I tuck the spellbook containing the weather control spell into the crook of Tiktik’s arm. Leaning down, I kiss her forehead. I know I shouldn’t even spare the moment, but Kitten’s been such a courageous fighter, out here risking it all against an endless Fel horde. I hope she awakens soon. I know she’ll know what to try to do with the book, but, well, huff. I don’t know how much longer I can survive out here.
Charging back into the fray, I notice the draconic scale that had been orbiting and protecting me has vanished entirely. It’s likely been gone since Tiktik lost consciousness, and I just didn’t notice it until now. I took it for granted, crap. Without it siphoning off excess electricity generated, I’m not certain how to even survive my own new power. The enchanted splinters are working their way deeper into my body, merging with me. Worse, I’m realizing a part of why the staff’s splinters are reacting the way they are. They’re coated in cursed, Fel blood. The flames of the Fel when coming into contact with most things, burns almost endlessly, far hotter, and far longer than a simple fire. Their blood is cursed to either create, or endure such flames or other frightening effects.
The strange mix of Can’Z’aasian magic equipment, cursed Fel blood, my own unusual Fae nature, and any other number of odd unique factors about me is creating a complex process that my body doesn’t understand how to handle. My biology is muddled, disoriented, unbalanced as it tries to heal from the shrapnel damage, closing wounds around the slivers, splinters, and shards. If I can’t figure out some way to permanently direct this electricity, or to undo whatever process my body is currently going through, I’ll be dead before I next awaken after a slumber. Think Reggie, think.
Whoops! That was a close one. Got rocked by a haymaker and nearly ended up impaled on a separate Felgre’s spikes. Err, so instead of just thinking, think while fighting, keep moving. You still have to survive for this to even matter. Seconds of combat become minutes, and the minutes bleed together monotonously. To break up the monotony, even though they can’t understand me, I quip towards my foes, “I know you Felgres must be finding this a shocking experience, but trust me when I say this whole battle is electrifying to me.”
I hear the faintest telepathic snort, followed by a sleepy titter that lessens my worries. Tiktik’s partially regaining consciousness, even if only slightly. Good. I knew Kitten was too tough to be down for the count. Hellspit and Fel Fires, we’ve still got probably six to eight hours before Teuila might return. I don’t even have anyone that I can ask about how the evacuations are going. I’m down to one gryphon, the two supercharged water elementals, and the two wind elementals that have mostly just been grounding any straggling fliers that occasionally show up.
Come on Reggie, keep at it, focus. You’re as alive as you’re going to get, take advantage of it. How do you discharge excess electrical energy, passively, even when sleeping? Huff, huff, exhausting thinking while fighting. Dodging is getting harder as the electricity burns along the inside of my muscles. If only I had something that absorbed—. What. The archsorc staff can do -that-!? Ah, but too much, and then that staff explodes too. It’s a bit awkward, but I could quite possibly have the archsorc staff blasting off lightning bolts into the sky or ground, even while sleeping, if I can figure out the exact rate of buildup, and set up a mental subroutine to take care of it.
Hm, despite the massive buildup within me, the conversion rate is poor. I don’t think I’ll be in danger of overloading the archsorc staff any time soon, though going from nearly empty to a full pool of S P in the staff will no longer take two to three days, that’s for sure. Good, that’s fine. It doesn’t exactly solve the problem immediately, nor does it grant me effectively infinite mana like my thermokinesis could on Can’Z’aas, but it definitely helps with both issues. Still, my muscles are grateful for the reprieve from the intense strain of all the additional voltage. Minutes continue to bleed together, stretching into an hour, or hours. With the destruction of the last luma tulipa in the area, I can no longer tell what time it is.
Crap, the wind elementals are starting to fritz, as is my last gryphon. I call back all three constructs so that I can at least experiment before they fade. Reaching into the wind elemental mana constructs, I’m suddenly beset upon by tears streaming down my face. The second ally I ever lost. Sylphie. She was a wind elemental spirit on Can’Z’aas. She died for my hubris. I—. Glp. I can’t think about this right now. Focus.
Feel the wind, sink into its embrace and let it draw the electricity that is freely flowing from me. Try to overcharge them. They won’t effectively be animate batteries or capacitors like the water elementals, but the wind, sky, air, and lightning are all closely related in magic. It seems to have at least refreshed their duration, good. Okay you two, get back out there. Cause some havoc amongst the horde.
Hey, last gryphon? With Tiktik unconscious, I need you to carry her to the other side of the barrier. Okay? Be gentle with her, take the smoking bottle with you. Make sure you don’t lose the book either. While you’re taking care of her, I’ll begin preparations for the nuclear option. While you’re over on the other side of the barrier, scout the outskirts of the town for any Felgres that might have made it past us to the southwest. In fact, keep patrolling the city. Thank you for serving so faithfully in this fight.
Yes, I know, it’s just an animate coalescence of mana that acts as an extension of my will, but, well, it takes the form of a creature. I prefer to treat creatures with kindness. Heh. The Sisters were worried I wouldn’t choose kindness. Or maybe they were worried what my kindness would look like, or who it would benefit. I shudder as I recall the fact that they’ve got a vampiric version of me being bled quite possibly for eternity. I also furrow my brow and frown at the fact that somehow, “The hordes of Hell will rise up and swallow Aasimovia,” didn’t register as one of the apocalyptic scenarios that they warned us about. Or maybe they only warned us about ones that weren’t in our direct path?
The Sisters of the Mist never intentionally harmed us, and seemed to be trying their best to serve some greater good, including salvaging as much of Rayileklia’s future as possible. Wait, if we knew about this one, would we have met Tiktik when we did? Or at all? Would we have raced a different path to The Brook? Or even just made a different timetable? Would we have been there when Daffodil was injured? I—. Huh.
Yeah, if they told us, I wouldn’t have learned the Steely Body spell, which would have proved deadly at the first Fel Portalspawns swipe. Daffodil would be buried under her home in Noirdivinhoz, and Tiktik might still be tracking something or someone back towards the Heart of the Wilds. The town might have slightly better defenses, but, well, if they orchestrated this path, I definitely can’t fault them for it. Hell, I’ve done similar with the timeline by entrusting all its knowledge to Luni rather than myself. I kept myself from making informed choices, decisions that would be counterproductive to the final necessary results of the timeline.
Alright Reggie, back to reality, focus. You’ve got four supercharged elementals out there currently, possibly a pair of shadow hounds, and you’re about to unleash four more elementals. This time, they’ll be true elementals, summoned to cross over and coalesce their own forms from ambient mana. Three from the stones, and one from the staff. Just going to go ahead and bury these gems halfway right here, back off to the west slightly as I read this scroll of protection from elementals. Tiktik, if you’re hearing this train of thought, read your scroll too, in case they make it west for some reason.
Drawing a deep breath, I slowly sigh while attempting to calm my racing heart. Suddenly my vision tunnels to a pin prick, and my heart hammers up into my ears, threatening to blow out my eardrums. I gasp, gulping down air ineffectually as I feel as if I’m struggling to breathe. The, the, the stone elementals. I. I. They almost killed me. They almost took me from Teuila. I. I can’t. I whimper and sob as my danger wraps attempt to warn me of incoming obsidian bone spikes. I barely manage to remain un-skewered by dropping fetal and rolling to one side. No, no no no, please no. I can’t have a panic attack right now. Please Reggie, please snap out of it! Despite my desires, my limbs quiver and vibrate as they begin to seize and spasm in wild alternations.
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Wait, alternators, electricity, electrons, neurons, neurochemistry, internal electrokinesis. I’m sorry Reggie pal, this is for your own good. Please work, please work. Please don’t just be a head-exploding death. I struggle to direct waves of internal electrokinesis upwards within myself, towards my brain. My hammering pulse and wobbling dizziness increases the difficulty and challenge of the task. Slowly increment the voltage, little bit by little bit. Heh, you have to survive pal. Tiktik wants to introduce you to her crush, Littlebit, someday.
My danger wraps’ silent sonar senses are struggling to warn me, to direct my reflexes and get me to move, but I’m still trapped in panic. I’m suddenly lifted forcefully off the ground and sent sailing sideways as a massive foot intercepts my abdomen, kicking me aside like a rag doll. I land, partially impaled across several obsidian bone spikes jutting from the corpse of a Felgre. My dominant arm is run through, as is my thigh, and I’m precariously balanced across the point of a spike at the center of my back. Survival instincts and new fears overwrite the current panic.
I can’t lift off the obsidian bone spikes running me through on my right, and if I snap them, all my weight will fall on the spike at the center of my back, impaling me through either my spine, or heart, or both. I need to break that one first, and take whatever agony comes with sinking further onto the other two spikes. I summon my ghostly hand from my archsorc staff still shrunk in my left hand, grateful for how well it fits in the groove of my gauntlets.
I direct the magical ghostly hand to use my belt, wrap it around the spike threatening to impale me near my spine, and then work with leverage utilizing the spike running through my arm, and what’s left of my dagger, to snap one or both of those bone spikes. Quickly! The hand undoes my belt and acts as directed, snapping the two most dangerous spikes in time as a wall of meat stomps upon me. Its weight ends up driving me down to an agonizing impact with the blunted bone spike beneath my back. My right thigh is still skewered, but with my arms free, and no longer in danger of being skewered through the heart, I simply snap that spike off at its base and draw it out from under my thigh. I raise the deadly skewer as the hefty foot stomps downward again, so that it manages to run itself through with the obsidian calcification.
Rolling, I sob fiery tears of pain, but struggle to my feet all the same. This nearly mountainous Felgre roars in pain but hobbles as it attempts to put weight on its dominant foot. I take a single step dash that leads me into a circling sliding skid, lining me up with the Felgre’s right side. In position, I launch myself with all my might into a double footed sideways drop kick at the creature’s right knee. Its knee shatters under my electrokinetically enhanced horizontal stomp, and its leg buckles sideways, causing it to fall towards me. The protrusion from its right foot runs through its left thigh, preventing it from recovering to a standing position at all.
Wrath gets the better of me, and I curbstomp the Felgres face, mirroring how it had been attacking me. The sickening crunch and squelch feeds the red that rushes over my vision. I have to quickly finish reading the protection scroll before I lose myself to my wrath. I feel the strange abjurative ward immediately as the scroll vanishes in a flaming puff. I focus on the archsorc staff to reach into the realm of elemental spirits parallel to our own realm, seeking out the greatest heat nearby. It’s rather immense, good, it shouldn’t be snuffed out by the acid rain drizzle. Drawing forth the fire elemental from the parallel plane, or dimension, or realm, whatever it is, I try to calm myself long enough to request its aid.
I manage to ask, “Will you please shatter those three gemstones over there, and face these Fel creatures with the elementals that come forth? Direct them eastwards if possible.”
The approximation of a humanoid shape embodied by an animate flame seems to nod at me. It floatingly slides towards the elemental summoning stones, and suddenly wrath and panic engage a struggle for dominance over my psyche as the other three elementals are brought forth from the nearby realm. Two massive stone elementals, and an invisible wind elemental. Thankfully the mana granting it a temporary form in this realm is visible to my aura vision. The fire elemental seems to communicate my request on my behalf, and the four elementals fan out eastwardly, avoiding my remaining supercharged elementals as they tackle the Fel hordes.
I focus on the tie that binds me to the fire elemental summoned with the aid of the archsorc staff. It helps lock me centered in a middle ground between the warring struggles of panic and wrath attempting to take me over. I lose track of time as I’m barely able to maintain my grip on reality. I sink to my knees as I meditate to continue focusing my force of will in keeping these elementals directed eastward. It seems that, similarly to my own mana constructs, the fire elemental behaves somewhat as an extension of my own will, when conjured in this fashion. Luckily, it seems to have an accord with, or dominance over the other three elementals. So, while I’m directing the fire elemental, it’s directing the stone elementals and wind elemental.
Something heavy drops just outside the range of my silent sonar, but there’s a rapid shuffling. As I’m still mostly paralyzed between panic and wrath, confusion attempts to join them in overtaking me as a familiar form enters my sensory range. I feel a grip at my collar and belt just before I’m thrown high away from the conflict.
No! No! Not again! Not like Sal and Har! I can’t have some idiot die because they thought I needed saving! It, it’s Keeley. No, you you bedamned fool! You don’t have the protections that I do. I, what can I do? They’re turning on her. I, I need something, some propulsion, some traversal ability, what do I have at my—. Bud! Bud are you, are you there? Do you have enough energy left to—? Thank you! I launch from a springy bush that Bud leans into my falling trajectory back in the direction of the combat towards Keeley. I agonizingly accelerate with bursts of electrokinesis like thrusters that have me basically skidding through the gore and mud along the ground.
Keeley’s battling Felgres and the elementals. She’s slaying Felgres, but, but the elementals aren’t affected by meat cleavers, or any sort of non magical attacks or equipment. I’m almost there, almost back! Fire elemental, get them away from here, please! My fire elemental ally begins to overtake the stone elemental locked in combat with Keeley. The fire elemental covers the stone elemental, seemingly setting it alight as it seems to struggle to follow my order. While the two elementals are in a struggle for dominance, a Felcun winds up a swing with an enormous hammer, aimed at the stone elemental’s center. I’m, I’m back in the fray!
Only in time to see Keeley struck down as a massive spike of rock suddenly juts through her from the far side, narrowly missing my face. N, no. No. No! I fire quick propulsive bursts as I circle the crumbling stone elemental and my fire elemental. The three of us converge on the Felcun with my nearly limitless wrath. The Felcun is locked down by animate stone, its nervous system is entirely shut down by massive amperage, and it’s incinerated by a heat so intense that even my thermally resistant skin begins to crisp. It took only an instant to slay the thing. Only a split second, a moment. And yet—.
I rush back to Keeley’s side, watching helplessly as she falls to her knees, then crumples forward. She glances my way as she bleeds her life away, only to angrily state, “Hate, koff, every last, koff, stupid, reckless, adventurous cuss. All you liddle shids.”
Really woman!? Those are your dying words?! I risk sending myself into a death spiral as I empower a frost rune to seal Keeley’s wound with ice. It’s not a spell, and using it to do more than chilling a small room by a few degrees saps vast quantities of both my S P, and my vitality. Hoisting her on my shoulders, I grunt as I drag her back towards the natural barricade.
I struggle for what seems like minute after minute as I stumble under Keeley’s heft repeatedly due to my injured right thigh. When I finally arrive at the barrier erected by Bud, it’s even larger than I remember it. Gazing up at the barrier, I struggle to fight back despair since it’s dozens of feet tall at this point. Bud had been putting his all into this. I must have been focusing on controlling the newer elementals for hours upon hours at this point for it to have gotten so high.
I grumble, “How you even got over this thing with how heavy you and your stupidly large muscles are is beyond me you psychopath. I pray to your ancestors that someone’s waiting to drag you back to the other side. Don’t you dare die on me you spiteful witch.”
Bud? Bud are you there? Bud are you okay? Bud?! Oh no, Bud. Bud please be okay. Lullaby. No, no please no. Keeley’s dying in my arms. Bud sacrificed himself for you Keeley. He set a springy bush in my path to get back to you with whatever was left of his strength. Don’t you die, don’t you both die! As I drop to my knees, weeping, a shadow passes over me and something lands softly nearby. A familiar presence filled with a myriad of emotions stands at the ready, at my side. I choke back a sob as I turn to see the most wonderful sight in all of creation.