With my archsorc staff, Claíomh Solais, it has a few spells in it that I rarely, if ever, use. The gigantifying slash minimizing spell that grows and shrinks things is one of them that even happens to be S P free. Now, if I can get these three Draconiacs to be considered a single target, I can shrink them all down, and with a carefully crafted bypassed-wall spell, I can shove them in a cubby that should be nearly impossible to find them in. A cubby that will also hopefully protect them from the upcoming outhouse explosion.
I know, I know, they’re enemies, and I’d probably have had to kill them anyway, but I saw their vulnerable, or loving, or passionate sides. One could say I saw their humanity. Well, dragonanity? Pft. I have no idea. I hate taking lives to begin with. If there’s the tiniest chance that maybe these three might survive our slaughterfest because of these shenanigans, and might choose to live peacefully, then, then I’ll take it. Plus, I stole Chuck’s tiny extradimensional pouch full of cheese. I kinda feel like I owe him. What a weird guy though. He obviously has to know he has a problem with dairy, but can’t help himself. He even uses magic to hide his cheese obsession.
Okay, they’re as safe as I can make them, and I’m trying to keep them a little dosed, and a little low on oxygen, but able to breathe again once I’ve committed my explosive diversion. Let’s hussle towards one of the gatehouses, while looking crampy, bloated, and sick. Keep it together Reggie, the eyes aren’t on you any more than they would be on Chuck regularly. He stood out a bit. He was a little dumpy for a Draconiac, probably from all the dairy. Uh oh. Those two are beelining straight for me. Are they the lovers from the bathroom? No, no definitely not, their heights are far too disparate.
The taller of the two calls out, “Chuckles, heard you weren’t feeling it today private. I’m surprised to see you up and about, what with our arrangement and all.”
Oh crap. I think the startled look on my face is what they’re expecting of Chuck though. I’m getting the sense that these two are a bully and his toadie. The feeling is cemented when the taller one leans in close to ask with malice, “You do recall our arrangement. Don’t you?”
I nod emphatically, and catch the toadie too late as I realize what he’s up to. Oh no. If this Draconiac were human, he’d have an ever-present crap-eating-grin, wild red hair like mine, and a very freckled face. He’s way too proud of himself for what he’s about to do, and I’m petaseconds away from the consequences.
Everything seems to be in slow motion as the toadie jokes, “Didn’t anyone ever teach you Upchuck? Farts are flammable. Wanna see?”
I can only add one tiny bit of reaction as things are about to become chaos incarnate. I exhale into “my” shirt, blowing a massive puff of gas out my left sleeve towards the toadie. Oh my gods the chaos and carnage. The shrieking from toadie over here as he’s consumed by flames, and the confused yelp by the bully, bring down all the unwanted attention on our trio. Oh, wait, I’m on fire, I should react like Chuck would. I pretend to scream in pain, and run off in the opposite direction from the flames, trailing fire the whole while, pretending to try to pat myself down, while I’m actually continuing to spread gas and fire. Of course the outhouse explodes violently, boom goes the dynamite as they say.
Come on Reggie, come on, lock on, find the runic structures. Come on. Argh, if I want to make the hole last longer than a few seconds, or maybe couple of minutes, I’ll need a ninth tier dispellation. Wait, wait, let’s see this line feeds into this. Let’s roll around here near this wall, pretending to try to put ourselves out while we calculate this. I hope you’re there FFS. Drawing on my archsorc staff, I reach into the ether, into the elemental plane besides our own, and thankfully, apparently Frostfire Salamanderian seeks out the location of the staff like a homing missile, always attempting to remain near it. Welcome back my friend. I’ll gladly pay the extra S P from the staff. Please, come quickly. Don’t try to help me or engage just yet, but if you can look like fire, and spread flames and chaos, that’d be a great help. When I signal, then become your largest form and draw as much attention to you as you can.
Whew, it’s great to have allies. Lu, Lil, can you telepathically hear me with this barrier in the way, since I don’t have my psychic-blocking equipment on? Dang, didn’t think so. Well, you should be on your way by now, with this commotion. Oh, crap, I look like an enemy. Ugh, but I can’t drop the disguise yet. Crap crap crap crap crap crap crap. Fricklefracks and bandersnacks. Don’t you mean bandersnatch? Only if you’re brillig and the slithy toves. Heh, focus Reggie, focus! Right, right, enough with the nonsense. How do I—? Aha!
Shouting my titles, I proclaim, “I offer you mercy if you surrender. For I am Reggie Shellcracker, a Hero of the Order of the Onyx Dawn, an archmage Aliased Schism, and I am the Void Dragon Honoris Causa!”
Manifesting my full Void Dragon Honoris Causa, I reach its ethereal limbs into the spellwork woven into the castle walls. I grip, and wrest several series of redundant runes that leaves a large hole where the magic has to travel around in a parallel redundant network. Engaging my third and final Skin of Stone buff of the day, I toss a fourth tier Shadowy Conjuration into the midst of the courtyard, adding more confusion on top of everything so far. I’ve got two more of those left today. Tossing a slowing field straight inwards from the gate, I manage to catch about a dozen Draconiacs who’d decided to look my way instead of towards either of the two spreading fires, or my giant dire shadow weasel.
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I giggle to myself at the limits of the spell, having had to manifest a monstrous mana construct of something with as silly a name as giant dire shadow weasel, but the weasel is tearing around, terrorizing Draconiacs, taking quite a bit of fire from the parapets and elsewhere along the walls. Woah! Okay, okay, uh, focus and respond Reggie. My telekinetic shielding squares are keeping me safe from the rapid assault of ranged weaponry, but each impact is feeling closer and closer to shattering each of the grips.
Crap, I forgot about the robot! I’m able to block one blast with my telekinetic squares, but they shatter under the might of the blow. The second blast sinks into my Void Dragon manifestation, sending me skidding, almost tumbling to the side. The third blast, I catch on another telekinetic square, cursing the headache and nosebleed I get as it shatters, the fourth blast hits me square in the chest and sends me sailing out of the keep, into inbound traffic.
Figuratively coughing up a lung, I can barely orient myself as Lu asks, “Reggie? What are you wearing? What even—. Oh sweetie no, your gorgeous hair. Quick get these on, and this, and this.”
Tossing Lucky like a fastball special, Lil sets my stomach lurching with worry for my son. Worse, Lucky’s thrown at the giant magitek mecha, and he gets blasted out of the air loosing a pained yelp in the process. I gear up as swiftly as I’m able, because we’re in the thick of it now. Focus Reggie, breathe. Blinking rapidly to try to get my eyes to literally be able to focus, my heart feels like it can’t slow to a reasonable pace. This is so much more than we bargained for.
Is—, is that gjallahorn? Please tell me they do not have even more forces laying in wait nearby, or backup within hearing range. Pleading with Lu, I beg, “Can you take the portable hole, sneak along the left wall here, to a spot that I magicked out a small hole in the wall? I shrunk three Draconiacs after knocking them out, and planted them there for safekeeping. I’d feel horrible killing them after going to all the trouble of trying to spare their lives. They’re all naked and bound, and you can tell what’s his face, Shen or Shlen or whatever, to pass on the message of mercy if they wake up. Please?”
Luni wears half a frown as she begrudgingly accepts my request. She seems to fade from my senses, before vanishing entirely. Lil and I are strafing along the interior of the high walls, trying to reduce the number of ranged weapon attacks we have to dodge by taking out the various archers. Lil’s already starting to look like a pincushion, and we’ve only been in battle for a matter of seconds.
Grunting, Lil grumps, “It’s time to get serious pal, mega mega mega serious.”
Nodding towards Lil, I send mental directions to FFS to follow and pair up with Lil, utilizing his flames as cover. My heart won’t stop racing a mile a min—. Ow! Glp. Whisper is floating in front of me, frozen in place by the psionic shielding enchantment that I’d built into this—. I’d be dead now. I’d straight up have died if I hadn’t mastered the psionic brainblast aegis from Yisstendahl’s tomes during orb-time, and placed it on this gear. Whisper disappears, and reappears in the hand of a Draconiac who happens to appear in the spot Whisper’d just been at. Apparently Whisper has some sort of shadowy teleportation ability in addition to its psionic damage enhancements.
I’m not too afraid of this fool, since Whisper literally can’t hurt me, due to its reliance on psionic runic empowerment magic. Next time it comes my way, I’m just snagging the artifact for myself. What I am afraid of is the magitek mecha kicking my son’s ass. Lucky’s trying out all of his powers on the thing, and nothing is leaving a dent. Fire does nothing, ice does nothing, acid from nearby Draconiacs does nothing. Lucky’s claws do leave tiny scratch marks, but those scratches heal up within moments. I bet the only thing that would do significant damage is its own arm cannons, with their neutral non-elemental mana blasts.
Friggin’ hell, I can’t focus on Lucky’s fight right now, I’m still surrounded by dozens of Spellknights, and hundreds of magic-empowered archers. Lil is getting bogged down, tethered by spells. Luni took a sharp blow to her jaw before disappearing again. I, I’m overwhelmed. I can’t figure out where to start. I—. I begin to panic, crying in fear of the thought that I might lose Lucky, or Lil, or Lu. My vision doubles, then triples, and blurs beyond recognition.
I sink to my knees, just barely accidentally dodging several devastating blasts aimed my way. Wrapping my arms around my torso, I struggle to free myself from this wave of panic. Reggie come on, come on, get it together! If you start fighting, you won’t lose them, okay!? Please, please, please start fighting. Please. As much as I beg myself, I’m not in command of my senses yet. My Skin of Stone spell wears off as I’m rocked by a jagged column of stone slamming upwards from beneath me, launching me into the air, where I’m then met by a flying Spellknight, and spiked back towards the sharp-edged erection beneath me.
The thing that saves my life? The thing that snaps me to my senses in time to avoid being impaled on the upward-pointed stone edifice? It’s Luni’s snickering across our impossible mental wavelength that should be blocked by my enchantment. I can’t help laughing and rolling my eyes while shaking my head. Lu, you’re a butt, but thank you. I needed that. Rolling ever so slightly to the side, I shunt myself with telekinesis just enough to miss the geokinetically erected stonework. Come on Reggie. Pick a target, and destroy.
When a commanding voice orders a ceasefire from atop one of the monolithic lizards clad in obviously-enchanted armor, I nearly fall to my own knees. There’s a magical presence behind that voice, similar to Jarrah Bettergrove’s. Lucky me, I know exactly how to resist that sort of commanding presence. Despite my knees’ desire to buckle from beneath me, I fly higher instead, before standing at eye level with this commander while riding one of my T K squares.
I actually giggle, unintentionally, when Triorgraiz calls out, “I, Triorgraiz of the pallid death order you to cease at once, and surrender if you wish to live!”
Despite not wanting to, I can’t fight the almost evil grin that spreads across my face as I retort, “Buddy, that’s my line!”