My worries begin to melt away. My fears that I won’t last to even help fight back the various apocalypse scenarios in play slowly fade. I work to flex my muscles as carefully as I’m able to, with my internal electrokinesis, and I rush as best I’m able to, to catch up to Teuila. If I recall the directions correctly, I can probably get to the M’ah’ruke obelisk by simply leaping off of a cliff’s edge from one of these tunnels that face east. Yes, I’m almost certain. I cast my senses about, and paint a quick mental picture in paused time, a sort of three dimensional map, and I’ve got my course. I nod to myself, satisfied with the direction I’m taking. Gravity will help me catch up to Teuila, if she went the long way ‘round, back the way we came.
Hey gravity, my old nemesis. Care for a rematch now that I can actually fly? Hah. I sniffle, still working through my emotions, the humor helping fight away the now infrequent sobs. Falling, being eaten, and being beneath water, have all been such staples in my life. It sounds horrid, awful to think about, and yet I can only laugh. I never have to fear falling again as long as I remain conscious, I don’t even have to remain conscious underwater any longer, so long as the neckchain stays in place, and as far as being eaten? Well, as much as I have trauma about it, I can almost laugh it off at this point, between telekinesis, the steely body spell, my Can’Z’aasian biology, and so on, it’s far less deadly than it might be. Almost. It could still trigger an unfortuitous panic attack.
I’m tempted to lightning leap to catch up with Teuila, but then I’d be in no condition to aid her in battle with any immediacy. I might even black out, depending on how well I calculated the lightning leap, especially with how long it would have to be to navigate the tunnels, then the foothills. Thankfully, the Mountain of Solace leans eastward, so I have less distance to cover this way than Teuila does, by quite a bit, if I ignore the vertical distance. Hm, an iron vein in the cavern wall. Couldn’t hurt. I don’t even have to pause as I scrape some shavings and filings of iron into one of my pouches. Now that I have the actually intended material component for the spell, I should have a few casts of Steely Body available.
Teuila is going to want to slap me so hard when I drop in on her. Hah. Hahaha. You’re a massive dork Reggie Shellcracker. Yup. And proud. Yup. And so happy to finally, finally, after a third of a year, finally be back with some of the people I love the most in all the universes. I let out a whoop of glee as I leap over the edge into a swan dive. The main body of the acid cloud cover is much, much higher in a very narrow corridor along the edge of these mountains, meaning I’ve got easily a thousand, no, two thousand foot drop that’s clear of the main, exceedingly deadly cloud banks. It’s almost as if the mountain itself repels the cloud cover. Hm, genre senses are telling me that that’s significant. We’ll come back to that later.
There’s the obelisk! I don’t see an ice dragon, or Teuila, but I’ll track them down after I land. I have to angle my descent a bit with telekinesis, and I’d better engage the Steely Body spell anyway. I don’t want to try to halt my momentum with telekinesis. I’m pretty sure I’d lose my lunch. Not that I’ve eaten much lately, but I might get whiplash.
Even with curbing my acceleration by angling my descent, I still manage a fairly hefty crafter about a hundred yards to the southeast of the obelisk. I’m jazzed, I’m pumped and excited to finally be back with beloved members of my family, my party, my inner circle. I do however have to remain cautious. An ice dragon’s breath weapon doesn’t pose a threat to me in the immediately deadly sense, but being weighed down in a block of ice would slow me down, and we already know what would happen if Teuila were hit.
We’ve been practicing, and one of the things I can do, possibly due to the layering of the effects of the spell, is that I can make small areas of solid, yet invisible, telekinetic force, essentially squares. They can resist a few hundred, maybe a couple thousand pounds of pressure exerted on them, the same as my telekinetic grip. They’re excellent little shields that don’t telegraph at all, or even take any windup time to get into position. If I can layer up more castings of the enchantment, I might eventually be able to cover my entire body, in three hundred sixty degrees of coverage. That would take a lot though.
Regardless, it might be just enough coverage to protect Teuila from a breath weapon that isn’t on target to hit her dead center of its blast range, when she’s fairly close, but we’ve also got the expanded Valkyrie shield that I was using as a surfboard. One thing I’ve noticed about ice dragon’s breath is that it seems to freeze things that are in contact with each other within the same block of ice, as if it were casting a spell on a group, or single target. My hope is that if the shield becomes a massive block of ice, being levitated in front of Teuila, it’ll block the path of the breath weapon entirely. For myself, as long as it doesn’t freeze my brain, I can just chip away at the ice from the inside with telekinetic force, especially if I don’t let it get a full hit off on me.
Okay Steely Bodied Reggie Shellcracker, let’s juice you up with a bit of extra electricity. Nerve tunnels fully charged for internal electrokinesis? Check. Archsorc staff in hand? Check. Teuila nearby? Negative. Laughing draconic voice nearby accompanied by rumbling and flapping? Check. Wait, what? Crap!
Yisstendahl chortles, “What manner of golem has come wandering into such a territory? You will make a fine gift for Terrorzin, alive, or as a trophy, that remains to be seen.”
Yisstendahl, unlike Olashax, is sinewy, and rather wormy in appearance. If a dragon could look like a sniveling lapdog, this is what such a dragon would look like. Still, unlike Kozzurth, he’s an impressive, and mobile specimen of the draconic form, despite his slightly hunched, withdrawn appearance. His mannerisms are the signs of introverts everywhere, and I sigh while shaking my head at the poor representation we get in a two-timing villain of a dragon. I end up accidentally mimicking his drooped head, and slumped shoulders, with my chin towards my chest as I shake my head.
Ol’ Yissy there is strafing me incredibly quickly, but thankfully his angle of attack doesn’t matter so much. I’ve got three hundred sixty degrees of senses, and I’m putting them to use. Every few moments, I’m taking a snapshot thermally, and painting a picture in paused time. It’s rough work, and wears on my brain, since it’s essentially time I don’t spend sleeping, but it’s quick enough that it’s definitely worth it to do in such a dangerous situation. Not only that, but it gives me a moment to try to make sense of my danger wraps as well.
His strafing is a bit formulaic, except for one part where he’ll switch it up, to try to catch me off guard, then the pattern will repeat again. Hopefully Teuila isn’t too pissed off if I start the fight without her, since this is a golden opportunity I should capitalize on. I aim where Yisstendahl is going to be, and unleash a bolt of lightning from my staff, and a pair of holy halefire crossbow bolts, that strike him broadside on the flank, earning me a massive roar. My smile spreads wide, not in cockiness from my barely effective attacks though.
My smile is because moments after he roared, I took another snapshot. Because of my most recent thermal snapshot I caught a thermal signature speeding this way after the sound. I send out telepathically for Teuila, and her telepathic avatar seems a bit shook up.
Te queries, “Air, what the, how’d you beat me here, and hell, why are you here? I was going to off some ice-ass, and drag his corpse to you.”
My telepathic avatar responds, starting almost in jest, “Couldn’t let you have all the fun Te. Heh. But seriously, I needed to be here to intercept the dragonforce when he dies, and I wasn’t letting you face another ice dragon alone. I’ve got your back. As for how I got here faster…” I motion to the crater.
Teuila’s avatar almost shrieks, “You big dingus! What the hell? You airdropped? Ahhh why are you so reckless!? Ugh, why do I find that so cool, and why do I love you so much for it!? I, I mean—.”
As Teuila’s avatar loses her bluster, switching over to just blush, my telepathic response is to have my avatar nod understandingly at hers, and state, “I know Te, I know. I’m sorry to worry you. Kinzul’s dragonforce won’t last long, especially if I take an actual injury, but that’s why I’m in my Steely Body spell form. If we win this fight, only fifteen more fights like this before we figure out my cure, things are looking up!”
Teuila’s avatar shakes her head incredulously, smiling and chuckling, “Only you Air, only you. You’re hopeless.”
I feign hurt as I respond, “Thou woundeth me my lady, oucheth and whatnot. I shant be comfortable being seen as but a lost cause, no, I must avenge my wounded pride, and honor!”
Teuila’s avatar snorts, unable to hold in her laughter, and I grin goofily at her. I should probably pay attention to the ice dragon now though, since I just pissed him off and hit him with a lightning bolt.
Teuila’s avatar pretends to grump, “You what?! Awe, you started without me!”
Neither of us can keep straight faces in our mindscape as we roll around giggling, completely failing to take the matter seriously. Me, because I knew she’d respond like that, and her, because, well, she’s Teuila. Heh.
Te’s avatar jokingly gripes, “Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?”
My answer is, “It means you’re the love of my life, and you know how you can be.”
Teuila waggles her brow salaciously as she jokes, “Oh I know exactly how I can be.”
Blushing and shaking my head incredulously, my laugh ends off trailing into a sigh. I definitely can’t afford that sort of distraction right now Te. She snickers and smirks before blowing a raspberry my way.
I shudder momentarily as I realize Teuila has Gae Buidhe drawn, rather than Essie, and I can sense the sadness and shame that attempts to overtake Teuila because of my reaction. I shake my head, trying to absolve her. She knows I trust her, I just have to help remind her of that, so that she doesn’t fear every little thought I have that might otherwise worry someone.
I don’t think Yissten-whatsit here even realizes Teuila is incoming like a rocket, this could very well be over before it starts. I attempt to keep his attention on me by launching a fireball from my staff as he turns his snout my way with his maw wide open. He actually chokes on his own breath weapon, coughing feebly.
I’d almost think that he poses almost no threat, despite being a dragon, when I notice runes with my aura vision, and I hear an alien, brain-melting hiss. He’s utilizing his draconic mnemonic, and he’s casting a spell. Crap crap crap crap. I’m only about a quarter of the way done learning the spell that can counter other spells. His mnemonic is either a fairly slow aid, or he’s casting one hell of a high level spell. Fricklefrack, is that a gorram meteor? Well don’t this just bring back memories? Stop snarking and think of something doofus!
I know I can survive the hit, but Kinzul’s dragonforce is barely a thread of lifeforce protecting me from dying, and my body would instinctively react and try to lean on it to recover, to keep me in the fight. Then I’d just be back to dying of a heart attack. I can’t float myself out of the way fast enough, especially with the added weight and slowness of being in a Steely Body form. I surf just a bit faster, but it’s still not fast enough!
Teuila arrives on the scene, and jovially suggests, “Relax Air. And Babe? Go ahead and hit me with your flame when I say so, give me the biggest blast you’ve got.”
I blink, recalling using almost that exact phrase on the Night of High Water, asking Lil to trust me that I had a plan. I in no way whatsoever want to harm Teuila in the slightest, but I trust her utterly and completely. Teuila leaps to intercept the Meteor, which is bearing down on us rather quickly, and she signals me telepathically, so I launch a fireball her way. Teuila seems to channel the fireball as she intercepts it, soaking it up with Shellcracker’s Iceflame Spark, energizing herself. In the very next instant, she’s unleashing the strongest strike I’ve ever seen or heard. The thunderclap of her shielded fist connecting with the massive stone bearing down on us is utterly deafening to the point that it leaves me dazed, with my ears ringing, and my eyes swirling about in their sockets.
I know that the meteor itself, and the cloud of dust that preceded it from the sheer force of the air it was displacing, obscured us from view during most of the spell. Despite that, or perhaps due to it, I can sense that Yisstendahl is grinning. Or, at least he was, until the dust settled. As the meteor settles to either side of the two of us, it reveals that he now faces two unharmed opponents. Two opponents stand at the ready, completely unfazed after he unleashed one of the deadliest spells known in either universe. The mass of rock that was conjured forth by the spell seems to virtually evaporate away, almost like derezzing. Teuila and I are being exceedingly cocky as we stand back to back, glaring over our shoulders at the dragon archmage. I understand now why his power would have played a key part in the upcoming battles, despite the look on his face that works its way from fury, to cowering fear.
Telepathically I update Teuila, “He’s going to do a sniveling cowering act to lure us into a false sense of security. That’s only a single of his spells. It’s his biggest, and he almost definitely can’t do it again, but he almost assuredly has a whole host of other painful spells lined up. I do sort of wish Kinzul had given us a heads up that we were going to fight an archmage though. Oh well, maybe when we pledge allegiance to her we’ll be kept in the loop, or something.”
Teuila’s telepathic avatar is nursing a cartoonishly throbbing left hand. I shake my head and close my eyes, trying not to laugh at my beloved’s pain. We probably could have handled that a bit differently, in a way that didn’t result in you shattering half the bones in one of your fists. You probably fractured your forearm and elbow too. Teuila grins cheekily at me in response. She knows she was grandstanding, but if there are any observers, it’s going to send one hell of a message about the strangers in town.
I realize that Te used Shellcracker’s Iceflame Spark to absorb half the damage she’d have taken from the torrent of heat in the meteor’s fore, from the friction of its driving force. She used that, and the fireball I had cast, to preemptively start Icey’s other function, the elemental rejuvenation effect. If it weren’t for those two things, Teuila’s arm would probably be paste, if not atomized at this moment.
I wonder if there are any observant parties. Hm, thermal scans indicate yes, either some kobolds, or those draconic type people, or dragons in their human forms are viewing us from afar. They’d likely congregated to witness whatever had made Yisstendahl roar, and more congregated upon hearing the insanely loud thunderclap of Teuila shattering a friggin’ meteor. I know I keep using meteor and comet interchangeably, but that’s because it’s a spell that conjures a spacial field and rams a giant space rock down into our faces, so I don’t exactly get a chance to look at the makeup of the thing attempting to smear us into paste, to see whether it has an ice trail or not.
Yisstendahl plays his sniveling, cowardly, coy routine, as I float the two of us cautiously towards him, from different angles. I’m making sure that I’m giving Teuila a solid square of telekinetic force to ride upon, allowing her to leap from any angle, at any moment, based on whichever signals she sends my way telepathically. Crap, Yisstendahl has a subtler mnemonic, dodge!
I fling myself out of the way, electing to move my telekinetic presence towards Teuila, providing an extra square in front of her that shatters under the force of the magical assault by Yistendahl, but it also ends his paired beam spell. I might have looked a bit ungraceful in my dodge, as I transitioned into a tumbling roll, but for all the world, it looked like Teuila simply continued moving unfazed towards the spell, and it ended before it could reach her. Now I can sense true fear beneath the false cowardly veneer that Yistendahl had been putting up, and I can see him trying to calculate whether it’s better to try a breath weapon, or to chant his mnemonics to be able to cast spells.
I mastered one additional spell by about the time we were in the foothills, before I started learning the dispellation spell. I chose the greatest shadowy evocation spell, because of its massive versatility. As long as I can picture the elemental energy type that I want to produce, the stuff of shadows, or rather, the absence of stuff, will become that type of energy for me, like a blast of flame, or a lightning bolt. Only the magnitude of the power is far higher than either of the standard spells. It’s a far higher tier spell than either of the two standard elemental blasts.
If I’m interpreting the runes right, the greatest shadowy spells are supposed to take a sorcerer or sorceress on Tiktik’s level to master, and they’d use her biggest, most powerful pool of S P to cast a single time in a day, despite only being thirty three runes. They’re eighth circle magics, and I could fire off a half dozen of without breaking a sweat. They basically have versatility almost up to anything imaginable. It seems too good to be true, but I haven’t tried it out, since I’ve been using all of my safe S P each day to master new runes. I could theoretically evoke a comet sized ball of pure ice energy, though I wouldn’t use that on Yisstendahl.
For this fight, I’m thinking a roaring blaze of balefire, that which consumes. I don’t trust the short range on the spell though, and I don’t feel like wasting S P quickening it if I don’t have to. If Teuila manages to end the fight first, I can just let the spell fizzle. We may as well make a bit of a spectacle of ourselves. I don’t know all the parts in play here, but I’m sure it can only aid Kinzul’s cause if two monstrously powerful strangers show up, and pledge their aid to her faction.
Our hello to the neighborhood was certainly meteoric. I’m surprised Yisstendahl opened with that. Was he that leary of me, or was he just pissed off when I caused him to choke on his own breath weapon? Or is he so frighteningly powerful, that he’s got more S P pools of the ninth circle available? I gulp in apprehension at the thought of such a powerful spellcaster. Teuila is still a large, looming threat to Yisstendahl though, so it’s doubtful he’d lean on a repeat of the same spell that failed to work on us. I’m not sure, but hopefully that means he’d not waste time trying it, even if he could cast it again.