As I’m busying myself with the acid-dragon, I see Teuila shaking herself from her stupor, finally stirring, and attempting to stand. The white dragon however elects not to go for her, the warrior, but instead to capitalize on her weakness, the innocents nearby. Teuila’s eyes alight with fury as she prepares a leaping strike, but then hesitates a moment. The frosty beast leaps down from its perch, towards the nearest kobolds during Teuila’s hesitation, and she nearly chases after him, but once again, stops, her confidence shattered. He leaps away at the last moment, apparently having been baiting Teuila into an attack that would have left her barreling into a group of kobolds, with Elder at its center, Timbik to one side, and Miza on the other. The blood drains from Teuila, and I have no words for the hatred I now harbor for the ice-beast perched on a chasm wall that now cackles madly down at us.
I walk through the flames to my quarry, which doesn’t impress her at all, but that’s fine, I don’t want her retreating. I want her to think of me as a foolish morsel to devour. Her serpentine eyes glint with humor as her torso rumbles with laughter upon seeing me with a beat up sheet of metal approaching her. I’m fully armored in Valkyrie gear, but she likely thinks I’m hoping to use this for protection against her breath, like a tower shield. I hope she takes the bait, the challenge.
Having seen her leave a scar upon her lover’s lip, with a single smoldering acidic kiss, I take it that they’re not immune to each other’s powers and elements, and that’s why they’ve taken the formation that they have. Exploiting this, I quicken five runes, casting a frost ray at the same scale upon her lip that she’d kissed on the ice-dragon’s. She reels back in surprise more than pain, as the scale cracks from the sudden change in temperature when struck by the short lance of frost.
Miza begins erecting a stone barrier, carefully conserving her mana, but blocking her elder, her husband, and herself from view by erecting essentially three angled walls. Huh, my pyramid idea from so long ago. That’s exactly what I was trying to do. Still, there are plenty of vulnerable kobolds out and about. At that moment, I hear an oof and a splat as something, rather someone, falls from the carriage interior, into the mud. I gasp a shuddered breath, and sigh sadly, knowing it’s Tiktik, struggling to help, despite her injuries. A blue kobold wearing a massive roundshield on his back helps her from the mud, and she conjures a large platinum scale to orbit around each of them, the one that will intercept deadly blows and elements for some time, until it wears down.
I’m now more confident that things will go our way, remembering the tools in Tiktik’s belt. I don’t have to rely on my own broken body to cooperate and slay or scare off these two mythical beasts of legend. Drawing a deep breath, and loosing a determined sigh, I return my focus to the acid-dragon before me. Come on, come on d@%^ you! Loose a partial charged breath, show that you view me as an insect, too weak to waste time on! Thankfully, she obliges.
The orichalcum sheet actually fends off the majority of her acid, causing the spray to break around me, and be weak enough to evaporate in my firewall. The orichalcum is holding up better against the acid than I thought it might, after my own experience in the clouds of Rayileklia. Speaking of, I engage my steely body spell, hoping that there’s enough loose fragments of the legendary metal to be consumed by the spell, and make that my body. No such luck, instead I feel my buckle loosen, where the dagger blade would be. The brand new, fresh dagger that Teuila replaced for me not more than a few days ago. Slightly enchanted steel, and the enchantment is broken as soon as my spell consumes it. Hell’s bells.
Infuriated that I’m not dead, and perhaps surprised that the ugly, dented square of metal is actually resisting her breath, the black-dragon rears back, and leans up, snaking her head around over the top of me to breathe at me from behind with the last moments of her current acid charge. She essentially curls in on herself with me at the center, and her face at my back. With my erratic, jerky, electrokinesis-powered movements, I’m too slow to turn in time to bring the orichalcum to bear. Her acid washes over me for the briefest of moments in the end of her current charged breath. It’s, it’s the same composition and deadliness as the clouds of Rayileklia! The clouds in the sky are a permanent acid dragon’s breath! I could scarcely survive it for a few seconds, even in my currently steely body form.
Enraged at my survival yet again, the sleek onyx dragon displays that; despite her slender feminine form, she’s as mighty as any beast, and she swats me with her left forelimb in a backhand motion. It feels like it nearly caves my head in as she bats me aside such that I crash into the nearby chasm wall. Curiously, as I’m flying through the air at this angle, I see Teuila chugging a potion, one that I know grants fire-breath. I know that she has a minor breath weapon due to, well, consuming an enchanted platinum dragon’s scale. I wonder just how this will react. The ice-dragon lands on the far side of half a dozen kobolds, one of them is Mushrooms, Miza’s son, and Teuila’s eyes go wide with terror as he opens wide his maw to begin exhaling a minor frost charge.
Teuila does the seemingly unthinkable, and breathes fire over the group of kobolds first, startling the ancient ice-dragon. He pauses, preventing his frost breathing, as he laughs, seemingly only tickled by the flames. In this momentary distraction, the small group of kobolds rush towards Miza’s construction, unharmed by Teuila’s flames, energized, and emboldened by them instead. That was the enchantment she consumed after all. A Valkyrie of Bahativimut, graced with a breath weapon that will never harm your allies. One way to ensure she doesn’t get tricked again. I’m grateful that Dippy has the sense spell that I somewhat taught him, and knew that the kobolds were unharmed. As he saw Teuila breathing flames at them, he drew his bow and aimed at her with sadness across his face. Thankfully, he’s now aiming at the ice-dragon instead, knowing that his nephew is safe. Miza expands her earthen stone construction into more of a dome, allowing the others in.
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My own fight isn’t going so well. The most I can do is annoy the acid-dragon, the woman-in-black, by peppering her face with rays of frost. I could channel my internal electrokinesis into a charged bolt, but then I’d run the risk of being paralyzed, out of electricity in my cored out nerve tunnels, unable to properly function at all. Come on Reggie, come on, think. If I supercharge myself with a rune for lightning, I risk passing out shortly after, for using a non spelliform rune and empowering it by itself. Too great a risk to hope I can take her out in one shot. As the black dragon snaps at me, intending to bisect me, I only manage to dodge out of the way by sheer luck, as my muscles spasm and force me to double over, and tumble forward. At that very moment, a massive incendiary rain pours down in a torrent around me, startling and charring the woman hounding me with her fangs and claws, and also hiding me from her view. That would be Tiktik, one of her deepest S P pools, the seventh rung.
As quickly as it came, the burst of fire leaves in an instant, revealing me and leaving me at the mercy of the dragon once again. I can see Tiktik attempting to use fourth circle magics, trying to turn the dragons into harmless animals, to no avail. The dragons are resistant to magical tampering apparently. She’s unable to land a spell upon them. Dippy’s arrows, and his canine and lupine friends are having no effect whatsoever on the ancient frost dragon, and Teuila is only holding him at bay with bursts of breath that last as long as she can blow between inhalations. I know she’ll get light headed soon if she keeps that up. Still, the potion gave her a more potent, further reaching fire breath than she gained from the scale, though thankfully the scale’s non-friendly-fire enchantment applies to all breath weapons.
The dragon with scales dark as night rears back and clasps her head, howling in pain. Ah, that would be Tiktik’s minor or moderate brainblast. Finally, a weakness, or at least something that they aren’t basically immune to. Just as she’s about to settle back down on all fours, she stands back up again, clasping her head yet again, and I think I see the faintest trickle of ichor, likely dragon’s blood, from her left nostril. She glances around in a wild fury, and her wicked intellect catches sight of the sneaky sorceress, Tiktik, casting the spells. The acid dragon inhales deeply, and spits an incredibly short acid breath Tiktik’s way, and my eyes widen in horror. Thankfully, the platinum scale rotating around Tiktik intercepts the short acid loogie, and barely diminishes, if at all. It was made to repel dragon’s breath after all.
As Tiktik casts a brain blast yet again, the black dragon rears back, her howl of pain turning into a screech of fury, and surprisingly enough, she begins retreating, taking wing, bounding from canyon wall to canyon wall. Tiktik, panting from exerting herself while injured, falls to her knees, and topples over. The platinum scales orbiting Tiktik and Dippy flicker in and out momentarily. She weakly tries to stand, stumbles, falls, tries to stand again, and falls again, as she turns towards the ice dragon whom at this point, seems to be charging a breath. The ice-dragon apparently attempted to trade breaths with Teuila several times over the last few moments, and is now thinking of simply charging up to overpower hers, as it has gauged the limit of her power.
The white dragon tries to buy itself some breathing room, by spinning to swipe Teuila with his tail. She manages to weather the blow somehow, grounding herself, blocking the blow and being driven to the side, driving a gouge into the stony terrain. One of the martial enhancement enchantments from one of the books she’d been reading, no doubt. I still need to help Teuila though, she’s not going all out, and she’s not going to win if she doesn’t bring her strengths to bear. She’s simply relying on a potion whose effects aren’t powerful enough to even harm the dragon, and she’s too frightened of her own power at the moment, that she’s hesitating to go on the attack, lest he pick up and use innocent kobolds as a shield again.
Tiktik notices the black dragon coming back, and slings what spells she can in its direction, driving her back once more, and this time, the black dragon turns tail to flee for sure. I know because she calls out, in a common tongue, “No more, worms! You’ve not seen the last of Astridus! You’ll cower in fear of my name soon enough, and all mortal will bow as cattle before Terrorzin!”
The white grunts, noticing his love flee, hearing her call, looks back and forth between the gathered combatants, as I shakily drag myself towards him. We need to take one of them down. They’re undoubtedly evil, and I need their hearts. I’m not fast enough to catch up to the black dragon as her sleek form bounds off the canyon walls, gaining velocity and distance from us. The platinum scales on Tiktik and Dippy disappear as Tiktik tumbles once more, losing consciousness from the pain of her injuries.
The ancient white grins as he sees a momentary opportunity, calling out, “You insect of a sorceress, you who dares harm Astridus, mate of Olashax, will be a tasty treat for her this eve.”
My heart sinks as he reaches out, bounding over Teuila, and snatches Tiktik from the canyon floor. In that moment, Teuila hesitates, with Dippy in her way towards Olashax. She sputters a weak fire breath in that direction, as the effects of her potion seem to be wearing off. Dippy dives to the side, dodging being impaled by the dragon’s spear-tipped tail by fractions of an inch. With Dippy in the clear, Teuila finally lets loose, leaping forward, sentient spear drawn, breathing the last of her fire as she dives horizontally at Olashax.
Essie, Teuila’s spear is batted to the side by the left forelimb of Olashax during her approach, but Teuila herself continues to follow through in the direction of her attack, and she delivers a blow containing all that speed and acceleration into his wrist. They remain connected for what seems like three seconds or more as all of her kinetic energy transfers into the blow, through her and into Olashax’s scales. There’s a resounding snap that booms like thunder in the canyon, followed by a guttural roar of pain. The scales along his palm and the knife-edge of his forelimb's claws are cracked, and driven deep into the muscle and bone beneath, a testament to Teuila’s raw power. I’m almost certain she had to use her density trick upon contact at least slightly. Olashax takes wing, leaping towards the canyon walls.
I realize in horror what’s about to happen as Olashax turns his head, with an incredibly full blast of frost charged. Teuila leaps towards his head, and my scream drowns out the constant storm-noise of Rayileklia. I empower a lightning rune, supercharging myself for a lightning leap, one that has to take me higher than I’ve ever jumped before. I can’t think straight, this can’t be happening. No. Not Teuila. No.