Sighing, I should really learn to pay attention to my own fights. My danger wraps tried to warn me, but the broadsword that came up beneath me like some sort of golf-swing catches me off-guard, and sends me sailing through the wall of the stables. Hurk. Oopf. I’m still not a hundred percent from having been reincarnated. That knocked me for a hell of a loop. Jeebez, that stings even in adamantite-body form. Of course, there goes the Steely Body spell, in reaction to the strain of the damage it absorbed. Fricklefrack. Get it together Re—.

We are three, three are we, and we have no idea what we just avoided, only that it was deadly. We are two, taken down by precision blasts of magic from—. We are one, and one is all we—. Existing as a consciousness without a body is disconcerting, but it only lasts for an instant. Reforming in a space between buildings, out of the line of sight of all of the action, I draw a deep breath. Phew, okay, okay. Get it together Reggie. I’ve got one, two, maybe three casts worth of adamantite shavings left for the Steely Body spell. Put it up, quickly, and do an estimate of the SP you’ve used today.

Let’s see, there was twenty for rapidly blasting Rahjmeztus. There was twenty attempting to learn my frosty ray spell better at Laombigla. There was another twenty while trying to learn while trying to get Ephlomseestiph’s attention. There were ten caged runes before I got interrupted by a boulder toss. Ten more afterwards that were then interrupted by a tail-swipe. Ten after that finally let me see the inner workings of the necrotic energy for the spell. I loosed about forty of those blasts inside of Laombigla, when I came back to life, and at the same time, spent forty-five SP on an Adamantite Body inside that ear canal. I spent forty five when Vorzog struck Triorgraiz, and another forty-five just now. Let’s tally that, shall we?

20 SP - rapid blast at Rahjmeztus

20 SP - rapid blast at Laombigla

20 SP - rapid blast at Ephlomseestiph

10 SP - caged runes to figure out ‘free’ casting

10 SP - again

10 SP - after tails wipe

40 SP - inside Laombigla

45 SP - Adamantite Body inside Laombigla

45 SP - Adamantite Body in reaction to Vorzog’s attack on Triorgraiz

45 SP - Adamantite Body after third bird

265 SP. Okay, we’re still pretty good. We could probably do another four hundred SP today if needbe. Phoo. Come on Reggie. Breathe air, breathe. Focus. Dangit, my best stuff is on the shelf. Area effects right now would add to the intense chaos, and my single target stuff isn’t really worth casting without the metamagical empowerment from the runic clips. And of course, here comes trouble. Oof. The animated, *not piloted,* magitek mecha swings through my area blindly, managing to knock me about as stone and wood splinter and shatter, flying everywhere.

At least it can’t fire its mana cannons, but ow, holy hell that hurt. So much for my Adamantite Body recast. Here goes another one, and crap, I felt my pouch, that’s the last of my adamantite shavings, and now I’m at three hundred ten SP spent. Can I alter the shape I’m about to change into? I’d been heading towards the plush otter with the inventory stomach. It’s really not a form I’d feel comfortable bringing into such a chaotic combat. No, the form I need now is my chimaeric lycanthrope. Can we do it? Focus. Focus Reggie, focus. Glide away, buy a moment.

The form is about to kick in, and it’s going to go on a heck of a long cooldown kicking in, in such a short time, if we use it for longer than a few minutes. Come on, come on. Be the lycanthrope, be the—. Yes! I can tell I’m the lycanthrope, because first of all, I’m not a giant plushie otter right now, secondly, I’m seemingly floating around in what to outsiders would appear to be ordinary RS2 form with no horns or tail. Oh that feels nice. This form has its own health pool, and well-sculpted, practiced muscles, and it’s in tip top condition. Gosh that feels so much better. I think my adamantite enchantment is paused, somehow only on my previous form. Weird. Still, the crazy levels of regeneration we were able to bake into this form are incredible. I wish this was my base form honestly. It’s too powerful though. I’d be comatose between engagements.

Hm, more chaos ensuing on the battlefield. There are strange glowing blue lines on the ground, zipping about. They’re, huh, in response to the super-speedy dashing about of Adkre apparently. Did Adkre just dash between my legs beneath me? Woah! It’s some sort of magic tied to their boots. Holy crap, I just barely got to the side of that in time. The line of light became a ten foot high wall of impenetrable, unbreakable neon blue energy out of nowhere. That could have bisected me! It’s a lot like the cage of force that was used to ensnare Kinzul.

Ow. What the? Ow. What is—? Ow. What the hell? Adkre is zipping around, rolling some sort of dice in an enclosed globe, or something, cheating with a magnetic field to make them keep coming up the same number. Moreover, Adkre is sniping me with little necrotic bolts, while a tiny gem floating around their head seems to snipe me with some radiant-energy laser in response to each of those blasts. Well, at least I have an answer to that, and I haven’t even used it today. Nice. Time to swap out to number two on the QCR, and engage the Necrometal Chestplate’s necrotic aura. It dampens radiant energies, and nearly nullifies necrotic energies as it intercepts half of them, to provide me with a minor barrier against the other half. Or something like that anyway.

Hm, Adkre’s boots seem to be out of magic. Apparently that wall is a once-a-day thing, unless they’ve done it previously during the day. They still glow brightly, and seem to allow Adkre to hover in any direction, as if attached to any surface, but they’re no longer trailing that blue line. Wait, Adkre’s cloak, it’s made of gryphon feathers, and they’re sparking with lightning. Arcs of energy are snapping between the tips of the feathers, and it's almost as if a line of wispy dark clouds forms between me and Adkre. Oh no. They’re going to—. Argh!

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Doubling over in pain, I cough up bloody mucus, and charred flesh bits. Staggering to my feet, I swipe uselessly towards where Adkre dances nearby, the location they landed in after zooming through me as a lightning bolt with their cloak. I rattle my skull, trying to orient myself, and thankfully my regeneration restores my senses relatively quickly. Despite being painful, it didn’t really dip into my health pool all that much. What’s that scepter that Adkre is—? Ow! Mother of—! Ow! Ow! It just—! Ow! There’s no end to it! Ow, holy—. Ow!

The scepter keeps blasting away at me, loosing thundrous booms, knocking me about as Adkre zips around me, keeping me staggered. Occasionally their little orbiting gemstone fires off a little radiant laser at me. To my surprise, the person that comes to my rescue is Zelshiz. She approaches me, and activates some mana to empower something through her collar. Out of nowhere, we’re surrounded by a crystalline field, similar in essence to the wall of light erected by Adkre earlier, though translucent. It seems nearly indestructible. Nearly. Adkre’s assault of unceasing blasts is beginning to form cracks in it already.

My new companion asks, “Are you alright? Can you tell the Red to ferry the wounded away, while you come to face Vorzog with me?”

Nodding, I cough as I regain my composure, regenerating once more, my bones begin un-breaking, binding and mending themselves. My bruises begin to slowly disappear, and I offer a hand to clasp Zelshiz’s. She takes mine firmly, and I doff my circlet in order to relay the request to Lil to ferry away the wounded. She hands me my adamantite goggles, for which I’m immensely grateful, and she takes one step to one side as Adkre is zipping around us in circles, placing the barrier centered on her, directly in Adkre’s path.

I can’t help giggling when Adkre rams facefirst into the barrier, finishing shattering it, but nearly knocking themselves out cold. Seizing my chance, I knock the scepter away from Adkre towards Zelshiz, and engage my lycanthropy for the first time. With all the hellfire going about, I don’t want to have the fur of a cat form right now. Similarly, with Draconiacs trained to hunt and slay other Draconiacs, and dragons, I don’t want to engage my draconic lycanthrope form. I guess we’re a giant bipedal landshark today. Here in the streets of Vorzog’s Keep, we are a shark. You know you’re referring to yourself as we a lot today Reggie. I know I know. Shush. Heh.

With my new, massive, clawed-yet-finned limbs, I grip Adkre just before they regain their composure and senses. This uh, this could get pretty gruesome. Swatting away the annoying laser-firing gemstone, I put half of Adkre into my enormous mouth. Before I can bite down, I’m surprised as Adkre looses a breath weapon from their helm. Sort of. I can sense psionic vibrations emanating in a conical shape from the helm. I should have, koff, put the psionic aegis enchantment, koff, on something I could wear in this form. I also should have put the circlet back on, regardless. I’m temporarily stunned, and drop Adkre from my grip. Their griffon-feathered cloak snags on one of my enormous teeth, and they’re forced to abandon it as they slip away.

I proably should have made note of it before, but the enchanted helm Adkre is wearing really makes my eyes want to avoid viewing it. Their helm is one of harsh, odd angular shapes that come together into the shape of some manner of aberrant dragon skull. It seems to shift and twist while being gazed upon, without moving at all. Similarly, Adkre’s scales, beneath their armor, have strange, shifting, fractal-like patterns that appear to move without moving. Blurgh. Of course they have some sort of psionic attack, when they’re represented in non-Euclidean geometry, from some far realm of eldritch abominations and aberrant horrors.

I only just now notice Adkre arguing with themselves, “We should run. No we have them on the ropes! You’re a fool. You’re a weakling! Retrieve the scepter of blasting, they were unable to counter it. Zelshiz is strong, if she wants, she could make it hell to get the scepter back. Then kill him, kill Zelshiz! She’s our ally. He’s a traitor, Zelshiz is a traitor!”

I blink several times as Adkre zips side to side while arguing with themselves. I make sure to carefully pull the electrically sparking cloak off of my fangs. Rolling up their cloak, and tucking it away in one of several multi-dimensional bags, I begin inching away, in no rush to feel another psionic blast of their helm’s breath-weapon-like power. Zelshiz motions to me while Adkre is seemingly distracted with themselves. Nodding, I follow Zelshiz back towards the source of the sounds of clashing and chaos.

I’m a bit confused at the alternating pronouns being used for Zelshiz, but then again, they are a bit burly femme, or maybe they’re a bit smoother, softer masculine? Huh. They might be genderfluid, or bigender, or something. Not really the time to worry about that right now though, is it Reggie? No, I suppose not.

Oh my friggin’ heavens. The utter devastation. There’s so many piles of ash. Vorzog is a complete maniac. There are so many spells being slung around, as more and more of the elite forces join from the barracks, or inside the main keep. Vorzog seems happy, ecstatic, euphoric even, to pick up and use allies as a shield against any incoming spells or attacks, and then launch the dying ally as a hellfire missile that becomes a skeleton. Even still, with Vorzog seemingly as a subfaction all his own, there are other groups fighting amongst themselves, or with each other, occasionally trading blows or spells with yet *other* groups beyond the ones they seem to be locked in battle with.

Whispering to Zelshiz, I ask, “How do I tell who to save?”

Shaking their head, they respond, “Just tell the Red to evacuate all the wounded, we’ll sort out who surrenders after. Please. Join me against Vorzog.”

Oh, that makes sense, and is incredibly rational, perhaps even kind or compassionate. We need to get this bastard to stop senselessly slaughtering everyone and every thing. It seems like the more he uses the helm, the more necrotic energy drapes around him, and suffuses his veins. Checking on Zelshiz, their collar’s weird crystalline barrier seems down for the count, likely for at least the day. I sigh, saddened that a wonderful, defensive artifact is limited to a single use in a given time frame.

Of course, an item with seemingly limitless potential is incredibly evil, with potent drawbacks, like insanity, or perhaps control of the wearer. Why does it always seem like headwear is the most likely to have mind-altering curses? Reggie. Yep. I heard myself think it. Of course it’s also enchanted with anti-telekinetic runework, like the rest of his gear, preventing it from being removed telekinetically, and similarly it’s locked into place with other runework, unable to be removed by anyone other than him. Well Reggie, I guess it’s time to go grapple the maniac. This is going to hurt.