Bujilli: Episode 136 (Rust Never Sleeps)

Previously...
Ferropede! Huge, iron-clad and on the hunt for fresh meat. It just scuttled out from behind a mound of wreckage and lunged at Bujilli...

...but the sudden motion caused the heavy metal vermin's back third to sink into the soft mud.

Leeja pulled Bujilli back behind a partially melted pillar of cracked basalt marbled with veins of three kinds of metal. She only noticed the metal as it glinted unnaturally in the rain. It reminded her of something she had encountered as a child in Aman Utal. Metal.

They didn't stick around gawking at the pretty metal streaks. Quickly, quietly, carefully Leeja led Bujilli up and around the pillar and the accumulated, compressed debris wedged between it and the next one. Rain made the metal and ceramic bits slippery. Mud seeped up through the broken sections of crushed pipes and conduits. Rubble tottered and collapsed in the wind or from the effects of the rain...or something else.

Leeja found a reasonably-sheltered spot, an overhang blocked the worst of the rain and they could look down at the space just past the pillars where the Ferropede still prowled.

Looking down at the implacable insect forty feet or so below them, Leeja realized it was not some sort of construct like she had initially thought. Seven feet long, possibly eight, from tip of mandibles to spiky-bits on the tail-end, not counting the antennae. Each segment was heavily armored, with wickedly curved blades extending out and down from a lateral line or ridge along each side and down the middle of its back. Valve-like spiracles dilated and closed just below the lines of blades, releasing little puffs of vapor into the cold rain. This was a living beast with iron integrated, concentrated within its exoskeleton. The iron was arranged in a particular pattern. Just like the not-quite-as-glassified section of the pillars all around them.

Thunder reverberated overhead. The rain fell harder. Lightning brought the angular features of the less-melted section of the nearest pillar into focus.

Jeelo runes.

"We can't fight that thing. Not barefoot. In the rain. Not with blades and I seriously doubt either of our fire-arms will amount to much even if they do work in this rain..."

Bujilli nodded, not taking his eyes off of the Ferropede. It was casting about, waving its whip-like antennae about, trying to pick up some scent, some small chemical trace of its prey. The rain was interfering with it, making it have to rely on its other senses.

"Yes...you have a good point. We don't need to fight the thing. At least we won't if I can keep it from finding us.

Bujilli considered his repertoire of spells as he observed the beast below their position. He knew it was only a matter of time before the thing detected them. He half suspected that his scars made him more visible to these sorts of things. He had been severely marked by a Lichipede he had awakened within an old tomb as a child. It had been his third foray into the dark places below on behalf of his uncle. It had nearly killed him. When he had mostly recovered from the worst of his wounds, yet still suffering from the lingering effects of its fever-inducing venom, his uncle lowered him down into the tomb in a basket and demanded that he destroy the thing.

The Lichipede was old. Powerful. Knowledgeable in many things, well-versed in all sorts of esoteric arts. Bujilli was a child equipped with a stolen table knife he had sharpened on a rock.

He should have died that day.

That was what his uncle had intended.

He was furious when Bujilli returned to the surface dragging the Lichipede's head in a rough burlap sack behind him.

Bujilli didn't do things like other people expected him to...and that had saved his life then, just as it might now.

The Ferropede down below was too massive to levitate and only a fool wasted time trying to charm such a thing; he could feel the vrillic emanations of its nervous system even at this distance.

His scars ached.

If only there was some way to keep it from finding them...

Invisibility might work. It was tricky to get it to really work well in the rain. If one was dead-set on not being seen. There was more to being invisible than simply not being seen. The spell distorted light, in some versions, but more often it relied on deranging the perceptions of those observing the caster. The version Bujilli had learned was from a moldy old scroll, the one crafted from satyr-parchment and lovingly illuminated with egg tempera containing ground lapis and beetle shells. He took it from his uncle's cabinet during a solstice ritual. The initial theft had taken less than two minutes...returning the scroll afterwards, so he wouldn't be caught had taken hours. The damned lock had nearly bit off two of his fingers in the process.

Bujilli visualized the arcane structure of the spell. It was constructed using Naacal. Essentially, grammatically, it was a string of glyphs arranged along a primary line, much like a chord of music. One visualized each glyph one after the other in sequence, building-up a composite/compressed mass of energy that was then released like a spring of sorts, the sequence and harmonic relativity of the glyphs dictating the overall structure of the spell.

Shifting some of the glyphs, rotating one here, replacing another there, allowed Bujilli to modify the spell, to adjust its parameters and shift its ultimate expression so that it caused other effects. Each step ran the risk of spoiling or scrambling the root-spell, possibly even prematurely detonating the thing inside his own head. Even a mediocre low-level spell could prove fatal to someone lacking the proper internal resources. It took more than rote memorization to master something as energetically mutable and imaginatively volatile as a spell. It required imagination.

There. He had it. A sequence fell into place that would turn the target's perceptions back upon itself in a feed-back loop.

Three steps and a deep cleansing breath. Calming mudra. The rain felt good in his whiskers. He fixed his vision on the Ferropede and cast his new spell.

SHRIEK-reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeennk-KKKKKKkkkkkkkkkkkkk!

Thrashing, splashing, slashing this way and that the Ferropede chittered and clattered and clattered as it struck out blindly all about it.

Leeja smiled in approval.

Bujilli was proud of his handiwork.

Then the dislodged a pent-up pile of debris that roared down like a landslide, trapping the thing.

Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee---

Green ichor ran from gaps in the chunks of concrete, twisted metal and other wreckage.

ZZZZRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

The mound of rubble on which they stood wobbled slightly.

"Scheiss." Bujilli fell to one knee. His scars throbbed painfully.

"Something big is moving around--"

"This one is just a hatchling..."

---

Meanwhile...
Yorim Balthome sipped his coffee. It wasn't coffee this morning any more than it had been for the last thirty-odd years. It was more of that rancid red swill made from Red Weed seed-pods. Vile, oily stuff with a metallic after-taste he still wasn't used to and probably never would. Just like the morning reports on his desk. Another casualty. They were down to only five certified mail-carriers left on the rolls for the Night Mail now. If Jezka didn't recover they'd be down to four. He picked up his pigeon-bone pen and started composing yet another help wanted ad. Maybe this time someone would respond...

---

Leeja stifled a scream as the angular rune-embossed patterns of a gargantuan Ferropede moved past just below their position. This new Ferropede was gigantic in comparison to the first one. It had to be over thirty feet long. Probably longer.

Bujilli struggled to even-out his breathing, to regain control of his nervous system after the intense shock of the second Ferropede's vrillic emanations.

His modified Invisibility spell popped like a soap bubble.

It had served its purpose.

Leeja turned to him, her gold-green eyes luminous in the darkness and rain.

It was getting darker, colder, more substantial.

Bujilli could feel the transitoriness, if that was even the right word for it, slipping away. They were sinking through immaterial layers, quickly moving past the threshold of the liminal regions, the mirrorspace regions and entering into another region or realm...one farther removed from the Oneirical Seas or Dreamlands.

RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII-k-click-KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK

The larger Ferropede pulled the hatchling out from under the collapsed pile of wreckage and proceeded to devour it.

They didn't have a lot of time before this huge beast began looking for something more to eat.

Gonnes, knives, the usual forms of violence just were not an option--not if they wished to go on living.

Even the thinnest sections of the massive Ferropede's iron-bound chitin were far too thick and tough to hit it with an axe and expect anything useful to happen.

Bujilli stared at the creature. The patterns built-up from the accumulated layers of metal-reinforced chitin were angular, almost runic in nature, but if that was so, it was in a language he did not know.

The top sections were darker, but marked with orange stains and red streaks that grew more pronounced towards the bottom of each section and at the joints of the thing's many, many legs.

Rust?

Bujilli nodded to himself. Oxidation. A chemical process. All processes are a sort of movement, if only in terms of the passage of time and time was the key. He called up his repertoire of spells once more. He had not been able to master the spell his uncle referred to as 'Celerity,' but he had learned the rudiments of Haste from a chartreuse talking serpent with an affinity for mead.

Haste accelerated the user, boosting their metabolism and giving them rapid movement. If one adjusted it so that it focused on accelerating a process rather than facilitating motion...yes...the structure of this spell was much simpler than Invisibility had been. Fewer moving parts, not as many contingencies, no provision for the user's safety; this was a very straight forward utility spell.

He converted it over to Low-Pruztian so it would be even more efficient.

"I'm going to cast another spell. This time, once it is cast, we need to get moving as far away from here, as fast as possible."

"In what direction?"

"At this point I'm not sure it matters, as long as it is away from that thing."

"You do realize that I'm barefoot?"

"Yes."

"Can you use your Levitation spell to help us get past the worst of the debris? There's barbed wire down there. And worse..."

"No. When I cast this spell, we need to go. There won't be time to try to cast any follow-ups, and I'm not sure that I can speed-up the Levitation spell enough to get far enough away from this thing fast enough..."

"Then I suggest you make this spell you're going to use really count for something. there's no way we're going to move very fast across all this jumbled crap in the dark in the rain and not get seriously injured, buried under a rubble-slide, caught in mud, or fall down some hole in the ground--"

"Fine. I'll do what I can...but then you're going to have to watch over me again. this is going to take a lot out of me..."

"Do what you need to do. I'll be here. Always."

One heartbeat. Two.

The spell slid into reality like a well-honed knife.

Bujilli turned, faced the gargantuan Ferropede's flank and cast his modified spell.

Lightning crashed. Thunder rolled through the little valleys between the pillars and mounds of debris.

Red light streamed from every pore in his body.

His scars writhed across his chest.

Bujilli screamed.

The spell took. It worked. Even as it went into effect he realized he might have adjusted it far more easily to simply accelerate the thing's aging process or perhaps induce its own digestive system to run amok and dissolve it from within using its own juices.

He suspected that hindsight was an occupational hazard for a sorcerer.

Bujilli watched as his spell slithered through the vrillic currents of the Ferropede's internal systems, a cascade of violet-red flames coursing through its nerves and tissues.

It took barely any effort at all to connect the beast's internal energies into the spell.

Three gestures and a slight on-the-fly revision.

He didn't notice the blood flowing down his upper lip.

Or the scent of his singed hair.

Or Leeja's attempts to pull him away from the rim of the ledge they were on.

Crackling, sizzling ripples of orange dust spread out from the center-mass of the huge metallicized insect.

Ripples grew into waves.

Waves of rust.

One after another.

Each one spreading out farther, extending past the Ferropede.

Washing across the rubble and wreckage.

Bujilli raised the Synchronocitor in an attempt to ward off the crashing surf of rust roaring outwards from the crumbling, collapsing shell of what once was a mighty Ferropede...

---

Roll a couple of Saving Throws...

Then, depending on what happens with the run-away spell... what should they do next?

You Decide!

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Synchronocitor Status: Fully Recharged.

---

Roll to Save!

Bujilli needs to roll a 9 or higher on 1d20.
Leeja needs to roll a 4 or better on another 1d20.
We'll also need another 1d20 roll for the Synchronocitor.
The Ferropede already failed, spectacularly, I might add.

Should either or both of them make their Save, then the effects of the run-away Accelerate Rust spell will be modified one way. If one or both fail their Save, then things take a different turn. Whoever rolls first, determines the outcome. You decide!

You can read more about Saving Throws on Pages 54-55 of the Labyrinth Lord book.

Additional Defensive Measures?
Bujilli has just enough time to try one special action before the waves of rust crash down on them both. He might call upon his Counsel for some assistance (no guarantee that it can do anything in this space).  He could attempt to revise the run-away spell one more time, but that runs a very high risk of making things even worse. Attempting to dispel the rust-waves would require a lot of effort, and we're well past the point where he could shut the thing down by force of will alone...but maybe Bujilli could try to deflect it, or re-route the stuff away from them? Or he could try to use the Synchronocitor either to take them elsewhere, such as it can under the circumstances, or perhaps to shift the rust away from them somehow? If ever there was an opportunity to get creative or to put your imagination to work to come up with a last-second solution--this is it--after all; You Decide!

Roll 1d6 for a Wandering Monster.
Please roll 1d6 and let me know the result. If you get a 1, the encounter is an environmental factor. A result of 6 will mean all this wild vrillic energy going all over the place draws the attention of something attracted to large amounts of vrillic energy...which ought to be pleasant, I mean interesting...

What Should They Do Next?

You Decide!

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