Meat Points: Attack of Opportunity

It came squirming out of the vat and Pharnobal felt a rush of satisfaction at being right again. Though it expanded slightly as it solidified, the shape didn’t change from moment to moment. Which suggested - no, which basically proved - that it wasn’t actually extruded from another plane, like a sphere rendered as an expanding and contracting circle in two dimensions. The effect was a purely visual one that occurred inside the eye and, if one was warded against it, didn’t happen at all. Humayan was wrong again, and she-

Focus. Left hand wishdoll right hand fist downward sweeping motion two words. Gift of speed to the muscle step to the left ten feet.

It unfurled to its full height, flexing its flabby hands to probe the bounds of the vault that contained its container. Thanks to the three hits of bottled Clarity she stacked, the psychic “shout” was blocked as well. She had her suspicions about that, too. Everyone who had heard it and lived to tell spoke of an alien meaning encoded in the searing tide of lorem ipsum, visions of drowned cities and green stars and an evangelic message too large to even summarize at the highest level, let alone understand.

Pharnobal suspected that there was no message, merely the contents of the brain turned in on itself. Similar to the flash of an Umber Hulk’s gaze or the neverending spew of a Gibbering Mouther. Not the work of a superintelligent creature from a higher plane, but the defense mechanism of a dangerous animal. Imagine a cavy caught in the beak of an Owlbear. To the hapless prey animal the beast’s sense of smell and the digging claws and the keen eyesight and the hungry mouth would all seem evidence of a formidable intellect dedicated to the destruction of rodents. Though that was perhaps even less encouraging. Exactly how much of existence was tiled with brainless superpowered killing machines was impossible to tell, but it painted a disturbing picture of conditions in the broader universe and in the planes. No matter what Enlightenment told its favorite disciples about consciousness and thought and the mysteries-

Focus. Dip component pouch hand forms three pointed star forms three folds to infinity. Dispel magic step ten more feet stay behind muscle.

The Meat Cleric and the Melee Brute crept forward, weapons ready. The thing stupidly belched a gout of foul smelling slime from its siphons - there was no ward against the stench, though Pharnobal had thought often about smearing her lip with sweet smelling salts. Like she was back in the mulch chasing cave crickets with her sisters, laughing as the enormous bugs belched noxious ooze and hopped in all directions in a futile attempt to escape the childrens’ grasping hands-

Focus. Index finger smooth motion. Lightning initiates before line of sight blocked by-

It reached around with a claw and plucked Hipolito off the rim of the enormous amphora, ignoring his Improved Invisibility and False Aura and natural affinity for clandestine killing. It ignored the charmed blade he sank into its arm and slurped him into its beard of tentacles before Pharnobal could cast the spell. Before he could cry out in alarm.

That wasn’t supposed to happen, she thought.