The Open Door (megacrossover)

[White Haven]

Just because their actions won't matter doesn't mean they won't take them. They don't know they're irrelevant and should be terrified and running away, after all. I agree with the robotic messiah here, I was reading that section and going 'Soo...where's the nice, super-arrogant matron now? ...aaand now?

[LadyTevar]

I like the family portrait idea.

I like the introduction of the mute dwarf too.

[Academia Nut]

I think I can change a few words around here and there to make it a bit more interesting, but its not going to be as drastic a rewrite as the Picard speech. Also, I suppose the family portrait could include Rask the drow arachnomancer/alienist and Steb the mute loader dwarf off to the side as they'll become recurring secondary characters.

[Darth Raptor]

I knew Aruvixa's small-mindedness would kill her, but I didn't expect it would be literal.

[phongn]

In other words, a family portrait.

Are we going to have a picture of Daddy Dearest with the heavenly shotgun?

[Academia Nut]

My favourite forms of death are ironic death.

"Oh hey, you've been clawing your way towards ultimate power in your city and experimenting with tapping directly into the Weave in order to obtain yet more power? And now, on the day where you will finally knock off the top power in the city and ascend to the penultimate position, the ultimate being your allies who you will off at the first opportunity, the assassin you've been using to annihilate your enemies has turned on you because the hostage you were holding to ensure his behaviour just hacked the universe to turn god mode on. So now he's going to give you unlimited power, ie what you've always wanted, but the ability to handle it? Ouch."

Are we going to have a picture of Daddy Dearest with the heavenly shotgun?

That will need to be a different picture for reasons that will become obvious later.

[Brain_Caster]

Are we going to have a picture of Daddy Dearest with the heavenly shotgun?

That will need to be a different picture for reasons that will become obvious later.

Tzintchi with the not-quite-so-heavenly shotgun (or bolter - everything's better with bolters) shotgun-wedding Skuld to Lars? After all this is a rather unique case given that she knocked up him, not the other way around, and Tzintchi turned Lars into a daemon, which makes him his "parent" of sorts.

[Deadpan29]

I saw one instance of "breathe" when you meant "breath" and I agree that the transformation/birth sequence needs a bit more. This is a divine re-ascension here running parallel to the birth of a cosmic horror unlike anything this world has seen. It needs a touch of epic. Loved the rest.

On how Shar was still in control of the shadow weave, I see it like this: The demoted gods didn't stop being gods, they were just limited to the degree of awareness, power, and control associated with a single avatar, and thereby vulnerable to dying in full if their one avatar got killed. Mystra was still goddess of magic to the degree that her death upset things in the manner shown.

I suspect that Shar may have lost part of her portfolio as well as the shadow weave. Skuld seems to have become goddess of secrets hidden in shadows and darkness, in addition to what she already carried with her.

[HSRTG]

Tzintchi with the not-quite-so-heavenly shotgun (or bolter - everything's better with bolters) shotgun-wedding Skuld to Lars?

One better: Daddy dearest with his big fucking warhammer (Odin, remember), and Tzintchi with his bolter arguing over who has to get shotgun married to whom. Preferably as Skuld and Lars watch on helplessly.

[Academia Nut]

"Well now Lars, when you knock a lady up, its the responsible thing to do to marry her."

"One, technically she knocked me up. Two, aren't we all a bunch of irresponsible psychopaths? Three, don't you have three wives?"

"Yes, well, what is our policy on hypocrisy?"

"'Do as I do because I'm probably lying to you anyway'?"

"Which would mean...?"

"I should build my own harem?"

"Almost, because as you said, she's the father in the relationship."

...

"I should build Skuld a harem?"

"Seems like the reasonable thing to do given the circumstances."

[holyknight]

Yeah, the battle was in a lull while everyone tried to deal with the sudden surge of wild magic, and this is one of those 'What are you going to do?' situations for mere mortals, what with the inability to actually do anything. I could make a few changes, and I might actually, but in general I'm happy with the broad details.

Also, I see in my head a new picture. Skuld in commissar clothing but transformed by her contact with the Shadow Weave, with her transformed angel floating out of her back like they typically do in A!MG. Next to her would be Lars in his 'Davy Jones' commissar get up. And between them would be the little daemon child.

In other words, a family portrait.

Heh....it will be VERY interesting, to see WHAT "Think", the likely putative cousin of the Vorpal Bunny of Caerbanog, did with the Spider Queen.

Also, likely Skuld and Ao may have their first meeting, and i'm guessing it that it won't be nice at all....

............but who the (BEEP) Cares!?

[LadyTevar]

I suspect that Shar may have lost part of her portfolio as well as the shadow weave. Skuld seems to have become goddess of secrets hidden in shadows and darkness, in addition to what she already carried with her.

"The future is always shadowed..." Skuld may have stolen away anythign that dealt with divination of the future....

Oh, this is going to be nasty indeed

[Skyfox120]

Alright is Mystra dead, or did AO just kick the gods out until they find his tablet? I ask mainly because if I recall my Time of Trouble right.. the wild magic started as soon as the gods were kicked out (Although since magic stablized around the gods avatars and Lolth was in menzoberazon.... I can see why it wouldn't affect them quite yet).

And Mystra being forced into Avatar form COULD be misinterpreted as 'death' by Skuld, who doesn't have a clear understanding or major linkage to the weave at this point...

Heh Now what will LArs do next... he could cause a lot of chaos in Menzoberanzon.. or he could lead his 'servents' to the surface and cause chaos in the upper world during the Time of Troubles...

Why do I also picture Lar's and Skulds little shanghiging of the Shadow weave somehow intercepting Elminsters side trip into hell? (because Skuld needs a slightly grumpy old wizard mentor to be designated 'tutor' for her child while she and Lars are busy )

Well on the plus side with her connection ot the Shadow Weave now... at least Skuld doesn't have quite as much to worry about the Dark Powers taking a interest in Lars. (I like Ravenloft )

[LadyTevar]

Sorry SkyFox... the Weave was just fine until Mystra decided to try walking up to Heaven.

[Skyfox120]

Sorry SkyFox... the Weave was just fine until Mystra decided to try walking up to Heaven.

well nuts... guess my memory isn't that good

[Firethorn]

Ok, serious review time noa. First off, the scene showing the transition of depowered-Skuld into uber-Skuld falls emotionally flat. The reasons why is that it's taking place with people all around her in the midst of battle, and they are totally ignored.

Well, while there's fighting going on, you have to remember that they're back in the Roreril compound, next to the mortars. This is secure territory, not under assault, and their firing pattern had finished.

No combat in the immediate area, nothing else to do except sit back and watch the chaos.

[Academia Nut]

Okay, I fiddled around with the wording and some of the sequence of events a little bit.

Also, from what I've been able to glean, the sequence of events is

1) Ao kicks the gods out for stealing the Tablets of Fate. Divine magic dies except for within a mile of the avatar of the deity.
2) Mystra tries to get back into her domain five days later so she can go back to work on the Weave. Helm kicks her ass, she dies and the Weave goes out of control with her death

I'm still not sure where exactly Lolth was for the entire time, but I do know that she needed to hire some demons to do her dirty work handling House Oblodra, the psychics, whose firepower was completely unaffected by all the shit going down. I decided that she simply hadn't arrived in Menzo by the time of the attack, busy with other things. Any variations from canon can be blamed on chaos theory... and Elminster because he is the wizard who did it.

[Darth Yoshi]

I expect that you have great (well, hilarious anyway) plans for that System Bug?

[Singular Quartet]

Nodding, Lars said, “Fair enough.” He then turned to Aruvixa with an enormous grin and said, “Hey Aruvixa, did I mention that my charge here was a goddess from another world? Since I’m feeling in a bit of a generous mood what with just giving birth, I’ll give you what you always wanted. A long shot at unlimited power. How's that sound?”

Seeing the writing on the wall, Aruvixa asked fearfully, “Unlimited power?”

Lars shrugged and said, “Suit yourself, but unless you have unlimited handling capacity, you probably shouldn’t have wanted it so badly."

The edit broke the following couple of lines. Might want to fix that, too.

Otherwise, though, it's a bit better.

[TheClueless]

Okay, I fiddled around with the wording and some of the sequence of events a little bit.

Also, from what I've been able to glean, the sequence of events is

1) Ao kicks the gods out for stealing the Tablets of Fate. Divine magic dies except for within a mile of the avatar of the deity.
2) Mystra tries to get back into her domain five days later so she can go back to work on the Weave. Helm kicks her ass, she dies and the Weave goes out of control with her death

While I realize that the author has the finally say, I also happen to have ye olde "The Forgotten Realms Atlas" at hand. So the way it happpened before Lars and Skuld set the butterfly wings a-flapping was:

- Kythorn (June) 15 : Ao kicks all of Toril's gods out of the house.
- Kythorn 20 : Bane captures Mystra.
- Midsummer Day [Technically Flamerule (July) 1?] : Mystra picks one last fight with Helm.
- Marpenoth (October) 15 : Ao decides the gods have been punished enough, and lets them back in the house.

If anyone has information on the timeline in the Atlas, please ask. Please remember, however, that it was published before quite a few of the novels (such as the relevant Dark Elf novels.)

The Clueless.

[TheClueless]

I suspect that Shar may have lost part of her portfolio as well as the shadow weave. Skuld seems to have become goddess of secrets hidden in shadows and darkness, in addition to what she already carried with her.

"The future is always shadowed..." Skuld may have stolen away anythign that dealt with divination of the future....

Oh, this is going to be nasty indeed

If Skuld has gained what you think she has, it's a bad sign for poor old Savrass. (Who is still in the item - a scepter, I believe - that Azuth stuffed him in, long long ago.) After all, he was/is/would have been the god of divination.

The Clueless

[Garlak]

I suspect that Shar may have lost part of her portfolio as well as the shadow weave. Skuld seems to have become goddess of secrets hidden in shadows and darkness, in addition to what she already carried with her.

"The future is always shadowed..." Skuld may have stolen away anythign that dealt with divination of the future....

Oh, this is going to be nasty indeed

Not necessarily... She was the goddess of the future--not just of technology, but knowledge/technology gained by building upon what is currently known. And unless she has a weird amnesia, she likely has a complete/near-complete knowledge of current technology, and a good grasp of past knowledge...

By ousting Shar, Skuld may have gained dominion over lost knowledge; over any findings hidden, concealed, or forgotten and lost! Some hedge mage or retired engineer or mathematician figures out a new spell or formula and never manages to pass it on? She'll know it. And possibly be able to tell them the knowledge can be passed on, if they so wish... or kept confidential. (I doubt Skuld will be unable to "share" an "secret" knowledge because it'd go "out" of her alignment; they may not be secret any longer, but they'd still likely pertain to other areas of dominion... or it simply wouldn't make sense for the goddess of knowledge/technology/magic to forget stuff, when's the one who learns and stores forgotten knowledge in the first place...)
Hrrmmm... if it's lost knowledge in general, rather than scientific/magical knowledge.. sheesh, she wouldn't be omniescient, but it'd be damned hard to hide anything from her.

Also: why did Lars take the risk that Aruvixa just MIGHT gain "ultimate power"? Honestly, with the way the multiverse has screwed him over, you'd think he'd realize he just dug himself further into the bedrock... And he's not knee-deep in magma yet, so there's plenty more digging-your-own-grave to go!

Also, how's this for "death by irony"?


EDIT: For the record, I want to say that I first started writing this reply as a rebuttal of sorts... but rereading it, I'm not sure what it was supposed to rebute. So, um.. yeah..

[Robo Jesus]

EDIT: For the record, I want to say that I first started writing this reply as a rebuttal of sorts... but rereading it, I'm not sure what it was supposed to rebute. So, um.. yeah..

You were rebutting the claim that "I can't believe it's not butter!"

Quite honestly, all of us can believe that it's not butter, and anyone who says otherwise is either a liar or mentally retarded!

[Darth Yoshi]

Also: why did Lars take the risk that Aruvixa just MIGHT gain "ultimate power"? Honestly, with the way the multiverse has screwed him over, you'd think he'd realize he just dug himself further into the bedrock... And he's not knee-deep in magma yet, so there's plenty more digging-your-own-grave to go!

Not so. Remember, Skuld survived the transplant because she's a goddess. Lars did the equivalent of hooking up the entire Pacific Coast energy grid to a single Home Depot breaker. Instant burnout.

[TheClueless]

Although they had decided that when they first talked to Skuld’s family they would call her father at first to give them enough time to explain before the smiting happened.

Good luck there, Lars. You're going to need it, IMO.

This time he missed his targeted area while still hitting scoring a lethal strike again, overcompensating for the previously high round and striking Triel lower than he intended, just barely missing the stone banister of the balcony in his estimation. Still, with a round that big the shock of having one of her kidneys and the surrounding pieces of liver and intestine blow out her back, along with the hydrostatic shock that destroyed her heart and lungs, Triel tied nearly as quickly as her mother.

I think you want "Triel died nearly".

Was Lars hoping to add a little inter-family dispute as to who is the new Matron Mother of house Baenre, even during the assault? Even if he's not going for that, he was probably (and, IMO, correctly) hoping for friction between various daughters of the old she-spider to reduce the effectiveness of the defenders actions.

Lars was in communication, but his abilities also leant him to doing crude sensory work if the situation called for it. He knew what a warp storm looked like. He knew what the sudden surge of energies could do, especially to those sensitive to them. This wasn’t quite the same, for it involved the Weave instead of the Warp, but it was similar in structure.

Should this perhaps be, "Lars was in Communications"?

Taking off at a run, Lars launched himself into the air, shedding most of his outward appearance for the horrific bat-thing form that carried him along until he arrived at the Roreril compound just in time for the trio of howitzers to go off in the courtyard, throwing the fragmentation rounds that would hopefully play merry hell with anyone trying to extinguish the burning napalm.

This is the form he used right after his stay in the "My Goddess!" version of Hell, I take it?

The artificial connection was still there and still actively drawing energy from the Weave to sustain Skuld. Skuld had a pained look on her face. Approaching her, Lars whispered, “What happened?”

“The… the goddess in charge of magic here just died, and it’s damaged the system,” Skuld replied back, tears starting to well up in her eyes.

I was expecting this to happen, but this is *still* worth a wince or two. What's worse is that it *could* get worse, depending on what happens to Mystra's Chosen and Midnight - since they all hold some part of Mystra's power.

Say what ever else you want about Mystra, but she at least had enough sense to set up her Chosen to act as emergency backup stabilizers, if something ever happened to her.

“What’s going on? Why can I no longer feel the spell in her?” Aruvixa demanded angrily.

[Fist of the North Star]Because you are already dead![/FotNS]

With a final psychic cry, the thing inside of Lars exploded out with a burst of otherworldly light and indescribable colours and landed with a wet plop on the ground next to him. All in attendance not blessed with daemonic or divine resilience promptly forgot the horrid form as it quickly shifted to a much more pleasant shape; that of a female drow child possessed with rather strange eyes, dark as the oceans, and pale marking on her face reminiscent of those that Skuld had. She ‘wore’, as much as daemons could wear things made out of their own essence, a loose sort of gown and her white hair was unbound at shoulder length.

I can't think of anything more fitting than "Congratualations! It's a girl!"

Given that she has goddess markings, and everything that Lars has been through, I take it that she's an (immature) Daemon-Princess? Would I also be right in thinking that - in terms of raw power, and not experience - she's more powerful than Lars is, even now?

Inhaling deeply, Skuld nodded and said, “Yes… this will take some time to process properly, but Noble Umbra and I should be alright. Ugh… there are so many little errors in this system…”

Is Skuld refering to the flaws in the Shadow Weave that cause any one using it - unless they worship Shar - to loose some Wisdom points?

Nodding, Lars said, “Fair enough.” He then turned to Aruvixa with an enormous grin and said, “Hey Aruvixa, did I mention that my charge here was a goddess from another world? Since I’m feeling in a bit of a generous mood what with just giving birth, I’ll give you what you always wanted. A long shot at unlimited power. How's that sound?”

What happened to the "or a three second head start", from the first draft? Particularly given that Aruvixa's reply suggests that she was given a choice.

Seeing the writing on the wall, Aruvixa asked fearfully, “Unlimited power?”

Lars shrugged and said, “Suit yourself, but unless you have unlimited handling capacity, you probably shouldn’t have wanted it so badly.”

To be fair to Aruvixa - given the fact that she doesn't have access to her divine spells and the Weave's current "issues" - a long-shot at (virtually) unlimited power was probably the option that gave her any chance (no matter how minscule) at surviving.

He then grabbed on to a piece of the Weave that was in a low state and jammed it into Aruvixa, being careful not to swap bits of soul with the bitch. Her eyes went wide as she felt the new trickle of power in her and the insight into Lars’ mind and what he had seen and experienced… and how utterly outclassed her entire civilization was against true power, power wielded effortlessly by humans of all creatures.

A moment before the energy surged back up to full power, Aruvixa understood what she had been dealing with and could only let out a tiny terrified whimper as she soiled herself, the very same crime she had her sister executed for all those months ago.

Then the strand surged back to normal size and beyond with the latest ripple in the Weave and Aruvixa was carried away, her soul consumed by the raw magic and carried away, leaving only a burned husk of a body behind.

You know, after reading some of your recent posts in the SpaceBattles thread for this story, I can't help but wince here. Especially the information that Lars accidentally let her see.

Well, I don't think that Lars and Skuld have to worry about being bored anytime soon. Shar now has someone new at the top of her "I want them dead!" list. Stories and rumours about a foreign goddess being in town will probably be all over Menzo before 24 hours passes by. (Lolth, being Lolth, won't be pleased that someone else is in her territory.) They have to learn how to be good parents. Oh yes, and they still have a city full of drow - and their slaves - around them.

The Clueless.