We have to go now!" you shout, as the Mermaid finishes her work - the final door collapses onto the corridor, and the final weakened Merperson is rescued.
You beat a retreat to the archway by which you entered the jail area; there's no more time to loose. The Mermaid, still holding her remarkable knife and the golden trident is close behind you, and behind her are five Merpeople; two female, 3 male, all shrunken, with ribs on show, blank, staring eyes, and dulled scales on their lower halves. The two girls are clutching each other tightly.
Together, the six of you make it through the archway, as it arrives in the center of the jail behind you.
You were right - it is big. It fills up nearly the entire space between the two shelves of the canyon, and actually resembles nothing more than a big ball. Like an anglerfish crossed with a jellyfish... its flesh is deep black, and pitted with little clumps of glowing algae. Near the top of the sphere you spot two tiny yellow eyes, squinting evilly.
It opens its mouth.
And what a mouth it is. It covers almost the entire radius of its body; like an apple being cleaved right to its core and then pulled apart. As the mouth opens, you spot little glints of shining white teeth.
Water rushes into the gaping maw. Gallons and gallons of it. You see prisoners being pulled right up to the front bars of their cells, the iron bars pressing brutally into their withered flesh. A couple of guards that hadn't bunkered down are plucked off their corridors and launched into that giant, all-encompassing mouth, where they vanish instantly amongst the swirl of water and shifting debris. They can't even put up a fight.
Yet it doesn't affect you. You and your group stand safe behind the archway, watching the drama unfold. You can't even the slightest disturbance in the water around you, yet you can see it, just a meter in front, being draw furiously into the mouth of the beast. Must be a magical shield over the archway...
Eventually, it stops. The monster closes its mouth, and the vaccum ceases; the prisoners pull away from the bars of their cells, bright red welts visible from where they drawn against the metal. The guards exit their barracks and resume their patrols, and giant, black orb descends slowly back into the abyss.
The Mermaid is the first to break the silence.
"Well," she says. "That was interesting."
****
Some time later, the six of you - possibly the least merry band ever - find yourselves pressed against the iron grate that guards the way down into the Anglerman's room. He's still conducting his ritual - zombie merpeople are still swimming their ceaseless dance in and around each other - whilst he conducts them, but the blinding aura of the Archcrystal beneath him is twisting and contorting... if you were a betting tentacle, you'd say the ritual was nearly done.
Time for a plan.
----
Option 1) Cut your way through the grate, swim down openly. Let the weak Merpeople fight off the brunt of the zombies, and you and the Mermaid deal with the Anglerman two-to-one.
Option 2) Cut through the grate, weakened Merpeople fight the zombies, etc etc. However, you attack the Anglerman head on, and whilst you keep him occupied, the Mermaid sneaks down and runs him through from behind.
Option 3) Same as above, but the Mermaid takes on the Anglerman first, and you sneak down and clobber him when he's not expecting it.
Option 4) Zerg rush past the zombies, and all 6 of you concentrate on tearing the Anglerman to shreds.
Option 5) Bollocks to this, it's time to get out of here before the shit really hits the fan.
- Infest I (allows you to latch onto hosts and drain energy. Try and do it when they won't immediately notice and squash you).
- Slime Ooze I (secrete slime that can be both sticky and slippery. Further upgrades allow you to do much more with it).
- Scale Armor I (More protective against spells and phsyical attacks than Slime Ooze, but much less multi-purpose).
- Ovipositor I (Allows you to lay eggs within the orifice of a host. At low levels, these eggs are weak and may not hatch properly. Further upgrades reduces this risk. Each egg costs 10 energy to plant, but the hatched tentacle is autonomous and commanded by you).
- Magic Shield II (20 energy cost. Erects a magical barrier around yourself. It's not impenetrable, but it's a pretty close second).
- Perception II (20 Energy. Use body language and other subtle, chemical clues to put together a general hint of what someone is feeling at any given time. Is that a molecule of sweat? They're nervous. Are their fingers tapping? Clearly impatient.)
- Aura Detect 2.55 (20 energy. Your sense of auras is refined, and you can see them from a great distance and judge their power levels more accurately. Also allows you to faintly detect Cursed auras).
- Stealth II (20 energy required. Become even sneakier).
- Swim II (20 energy required. Can you guess what this evolution does?)
- Body Shock II (20 Energy required. A powerful wave of magical energy runs over your skin. Akin to picking up a live electrical wire. Obviously limited to close-range combat, though).
- Growth III (30 energy required. Grow to a chunky, 6-foot long python, complete with split heads.)
- Magic Sting III (30 Energy required. Costs 5 energy to use, but a direct hit will send most foes flying off their feet).
3 will give us a chance to siphon that staff of his but be prepared to lose the mermaid *can the knife cut a spell apart? remember it can cut even the immaterial so long as it exists it can be cut* evolving swim II might help but since its our aura that he is seeing stealth II may be better seeing as the mer lady may not have any form of aura suppression magik
Both will lose most the shields *btw the His Dark Materials trilogy knife? thought it was only a reference OP man OP*
O1 may work but depending on the time constraints we may take too long draining the lance a little may be faster seeing as in order to kill him we may end up relying on the knife.*I don't care who you are once you get a knife lodged in your brain and it starts wiggling around(possibly destorying the spells keeping you alive) your dead*
My choice is 2 with some O2 have the sla... follower throw us into the Angler else we'd take too long to fight him even throwing us with that trident would help we take slowly drain it during our fight *still 1mp per shot right?* he will notice her there is no doubt but we can at least keep him from seeing that knife. Oh also tell her to be on guard that he doesn't "see" but "feels" auras so stay on guard!
For the most part I gotta agree with the 2 with a bit of O2 plan for one reason....if I'm not mistaken, WE respawn when killed though I can't remember if the only penalty is being sent back to the point or if we come out a bit weaker than previous. Either way, not only will we be going further down the path of good, but if we do die, that'll put the mermaid heavily in debt to us since we sacrificed our self to get the victory....and we don't HAVE to tell her that we respawned with as much or just a small hit to our power to be honest. Though on the flip side, letting her know that we respawn could made her much more willing to follow us on the plan instead of deciding to do her own thing...she seems more "action first, strategy later" type after all.
O2 Surprise buttsex comment got me thinking, since we are safe for now in the tunnel we should get a bit of energy built up before the attack and evolve Magic Shield II with it. Of course ask the our merwench if she would like to be the one to provide it for us...if not take both the mermaids that are clutching each other.
Magic Shield II should at least help us stall long enough for her to finish him off, even without the sexy times i think we should evolve it anyway. Being a bit sluggish with some minor penalties is outweighed by being able to take a magical hit or two.
We can respawn, though. Our merbros, sadly, lack this quality - our rapeknife/trident wielding fuckbuddy sadly similarly vulnerable to catching a bad case of dead.
I vote we tagteam anglerwizzad with said homie - we should lead off, blast at him with our magipunch spell, and distract him for our lady friend. After all, she's the one that actually has weapons and is dangerous - we're still kinda shitty when it comes to eviscerating things. I dunno how effective she'll be at sneakin' dat shit, given what we've seen of her so far (directasfuck) and presumably that knife would be pretty non-stealthy if he has aura-vision or whatever, but if we can sock him in his pointyass teeth a couple times with our punches from the punch dimension we should (hopefully) throw him off long enough for her to cut his lifeline and/or stab his ass to death.
3. Sometimes sacrifices have to be made. Besides there really can't be a shortage of tail in a tentacle CYOA lol.
Also, can we bum/absorb the knife or something? I mean, that sort of power in the right hands/tentacles could be really useful, especially if we're going to sneak up behind him.
*Edit: A question: if we're a purple tentacle, shouldn't there be like a better list of spells or something instead of the usual tenta abilities? Might be just me, but despite the different colour tenta this is going like all the other tenta CYOAs.
Just wondering if the system could be changed or summat? Like, you know, having a few more spells could be damn handy in a situation like this.
