B 3 C 8: LINTI, LIGHTNING HUNTER

It’s been a long time since Lil and I have been journeying alone together. So much in our lives has changed since the last time it was just the two of us. Still, I know we’ll make it back so long as we try our best. Honestly, I could never forgive myself if I let down our loves, and only one of us made it back, or neither.

Lil exclaims, “Jeeze pal, don’t be so dramatic, we’ll be fine! Y’know!? Any advice for everyone headed back though?”

Lil’s right, I should probably advise while I can. I ramble, “So, uh, when you all make it back to camp, obviously give Lao, Ag, both sets of twins, Oli, and Lucky my love. Someone’s going to have to talk to Bettie to talk to Priss and Sir Reginald. Ugh, for once I’m actually the best choice as the go-between and mediator, and I won’t be there. Jeeze my life is dumb. Every couple of times that you make camp, you’ll need to have Sugar and Spice build new shops so that everyone can restock on supplies. See if you guys can find sources of spawns of fish, or hostiles. Help everyone stock up on currency, food, whatever sort of supplies will help keep everyone alive while we try to find a home.”

I pause to consider something before continuing, “By the time you guys get the whole contingent to Point B I should hopefully be on my way back with at least an answer, unless I’m roped into some adventure or side-quest within the Naga lands. Ugh, knowing how much my life is like some freaky adventure tale in my memories, that’s probably exactly what will happen. Alright, scratch that train of thought. Just try to keep peace between everyone, even if you have to do it by force. Lu, Te, if the humans start to kill anyone, just go ham, take out as many as you can while calling for the critterkin to retreat, then get yourselves to safety too.”

I pause for a beat to let it sink in. “I really hope it won’t come to that. I don’t like her, but I’m starting to trust Priscilla, Madam Warden. Oh! Don’t let them bring down any of the ancient trees. There’s something going wrong. I’m not sure what. I can’t shake it though, just please try to stock up on as much lumber as you might need here, rather than letting anyone cut down any of the ancient flora. You two need to make big shows of being a strong presence in the camps. Lu if there’s any other secret powers you’re holding onto, maybe some sort of tranquility song, or some kind of crowd enhancement, this is probably the part in our lives where you reveal that sort of stuff.”

Lu whistles as she rocks back and forth on the heels of her feet, feigning ignorance. She’s adorable, but not fooling anyone, except for maybe Magnus. Speaking of, or, well, thinking of Magnus.

I relay, “Magnus, I’m sorry again. It’s hard to explain just how deadly it is, the thing I’m about to do. Also how important it is for the safety of everyone that we do it. We’re marching thousands of people around in lands that might be populated. It looks bad, really bad, especially to scalekind, they already hate softskins. I just want to reiterate that I think you’re an absolute sweetheart, but that you shouldn’t be waiting on me, not to seek that kind of happiness. I don’t know if or when I’d ever be interested in that, and that’s not fair to you. Not only that, but I get the feeling that I’ll only ever feel that way for these three. There’s hundreds of wonderful people that could use your brand of sweetness. Maybe some of them would also like to share that kind of affection with you, the kind that I think you’re seeking.”

I sigh, interrupting before Magnus can reply, “I’m no hero, not really. I don’t know what makes me Lu’s hero, but I treat it as just a nickname. I’m glad that you admitted part of your feelings were hero-worship. I want to dispel that. I don’t want anyone other than Lu to call me that. Hell, it has been used to hurt me before by someone I hold dear. Plus, I’ve murdered people. I didn’t rescue the otterfolk or any of the eggs from the city when I had the chance, and now I’ll never have the chance. I’m just struggling to get by, barely keeping my head above water figuratively. Though frequently also quite literally. So, yeah, I’m no hero.”

Lil’s lip quivers when they realize I was talking about the time that they spat the word hero in my face and treated me coldly after they were released from their own core. It’s not Lil’s fault, Mata put those words in their mouth, but Mata was also dear to me. Either way, someone dear to me hurt me with those words.

Magnus scratches his head and blushes, pausing to see if I’m going to continue again. When it seems I’ve said my piece, he replies, “I, um. You’ve done things that you’re not proud of, but that we’re grateful for, at least. I. I don’t want to shove that word down your throat if you don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to shove anything down your throat that you don’t want. Uh, yeah. I still like you a lot, and I hope the offer still stands, when you make it back. We can cuddle and you can tell me about whatever adventure you have. I’m happy with that, that’s enough. I’ll, um, yeah. Don’t worry about me.”

Luni telepathically giggles to me across a private wavelength. Is she snickering at the phrasing Magnus used? That kind of phrasing wouldn’t mean anything here in our world, well, except maybe to humans. Just what are you to me, Lu? How much do you know? Lu’s mental avatar winks and then blows a raspberry. She leaves our private wavelength, leaving me flustered and confused.

I walk around to everyone, including Luna, to give them each a tight, tender hug in goodbye. I save Lil for last, since Lil is coming with me, and I’ll just carry them in a tight hug for a while. Lu whispers something too quietly to hear as she kisses my ear when I hug her goodbye, but she refuses to tell me what she might have said when I query with telepathy. Teuila peppers me with kisses and buries her nose in my clavicle before nipping at my collarbone. She lightly marks my skin, claiming me in a sort of fashion. Luna actually hugs me back with her ridiculously flexible arms. Her strength is such that I hear cracks and popping, and I’m fairly certain I’ve obtained several fractured ribs from her hug. Magnus’s face flushes with embarrassment as I embrace him warmly. I wave goodbye to Lu, Lu, Te, and Magnus as I pick up Lil in a tight hug to begin marching south along the river.

I can feel the ground vibrate as Luna begins to take off with the other three. My heart aches knowing it could be days, maybe more, before I see Te or Lu again. The ache is incredibly strong for them, let alone the weeks or months it might be until I see Laomati and the rest of our family again.

I whisper to Lil, “Thank you so much for coming with buddy. I don’t know how many more solo adventures I can handle. They tear me apart inside. You’re right. I’m sorry that we’re going somewhere the girls shouldn’t come with. You know I don’t want to be apart from them either. We both love Lu and Te to bits.”

Lil shamelessly exclaims, “More than just love buddy, we’re mega twitterpated, mega mega mega twitterpated! I, um, my It’s-A-Secret and I, for a while I was worried you might not understand. But that’s long past! We’re all in deep twitterpation. Like, like, some day, if you want to change stuff, that’s cool! If not, that’s cool too! Buuuut seems like I guessed right, huh? If I hit another tier of evolution and I’m like a bipedal wyvern with arms, you’ll be crushing on me just as hard as Lu and Te, huh?”

I flush with embarrassment, my cheeks reddening to match Lil’s scales. I smooch their cranium roughly then give them a long noogie instead of replying. Dorky little dragbutt indeed, Teuila. Ugh, my heart’s fluttering like crazy. I do love my little buddy.

Lil, reading my thoughts, interjects, “Love you back pal!”

My blushing spreads up to my pointy eartips so heatedly that it’s painful. I layer on some FFS and I actually steam from embarrassment. Come on Lil, that’s not fair, riding around in my head when I’m all pensive and awkwardly self-conscious about something. Anyway, instead of in my head, can you ride on my head and just exhale flame on me all day? The hottest you can muster, take breaks when you need to, and I’ll just keep walking. We’ve got a lot of training to do.

Lil grumbles, “Awe man, I was afraid you’d wanna do this, fine buddy, I guess. Just tell me if it hurts pal, please?”

I tease, “Of course Lil, but I mean, if it got to be too much, I could just freeze you. I’d probably freeze you for practice if you didn’t go as hard as you could.”

Lil gulps and quits grumbling. Their flames writhe around me from above, and I sigh happily with the heavenly arrangement. I can walk around essentially naked near the river, covered entirely in flame. I must look like a blazing elemental to outside parties. I wonder if that would be good enough to be accepted by scalekind. That would be pretty funny. If that’s all I needed to do, I could probably cover myself in sap or tar and just light it up.

As Lil cranks up the power and heat of their breath to their highest levels, it does start to sting slightly. It’s like trying to reach bare-handed into an oven, then forgetting why you’re reaching into the oven as you stand around for nearly a minute lost in thought. Basically open-air roasting yourself at several hundred degrees. It’s not going to kill me any time soon, but I still need to be careful. Lil’s max heat is somewhere in the mid two thousands Fahrenheit now, closing in on fifteen hundred Celsius. They hadn’t been training it much ever since Fire Biome. There was a long time when they were missing, or weren’t themselves. Then we had Lil and Te working entirely on physical combat training.

Fire Biome’s also the last time that I had seriously done any thermal training myself, mostly because I was able to break the limit and rapidly gain accelerated skill growth. Now I’m just hoping that my body triggers a defense mechanism that breaks through the lock on my energy cap. The last time it finally broke in a deadly situation while I was enraged. When wrath was consuming me in the dam earlier, I also felt the lock beginning to shatter. Something about strong emotions and perceived danger really works its way through that particular mechanism.

Maybe the mechanism of locking is in its own way, a self defense mechanism to keep me from limit breaking too frequently? If I were able to use it all the time, I would. But there’s probably hidden costs, on top of the recovery penalties. Well, some of it has to do with how far into energy debt I go with a limit break climax. I think there’s a sort of proportional energy debt limit though, so if my max mana is only say fifty to two hundred, like it is when the rest is locked away, even if I did have to limit break and limit break climax, I probably couldn’t manage one worth more than a few hundred into the negative. Conversely, when my maximum mana was in the thousands, I could dive deep into several thousands of negative energy debt.

Oof, I’ve gained a point of thermal resist, but Lil’s still going strong and my skin is starting to crack and peel as it dries out. My buddy needs training as much as I do, in case our situation gets deadly. So, I’ll just tone down their fire against my skin a bit with a barely perceptible dermal layer of FFS. I know you can hear me think Lil, but keep at it buddy, we’re cool.

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Lil pauses for only a second to grumble and take another deep breath. Another benefit of Lil joining the Shellcracker family with me, their lung capacity has grown to enormous levels. It was already ridiculously high as a fire-breathing dragon, but the aquatic nature of our family somehow multiplied that even further. While I can hold my breath for about twenty five minutes, Lil can take a deep enough breath to exhale for that long. If Lil wants to just hold their breath they can hold it for an hour or more, easily. If Lil is really worried about holding their breath, they can go into a sort of reptilian stasis, sort of like hibernation. In that state, they could probably remain underwater for most of a day.

A whistling swoosh clues me into a projectile headed towards my left shoulder from the east. I’ve made the mistake before of trying to catch and claim a projectile, only for it to be poisoned. I’m not making that mistake again, but I also don’t want to accidentally de-seat Lil, they’d fall into the projectile's path.

What was it Lu said once? Learn to use my abilities defensively. I summon an umbral copy of a Valkyrie shield in the path of the projectile, and sure enough, the shield remains in position as a snapping sound hits it. The shield doesn’t move until it dissipates a few moments later. That took my entire reserve of mana however, since I’m only at about a hundred capacity unlocked right now.

I’m a bit angered, I was enjoying a nice walk with Lil. Lil if you’re in my thoughts, hop off and take wing please. Use your wonderful senses to find whoever shot at us, and stay out of their range. I try to use an FFS to absorb some of Lil’s fire as mana, and it seems to work. Stolen kinetic energy of atoms is capable of being converted to mana, at a very low return rate, but it’s still possible.

Lil does as requested, transforming and taking to the air immediately. I sit in lotus position for a moment to regain the rest of my mana, facing the eastern treeline. I equip all of my gear, including my danger wrap. Grr, I’m filled with regret at having given Mataalii half of this magic item now. He’ll be that much harder to kill when we can both sense each other’s attacks.

Crossbow bolt incoming from my twelve o’clock, it’s aimed to sail right between my eyes. Here’s something I’ve never tried, and probably shouldn’t be risking in an actual heated combat. I draw my valkyrie dagger and parry bolt with the flat of the blade, deflecting it leftward, northward. Exhaling slowly, smoothly, satisfied with my mana recovery, I stand to adopt an aggressive stance. There’s a static-laced crackle as the air suddenly feels charged. Barely in time I summon my thunderstick from my inventory. Three new crossbow bolts arcing with lightning sweep out at wide angles to converge on me.

Blocking the bolt approaching from the left with my shield, I’m treated to a jolt of electricity regardless, as the lightning leaps off of the crossbow bolt, conducted through my shield down my left arm. It passes through my heart on its way to ground and I’m brought to my knees, gasping, my heart momentarily stopped. I manage to block the bolt coming straight on with the thunderstick, it channels the lightning straight into the ground, not passing through me. The third bolt sinks into my right clavicle, penetrating deeply to discharge its electricity down along my spine and ribcage, once again passing along my heart. I convulse at the feeling of a heart attack, and my eyes flood red with rage. A loud crash sounds from my inventory interface. Well, hello again maximum mana, it’s a pleasure to meet you once more.

How convenient, just another near-death for Reggie Shellcracker, what am I up to these days, ten? Twenty? Thirty? Meh, it’s just a fact of life at this point. Lil telepathically chuckles at my blasé attitude about my frequent near deaths. I claim the bolt protruding from my neck to my inventory. It’s interesting craftsmanship, there’s runic etchings on the bolt-head. Lil snickers at my distractibility. Lil stop laughing across our wavelength and find this assailant, please? That actually really hurt. My vision is also red, if I find them before you do, I might kill them without meaning to. I need a moment to calm down.

I’m almost lucky that two jolts hit. The first dropped me into cardiac arrest, the second missed, and the third zap jolted my heart into an arrhythmic palpitation, but at least it’s beating again. I’m ludicrously powerful in certain ways, but someone just turning off my heart would probably kill even me within a few seconds. Phew, okay, I want to meet this person. Lightning is definitely something I’d like to build a resistance to.

Hm, one of the two other bolts disappeared. I wonder if only one was real, and the other two were magical duplicates. If that’s the case, then I accidentally created a permanent duplicate by claiming the one that was stuck in my neck. It’s similar to what happens when Teuila hands me her valkyrie gear before de-transforming, so that I can claim it to my inventory to make it permanent. I suppose if the contingent runs out of money and supplies, Teuila could still keep them fed, if they ration themselves, by transforming into Valkyrie, selling her equipment to the shop to buy produce, and de-transforming. It would really just cost some time to recuperate mana, and little else.

What an oddly abusable system. I scratch my chin ponderously. The world in my memories would be flipped on its head if something like this existed. Honestly, either part of this loophole would throw a wrench in that entire world. I hear a loud tsk from the treeline as I sit down to ponder, my sight slowly returning from its red-wash.

Lil calls out, “I see aura get thicker in patches, but it moves around so quick buddy, I don’t see a person anywhere, just a mess of aura!”

Hm, curious. I wave my hand in the general direction I believe the assailant to be in, unequip my weapons, and hold both hands up as a sign of peace. What steps forth, with a wrist-mounted crossbow still trained on me, is astounding.

A bipedal jaguar clad in tight leathers, eyes me warily. Her gorget, spaulders, form-fitting cuirass, and tight breeches are all made from a dark leather. Beneath the leathers is a dark linen shirt with voluminous sleeves, but rather than hanging to her breeches or being tucked into them, the shirt is tied around behind her back, exposing her athletically toned abdomen.

I’m not sure why Lil had trouble noticing her, since Lil’s senses are phenomenal, until there’s a crackle, flash, and she closes the distance between us in an instant, her crossbow jammed into my neck. The jaguar lady snarls wide as she demands something, but of course I can’t understand her. I can’t help but laugh and facepalm, a big mistake. She pulls the trigger on her crossbow, and I’m only able to lean slightly to the left as a lightning-enhanced bolt tears through the right side of my neck, severing my carotid artery.

She reloads her crossbow, but hesitates. Lil screams in terror for me and begins to swoop to my side. I telepathically yell, “Cool it.” I hold up my hands, still peaceably.

The jaguar lady looks incredibly perplexed. I hold up a finger asking for one moment. I freeze my neck as best I’m able, to buy time for my wound. It’s not a permanent measure, I will absolutely bleed out and die from this if I don’t get medical attention, or use what might be the last red potion in existence for those ‘of blood.’ I hold up my hands again as a sign of peace, and sit down to draw out paper and charcoal pencils. I send my armor and most of my equipment back to my inventory, except for the tattoo and danger wrap. I’m bare save the one arm wrap, tattoo, and hip to thigh under-clothing from the Valkyrie outfit.

The jaguar lady looks beyond dumbfounded that her prey just sat down in front of her. More so that her prey divested, and waves for her to be seated, unarmed. She aims her crossbow at Lil, and I frown.

I ask my buddy telepathically, “Lil, can you drop your form please? If she keeps threatening you, go for a swim so she can’t hit you. I hope that her lightning will mostly dissipate in the water, too many places for it to go to really hurt you. I hope.”

Lil drops their regal Lilagnewt form and hops over to me, instead of into the water. They nuzzle me protectively as they position themselves between me and this cat woman. I sigh and chuckle before waving again to the ground next to me.

I pull out the notes I’ve already written that ask if my opponent can read and write, the one that states my name, and the one that states I can’t hear or speak. Again, that last one is an oversimplification, but I don’t have the time for her to get the full picture. Literally, I’ll die before I explain my life story. Even freezing the blood repeatedly is leaving me lightheaded as my blood’s oxygen flow is disrupted.

She glances back and forth between the paper and my face, trying to discern if I’m lying I guess. Pretty hard to do based on writing and someone who is wobbling woozily. She frowns and sits, pointing to the question of her ability to read and write. She nods affirmative. Her crossbow remains trained on Lil at this point. I figure she knows I’m already as good as dead, so she thinks Lil is the only threat. She doesn’t realize I could just materialize a spear through her abdomen, or even just nick her with Gae Buidhe and watch her bleed out, figuratively. I doubt she’s ‘of blood’ but her vitality would drip away all the same.

She takes the proferred writing tools, and writes out, “I’m Linti, Lightning Hunter. Why do you two scalekind travel here, flaunting scalefire?”

Ah, that’ll take a bit to explain. I wave my hands and shake my head. I point to the word scalekind and then point to myself and shake my head. Standing again, I carefully risk energy debt to transform into my authoritative form that looks similar to an adult human. Huh, it only took the in-combat cost, that’s good. Well, also bad. She or someone nearby is still hostile to us.

I spin around for her, showing off my whole bare body, not a scale on it. Linti gawps and I think she even blushes. Her fur is incredibly thick and a vibrant yellowish brown, with open rosettes of a darker tawny brown. There’s white fur that seems to stretch from her chin down her torso to her inner thighs. All that is to say that it’s even harder to tell if she’s blushing than it is with Teuila, whose fur is a coppery red, so that’s saying something. I probably shouldn’t be getting distracted by analysis of blush determination difficulty as I’m slowly bleeding to death.

I sit and write out a question as to whether or not she’s okay with me transforming back. Lil is telepathically sending worried thoughts at me about my blood loss and frozen artery. Lil wants me to take the potion instead of screwing around to try to win trust. Linti nods, and I drop my self-tether. I write out a question on if she is free to join a party so that we can communicate more easily, and that I can speak normally within a party. I also indicate that I can’t even invite, that’s part of why I can’t talk normally, Lil has to invite for me.

Linti looks taken aback, and she gazes between me and Lil, her expression gaining fury as she gazes at Lil, then softening as she looks back to me, repeatedly. I think when she realizes I’ve got several hundred mammalian critterkin in my party, she’ll probably be a bit less hostile, and regard me less as a scalekin. Lil, please offer her the party invite?

Lil harrumphs, and hesitates. During their hesitation, my eyes begin to droop as I wobble further. Lil panics and sends the invite.

We’re treated to the message “Linti, Lightning Hunter has joined the party.”

Lil cries out, “Buddy, buddy stay awake, stay with me, please! Come on, come on, please? You, Linti person, you did this, please, you gotta help them, come on! I don’t care if you hate me, but don’t take it out on Reggie!”

My eyes well with tears as I feel Lil’s love for me, but I can barely keep them open. I can vaguely sense Linti realizing how enormous our party is, and that I must be responsible for the lives of hundreds of mammals.

Linti asks, “May I take them to our village? You won’t be able to come, in part because you won’t be able to keep up. Though there are other reasons.”

Lil shouts, “No, that’s not good enough! I don’t care about the risks, take me too! Please, please.” By the end, Lil’s request trails off to a pleading whimper.

Linti seriously considers Lil’s safety as she queries, “Are you certain? I cannot guarantee your safety.”

Lil is nodding, whimpering, and their lips are trembling. Well, what passes for lips on a dragon-sphere anyway.

Linti states, ”I may have misjudged you. I’ll do what I can.” She then wastes no time in scooping up the two of us. Suddenly I’m treated to excruciating pain, Lil cries out in pain as well. We’re being destroyed by lightning. Linti is turning into lightning to travel faster than sound. We crash between trees, slam into trunks and plow into the ground repeatedly as the lightning zips from surface to surface. I honestly don’t know if I’ll live to make it to her village at this rate. Maybe I should take the potion, before I pass out. Ah, too late.