Hissing an order to Triorgraiz, I command, “If you want to live, or want any of your subordinates to live, you’ll organize them to get the hell away from this fight. If so much as one of your subordinates steps out of line to stab us in the back while I’m dealing with these effing Damnations again, I’m ending everyone here. Lu, Lucky, Lil, flying V, Lil speartip!”
There’s hesitation in Triorgraiz’s eyes. She wants to see how this will play out, almost positive that there’s no way I’ll survive the encounter with the Damnations, especially if her forces aid them. I scowl, but I can’t fault her. I’d likely be of a similar mind in her position. Regardless, I flick my fingers towards the goggles, and towards her eyes, trying to remind her of the peace and sustainability we offer.
As Luni begins flying slightly behind Lil and to his right, carrying Lucky as Lucky shrinks, I catch up, dashing towards the fray. Please. Please. Please all be bodybound, locked souls. Please. I’m begging everything good in the world, please don’t take my family from me. I’m trying so hard to be good, to be a good person, to not give in to Wrath. My pulse races as I realize there’s only two of the Damnations here, accompanied by an ancient Black and an ancient Blue. There are at least three more uninjured ones elsewhere.
Please no. Please let them be anywhere other than near the other members of the Order. Illy, Prinny, Veril, Farzhis, I don’t know if Te could save all of you from three to four Damnations at once. My limbs quake as my lower jaw quivers. FFS hitches a ride with me as we approach the oncoming ancient dragons. Nodding, I aid FFS in surfing towards the ancient Blue, as I don’t want to chance that the Damnations can harvest FFS’s eternal essence that normally returns to the elemental realm after a conjuring. Thankfully, I hear organized commands from Triorgraiz, and the commands include falling back, falling into line, and tending the wounded, and nothing more.
The Damnations seem to be Ephlomseestiph, and Laombigla. Apparently Laombigla did the smart thing, and shrunk while avoiding the most dangerous pockets of the Worldstorm. They’re battered, and scarred, and acid-pocked, but they’re definitely still alive. So the other two must be high-ranking members of the Evil Claws. These jerks are so friggin’ huge, I don’t think I have anything that could take down a Damnation down here at ground level.
When I hear a shout that sounds like scolding an underling, I turn around and telekinetically reverse the direction of a projectile back at the offending Draconiac. No mercy, no wasted time, instant death by their own enchanted crossbow bolt. Despite being as far away as she is, I can see Triorgraiz nodding solemnly to me, understanding that the only reason I’m not wiping out everyone is because I can tell she tried to prevent the betrayal. She won’t be getting another chance, because then I’ll just assume she’s only pretending to try to stop backstabbers.
Whistling a quick note, I have our flying V bunch up momentarily so I can pass on, “Lil, keep the big uninjured Damnation, Ephlomseestiph busy, but don’t engage them. Focus on the acid dragon. Lucky, you and Lu focus on the lightning dragon. If you finish first, help Lil on the acid dragon. Vice versa if you finish first Lil. Watch out for their Latents. I’m pretty sure they’re the Evil Claws.”
Being that the ancient Blue is callipygous, I’m going to assume she’s the Callipygian. Really you guys, naming her after the size and shape of her rump? Whatever. The acid dragon could be Deviltail, Bad Dog, Devilhound, or maybe Laughing Drakk. There’s too little information to go on to determine who they are, let alone what their latents might be. Plus, the rest of the thirteen Evil Claws might be laying in wait, or en-route. To prevent that from becoming an issue, I have to end Laombigla once and for all.
Try as I might, I can’t think of a way to take him down though. Funnily enough, my most powerful resource-using abilities wouldn’t do more than tickle him. My spamming metamagical abilities though might be efficient enough to wear him down. Grr, of course he’s immune to half of the damage provided by my spell. I really need to learn the other—, wait, did I? That’s right, I did. It was only five runes, and it was in several of the newer spellbooks. Necrotic Touch. It’s difficult to keep track of how much I have access to since I’m stuck pursuing lateral growth.
Let’s see if we can really lean into our powers here. Necrotic energy is the absence of life. It’s devoid of life essence, it’s a void that saps life. Necrotic blasts literally rend a schism both through the air, and in their targets. Come on, psych myself up, work Latent, work! Ugh, it’ll take me a few dozen S P to learn how to make it as cheap as my frosty ray spell. That’s fine. It’ll be worth it to skirt this jerk’s immunities to thermal damages. Two of the metamagical runic clip procs aren’t going to do anything, since one releases a tiny puff of fire, and the other a tiny burst of frost. That’s fine though. Of the several other clips, one releases a necrotic burst and another releases a psychic burst.
I can almost guarantee these dickweasels don’t have any sort of resistance or immunity to either of those two magical elements. Otherwise they wouldn’t be compromised by the— red eyes. Fricklefrack. Bad timing Reggie. I know. Panic incoming. I know! Hard to sell that invincible conqueror look when you curl fetal and rock back and forth while weeping. I know! I can fight it off for a while. I’ve got the neural node that I made specifically to temporarily box up panic attacks. Huff, huff. Fudge. It’s exhausting fighting off panic. I’m already panting with exertion, and maybe hyperventilating a bit from the panic.
Alright, alright, focus. Fight it off for a bit. Draw Laombigla’s attention. Here goes twenty’ish SP just to practice using this spell. I don’t think I’ve ever fired it off before. Four Necrotic Touches. Hmf, if they did any damage at all, even with the runic clip enhancements, it’s not noticeable, but at least Lu, Lil, and Lucky, now have that tiny mana film aura protecting them once more. Plus Frostfire Salamanderian has it for the first time. Every last little edge helps.
Lu and Lucky are doing alright, with Lucky large enough to leap at and ground the ancient Blue, even if she tries to raise all the way up to the base of the Worldstorm. I understand she can risk flying right up against it, due to her immunity to lightning, but Lucky can become massive, and is incredible at leaping. Breathe. They’re okay. They’re okay.
I can sense the wavelengths of the ancient Blue attempting dragonfright, and for a moment, I worry, but seeing that Lucky, and his two passengers are completely unaffected, I grin. One more ace up our sleeves. Thank you armor from Triorgraiz’s mount. I’m sorry if your mount doesn’t pull through Triorgraiz. I’ll see what I can do about that after this is all over. Lil’s not doing quite so hot. He’s not close enough to benefit from Lucky’s new fear immunity aura, and the Evil Claw captain acid dragon has him pinned in dragonfright, with Ephlomseestiph closing in. Dangit Reggie, pay attention to your own fight!
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Being that I’m currently in RS2, with no special defenses up, the swipe coming my way from Laombigla would likely crush me, or disembowel me. Time to raven-port. One down, four left today, we are three, three are we. We wheel, we spiral, we disengage, and reconvene. We find a familiar perch on our friend, and an unfamiliar perch on the acid dragon. Which to choose, which to choose? Acid dragon’s scales are shiny like onyx. Shinies and treasures. Acid dragon wears shiny treasures, hidden by horns and scales. We like shinies. We are no longer three, we become Reggie once more.
Rattling my skull, sitting on the back of this Evil Claw captain, I focus my Honoris Causa to drink of the signals it’s putting out. Oh no. Lil! That looked painful. Focus Reggie, focus. Lil can survive a few hits. Please survive a few hits Lil. I choke back tears, fighting back several fears, and a load of panic. Analyze the signals. Discombobulate them. Reorient them in order to bounce them back and forth against themselves. Let it feel like the dragonfright is still outgoing. Magnetically cage the outgoing signals. While we’re here, let’s give Lil a little help with a good old number four from my QCR.
As the Worldstorm’s lightning, and the breath weapon of the Callipygian are suddenly directed my way, I swing around to the underside of the throat of this Evil Claw captain. It manages to daze him, while Lil is freed from dragonfright, before this captain can charge a deep acid breath. Lil could protect himself from acid breath as long as he’s not paralyzed. His flames are hot enough to evaporate it on contact. I just had to get him freed before this jerk had enough time to charge up. Back to the Damnations for me. I guess I’ll try to snag Ephlomseestiph’s attention too. Back to number five from my QCR so that I’m not dealing with a constant torrent of lightning damage for no reason.
Twenty’ish more SP for quick casts of this spell, pinging Ephlomseestiph in the face. Yep, I’ve got both Damnations’ attentions. I’m not much closer to finding the correct structure to pull mana from the ambient nature of the surrounding world and its nearby elemental plane for this spell though. I need to find something that resembles the element of undeath, or void, or darkness, or necrosis, or something. Hm, grim and gruesome, but it might work. I need a corpse. It’s easy enough to telekinetically snag one from the walls where they’d been firing at us from previously.
Ten’ish more SP, and a new electromagnetic field trapping the runes in place near the corpse. Okay Reggie, think, quickly. The frosty ray spell required pairing of the outer elemental rune, with its nearest operand, and the final two operand runes, in a feedback loop tied to the nearby elemental plane. Does necrotic energy exist on that same plane, or do I need to find existence of another plane, one of life and death? If I do, is a corpse a close enough tie to that plane, in order to sense it?
Maybe focus on the giant boulder being hurled your way by a Damnation Reggie. Fricklefrack and a crapsack sack of crap. Another raven-port down for the day, because I’m still squishy RS2, with no defensive buffs up. All three of my Skin of Stone uses are down for the day, and I haven’t had time or the desire to use up a quickened cast of Steely Body yet. Plus, I’m not sure if I have more than three’ish casts worth of adamantite shavings. This is going to have to last me.
We are three, three are we, though only barely. Three of us are smooshed by enormous flying rock. We near-instantly are once again Reggie as RS2 atop the boulder. Well, there goes that corpse. Eugh. Sheesh. I guess I’ll grab another then. I also need to re-cage more runes once more, bluh, another ten’ish SP down while I ponder over this newest corpse from the walls. Hm, my giant dire shadow weasel is gone. Let’s resummon that, and see if we can’t notice some similarities, since it’s both made of shadow-stuff, and we’re imitating a shadow creature with that void-stuff. If I’m lucky, the Damnations might not even realize it’s technically mostly an illusion.
Hm, I need to buy myself time. It seems too early to do this, but I also need to pull out my once per day eighth tier monstrous mana construct. Pulling out a copy of Frostfire Salamanderian to buy myself time, along with this giant dire shadow weasel, might actually keep the Damnations from realizing that one is an illusion, since the other certainly isn’t. I wish I had my goggles on right now to check on my loved ones, but that fraction of a chance of being able to offer mercy is worth it for them to be in enemy hands momentarily. I’ve no doubt I could retrieve them if I need to kill everyone anyway.
Focus Reggie. Shut up for a minute and concentrate. The eighth tier monstrous mana construct is, well, absolutely monstrous. It’s like Frostfire Salamanderian fighting at her absolute fiercest, and tossing her a suit of Valkyrie equipment is letting her hold her own against Damnations. That’s insane. Too bad she only lasts for two minutes. We might as well conjure our once per day daily uses of meteorites as well. The twelve chunks of space rock show up, floating around me in helix patterns. Whenever I notice an opportunity for distraction out of the corner of my eye, I launch one off, preventing a Damnation from landing a blow on my temporary summoned allies.
I’m burning through these new resources like crazy. Uh oh. Muttering a quick shout I call out, “LSE Stonewall!”
Ooph. My brain is rattling from that one. Another daily use of an ability down, and it at least slowed the impact of the tail swept my way. I wasn’t paying attention to Lil’s battle. He let his Evil Claws captain target drift my way. He looks chagrined, embarrassed to have let me take a hit for him, when I’m trying to focus. Hurp. Ugh, my stomach still isn’t settled from that nonsense in the outhouse. Trying to help Lil, and to dissuade this Evil Claws acid dragon idiot from interrupting me further, I unleash two quick blasts of frost, one at each of its wings, grounding it temporarily. Two thirds of the daily uses of that ability gone now too. Crap on a cracker. We’re burning through everything other than our SP.
Okay, okay, one last time, ten’ish more SP to try to learn this spell inside and out. Breathe Reggie. Breathe deeply, take it easy. Concentrate. Focus. Welp. There goes my giant dire shadow weasel. I resummon it, using my last lesser shadow conjuration for the day, and keep it at my side rather than sending it out to be distraction fodder. Focus, attune to it. Drink in the essence of shadow-stuff, of shadow-creatures, of the voidstuff that makes up semi-illusory shadowy spells. Find the link to necrotic energy, to death and undeath, to the absence of life, to—. Yes! The evil grin that spreads up the left half of my face is too hard to fight, so I let myself wear it. Two runes down, two operand runes to go. Three if I’m lucky, but I doubt I’ll get that lucky.
This way? No. What about—? No. Grr, how did it work with the other one? It was right after I’d tried the other combinations. Let’s try the other combinations. Oh. Oh the operand rune order is different for this spell. It’s the two directly after the first pair. How odd. Well, at least now I know. Four runes now free for this spell is a massive boon when I’m so often going up against thermally immune foes. Eeny, meeny, miney, mo. Nah, we know who we’re going after. Laombigla has to go down. Hopefully the Evil Claws are less apt to obey the rest of the Damnations. Here goes, well, not quite everything. Let’s go dire weasel.