Both Teuila and I still need to physically recover from our ordeals, and I value our lives extremely highly right now. If Sindred shows back up, I want to be ready to freeze her solid, or blow her away with a fireball or lightning bolt. I can’t risk dying now when there’s an actual chance that I might save Dawn. Teuila insists that if she can’t find Alanea or convince her to hang out, she’s going to sit in on my training in Jarrah’s chamber. Not sure how he’ll feel about that, or if he or his chamber will permit it, but I love her regardless, and appreciate the sentiment. Dawn of course intends to hang with Boss.
There’s a tiny bit of a weird dynamic there. Dawn is iffy at best on physical contact and affection, but Teuila is even more affectionate than me. I think there’s some lingering feelings that I’m the male in our relationship, despite neither of us technically having genders, me being femme leaning, and Teuila identifying as a woman. Probably from our initial meeting, where Teuila was definitely presenting femme, while I was hiding it. I don’t begrudge her whatever subconscious worry she has going on. She’s more worried about getting close to me, and me breaking her heart by betraying her trust, if I were to be trying to get physical, even though Teuila kind of does get a little physical. Her boundaries and desires are her own. I just hope she feels they’re being respected. I worry how heartbroken Teuila would be if she realized she drove Dawn away, if Dawn can’t handle the contact any longer.
Well, I assume Dawn will probably put up with us regardless of any discomfort, as we struggle to salvage her soul from this curse. I’d still like to not burden her with discomfort. Bluh, I’m sure they’ve probably talked it out or something. Dawn was basically joking with me about it not long ago. I think she feels some sort of sistership with Teuila or something. In that case, Teuila would be, in her eyes, her annoying kid sister that she loves anyway, since Dawn is like a hundred or more years old or something. Though Teuila and I have several hundred years of life as well, at the very least, in thinkspace. Huh. Hard to tell who’s really younger when all three of us are ageless. I'm so glad we all are though. Thankfully Jarrah’s freaky room proved that the other day.
Still, Jarrah was right about more questions than answers. Huff. What the hell does it mean that my agelessness has been in effect since the very beginnings of my existence? Possibly even beyond. Also, how is he so sure now that I have no patron or anything, when we had both of those weird effects with the weapon icon and the archfey icon? Probably some sort of celestial divination I guess. His warning was freakishly dire. But I mean, if I’m going to be dying soon anyway, hm. Oof, his warning is echoing around in my skull now, hah. Alright, alright.
What’s that Bud? You think you and I could partner up into some sort of symbiosis? You’d get stronger and be able to help me cast my spells more often? It was awesome to be able to quickly sling spells again, and to have a working rune that I hadn’t mastered yet. You were an amazing help. Symbiosis though? What would that ta—. Erm. I, I’ll think about it Lullaby. Remember what Jarrah said? The entity who offers might not even know what irreparable damage they could do to my soul. Thanks for the offer Bud. I’ll try to work it out. I kind of want a shot at a clean afterlife if there is one. Or, I don’t know, another respawn or something. Y’know?
Huff. I guess I’ll keep relying on the staff for now Bud, sorry. Speaking of. Better keep the aura sense spell up, even if Jarrah is stupidly blinding. It’s like ramming my face into a brick wall and losing vision looking at him. What. The. F^&*. I want to strangle the staff. It has a spell that it calls bypassed-wall. I could have--! Well, no. The staff got snatched away from me by the rock elementals. Sorry staff. Thank you for letting me know. I’ll strive to keep that in mind.
Oof, the bypassed-wall spell has a metric ton of limitations. These runes are going to be a lot to sort through. There’s stuff like volume, density, length, girth, material, just a boatload of factors that have to parse exactly right for the staff to work to use that spell. I don’t have time right now while working on this soul spell. Hrk, oof. Walked into a freakin’ branch while glancing at all these stupid runes. Thankfully Bud moved it enough that I didn’t impale myself like an idiot.
I know I should pay attention in case I get jumped by Sindred, or the forces of our manxome foe. I really do like calling the jerk that, rather than, “The Celestial Emperor.” The stupid pompous soul stealing piece of crap.
Hm, I’m also starting to realize that, if single enchantments take entire books full of runes to confer, that maybe my conjecture about encoding tables to make spells as short as thirty three runes could be wrong. Or whomever crafted the original enchantments and older spells hadn’t thought to basically create runic subtypes to stand in for tables to be referenced. There could very well be spells and enchantments that are thousands of runes. That would take the average enchanter days, weeks, months, possibly years to even be able to set the runes into place. Hell, it might also probably take some sort of crazy power source to maintain the stability of the runes while the enchanter was resting between runecraftings.
Oh jeeze. I’m starting to understand why things might take big ritual circles with tons of similarly competent magic users. They either have to be channeling the same runes in concert over incredibly long periods to bind those runes into a longer craft, or work quickly in a sort of round robin of runocraft each taking the next rune in turn.
Friggin’ hell, no wonder Jarrah says I’m brute-forcing it. I’m literally like a basic password-cracker app package that just sends string after string after string into security submissions for passwords until one sticks. Ow, my brain. More Earth stuff? Yeah. Programming. Why does that sound so familiar? White hat and gray hat? Security ops? Cybersecurity testing? Ow, ow ow ow, holy crap my brain, I. My eyes are bleeding again? Koff, and my nose too. Alright, time to abandon all these trains of thought, they’re literally hurting my brain.
Okay, okay, let’s try a different tactic. Without Bud, it takes me seconds to minutes to craft each rune, basically as useless in combat as my Can’Z’aasian magic unless I stall and flee. In which case I may as well just call out to Can’Z’aas and fire off a host of umbral projectile duplicates. Or launch one of my own Can’Z’aasian fireballs. Good gods, if I put fifty five hundred mana into one of those, I, I think I could actually destroy a mountaintop at this point, a significant portion of a mountain. The exponential nature, and my thermokinesis skill being the highest of my magics besides my space skill, just, yeah.
Just what exactly is that exponential value anyway? Can I figure it out from the volume of my lightning bolts that I tested near the end? If a single hundred mana bolt was that size, then fifty five of them should be fifty five times that size, but a fifty five hundred mana bolt was that length, and width, plus side-arcs. Hm, going to have to be a rough estimate. It’s something low, like base volume of y number of casts times one point x or one point zero x to the y power, y being the number of hundreds of mana poured in at once. One point five is way too high, that would get astronomical. I think even one point two five, or one point two is still a bit too high. One point one? Hm, maybe. One point one five? That seems likely.
Still, to math out one point one five times one point one five times itself fifty three or fifty four more times or whatever, yeesh. Even I would need some paper for that. Eh, I can round. Okay, so one point two to the fifty fifth power would be something like twenty two to twenty three thousand. So one point one five would be, ah jeeze, a couple grand? Two or three? So a couple thousand times the fifty five times the base spell volume. That would be hundreds of thousands times the power of a single hundred mana spell. If the exponential coefficient is one point two instead, then it would be a million or so times the strength of a single hundred mana spell.
No wonder polluted mana residue is freakin’ killing me. Crap on a cracker Reggie Shellcracker. I guess Teuila was right so very long ago. All these miraculous powers were too good to be true, at least for me, a changeling. Also, no wonder my Kaiju-mode Black Ice was able to turn back the tide of hundreds or thousands of square miles of lava. All that mana from all those mages’ combined spells gave me a wave of frost that would have been millions, maybe billions of times the strength of a single spell. Hup, try not to trip doofus. Thanks Lullaby, you saved me from falling on my face just now. I know, I know, I should pay more attention, but math is intriguing. It helps distract me from the fact that my death is looming incredibly near.
Huff. Jarrah’s going to be his usual, rude, demanding self I assume. A few more flights and, wait, did Alanea just spy me and scurry into a room? Crap. I. Balls. Should I just leave the poor woman alone? She’s obviously avoiding me. Lullaby, is there any chance that you cou— Thanks Bud. Yeah that’s exactly what I need. I’ll just write a little apology note and set it here in an obvious place. If she’s too uncomfortable to read it, and ignores it, that’s totally fine. Huff. Alright. I wish you a beautiful, happy life Alanea. Sorry for any stress and craziness I added to it.
A couple more flights. I wonder where Teuila and Dawn have gotten off to already? God, I, I just want to curl up and spend every last dying second with my inner circle. But that would be giving up. It would be giving up on Dawn, and giving up on me. I can’t let myself break down, I have to push harder than I’ve ever pushed before, despite each push hastening my encroaching demise.
Heh, Lao, and everyone else really, have always said I’m a tad overdramatic. But I mean, how else would you describe a hastened doom brought on by any of the necessary efforts that you must make, because no one else can take on the responsibility? Oh hey, there’s Jarrah. Is that a tea set?
I begin to call out, to explain my circumstance when Jarrah interrupts, “I heard. Alanea informed me of what transpired. You have my sympathy, meager though it may normally be for mortals. I’m sorry I was not aware of your species’ particular difficulties, or even your species. Sit, drink. Feel free to practice or what have you.”
I scrunch my face in mild confusion. Not only is he being non demanding, he’s being kind, considerate, sympathetic. Just what did Alanea tell him? Or maybe he put a paralytic agent into the tea to stop me from killing myself that will put me in cryo-stasis until someone finds a cure for changeling mana residue sickness. Hah. Haha. Um. That was a joke Jarrah. Yeesh, tough crowd. Snrk. Awe hell. That reminds me of Hellga Hellridge, suspended by my telekinesis. She was so suave and smooth. She wasn’t cut out to be a criminal though, even though she was athletic as hell. I gasp a ragged breath that nearly turns into sobs. Please, please Don Derbrightmine, don’t be as evil as I fear you could be. Please show her some kind of mercy.
I rub tears out of my eyes quickly as I sit across from Jarrah. I have to gulp back sobs before I can start drinking. Erf, bitter. Oh well, it’s a kind gesture, so I’ll try to enjoy it. I guess I’ll keep reading this soul spell book while practicing some of the runes for the prestidigitating spell. I know I can’t possibly finish the book today, so I may as well multi task and continue to expand my daily limit of runes and repertoire of them.
Jarrah raises an eyebrow at my series of thoughts. I shrug and hold the book up for him to take a quick look at. His wild eyes take it in in an instant, and he nods pensively. Despite his unfocused, rapidly shifting gaze, he seems faraway, lost in thought. Huff, deep breaths and try not to sob or sigh Reggie. Just keep plugging away. However much force it takes, you just, just have to succeed. Be cautious, don’t die early, follow Jarrah’s rules, but push as hard as or harder than ever.
Jarrah’s gaze fixes somewhat towards me, sternly for a moment, yet there’s a softness behind it. I gulp and bury myself in my reading and runocrafting, occasionally sipping the bitter tea. My muscles feel so weary, and my eyelids so heavy. There’s just, just so much weight on my shoulders. So much weight and no one else can take it for me. No matter how much some of them might want to. I should have been driving the cart. I should have had Teuila study the books, and get the linguistic enchantment. She’s so driven, she might have been able to save Dawn. The candle of my life might simply wink out of existence, snuffed out by my own efforts before I save her. Sniff. It doesn’t matter though. This is the series of events in place, so I have to do what I have to do.
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Blrgh, oof. This book. It’s, ow. It’s so much more painful to read than the linguistic enchantment book. It’s like an immensely massive, heavy, dark force pressing down on my eyes to try to study it. That can’t be normal, can it? Is it because of me being me? Or is the book itself something I should be wary of? If Jarrah knows, he offers no hints. I sigh as I do my best to press onward, ever onward.
I’m starting to get a bit creeped out by the silence in the air, but it’s basically what I asked for. The ability to study any possible route that might lead to saving Dawn. Jarrah actually stands, and leaves the chamber, abandoning me alone in it. That. That seems out of character. Or does he just trust his chamber that much to keep me in check? Or does he just trust me that much? For a while he was worried that I was one thing or another, including a possible sleeper agent for our mutual enemy. I guess he has maybe divined all he can about me, and realizes that I’m no risk to him and his Enclave. I mean, no intentional risk. If I flip a page in this book, and begin reading, and the next runes happen to be an explosive trap, that wouldn’t be me hurting his room or the Enochian Enclave. Not on purpose, not directly.
Gosh, how annoying would that be? Finding out that the one possible book I thought might save Dawn was either just a trick, or booby trapped so that I’d never be able to succeed anyway? I’d murder something. I’d walk out of the stupid explosion, mostly unharmed, and go kill Sindred probably. Just anyone to take my anger out on. Huff, another ragged sigh. Don’t be like that Reggie. She was just some stupid lunatic, and Teuila beat her with your help. If Sindred remains hostile to us, and attacks us again, Teuila probably really could beat Sindred next time if Te wasn’t holding back. If Te went fully aggressive to go for the kill.
More runes, more pages. Can I speed read? Ow, ow, ow, ow. Okay, no. Sort of. Holy hell my eyes are bleeding again. Jeebez friggin’ chripes Reggie. You’re a mess. Yes Bud I sometimes talk at myself and make jokes at my own expense in my own inner narration. I’m sure you’ve heard me do so before now. Hm? Yes I guess it’s probably getting more obvious as I get a bit more desperate. What? No. No! How could you even think th— Oh. You goon. How was I supposed to know it was a joke without your humor waves?
You realize how hard it is to even parse what you’re trying to say, right? It’s like if someone decided that instead of using letters, they used colors to represent letters, no shape to the colors, just blotches of colors. Then there are sections where the colors might sort of overlap a bit, and worse, if there’s sarcasm at play or anything, the color blotches get too close and smear together and combine, making it impossible to tell if it’s two or three colors in a row. Okay I’m being silly, sure, but yes, it really is that hard Bud, sorry. I’m not trying to make you feel bad. Sorry Lullaby, really. I’m trying my best here. I’ll try to be more sensitive about your communication difficulties.
I draw a ragged breath and sigh once more. Wait. Wait. Rotating colors as a cipher, occasional mixed colors intentionally misleading, increasing the time to. Wait, wait. Please hold on to this thought! No no no! It, it’s going. No! Crap! Something. I was thinking something. Something that I could feel being pulled away from me. Something that would let me learn faster maybe? What’s that Bud? It was what? I. Ow! Glrp. It’s like a siren going off between your waves and my brain, it’s, it’s deafening and blinding. My eyes and ears are bleeding. I. I’m going to. To pass out.
I slump to one side, my eyes spasming, rolling weakly in their sockets, Lullaby softens the floor with a pillow of moss, cushioning my landing. Thanks to him, I don’t end up blacking out with another concussion. What, what the hell was happening just now? Why is my face so covered in sticky stuff? What is this st— It’s blood. It’s my own blood. From my eyes and ears and nose. What has been going on? Huh? You’re afraid to tell me Bud? Lullaby? What does that mean? This keeps happening? If I forget something, and you heard me think it, it what? That’s so hard to parse. I, I guess that makes sense? Thanks for trying Bud.
Apparently my brain is rupturing or something I guess, at certain lines of thought, so you can’t even remind me of them without my brain basically exploding again. That sorta sucks for both of us. Sorry you have to sit through that. Through my inane random thought trains, and whatever thoughts that apparently try to rip the inside of my head apart.
I groggily sit up as Lullaby sends concerned waves my way. Thanks Bud. I’ll do my best. Oof my aching head. I flex my jaw and neck and every facial muscle that I can manage to try to reduce the strain on any part of my head before it develops into a migraine. Get back to it Reggie. No rest for the wicked, or the dying, or the dying wicked. Something or other. Hm? It’s a joke Bud. Sort of. Trust me, I’ve done some pretty wicked crap. I mean, you were there when I shattered five people without ever learning their names or motives. Heck, you cleaned up my mess for me afterwards. What do you mean that’s not wicked? Lullaby, you’re a goof sometimes. Alright, alright, obviously we see the world and society differently. No worries Bud.
You know what would be hilarious? It’d blow me away with hilarity if Lullaby weren’t even sentient, and I was just talking to an imaginary friend, and I had all these nature powers and stuff myself. I know you’re real Bud. Probably anyway. Sindred talked out loud to Dirge. Though she was bat-crap crazy. Hah, I know right? Yeah, I agree. No, no I do not want to see her again. I wouldn’t really call her my counterpart. Maybe my opposite? Oh come on that’s not even fair. I know I’m wrathful and stuff, but I don’t go out seeking to bring it down on people. Oh, you’re teasing again. Pft. I’ll try to learn how to parse your teasing Bud.
Anyway, what about you? Do you want me to ask Jarrah to show you Dirge one last time before we go? Are you sure you’re going to be okay? I can leave you in the Heart if you’re really worried. I promise Teuila would treat you like a friend, and help you return home if and when I die, or whatever you wanted to do. Okay then Bud.
Hey, some of these gibberish runes are repeating. There’s, there’s spots where they overlap. This is almost like some kind of ci— What? Stop this train of thought, fast? But, bu— Okay, okay bud. I do, I trust you. Thank you. Whatever you’re saving me from, I appreciate it. Truly. You’re a good friend.
Wait! One of the tomes in her hands! What, what was on that book? Alanea was shelving a book the oth- Ow! Frak. Hm? More thoughts I can’t have? Hellspit. Thanks Bud. Our rabbit hole keeps getting deeper and darker doesn’t it? Oh, it’s a saying, sort of. I think it’s a reference to a tale from Earth, Alice goes to a place some people call Wonderland, either down a rabbit hole, or through a looking glass, a mirror basically. The trip down the rabbit hole is supposed to be crazy and, well, trippy, like a drug trip.
What’s that about Earth? No I probably can’t take you Bud, I don’t think it exists. What do you mean why do I have so many memories of it then? Don’t you think I’ve been asking myself that same question my entire life? I don’t really have an answer pal. You want to go why? Oh you goofball. The Wonderland stuff is just a story, even on that fake world it doesn’t exist. Hey, don’t call Can’Z’aas a fake world, I live there, err, died there, err, uh. Hellspit. Seriously though, that isn’t fair. I have proof Can’Z’aas exists.
What do you mean show you? You’ve seen my inventory magic. What? No it’s not the same as the hyperdimensional haversack. That, that’s just mean. Are you giving me a hard time to tease me and distract me? Ah you butthead. That’s not funny. I mean, okay, it is a little funny, but it hurts to remember my home, and to know I probably won’t survive to see it again. Bud, there’s so many people back there that I love and worry about. I. Yes I’m crying. No, it’s not really, really your fault, but yeah, you did remind me of them. They, they’re such good, kind, caring, loving, wonderful people. I was a nothing, a nobody, some strange little thing lost, wandering the wilderness with my Lil dragon buddy. They accepted me into their family, into Teuila’s family.
Yeah, yeah Te is from Can’Z’aas too. So is Lil, so is Luni, so is Lucky. Hell, so is Mataalii. I do hope you get to meet them someday, other than Mata. Hm? Well, for a good reason. Ugh, I don’t even want to tell you the reason, it hurts. He’s, well, a mass murderer. What do you mean I let him loose on this planet? He was swimming to the untamed or uncharted lands or whatever. He just wants solitude to live out his days without open reminders of what he’d done. I’m sure he regrets it. He was controlled, sort of. I draw a shuddered, sobbing breath. I still, I have trouble accepting that the timeline had to happen the way it did. Our world is on the verge of the greatest possible calamity. So many terrible, awful things happened to be able to get us as far as we did.
Hahaha, actually Lullaby, yes, yes it is. Hehe. It’s been a long time since anyone said anything like, “It’s not like you can see the future,” to me. Okay, sure, I can’t see it here. Apparently here, I’d have to give up the rarest lifeforce in existence to send a message back in time. I don’t want to risk it unless I’m absolutely certain that past me will know what to do with the information. Hm? An example? Well, uh. If I can tell I’m about to die before learning this spell, and Dawn still has a shot at being saved, I’d send a personality ghost to the past to warn me to let Teuila do all the reading, about everything in Milbert’s tower. Well, it would have to be a short loop message so that past me would notice it in time and be able to parse it all. How do I know it has any chance of working? Well, I technically did it once before already. In a different timeline. Yeah, I know it’s confusing, and yes, I still have that life force, because I technically didn’t go down that timeline path where I had to use it up.
No, no it’s not the same as not being able to use it up. There’s always the chance that my message could fail somehow, or that past me wouldn’t understand the warning in time, or wouldn’t make enough choices that branched the timeline out far enough before their timeline rejoined mine. Then we’d still have lost the phoenix and roc’s egg for nothing. Yeah, yeah it would be a bummer. Thanks for understanding Bud.
Yes. Yes, I know, I’m a whole mess of weird. Hah. Well same to you pal. Pft, you even have to ask? You’re basically a sharp stick with thoughts and feelings Bud, with powers that sound really simple, but end up super broad. You bend their rules as much as or more than I do with my own magical nonsense. The book? Yeah I’m making progress while we chat. I’m also still doing a rune here or there for the dusting, cleaning, prestidigitating spell. I am curious where the hell Jarrah has gone off to. Ah, speak of the, well, that phrasing might be rude, since he’s the exact opposite.
Heh, Jarrah’s raised eyebrow tells us he telepathically heard that. Obviously the phrase is speak of the devil, and no I don’t think Jarrah is one. He’s a celestial. The entire opposite end of the realms as far as I know. I’m sure cosmologically they aren’t on literal opposite sides of reality or the universe or whatever, but you get the idea. How do I know so much about stuff like that? Err, well, it’s really just guesses due to random crap from my Fakeworld memories. Earth memories. Oh don’t start that again. Yes I’m positive it’s a fake world.
Err, okay, good point, but I didn’t really have memories of Rayileklia, nor was I convinced that it was fake, compared to Can’Z’aas. Mostly. Ugh, okay, yes, I somehow dreamed through Aces’ memories or something. We both know how mixed up that made me. I thought Aces’ corpse was my own when I first got here. Yes, I know that’s crazy, that’s why I said I was mixed up. Okay, I’m going to focus on this book now Bud, like, hardcore. You get some rest, okay? Seriously. Hm? Yes, please do. If you can passively sense me about to do one of those things that ends up with me gushing a fountain of blood and passing out, I very much appreciate you stopping me from doing it. Thanks Lullaby. You’re a true pal.
Jarrah finally deigns to speak, “You truly have a head full of nonsense don’t you?”
My face contorts as I raise an eyebrow. I joke, “Math, friends, family, magic, and memories aren’t nonsense as far as I’m concerned.”
Jarrah’s wild eyes roll as he ignores my jest. He continues, “I’ve a last few ideas to possibly help you along your way, but they will cost you. Perhaps more than you’re willing to, or can afford to pay.”
I try not to laugh and joke about monetary wealth or valuables, since I’m sure that’s not what Jarrah’s talking about. He gives me a stern gaze before continuing, “There is. This is difficult to put into terms that don’t sound horrific, because perhaps it is horrific. I could quite possibly move your soul safely on to the realms beyond, whatever awaits you in the hereafter. Hold a moment. I could do this while preserving your body, and placing a new spark of life within it. Its powers, its task would continue, but it wouldn’t be you. It may never even blossom into a personality, or person. It may simply wink out of existence at either the completion of its task, or the failure thereof. It would however survive until such time, no matter the force killing you.”
I blink, stunned. Jarrah’s right. That is horrific. But. But it also means a better chance at Dawn’s survival. Would Teuila hate me forever if I made this choice? If I gave up all of myself right now to basically leave her with a robotic spark piloting my meat suit around in pursuit of completion of its one task? Glp. Hrp. I, I’m going to be sick just thinking about hurting her like that. But. But it’s a better chance for Dawn’s survival. For all her Aasimovian friends, for everyone. If my meat suit survives long enough to do that, no matter the odds, when we can’t guarantee that I personally would survive under the same conditions, well. Isn’t that worth it? That extra bit of time to try to stop the curse? I gulp as I try not to sink into despair while imagining the ramifications.