The Open Door (megacrossover)

[dragon]

Nope didn't even noticed that. As for overactive imagination used to be the same way untill they put me on antidepressants. Hum now that they're taking me off them and putting me an ADHD meds wonder if my missing friend (imagination) will come back. Anyways keep feeding us addicts with this wacky adventure.

[MichaelAwesome]

Speaking of substance abuse, did Mislaato ever pick a holy beast? If not, Frogs seem appropriate, what with toad-licking* and their ability to change gender like in 'Jurassic Park.' (*lilypadding, doing Kermit, going green, etc.)

[WillowBee]

Everbody loves Hypno-Toad!

[holyknight]

Speaking of substance abuse, did Mislaato ever pick a holy beast? If not, Frogs seem appropriate, what with toad-licking* and their ability to change gender like in 'Jurassic Park.' (*lilypadding, doing Kermit, going green, etc.)

Take note....this it's MISLAATO.......her choice of animal may rather make us all do the mother of all facefaults when we finally learn what its....

[Valorie]

For poor Lars and Skuld, no anime pairing is complete without some sort of hilarious complication to disrupt it. Possibilities include interferring relatives (what Skuld & Urd were to Keiichi), unrequested romantic interests or obsessions, people who hold grudges, and other stereotypes we see in "Ranma1/2" and "Love Hina."

Shar: (a la Ryoga Hibiki) "Curse you, Lars! This is all your fault!"

[Alien-Carrot]

So far, so great.

I'm still hoping you will throw in Tenchiverse. Cause newChaos Space Marines with lighthawk wings just plain = WIN

But please, no Tenchi in tokyo, that show was made of fail.

[Academia Nut]

Chapter Forty-nine: Cornered

Things had not gone well since the fall of House Baenre and the ascension of Skuld. Actually, that was a bit of an understatement, along the lines of suggesting that an ocean wasn’t exactly the driest place in the world. Technically true, but it lacked a significant amount of nuance and power to the statement.

Unfortunately, it was difficult to parse what had happened in that time into a pithy statement as it had mostly been either packing to get the hell out of Dodge, or when Lolth had shown up in Menzoberranzan, it had involved a great deal of actually getting the hell out of Dodge.

Skuld still wasn’t sure if Lars’ decision to ask her to bless a .50 round had been the best of ideas or not, but they were still alive, so she supposed that should count for something. As they had been moving the refugee column, primarily freed slaves from House Roreril or claimed from the ruins of House Baenre as ‘spoils’, but a few others who just wanted to escape drow society in Menzoberranzan had followed, Lars had handed her the round and made his request.

Skuld had merely nodded and reached in to the round, finding the tiny little bit of essence that defined the bullet as a bullet and asked it to be the best damn bullet it could be, in imitation of her sister Belldandy… although Skuld highly doubted her gentle sister would ever ask a weapon to do its very best at attempting to kill or maim someone. When she had finished and opened her eyes from her concentration, Skuld discovered that the bullet was now etched with runes of absolute darkness.

Lars took the round and smiled, saying, “This should work.”

He had then left for a minute before there was the loud, echoing boom of his rifle firing in an enclosed space followed by him rushing out, his face pale. He said, “Okay, I have news. The news in general is that I just shot Lolth. The bad part is that despite the fact that getting a divine blessing seems to have ensured it would hurt, it wasn’t enough to actually kill her and thus I probably just pissed her off more than she already was. The good news, maybe, is that I don’t think she’s going to be coming after us for a while.”

“Why? Where did you hit her?” Skuld had asked.

Lars winced and said, “Well… she’s currently bleeding… from the breast. I was aiming for the heart but she turned at the last moment so that she got caught in the right breast just above the nipple. Just as well I suppose, I think the bullet was stopped dead by her rib cage, which is obviously tougher as a deity than I expected. But yeah, her right boob kind of exploded like… well… a milk bag caught in an industrial press. Blood and skin and fat everywhere, Lolth is currently rolling around on the ground screaming while her followers just sort of stare in shock. And you’re wearing the same sort of pained expression and clutching yourself in the same way guys do when they hear about another man taking a really nasty shot to the groin.”

“You shot her tits off?” Skuld cried out in sympathetic pain.

“Just one! And it was an accident. In any case, I think I bought us an hour or two and I probably crippled her ability to motivate the drow by publicly maiming and injuring her. I don’t think she’s going anywhere naked like that anymore though,” Lars replied grimly.

That had been a week ago, and now the whole column was holed up in a dead end cave, every drow looking to gain Lolth’s favour camped out two caves down. Despite getting cornered, they were in an excellent position to make a last stand, for the massive cave they were in was a dead magic zone and in between the cave where the refugees were camped out and the cave where the drow and their servants were camped out, there was a long gallery with a slight downward slope and a choke point from the drow cave.

A choke point where Skuld had set up a nasty little spell, one that only she and Lars understood the workings of, but that scared the crap out of the drow. It looked like a simple globe of darkness, but that was just a side effect of both its function and the fact that Skuld was still trying to figure out how exactly to manipulate her new found magic properly so she was stuck with shadows.

What the little sphere of darkness did do was any outside electromagnetic radiation was allowed in but it was not allowed back out. Air molecules significantly above the average speed of ones outside the sphere were also reflected if they tried to exit. Finally, the globe technically didn’t reflect electromagnetic radiation; it absorbed it and re-emitted photons along one of two energy levels; either 100 milli-electron volts or 1.22 Mega-electron volts.

This was to say that Skuld had turned the interior of the globe of darkness into a combination microwave/gamma ray/positron oven with no way to lower its interior temperature. Rask had thrown a few fireballs in there on the first day and they kept a fire next to it on their side so that they would not drain all of their air out through convection and keep a minimum input of energy. Once the first unlucky enemy soldier had stepped inside the globe and thus been vaporized by all of the water in his body explosively boiling away and the organic molecules catching fire from the intense gamma ray bombardment, the globe had become a death trap.

Skuld, as the creator of the spell, knew the current contents of the globe, and as such she had advised no one to go anywhere near it as the internal pressure and temperature was quite high. Not yet high enough to trigger nuclear fusion, but considering that the drow had driven several hundred goblin cannon fodder slaves into the globe in a mad rush before they realized what was happening, Skuld did not want anyone under her protection to be anywhere near that thing when the spell failed. Already, the only way for the globe to shed heat had been to melt the granite it had been touching, but that had only lasted so long and a great deal of the energy had been returned to the globe once the stone had melted away and radiated away much of the energy.

So the drow had been trying to hop wizards across the barrier created by the globe to establish a beach head, but Lars had been camped out at the far end of the gallery with his rifle and sniping them as they came through. The drow were learning how to deal with bullets, but it was difficult for them as their leadership still demanded progress.

For her part, Skuld had been helping to manufacture fresh ammunition, reassure the terrified civilians, and most of all she had been trying to master the Shadow Weave she now controlled. It was difficult. A great amount of emotion, mostly rage and loss, had been dumped into the magical construct over the past several thousand years, and it was trying to distort Skuld’s mind. It was also clearly made by someone who had a medieval mindset so it was organized in a way Skuld would have never allowed.

Oh, and she tried to rein in her daughter.

Four times during the retreat she had disappeared only to reappear, her white hair and the simple white silk dress she seemed to like to wear soaked through with blood while she used all four limbs to drag a dead drow by the throat with her teeth. It was very kitten-ish. In an utterly terrifying way the first two times, but the little daemon was very cute when she wasn’t ripping things apart.

Right now she was sitting next to Skuld as she meditated on the Shadow Weave and tried to reorganize things. She was intently working on inscribing tiny runes of destruction, where she had learned them Skuld wasn’t exactly sure she wanted to know, into the surface of shot that would be going into the shells destined for Lars. While the task wasn’t exactly easy, the shots were triple-ought rounds destined for an eight gauge. Still, it was rather cute to watch her with her tongue stuck out in concentration as she made miniscule marks with a scratching tool in the soft silver metal.

They had run out of lead a few days ago and had resorted to melting down some of the precious metals from valuables people had brought with them, making the most expensive shotgun rounds ever. They had ten twelve gauge shotguns already made before the assault on the House Baenre compound, except for the ammunition, and Skuld had privately made Lars’ new weapon as part of her experimentation with her new powers. She knew that she could get them all out of this situation… she just needed the time to figure out how!

“All done!” Gunnhild cried out triumphantly as she held up the last shell she had made for her daddy. She was really quite the industrious one; having inscribed enough shot for a dozen shells and then packed them all.

Opening her eyes from her meditation on the nature of the Shadow Weave, she smiled at the rather humorously named daemon and said, “Good girl. Here, let mommy see those.”

It kind of scared Skuld just how fast she had become used to using maternal pronouns for herself, but when Gunnhild buried her face in Skuld’s lap, terrified by the excess fear radiating off the refugees despite the fact that daemon could, and had, rip any one of them apart with her bare hands… claws… tentacles… well, there were appendages of some sort in the whirlwind of death anyway… Skuld had felt something ancient well within her. Gunnhild was her daughter, no matter how strangely she had been conceived and born. And Skuld would do her part in raising the little murderous psychopath into something not quite so evil.

Skuld was of course terrified of where this line of thought was leading her.

Taking the double handful of shells, Skuld let them start floating around her, whispering to the spirits within them. Already they had been enchanted by Gunnhild, each piece of shot carrying a tiny, malevolent Chaos rune. The effects on flesh would not be pretty. Scratch that, the effects on any sort of matter would be disgusting. But then Skuld started whispering to them, telling the shot that each and every one of them was a god killer, imbuing them with a tiny piece of divine essence. Not much, but she was certain that anything less than a deity would not walk away from being shot by one of these shells.

Especially when once loaded into her gift for Lars. It was this world’s first pump action shotgun, the others being double barrel break action breech loaders. Eight-gauge with a seven shell tube magazine, it was only something Lars with his daemonic strength could handle in combat, but it would make him an utterly lethal at medium to close range. Of course, since Skuld had crafted this personally using nothing but her mind channelled through her shadow magic and some raw ore she had discovered here, the gun itself was ridiculously enchanted. It was coloured shiny obsidian black but with tiny green flecks that resolved into alien stars and nebula if you looked at it too long.

Divinely made magical shotgun loaded with god killing Chaos 000-buckshot wielded by a daemon related to the ones who had made the weapon and its ammunition. If Skuld could make anything for Lars that might give him a fighting chance should Lolth herself decide to come through the globe of darkness, this was it.

As the shells slowly orbited about her, Skuld noticed Lars coming in to the main chamber where they had established themselves. Lars and Gunnhild were the only two the ever loyal Steb would not stop trying to get close to her. Once they got out of this, Skuld’s first line of research would be to figure out how to restore the dwarf’s vocal cords.

“I’m out of rounds for the .50 cal. Worse yet, there are magical sensors down there. I think they’ve cooked up a new idea,” Lars replied.

“I think I’ve almost figured out how to open a portal out of here. I’m 95% certain I can open one to the Shadow Plane, and about 25% sure I can figure out how to make a direct one to the surface. I don’t want to go to the Shadow Plane if we don’t have to though as I’m pretty sure Shar is there and pissed off beyond belief,” Skuld said.

“We may need to risk it,” Lars replied. “I’m calling forth the volunteers now. We’re going to be in a fight soon, I can tell.”

Skuld’s voice trembled for a moment before she said, “Before we go out there, could you do something for me?”

“Yes, what?” Lars asked.

“Marry me.”


Lars blinked once. Lars blinked twice. He opened his mouth to say something, raising a finger as he did it, before he abandoned that action half way through. Finally he just sort of spluttered, “What?”

Pulling Gunnhild close and hugging her, Skuld said, “Gunnhild is my child as much as yours, even if the circumstances are like no other conception ever in that it was honestly a mistake and an accident on both our parts. But I still love her, even if she is trying to build me a skull throne.”

“It’ll be huge momma, thousands of skulls for you lounge on,” Gunnhild said with a huge smile.

Finally Lars voiced his biggest problem, “You’re practically a child yourself!”

Skuld’s eyes narrowed and she said, “You are what? Eighty?”

“Oldest component is seventy,” Lars muttered.

“I’m three thousand,” Skuld replied imperiously.

“Yeah, but you look and, most importantly, act like you’re fifteen,” Lars commented, feeling a sort of black coil of… something… well up inside him. He was used to having considerable control over his emotions, but this was different.

“I am a goddess, twice over. Such things are trifling considerations,” Skuld replied.

“Oh, so it’s a ‘whose voice can get more reverb’ pissing contest is it? Well I am a daemon, and while this form may be nascent, the essence within me can trace back tens of millions of years. I have infinity behind and before me. A paltry three millennia means nothing to me.”

“Then we have time to wait for you to get over your hang ups once we are through this, but so long as we fight with deities we do not have time in the present. We will marry,” Skuld commanded.

Lars considered making a counter-point before he shook his head and he said, “This is a shotgun wedding where the bride is holding the gun, isn’t it?”

Pulling out the weapon she had built for Lars, Skuld said with a bright grin, “Better yet, the shotgun being used is the wedding gift from the bride to the groom.”

Lars remained silent for a long moment before he sighed and hung his head. He then requested, “Could we at least wait for the wedding night until I won’t feel like a complete pedophile?”

“Hey! Look, I have boobs! And hips! I’m at least seventeen in human terms!” Skuld protested.

“It’s still creepy! We have rules about this sort of thing where I come from! The sort that end with trying to shove your intestines back into your gut and your genitalia in another time zone if you break them! And that’s only what happens before you die!” Lars protested. “They’re kind of ingrained into not just the human part of me, but the daemonic part!”

“We have eternity, okay? A couple of years don’t mean anything to me. But… but I’m scared okay? And I come from a bit of a traditionalist family, and no matter how weird the circumstances, I’d feel worse having a child and not being married than getting married without my family here. Okay?” Skuld replied, holding back the frightened tears.

Suddenly, Lars got it. Skuld had interfered with her sister’s love life for years because she was afraid of her family breaking up. Family really was everything to Skuld. Lars had originally felt more of a fatherly/big brotherly relationship, but Gunnhild complicated things. Skuld didn’t do well with multiple roles per person. She was Gunnhild’s mother. He was Gunnhild’s father. Of course they had to be married.

“I will note as part of my protest that your insistence we get married like this is one of the marks of immaturity that I am protesting against,” Lars replied.

“Duly noted,” Skuld said as she began to float higher into the air, her wings manifesting out of her back and wrapping about her for a moment as shadows swirled, changing her outfit into something more elegant. She was wearing a simple sort of gown the grey colour of a brilliant full moon, untouched by yellow or blue tones while a faint aura of shadows surrounded her.

“We’re kind of about to go into battle here Skuld, I’m not sure if we have time for…” Lars pointed out.

“Lars, Daemon of Chaos Undivided, do you declare in front of all of these witnesses that you will be faithful and true to me, a friend and a companion throughout the eons, until the stars lay down their burdens and we are no more?” Skuld asked; her wings spread wide as she hovered, thousands of refugees gazing up at her in awe, the hem of her dress just barely failing to conceal the fact that her feet were not touching anything.

Lars was quiet for a moment before he shifted his form from utilitarian clothing to something less shabby. Not quite the terrifying ostentation of the commissar outfit, more along the lines of a sea captain’s formal dress wear. He replied, “I do. Do you, Skuld, Norn of the Future, declare in front of all these witnesses that you shall be faithful and true to me, a friend and a companion throughout the eons, until the stars lay down their burdens and we are no more?”

“I do,” Skuld replied.


There was a tiny tremor in the fabric of reality and had Ao actually had the Tablets of Fate on him he would have been able to notice that for the first time in a long time one of the deities had actually got married. And none of the temporary consort crap that caused all sorts of drama, but actually declared a marriage in the ‘this will take the mother of all lawyers to divorce’ sort of way.

Of course, if the Tablets hadn’t been stolen he would have known almost immediately that Skuld had taken over the Shadow Weave from Shar two weeks ago. Just one more thing to kill the bastards who had taken it for.


Lars waited calmly at the end of the gallery, watching the point of blackness that signified the boundary. He could feel a breeze as the air was being drawn into the globe, unable to escape as it was heated up. They’d added way too much energy to that thing in one form or another over the past few days. If it lost containment it would probably bring down this entire section of the Underdark.

He grinned slightly as he sighted along his new shotgun. That would make a great parting gift if they could figure out a way to safely get out of here.

Lars then felt a slight tremor in the ground, causing him to call out to the volunteers, “Alright boys and girls, looks like this is it. Remember, those of you with the guns, don’t open fire until I do, we have limited ammunition. Skirmishers, keep the enemy off our backs.”

They had three humans, four dwarves of various kinds, two orcs, and one wickedly good shot of a goblin armed with the shotguns and seven rounds apiece. Lars had a dozen ‘god killers’ and twenty regular, if still divinely blessed, shells. Not enough to do anything anywhere else, but maybe enough to break a charge and for those armed with more primitive weapons to hold off the rest of the forces long enough to buy time for Skuld to get everyone else out.

Then the source of the shaking ground emerged from the globe of darkness.

“Oh. Fuck,” Lars noted.

They had brought an iron golem. The top layer of its iron body seemed to have been melted off by the incredible heat, but that appeared to have only pissed it off while making it more as it would now surely set fire to anything flammable that it came into contact with.

“I will handle it,” a voice next to Lars replied. Looking over, Lars discovered one of the less likely members of the refugees crouched next to him. No one knew exactly what he was, just that he went by the name Shyft and he was either some sort of intelligent, free roaming golem or a guy in a really sophisticated suit of enchanted armour. Either way, he had followed the refugees for his own reasons and had not felt inclined to share.

Then, before Lars could say otherwise, the strange being broke from cover and charged down the gallery. Its armour was strangely baroque, almost as if someone had taken a dragon’s bones and arranged them into a form that a human could wear, and then dipped it in a curious metal that flowed like quicksilver but was hard as adamant and coloured a dull grey.

Then Shyft reached the edge of the dead magic zone and Lars realized where it got its name, for it began to blur into motion, its feet no longer connected to the ground and reaction and action somehow not quite balancing. Shyft glided along, changing vectors moment to moment, and danced around the gigantic animate piece of iron in the shape of a humanoid. Sliding around behind it, a blade shot out of its right arm above the wrist and glowed brilliant white for a moment before he plunged it into the golem’s left calf.

Iron hot iron went flying away as Shyft danced away from the golem once more, steam venting out from the back of Shyft’s armour as he purged the waste heat from a blade so hot it could cut through and damage a creature that normally got stronger in fire.

“Damn,” Lars noted while whistling appreciatively. This guy would have been useful during the siege of House Baenre.

Then the portals started to open. Obviously the golem was just a distraction, and somewhat more importantly a screen against fire to the yawning gaps in reality forming just beyond the globe of destruction. Once they were fully open, the things on the other side started spilling out.

“Devils. They’re learning,” Lars noted as he controlled the feeling of dread. The portals were like open windows to a storm to him, but he had suffered worse when in Hild’s domain, and he had grown since then.

Hacking through the golem’s right foot at the ankle such that it was no longer capable walking properly, not that such a thing would stop the construct, Shyft glided back and away from the rows of devils forming up in neat lines.

“One blessed claymore, that’s all I need right now. Alright, runner, go tell Skuld we’re leaving now. I don’t care where we go, it just can’t be here,” Lars replied as he lined up on one of the devils that looked like a sergeant.

“One my signal, fire one, repeat one volley, at the devils! FIRE!” Lars cried out as he pulled the trigger for his shotgun and the other gunners around him did so raggedly a second after him. He was however relieved by the fact that he only heard one barrel per man fire.

The result amongst the devils was… interesting. Because of the use of silver in the shot, several of the evil creatures were on the ground clutching at wounds that would not close, spurting oddly coloured blood into the air. Despite the screams and the thrashing, the others remained impassive and calm, and in fact occasionally finished off their own comrades to keep them from disrupting the ranks. They showed no signs of emotion, they just closed ranks around the holes caused by their dead and injured and continued to form up.

Then the pit fiend stepped out of the portal, its leathery red wings draped over its shoulders like a macabre cloak to its hard, ridged scales of armour.

“Well… fuck!” Lars noted, the only thing he really could say. “Fire at will on the troops! I’ll deal with the leader.”

Breaking from cover, Lars rushed down the slight slope of gallery, shotgun at his hip. At this range, he would have to get closer as the spread of the shot made hitting any particular target instead of the closely packed masses of devils more a matter of blind luck than skill. As he got closer, Lars started unloading his shotgun into the front ranks while the pit fiend throwing magic his way like it was going out of style. The creature was obviously scouting out the limits of the dead magic zone more than attacking though.

Then Lars was at the battle line, now with a hole in it where the enemy had taken five rounds of 000-buck from Lars personally and many more 12-gauge blasts from his men and had yet to close the gap of thrashing bodies. Bending low, Lars grabbed one of the fallen pole arms while he used tentacles to feed god killers into his weapon’s magazine. Ducking under an incoming fireball, he jammed the blade of the weapon into a convenient crevice in the rock and pole vaulted over the entire formation of lesser devils.

Grinning his wide, shark toothed grin as he arced through the air, Lars fired off one of the rounds made by the most special ladies in his life at the pit fiend at point blank range into its chest. A wave of green and purple fire shot out of his gun as he pulled the trigger, impacting right at the heavily armoured sternum of the devil.

The pit fiend exploded.

Not in the gory sort of meaning of blood and guts flying everywhere, but it actually went up like a small nuclear weapon as the hellish components of its being, mostly soul energy harvested from the damned over millennia, came undone all at once. Lars was thrown into the ceiling hard before being he dropped down into the midst of the flattened battle formation of devils, his fallen quite comfortably cushioned by a devil’s head.

Not that he needed the cushioning, but it was still nicer than having to go amorphous. Plus it ensured at least one more enemy was dead.

The completely unharmed shotgun still gripped tightly in his hands, Lars scrambled for purchase on the twitching, thrashing pile of bodies and sharp implements. He then noted two rather unfortunate things.

The first was that the globe of destruction Skuld had set up had been destabilized by either the pit fiend’s detonation or a stray piece of buckshot enchanted by Skuld having struck it. His eyes going wide, Lars cried out in a psychically enhanced voice, “RETREAT! THE GLOBE IS GOING TO GO!”

The second was that the detonation of the pit fiend had destabilized the ceiling of the gallery, which was now coming down in pieces.

Trying to find solid footing, Lars transformed his legs into a quartet of tentacles and attempted to just grope his way out of the pile of devils. The metaphor of a nuclear weapon going off had been stretching it a bit for the pit fiend’s death, but not for Skuld’s spell cutting loose. She had really overdone that little pressure cooker by a large margin.

Lars looked back at the far end of the gallery where everyone but Shyft had already evacuated. He could feel it; there was no time to get back there before everything turned to fire. The others would wait for him, and they would get caught in the explosion. Lars saluted, and the enigmatic creature saluted back before turning to run.

Lars ran as well, but in the opposite direction, towards the still open portals. It was his only chance. He picked one and leapt towards it just as the globe of darkness failed and released all of the light it had been holding inside. A huge amount of matter had been turned to gas, and under the influence of the microwaves and gamma rays that gas had been turned to plasma. It was extremely hot, but confined to a set volume, so the pressure was incredibly high. The drow had stupidly been throwing spells and combustible slaves and males, and thus energy, at it for two days trying to figure out why nothing they did worked properly.

A little under a kiloton of energy was released in an instant, shattering rock and wiping out about 90% of the best fighters, wizards, and clerics the drow had to offer in the local Underdark. Most were not actually killed in the explosion as their camps were well back from the battleground, but rather the subsequent cascading collapse of all caverns in a four kilometre radius was what did it.

Up above the ground shook as dozens of cubic kilometres of once open space collapsed into much more compact rubble. The scenery was completely rearranged and a new lake started to form as numerous rivers were diverted. The coastline was different by the end of the season as rivers dried up and new ones cut their way across the landscape. The entire north-west of Faerun was re-sculpted by the blast, with much of the Northdark becoming impassable or flooded by the sudden, abrupt destruction of so many tunnels and caverns.

Most of all though, the drow presence in the area was completely obliterated. While Menzoberranzan itself was far enough away to remain relatively unscathed, the city had been stripped of too many in the fighting to continue to prosper. House Oblodra remained, having not participated, huddled as they were in their compound against Lolth’s expected wrath, but there was too little left to rule and the city was ripe for plundering by irate neighbours.

Meanwhile, Ched Nasad lay in ruins, the suspended city having lost one of the ossified spider webs that supported one of the upper buildings come loose in the massive earthquake and triggered a domino effect as building after building crashed through layer after layer of the city.

The destruction wrought was incredible, but the author of it had no idea how bad it truly was for he was busy using a portal as an interposition between him and the ball of plasma rushing out to obliterate everything in its path. The magic only lasted a second, but that was enough for Lars to survive the initial flash. Unfortunately as the magic of the portal came undone from the loss of the wizard maintaining it and the destructive energy assaulting it, everything caught in the shadow it cast was pulled into the planar collapse, randomly hurled across the planes of the Realms.

Including Lars.

For a moment the whole world twisted inside out and turned upside down, before Lars discovered that he was standing in another cavern. But this one was bigger. And on a plane where the backs of Lars’ eyes itched from all the agony and hatred permeating the place.

And he was surrounded by dozens of rather surprised looking women with black feathered wings and drawing rather sharp looking swords or pulling back on powerful looking bows now that they noticed the intruder.

Lars quashed the first impulse to complain. He’d had enough of complaining. Instead, he pumped his gun, ejecting the remains of the primitive shell that had killed the pit fiend and he looked around him for a moment before he asked, “I just killed a pit fiend, survived a nuclear explosion and a random trip across the planes and I maimed a god a week ago. So who wants to go first?”

[Garlak]

Hmmm... I now only have more questions.

Lars killed a Pit Fiend. Pit Fiends explode!

I'll just ask--where the hell is Lars now?--for now.

[Academia Nut]

Pit fiends don't actually explode normally, he just hit it that fucking hard.

And you answered your own question as to where Lars is

[holyknight]

“Why? Where did you hit her?” Skuld had asked.

Lars winced and said, “Well… she’s currently bleeding… from the breast. I was aiming for the heart but she turned at the last moment so that she got caught in the right breast just above the nipple. Just as well I suppose, I think the bullet was stopped dead by her rib cage, which is obviously tougher as a deity than I expected. But yeah, her right boob kind of exploded like… well… a milk bag caught in an industrial press. Blood and skin and fat everywhere, Lolth is currently rolling around on the ground screaming while her followers just sort of stare in shock. And you’re wearing the same sort of pained expression and clutching yourself in the same way guys do when they hear about another man taking a really nasty shot to the groin.”

“You shot her tits off?” Skuld cried out in sympathetic pain.

“Just one! And it was an accident. In any case, I think I bought us an hour or two and I probably crippled her ability to motivate the drow by publicly maiming and injuring her. I don’t think she’s going anywhere naked like that anymore though,” Lars replied grimly.

Lars quashed the first impulse to complain. He’d had enough of complaining. Instead, he pumped his gun, ejecting the remains of the primitive shell that had killed the pit fiend and he looked around him for a moment before he asked, “I just killed a pit fiend, survived a nuclear explosion and a random trip across the planes and I maimed a god a week ago. So who wants to go first?”

.....Lars it's now channeling the little Ash on every men's soul?(or at least the masculine souls that he ate lately......)

[dragon]

Hum wonder which layer of hell he ended up in? Wonder if he's going to end up conquering that level?

[Skyfox120]

Wait a minute.... isn't Elminster currently in Hell right now as well? (I fi Recall correctly ELminster got accidentally plane shifted to Hell around the time of Mystra's death... a fact that Mystara got accused of murdering the old coot for if I remeber my time of torubles triology)

I wonder how the other Elven Dieties are goign to take Lar's little battle with Lolth... (Well there is that hunter who hates all Drow.. he'll probably buy Lars a drink in exchange for the story)... Hmm I wonder if being hit by a Daemon weilded weapon blessed by Skuld means Lolth will be unable to regenerate her wound? And thus becomes a classical Amazon (If IR ecall my greek history class, the original Amazons were believed to cut off one of their breasts in order to become better archers.)

[Darth Yoshi]

Bleeding breasts that bleed!

*catches breath* Oh man, that's hilarious.

Shotgun wedding. Heheheh.

[Academia Nut]

Elminster doesn't go to Hell until waaaay later. He was involved in the defence of Shadowdale against the Zhents lead by Bane. He did apparently get hurled to another plane of existence after trying to blow up Bane's avatar, but it doesn't look like he was held captive in Hell, and in any case Mystra would have been dead at that point.

And yes, I was trying to think up some sort of cosmetic damage to do to Lolth and I ended up channelling a little Shroomy.

[Deadpan29]

First a geek question, is Shyft by any chance a Nimblewright from MMII?

Secondly, I think there's an adjective missing after "more" in this paragraph:

They had brought an iron golem. The top layer of its iron body seemed to have been melted off by the incredible heat, but that appeared to have only pissed it off while making it more as it would now surely set fire to anything flammable that it came into contact with.

[MichaelAwesome]

Here's a 3e Monster Stat entry on Lars. Please feel free to edit or comment on its validity as it's rather incomplete and full of half-ass guesses. Enjoy!

LARS, lesser daemon of Chaos Undivided
Medium sized Outsider (augmented aberration, chaotic, psionic, shapechanger)
CR 8 maybe, 10 tops as he was fairly outclassed by a hezrou demon. See “class” down below for more details.

Ability Scores: Strength=16<x<20. Above average Intelligence and Wisdom. Seems to have a low Charisma score, but has proven inspirational and diplomatic when necessary. Constitution and Dexterity are hard to judge.
Alignment: either Chaotic Good or Chaotic Neutral.

Speed: 30 feet?, fly 40-50 feet? (Average)
Senses: Aura sight, arcane sight, blindsight, empathy, mindsight (from “Lords of Madness,” telepathic creatures with the mindsight feat can perceive others as concentrations of mental energy)
Language: telepathy, tongues, English and Danish as a mortal human.
Special Attacks: Spell-like abilities, psionics, devour soul, psychic scream, disrupt dimensional travel.
Special Qualities: Alternate form, assume likeness, daemon traits.

Class: Expert/Psion? Since arriving in Faerun, Lars’ psychic abilities seem to have grown stronger and more versatile, such as being able to shapeshift into the likeness of souls he had devoured and forming ranged weaponry out of his body’s essence. It’s unknown if this is part of the normal daemon development lifecycle.

Skills: Unknown rank(s) in all of the following, whether as a result of his own experience or taken from the memories retained by the souls he has devoured- autohypnosis, bluff, concentration, craft (alchemy), craft (metalworking or weaponsmithing), diplomacy, disguise, gather information, hide, intimidate, knowledge (arcana), knowledge (architecture and engineering), knowledge (psionics), knowledge (religion), knowledge (the planes), listen, move silently, search, sense motive, spellcraft, spot, perform (singing), profession (communications specialist), profession (mechanic), profession (sailor), psicraft.

Six confirmed supernatural abilities:

1=Devour Soul, similar to the “Trap the Soul” spell or the “Steal Essence” trait of a Caller in Darkness monster.

2=Assume Likeness- Lars can take on the appearance of any humanoid whose soul he has devoured, +10 insight bonus on Bluff and Disguise checks.

3=Alternate Form: Shapeshift into a large crab-like abomination.

4=Daemonic mindset: any creature that makes direct mental contact with Lars’ mind experiences crippling madness similar to the “feeblemind” or “insanity” spell

5=Psychic Scream, similar to “Psychic Crush” or “Ultrablast”

6=Disrupt Dimensional Travel, similar to “Baleful Teleport” or “Divert Teleport”

Other daemon traits: Doesn’t need to eat, drink, breathe, or sleep. Not subject to critical hits and nonlethal damage. Has proven immune to fatigue and exhaustion effects. Vulnerable to intense emotions, which can overwhelm his sanity. Vulnerable to banishment, dismissal, and other affects that try to eject him reality, which causes him great pain and physical damage.

Spell-like abilities: Continuous- arcane sight, tongues, comprehend language, deathwatch, detect magic, read magic; At will (or atleast once per day)- analyze portal, cause fear, clairaudience/clairvoyance, dispel magic.

Psionics: Continuous- aura sight, detect psionics, detect teleport, empathy, psionic scent; At will (or atleast once a day)- anchored navigation, baleful teleport, call to mind, clairvoyant sense, correspond, divert teleport, inflict pain, know direction and location, mental disruption, mind thrust, mindlink, schism, trace teleport

[Brain_Caster]

I really don't think Lars can be quantified by D&D stats. Isn't that after all the whole point about his whole "cosmic horror from outside the multiverse" status? He works by completely different rules... or rather, as a daemon, ignores completely different rules, than the D&D verse or the characters from Skuld's homedimension.


This continues to be one of my favorite stories, by the way. The last chapter worked really well, I can't even think of anything I didn't like. Skuld and Lars are quite the couple. It'll be fun seeing everyones reaction when they get back into contact with their respective home dimensions.

And Gunnhild wants to build mommy a skull throne? Awwwwww....

[WillowBee]

I agree, this story is incredibly awesome, and I'd like to think that regular feedback from fans of Academia Nut helps the author's creative processes.

Nice little shot-gun wedding. For that “tiny tremor in the fabric of reality” when Skuld and Lars exchanged their vows, it makes me wonder would happen if the Chaos gods decided to formalize their polygamous relationship and got married with all their followers and daemon children as witnesses. Khemnu, mentor of Shinji and first daemon prince, would be suitable to give away the bride(s).

The complete destruction of all drow in the Northdark, and subsequent re-landscaping of an entire continent, was an unexpected delight. House Oblodra survived, so we might see those psionic drow again later on. Shevarash, elven god of revenge against the drow, would probabily petition Corellon Larethian into making Skuld an honorary member of the Seldarine; there’s no divine patron of half-elves, so Skuld might receive that as part of her portfolio.

Baatar is full of lawful evil energy, the antithesis of Chaos, so that might prevent it from being absorbed by Lars, otherwise Gunnhild will be expecting a new little brother or sister real soon.

[Setesh]

I really don't think Lars can be quantified by D&D stats. Isn't that after all the whole point about his whole "cosmic horror from outside the multiverse" status? He works by completely different rules... or rather, as a daemon, ignores completely different rules, than the D&D verse or the characters from Skuld's homedimension.

It is possible in D&D terms Lars would be much closer to something from the Far Planes. Which makes a kind of sense since the Far Planes are the 'edge' of reality where nothing is suppose to exist, yet somehow a host of mindbending horrors do. The only difference being Lars can make himself stable in the Prime Material and most Far Plane things decay rather rapidly when exposed to rules.

On Elminster in Hell: After Mystryl bit the big burrito and got reincarnated as Mystra, Elminster had to fight a bunch of wackos who had been hiding out in the shadow realm so long they were made of Shadow Weave energy, in order to kill one of their leaders Elminster hit him with silverfire, raw weave magic. Producing much the same effect as M/AM tearing a hole to the 9 hells. Elm sealed the hole from the hell side draining himself dry, and spent the next few years a guest of exiled arch duke Nergal until Mystra noticed and sent rescuers. Rather ineptly to start as she sent Halaster the loon in first.

[Valorie]

Physiologically, Lars is like a cross between a Barghest whelp, an Aoa droplet, and a green Slaadi, with the pseudonatural template thrown in for good measure.

((Does Lars have a last name, or he like Prince or Madonna?)) Skuld’s last name was ‘Odinsdotter’ if I remember correctly.

Skuld seems to be adjusting to motherhood and her newfound divine abilities rather well. I wonder how that sliver of daemon essence inside Skuld mutated after she was empowered by the Shadow Weave.

I’m glad Rask the drow alienist sided with Skuld and Lars. The oddball wizard is an entertaining foil for the group, and his ability to summon pseudonatural creatures could prove invaluable for locating Lars in Hell and feeding Gunnhild’s appetite. Academia Nut has never stated if daemons can derive sustenance from eating “non-lawful” aberrations, outsiders, or elementals (I assume “lawful” beings aren’t digestible to daemon and get passed out like diarrhea), but if there ever aren’t enough souls to feed little Gunn, then summoning monsters for her to eat might be an alternative.

Some low level aberrations that Rask can summon for Gunnhild to eat include Wyste, beholderkin (eyeball), grell, ghosteater (Ghostwalk setting), rot reaver, carrion crawler, otyugh, ettercap, etc.

[Academia Nut]

Shyft is the reward for this.



More explanations will come later, but the point still stands that fan art is rewarded with awesome... which is hopefully rewarded with more fanart. It's a nice cycle I do believe.

And currently Lars is like Cher (cookie for the reference). His primary ability to kick ass though is the fact that he's an outside context problem and that none of his enemies are properly prepared to fight him. So long as he keeps them on the defensive instead of trying to figure out counterattacks against him he dominates the fight. Also, his ability to infiltrate is huge in places that will support him corporeal daemons because he can literally become another person if he's eaten their soul. He's not bluffing and he's not acting, he knows the person better than they do and he can slip on their appearance and mannerisms perfectly for an indefinite time.

For Gunnhild, they're not letting her eat any souls right now, and Lars hasn't actually taught her how to eat 'solid' food yet. I'm still juggling whether to include a possibly squicky scene relating to that, but I've already channelled enough Shroomy into this.

[MichaelAwesome]

Lars = Cher: They both have good singing voices? No definitive last names? They can reshape their facial structure at will?

If Shyft is indeed a Nimblewright, then Skuld might choose to experiment with her Shadow Weave abilities by giving the golem a soul, similar to how the Warforged of Eberron having the “living construct” subtype. All Faerunian deities have divine minions, such a Lolth’s “yochlol,” so idea of Skuld being served by Banpei-like mechanical beings is rather appropriate for the young techno-goddess.

SKULD
“Norn of the Future,” “Queen of the Undiscovered Country”
Alignment: neutral good
Rank: Lesser deity, possibility an Intermediate deity once she gains sufficient worshippers and a better control of the Shadow Weave.
Portfolio: the Shadow Weave, hidden knowledge, the uncertain future, ice cream and frozen desserts
Domains: Craft, Darkness, Good, Knowledge, Metal, Protection (maybe the Time domain)
Psionic mantles: Creation, Good, Knowledge, Light and Darkness, Time.

Divine allies: Skuld’s demi-god daughter Gunnhild
Divine enemies: Shar, Lolth

Skuld’s emphasis on mechanical innovation would alienate most barbarians, druids, and rangers, and her dislike frivolous activities like toymaking might cause bards and gnomes to be looked down upon by her clergy. Clerics of Skuld would be likely to take a level or two in another class to help diversify their abilities: expert, sorcerer, wizard, ardent*, divine mind*, psion (see “Complete Divine”).

As a gift for Lars the Daemon of Chaos Undivided, Skuld may choose to encourage her worshippers to take ranks in knowledge (psionics) and/or the “Wild Talent” feat, as an homage to Lars’ homeworld and to prevent her worshippers from becoming too dependent upon magic in case the Weave or Shadow Weave shuts down again. Only two deities concern themselves with humanoid psychic abilities: Ilsensine (illithids) and Deep Duerra (Duergar). Most psionic characters don’t worship deities simply because they’re too focused on their own mental development to be concerned with spiritual matters.

[Xon]

Lars = Cher: They both have good singing voices? No definitive last names? They can reshape their facial structure at will?

Lars can reshape is entire biological structure at will.

SKULD
“Norn of the Future,” “Queen of the Undiscovered Country”
Alignment: neutral good
Rank: Lesser deity, possibility an Intermediate deity once she gains sufficient worshippers and a better control of the Shadow Weave.

She isnt a lesser deity in DnD terms. try an overpower on an enforced vacation. Ao in OMG terms is ranked lower than Skuld is. As Norm, the only single deity more powerful is Odin/Lsama.

[WillowBee]

I think what he's trying to say is that Skuld is weaker than Shar in terms of brute strength and raw power but can compensate through reality hacking talents and her modern scientific mind. Yes, Lord Ao is weaker than Skuld, but he had several eons to stack the deck in his favor, and seems to have purposely given the Faerun deities medieval mindsets so that they couldn't outsmart him. In many ways, Ao is like the Wizard of Oz, and only remote access to the WorldTree Computer prevents anyone from ousting his authority over the Realms.

Think of it like "Jurassic Park." Dinosaurs are a hundred times stronger than humans, but the humans have outsmarted them and can control the dinosaurs with technology. However, if their security system (i.e. their ability to edit reality) is compromised for even a moment, the dinosaurs will break loose and kill the humans. Fortunately, since the park (Faerun) is build on an island, the dinosaurs can't kill all of humanity and must remain where they are. Unfortunately for Odin Almighty, Hild or one of her demon minions are more than willing to pull a "Dennis Nedry" (Wayne Knight) and turn lose a bunch of simple-minded powerhouses onto the multiverse.

[Academia Nut]

The quote is Eddie and Lou, the cops from the Simpsons, who "are kinda like Cher" in that they don't have last names.

But Xon gets half a cookie for being hilarious.

And yeah, Skuld is limited to powers she's acquired locally, but the fact is that she, and Lars, simply think differently from the deities in the Forgotten Realms. There's all sorts of things that they think of and know of that the others just don't. Like for example, Skuld took light and turned it into another form of light while still remaining within the confines of 'shadow'. In fact, the drow should be glad that she's new at this because a black hole would probably 'count as' being part of the purview of shadow.