Monstrous Compendium Ch5 bit – Good News, Bad News

~ crossovercreativechaos

Well, Dynamm thought, trying to ignore the literal squirming in his gut, the good news is, I found the Lignum Wood.

It was all around him, part of the paper-pulp hemming him in upside-down with the blood rushing to his head. The cinnamon-and-peppermint scent Harry One had described crept through the acid and fear, made him think he just might get out if he tried-

:Sleep sleep chew chew tasty stay….:

The world grayed out.

Psionic parasites. Can’t fight them.

Except Kirito swore you could. If you focused. If you honed your mind to a pure blade of will, sharp as a diamond edge.

And there was one thing he could hang onto. One thing he wanted more than anything right now, even escape.

Going to kill Kayaba, I swear-!

Static crackled, prickling his fingers like the near-miss of a magic missile. Air rushed past his face from above, and someone’s hand clamped onto his ankle. “Dynamm!”

Rough. More a growl than a name. But he knew that voice. “K-Klein?” Dynamm coughed; an awful, wet sound, and he didn’t want to think about that-

A horrid grating sound echoed from above, and Dynamm’s eyes widened in the darkness. Once you heard flesh being turned to stone, you never forgot it.

Something slammed into the paper comb above him, an insectoid claw punching through to scrape stone edges down his ribs.

“Gah!” Klein flinched, yanking up on Dynamm’s ankles as the petrified psiwasp kept going, weight tearing it through the cell lid below. “Watch where you throw those things!”

Kirito’s answer was a wordless yell, cloth and leather snapping with the kind of speed only a Skill ought to grant. But there weren’t any flashes of light, and there wasn’t any pause for a cooldown. Kirito just kept moving.

He solos the front lines, Dynamm thought, gasping for air as Klein finally got him over the rim. How high a level is he?

29 thoughts on “Monstrous Compendium Ch5 bit – Good News, Bad News”

    1. Canon Kirito only got to be so over-leveled due to a literally suicidal focus on grinding his levels up in the months after the Black Cats died. He took risks that were balls to the wall insane even for full parties and only stopped when he got that time-delayed message from Sacchi.

      Again, the anime fails to impart the necessary info, but in the light novels it makes it very evident that Kirito’s pushing himself far, far too hard to the point that he’s not getting enough sleep and he’s been doing it for months.

      The fight against Evil Santa also put him closer to death than anything other than the Gleam Eyes fight had managed. It also makes mention that he burned through /all/ of his healing supplies in that fight and the story goes out of its way to mention that he’s actually carrying more than he normally would even to a floor boss.

      Liked by 3 people

      Reply

      2. I love to tease.

        My bunnies have a terrible weakness to bad jokes, especially wordplay.

        That was how I broke through and wrote my first actual story. Which motivated the second attempt, a horrible mess that told me I had much to learn.

        Liked by 2 people

      1. Wasn’t Dynamm the one with latent psionic powers?

        Because it seems like a third solution, beyond Cleric and Necromancer/Warlock of Dolurrh. (Oh Hi Lizbeth.)

        Can Liches be Youkai?

        Liked by 4 people

      3. >Because it seems like a third solution, beyond Cleric and Necromancer/Warlock of Dolurrh. (Oh Hi Lizbeth.)>
        I don’t know. If Lisbeth ended up linking to an elemental plane I’d think think she would connect to Fernia.

        You know, fire, molten metal etc? Seems like a good match for with a smith working with magic.

        Liked by 2 people

      5. Or Shavarath. Enhances ‘spells that create weapons’.

        The mace is pretty much the only reason to think cleric, and clerics are sometimes necromancers. Either type of cleric might fit Dolurrh.

        She might not become any sort of warlock at all.

        (The origins of the restricted Clerical weapons were in ODD, but a strict reading apparently only applies the restrictions to magical arms and armor. So apparently everyone could use anything if it was mundane. (Making Magic Swords Fighting Man only was a form of play balance, as Magic Swords were apparently by far the best magic weapons.))

        Liked by 3 people

  8. Ouch. I have the feeling that the survivors, whether they were captured and made hosts or not, are going have screaming nightmares for a while (once they feel safe enough to have them – it’s interesting that your brain often doesn’t pull out the nightmare train until you feel safe . . . might be a survival thing because if you don’t feel very safe then nightmares that disturb your rest might not be the best thing . . .)

    Stheno certainly because she already has bad memories of psiwasps and doing this will probably trigger a round of old nightmares . . . plus new ones . . . some of which are a mixture of past and current events. Because sometimes nightmares are ugly like that. Especially trauma related nightmares.

    Kirito’s level is what you get when someone is crazy or desperate or suicidal enough (or all three) to do front-line clearing and dangerous quests all by their little lonesome. With no party or even back-up close enough to fish him out of trouble if he bite off more than he could chew.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  9. You know, considering how much of a stickler the SOB dragon is for reality I can see all the clearers being experienced with more then one weapon type.

    Because while in traditional D&D weapon type doesn’t matter that much unless the target has specific resistances against it, But if we insert reality into the mix, some weapons can become completely combat ineffective.

    Say for example you have an arming sword and you’re going up against a knight in full plate armor. Unless you manage to pull something like a Mordhau/Murder-blow or ram the sword-point through an unarmored gap, you aren’t going to be able to hurt him. You need a warhammer or mace to effective combat him.

    And that’s just dealing with another human.

    Translate over to the D&D-verse you have to contend with all manner of beasts, monsters and gribbles where ‘traditional’ weapons simply shouldn’t work. Well without a ton and a half of magic enhancing their cutting properties etc.

    A prime example I read was a ‘harsh reality’ campaign setting where the stand equipped heroes were hunting down a giant turtle. The thing had hide that made crocodiles look flimsy and thin skinned along with a shell that was about six inches think. Big surprise: the party’s swords and daggers didn’t really do that much.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

Leave a comment