Wh— what? Hah. Haha. Hahaha. I forgot about that runic clip. There were two stone and earth elemental related ones that I kept for myself. Their combined effects include ability to control stone or earth elementals, ability to meld into stone for brief periods, or even up to eight hours or something like that. They also include some minor stoneshaping, and the ability to root myself in position for a minute, sturdier than stone. Last, and most definitely not least, they render me immune to petratransmutive magic and abilities, petrification mostly, like from a basilisk or cockatrice.
Why does Vorzog keep channeling the magic through me when he sees that it isn’t working? I can definitely sense him pumping more mana and energy into it, spreading the effect—. Oh no, Zelshiz! Turning to my side, I wrench the broadsword from Vorzog’s grasp in a stroke of luck, only having meant to check on my ally. Zelshiz is indeed petrifying incredibly quickly, while the whole world appears to be in slow motion. Their face is one of abject terror as stone creeps over it, completing their transformation. I—. I—. Drawing forth Vorzog’s blade from my own torso, I growl as Wrath bubbles up beneath my skin.
Hacking away at my temporarily unarmed opponent, with no grace, no skills, simply overpowering brute force, I growl, “This is for the Dimineros! This is for Leezahna! This is for Zelshiz!”
Continuing to clobber Vorzog with his own sword, I trip him up with my telekinesis several of the times that he attempts to dodge, repeatedly driving him into the ground as he stumbles and topples. After a bit of this battering, and his skillful recovery, I manage to get into an advantageous position with more leverage, and knock him down hard enough that he can’t scrabble away or stand. At this point, I’m literally hammering him into the ground of the courtyard with his own blade. Wrath tries to raise further, to claim me as its own, but I struggle to keep my head clear enough to remain myself. I’m forced to call out my titles to activate my Honoris Causa, in the hopes that my Latent will draw Wrath back inwards, to the core of my void-self.
Shouting in a horrendous growl, I reiterate once more, “I am Reggie Shellcracker! I’m a Hero of the Onyx Dawn! I’m an archmage Aliased Schism! And I! Am! The! Void Dragon Honoris Causa!”
Void within me, grant me this boon, draw Wrath into your ceaseless Schism. Please. While we’ve got this manifested though, there’s two things to do. Rip, and tear. Flinging Vorzog’s weapon high and away, far into the interior of his keep, I hear it shattering stone as it makes its way into the upper levels. Pounding, ripping, and tearing at Vorzog beneath me, with my limbs, and those of my manifested Void Dragon form, I also continually disorient him with both my voidbreath, and my lightning breath.
It takes me some time to realize I’ve separated the helm from the rest of Vorzog’s armor, and that I’m pulverizing it, along with Vorzog’s head, freed from his shoulders, cradled within it. Sinking to my knees, I glance down at my ashen, bloody, finned, clawed hands. The fight drains out of me as I glance back towards the statue of Zelshiz. My limbs slump wearily to my sides.
Wait, wait, I have dispellation, right? Is, is it an enchantment that’s on Zelshiz? Glp. No. There’s no lingering enchanted aura on Zelshiz. It was an instant transmutative effect that transformed them into a statue. There’s nothing to dispel. The only thing I know of that could cure this are concoctions made from materials harvested from basilisks and cockatrices. I don’t even know if those exist on Rayileklia. Gulping back a sob, I’m sick of losing earnest people. Keeley Johnston might be dead already, since she was on borrowed time. Tiktik could be dying, because of the cursed wounds that she—. Wait. Tiktik. She gave me a list of her spells. I, I’ve held onto it like a memento, but, but it might actually—.
As I dig out the parchment with Tiktik’s list of assets and spells, I’m shaking with trepidation. Trying to maintain awareness of my limitations, I drop my landshark transformation. I also have to let loose the chimaeric lycanthrope transformation, slowly dropping from the lycanthrope RS2, down towards regular RS2. I nearly choke as I read Tiktik’s assets list and come across the words: “Fifth Rung: Moderate Cureall. Like the lesser one, but works on more things, even a few magical ailments, like negative transmutations. Being turned to stone, etcetera.”
I sob aloud. I need to protect that statue. A spell exists that can cure Zelshiz. Crap, are the clouds getting heavier again? They’re drooping, and I think a large pool of concentrated acid is going to fall from them, because Adkre messed with the enchantment in this region. I can even see a twister begin to start to spiral downwards. No no no no! I’ve—, I did a thing. Where is it—. What was it? I learned—. I learned—. I learned a spell to control water. Out of fear of drowning, out of fear of losing my family and friends to floods and drowning. Clouds are water vapor, right? Acid still has to have H2O somewhere in its chemical makeup, right? If I move water, an aqueous solution, away from the rest of the chemical bonds that make up the acid, I’m left with what? A crystalline mineral structure in a lot of cases.
Gulping, I throw caution to the wind and levitate myself into the path of the heavily drooping, bulging cloud above me, with the twister forming only a dozen meters away. Focus, focus, how many runes was it? We’re only in the mid to high four hundreds, we should be able to afford it either way. Oh, good, it’s only a thirty-three rune spell, and it’s elemental, so we can get it down to thirty SP, before the quickening cost drives it up to forty-five SP. Alright Reggie, it’s time to pretend you’re a rainmaker. It’s time to pretend you’re a superhero, as you fly around here, stopping the acid rain, making regular rain.
It looks like everyone below is stunned. Yeah, they’re stunned, as I work against the calamity of the Worldstorm to save them. Focus Reggie. The water control spell assumes basic water, you would need knowledge of atomic and chemical bonds to find the water within the molecules of acid. Thankfully, you have a sense that grants you exactly that. Your telekinetic senses, short range though they may be, provide you things like ionic charges, atomic bonds, molecular compounds, so that you know what is, and isn’t grabbable with telekinesis.
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I quiver with anticipation, gulping back my apprehension as I slowly draw more and more water from the massive acid bubble floating above me. It’s slowly losing cohesion as a chemical molecular structure. The fluid is losing acidity, becoming pure water, while a solid is left behind. Pillowing a forming onyx crystalline structure with both the water that I’m drawing from the area, and my own telekinesis, I continue to pull pure water from the clouds and surrounding acid bubbles.
Oh FFS, you’re wonderful, thank you. FFS is carefully extracting the statue of Zelshiz, evacuating it from beneath this, since I’d have wanted that done either way. Lil, Lu, and Lucky are attending to prisoners and wounded alike, making sure they don’t act up, or betray us. I’ve almost got this done safely, almost, almost—.
The absolute audacity of these idiots. The remaining elite casters, some of whom seem to only just now be joining the battle from inside the main keep, have grouped up, and combined several massive spells at me. Thankfully, my psionic aegis circlet is back in place, so one of the spells, a terribly massive mindblast, is completely ineffective. Another is a massive swirling dragon conjured out of flame, complicating my water control with its evaporating efforts, though it does little more than annoy me as it bats me about when passing over me. Another spell though, brings the stupid magitek mecha into the air after me. The animated object is launched rapidly, far faster than it should be able to move.
There’s cries of fear when the survivors who’d thought I might be saving their lives, are now scrabbling against walls of ice, bodies of companions, and whatever else lies in their path as they try to escape. Urgh. I can’t create any more magics or conjure any more spells at the moment while I’m focusing on this. If that thing hits me though, I could black out, or at the very least lose concentration on my water controlling spell. Oh, great, now my de-transformation goes off. Oh, huh. Haha. Hahaha. I forgot about that.
As I finally fully return to RS2, I return to an RS2 form that has the Steely Body in its adamantite empowerment enchanted upon it. It also happens to have horns and a massive tail, a fact which will take some getting used to. I’ve got the durability to buy a few seconds to figure out what to do here though at least. I’m hoping that Lil and Lu have moved everyone towards the hole in the Worldstorm, so that they’re not threatened by what’s going on over here. FFS is apparently dispatching some justice amongst some of the rowdier ones that are fleeing towards the wounded, and the Triple L Squad. She’s keeping the statue of Zelshiz safe.
Oof. Stupid magitek mecha, ow. Zippity zappity this mecha and this lightning hurts like crappity! Fudgesickles, my new body, even under this defensive buff is not used to pain, or really anything. Focus, focus. Try to pick apart what’s going on around you. There’s nearly a hundred elite mages in that cluster. Many are wounded, or dead, but there’s still quite a few dozen able-bodied casters, some of them fresh to the fight. A lot of magic is centered on one that has an incredibly ensorcelled robe, and is wearing an enchanted emerald necklace set within a silver chain. Wait, what’s Lucky doing?
Lucky dug through some walls in the area where I’d loosed the balefire. It’s like he’s just a normal hound digging to bury bones. This is Lucky we’re talking about though. He’s not that simple, nor so foolish as to walk under an immediate threat, to play around. What are you doing Lucky my boy? I’m tempted to take off the circlet to find out, but I’m being targeted by dozens of elite mages, several whom seem to specialize in psionic attacks. Okay, okay, just, just focus. Keep dodging the animated magitek mecha.
Unfortunately, the lightning striking us both does nothing to deter the magitek mecha, since it’s not being piloted, and isn’t alive, and is a nearly invulnerable enchanted series of hunks of metal. Is—. Is Lucky walking sideways along the walls? My face contorts. Did he find Adkre’s body, and, well, loot it? Should I just give up on rescuing anyone else stuck in this courtyard? It’s mostly just people that want to kill me anyway, by the looks of it. Focus Reggie, if there’s even one more person who wants to be saved by you, you owe it to them to at least try. Wh—. Where is Lucky going now? He’s headed towards all of those elite mages! Lucky they’re dangerous!
Glancing about, trying to time it right, I dodge towards the cluster of elite mages, barely skirting the edge of a thrust from the animated magitek mecha. I’m drawing a massive cube of water, and a large onyx crystal along with me, as I continue separating the two. Out of nowhere, Lucky leaps towards me, and there’s a blinding flash of light. I suddenly find myself standing on solid ground in the midst of a disoriented, and radiation-burned group of elite mages, while I see Lucky playfully swimming in the cube of water that I have following me. What the devil?
No time to question it. Water cube? Douse the fire dragon. Giant crystal? I’m sick of trying to carry you with telekinesis. Just drop on top of us right here. As the crystal falls and shatters on the group of elite mages, I find the one with the most intriguing enchanted equipment fleeing by utilizing some sort of method to blink into and out of existence. It’s not teleportation, nor is it invisibility. It’s more like, like they step into that elemental parallel dimension alongside our own for a few moments, then step back into this one. The main reason I know it’s not invisibility or teleportation is that they seem to blink back into existence right where they last blinked out of it.
The crystal shattering ends up scatters the elite mages, breaking several combined concentration effects. This, in turn, also drops the magitek mecha’s frame in the midst of them. The crashing monolithic mass ends up causing even me to have to leap to the side to dodge its fall. Grumbling, I dust myself off as I rattle my head while trying to reorient myself and figure out what threats are left, and who might be willing to stop being a threat.
Of course, my Adamantite Body enchantment is flickering already. I did get struck by lightning quite a few times while up there, and battered by a bunch of wind. Plus, I wasn’t able to dodge every single thrust of the magitek mecha. Rolling my eyes, sighing, and shaking my head, I resolve to hopefully wrap this up without too many injuries to my primary body, since I’m now low on runes, out of material reagents for my best defensive spell, and simply weary from a crazy day.
Wait. What’s this idiot doing with a chalice? She’s rubbing a circle around the rim of the chalice, and whispering something. Huh, it’s filling up with a blue liquid that shimmers beneath the lightning of the Worldstorm. Since your side is losing, one last drink before the end? W—. Nope. I guess not. This is not at all what I was expecting to happen here. Jeeze. Really lady? Welp, I guess it ain’t over til the—. That’s just rude, doubly rude in this case.