Hm, it seems the ancient Red did actually crash, and came back up, sans Lucky, or was able to unseat Lucky somehow. Lucky you goober. We don’t need to fight all those down there. Whistling for Lil, I point down at Lucky, and he begrudgingly obliges, despite wanting to face off against the ancient Red. I raise an eyebrow towards Luni, and she blushes while shrugging. Rolling my eyes, I dive to intercept Rahjmeztus, to prevent him from snagging Lil out of the sky. Luni keeps a long ways from the clash, but I can tell that even from here, her music is somehow bolstering me, or weakening Rahjmeztus, or both.
Loosing my Voidbreath as my Honoris Causa manifests physically once more, I barely manage to keep clinging to Rahjmeztus as one of his thrashing limbs connects with my actual body. My Skin of Stone spell dissipates entirely from the strength of the blow, and I’m left more than a tad winded. Alright, one more use of that for today now that I’ve had to reapply it already.
I spy an odd aura as Rahjmeztus reaches beneath the edge of one of his scales to pluck forth some artifact, some enchanted object. The ancient Red focuses willpower into the object, and I’m overcome by a rather powerful spell. The only reason the paralysis he induces upon me doesn’t immediately cause me to tumble down into the Worldstorm is because I’m paralyzed with my Void Dragon Honoris Causa physically manifested, with wings splayed, and limbs locked about Rahj’s shoulders and neck.
Fighting off panic, I struggle to maintain my breathing. Everything in me is locked up. This is a fairly high tier spell, I think fifth or so. Keep calm Reggie, keep calm. Remember, all your magics are always subtly-casted. You can cast even when bound and gagged because you need no mnemonic. Focus, focus. Build the ambient-mana cantrip, while generating an EM field to capture the one rune I’ll need to re-empower. Unfortunately, as I’m about to start casting the one spell I know by rote at this level of power that’s spammable, I’m struck by a sudden massive wave of ice.
As usual, I’m unharmed by the cold of the ice, but I’m more than a tad inconvenienced. I’m no longer just paralyzed, but now also trapped in a layer of binding rime that coats even my Void Dragon manifestation. If Rahjmeztus breaks free from my manifestation’s grip, he drops me into the Worldstorm, and that might be it for Reggie Shellcracker. Stay calm, just breathe. I’ll be fine. Even if he drops me, paralyzed into the Worldstorm, I’ll survive long enough to get my adamantite body running. It’s a waste of resources to need to start casting such powerful spells so early, but you’ll be okay. Don’t freak out, don’t panic.
Okay, okay, think. I could disenchant the paralysis on myself, by using moderate dispellation of the fifth tier. Or I could just wait for the flaming ball of fury coming up from below to distract the ancient Red. Snirk. That’s my Lil buddy for ya. Unfortunately, Lil’s blast of frame frees the frost from me and my Honoris Causa, also causing my Void Dragon manifestation to partially dissipate. This sends me tumbling into freefall, apparently straight into the arms of a waiting Luni Shellcracker, My Anchor. She takes full advantage of my inability to move, to tease me thoroughly with her voluptuousness. That’s so unfair Lu.
Grinning more than just a bit wickedly down upon me while she has me at her mercy, Luni strums several chords on her harp. In almost no-time at all, I feel the enchantment paralyzing me weaken more and more quickly, until it’s destroyed entirely. Flashing Lu a grin, as much as I don’t want to, I extricate myself from her loving embrace. Launching myself back into the fray, I can tell that Rahjmeztus used up the daily allotment of magic in whatever he’d used to monstrously paralyze and hold me in place. Its ice-binding spell is similarly spent. It seems it has one a day of each. Good, no more surprises from that little item at least.
Lucky leaps off of Lil, and begins growing midair as he sinks his fangs into the back of Rahjmeztus’s neck. I begin peppering the ancient Red with my lowest tier magics, simply proc’ing the runic clips over and over and over, simultaneously bolstering Lil, Lu, Lucky, and myself as well. After twenty disorienting blasts in four seconds, with Lucky chewing on Rahjmeztus’s neck from between his wings, and Lil swiping at his face, the ancient Red is looking nearly-defeated.
Hm, the frost from my dinky little ray spell didn’t affect him at all, nor did the elemental runic clips of fire and frost, but the necrotic and psychic runic clips really tore into him. These things aren’t intended to be wielded by anyone whose metamagical prowess allows them to spam metamagics all day long. It’s likely assumed that someone might get ten to twenty metamagically enhanced spells in a given day. I’ll need to keep an eye on them to see if there’s a downside to utilizing them far more than they’re likely intended to be able to be used.
Still, it is nice to be able to see Lu, Lil, and Lucky, covered by a pearlescent sheen of mana that’ll protect them from the next strike that hits them, at least partially. The same embolsterment is applied to me as well of course, there’s no reason not to hit all of the friendly targets nearby. Too bad that particular runic empowerment doesn’t stack with itself. It just overwrites itself when spammed like this.
Quipping, “Lil, Lu, angle Rahj here a bit, then grab Lucky, I’m going in,” I hear groans from all of my party members as they realize what I’m about to do. The slack-jawed ancient Red is more than a tad confused and disoriented as I fly into his mouth, drawing Frostburn. Dashing along the inside of Rahjmeztus’s mouth, and down into his throat, I drag a long score with Frostburn, worsening and worsening the condition of the ancient Red, bringing him closer and closer to death.
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Huff. The dragonforce within this fool barely qualifies as an ancient. Manifesting my Void Dragon Honoris Causa’s physical form once more, I begin tearing my way through the esophagus of Rahjmeztus. I can sense the life essence escaping the ancient Red as I put an end to him from within. I barely manage to collect enough dragonforce to pay back my recent expenditures, including those I’d spent with Kinzul last night. There’s more within this fool’s body, but it’s not worth my time. I’d have to impact the ground, and then have to fight my way up out of the horde gathered below.
Bursting out of Rahjmeztus, I telekinetically snag the enchanted object he’d used against me, and deposit it in my hyperdimensional haversack for later. Somehow, somehow I doubt that that counted as one of the ancient evil lifeforces that I had to pay towards my cure. It’s too bad. His esophagus, and limbs cost me two of my daily uses of my Skin of Stone ability. I spent twenty SP on him, my empowered ice-rune knife, and Frostburn’s daily slash were used up on the fodder before him. Ouch, that’s pretty cold. Hah, accidental wordplay aside, I meant referring to people I’d slain as fodder is cold.
Sighing for a moment, my emotions take a turn towards the somber, and then even worse. When did killing get so easy? When was I able to start forgiving myself for making accidental jokes about it, or dismissing people’s lives with words like fodder? I suppose the answer is never. I haven’t, and I won’t just let myself forget that lives are lives, no matter how many I take. I may use humor as a coping mechanism, or shortcut terminology when thinking of battle strategy and resource expenditures, but it’ll never stop affecting me. I don’t think any of us would have it any other way. Not my SAP, not Kinzul, or any of the Onyx Dawn. Well, maybe Gilmeshtu or some of the other more snooty members.
Let’s get the hell out of here. Sighing to myself, I almost giggle when Lil asks, “What happened to the other guy? The big Green?”
Joking, I quip, “Would you believe me if I said I put him in my pocket?”
My wonderful son, Lucky, barks and pants as if laughing. Lil takes a moment to view me quizzically before realizing that I was joking about my portable hole, and Lu just rolls her eyes at me. I catch the rest of my party up on what went down the Shlendtikuar, as we resume our flight towards Vorzog’s Keep. Thankfully, taking off my helmet with the psy-spell blocking enchantment on the circlet is rather easy, so we can return to chatting in thinkspace during our flight. I wonder if I could find a way to add this enchantment to items bound to others’ souls.
Hm. The problem is, it’s not even supposed to be able to be put on items at all. I had to finagle the spell, by having it mastered, and using Nala’s help, on an item with nearly no enchantment, that was already bound to me, to fill out the rest of the mostly empty enchantment with a self-only spell. Even still, there are some kinks to work out with what I’ve got already, let alone trying to figure out how to break the rules even more to make it not self-only. Oh well, not really the time to be thinking about stuff like that. It’d be better to try to imagine just how underinformed we are about Vorzog’s Keep, since we were malinformed of Shlendtikuar’s domain.
At some point, I should probably expect to fight kaijus and giant mechas, or other things that make no sense to be on Rayileklia. That just seems to be the way things are going. Soul stealing lights? Celestials hiding away, or hiding in plain sight? Literal Fel hordes? Dragons at war with vampires? Archmages nearly wiped out, save for those impressed into Terrorzin’s service? Terrorzin’s magical manipulators creating chimaeraefic beasts and mingling undeath with draconic and hydra abilities? Dragon lords of domains messing with and corrupting Latents? Yeah, eventually we’re going to end up turning Rayileklia into some giant robot to fight off some giant robot made out of the moon, or a space station, or something. Rolling my eyes at myself, I chuckle at the stupidity of the lines of thought.
The real takeaway from the line of thought is just that I should prevent myself from being surprised, by expecting almost anything to be capable of happening. What sort of worst-case scenarios might I be able to expect, and counter, should things be far worse than expected at Vorzog’s Keep? Well, the Fel hordes could have a massive portal open there. The nice thing about that one is, we’re having Kinzul fully open the sky over a spot near Vorzog’s Keep, so we don’t have to worry about finding a way to get sunlight down to drive them back. What else? Hm, those fliders and stuff like the mega-dracoliche, or hydracoliche could be there in great quantities. The good thing about that, is that I’ve got a weapon specifically designed to be more detrimental to undead. What else?
Hm, if Spellknights Vorzog, Zelshiz, Adkre, and Triorgraiz are all archmages, and they all lead with stopped time, and slash or meteors, it could be pretty bothersome. I could break their SP pools though, due to the time it takes to cast those spells, and I’m fairly familiar with their makeup at this point. That’s the major benefit of having mastered the minor to major dispellation technique. Countering spells before they happen, or dispelling them before their effects become altogether too awful. I’d predicted we’d be facing more archmages as our time on Rayileklia went on, and, well, it came true. Sure, the reason why it came to pass took me a while to work out, but that’s because the information wasn’t available previously. I don’t know if even Jarrah knows why there are so few casters left in the lands that aren’t in Terrorzin’s service.
Still, it makes you wonder how many young adult, adult, or ancient dragons that Terrorzin has had out in the humanoid lands, just mingling with their societies, disrupting them or spying on them and—. Oh no. Tiktik. The Aasimovians. What if Astridus *wasn’t* the only black dragon in human disguise? Tiktik thought she was following a dragon that seemed more like young to young-adult in size. No, no, just calm down. There’s no reason Terrorzin wouldn’t have overplayed his hand by that point, or had his subordinates flee the Felgre hordes. There is no way he could have known some troupe would come by and actually successfully begin an evacuation effort. It makes sense if he assumed Aasimovians would all simply perish to the Felgre hordes, with only a few stragglers being able to flee from sheer fright. It wouldn’t make sense for him to believe he’d have to have spies planted in a successful refugee movement.