A quite-valuable-seeming enchanted object, a drinking vessel specifically, is what my senses are currently locked onto. I’m not one for fancy dinnerware or anything, its gold rims don’t appeal to me, but it’s heavily ensorcelled. Yoink. There’s definitely still enchantment in that chalice, a strong conjuration effect that seems to refill over time, likely per day or week. I snag the chalice as the transforming Draconiac woman drops it. Her limbs are now too big, in ways she’s unused to, for her to be able to grip something so small and delicate.
I’m definitely tossing this artifact into an interdimensional bag space. Hopefully I can figure out how to get it to produce this potion again. This previously yellow-scaled Draconiac woman, is now an adult-edging-onto-ancient Blue. That is, she’s a dragon, and no longer a Draconiac. Gauging by the massive transmutation aura plastered across the entirety of her form, it’s a temporary shapechange, of about maybe an hour.
Still, an hour per week or day of being able to be a mighty Blue? That’s a hell of a trick. Conjuring a manifestation of a massively powerful transmutation potion. Huh. Who’da thunk? Where’d Lucky get off to? Oh, hah. Hahaha. Thanks boy. That answers my question.
Divebombing out of the cube of water that I’d still been floating around through my water controlling spell, in order to quell the fire chasing me around, Lucky lands on the lovely Blue. His teeth grip her neck as he positions himself between her shoulderblades, pressing outwards on her scapula, preventing her from taking flight. When the Blue is grounded, Lucky shreds her wings, and she roars in pain.
The Blue attempts to loose its breath weapon at me, and would very much kill its wounded or sneaking allies nearby if I don’t react quickly. Pulling out the good old QCR number four, I draw all of the electricity from her breath to me, while pushing outward with my internal electrokinesis. Ow, ow, ow. Still tender, still sore. All of my organs and muscles are new, as this body was freshly made for me, while my previous body was disintegrated. I *have* to do this though, I have to endure it.
Maintaining the spin of my temporary electromagnetic shield, counter to the direction of the spin of the forming twister, I leap and fly up towards the twister while wearing the Wyverium chestplate and holding my breath. This, like many things today, is probably going to hurt. Hurling myself into the eye of the nearly-formed tornado, I feel myself whipped and whirled about.
I’m left sickeningly dizzied, and I’d be horfing if I could even tell which direction my stomach was in from my mouth. Focus Reggie, you have a power for exactly this. It roots you in position, no matter where you are. There, now that you’re oriented, centered, and locked in place, focus on all this electrical energy amidst this wind. Create a high-pressure backdraft, spinning in the opposite direction of this low-pressure system attempting to touch down. Keep at it. Keep at it.
There! Huff, huff, okay, quick, stop before you just form a twister going the opposite way that sucks up everything on the ground. Lose the four from the QCR, swapping to number five as usual. Shunt this massive shielding charge back upwards into the worldstorm, in a cone, pushing and evaporating as much as I can, to undo some of the damage Adkre had done with the weather controlling spell. Phew. Huff. Huff. Wow that’s exhausting.
I drop out of the sky, dropping control of my water controlling spell. My weariness ends up letting many, many thousands of gallons of ultra-pure water splash down heavily upon anyone left in the courtyard. I’m pretty sure the water’s likely knocking out anyone still trying to put up a fight. Holding my breath, I float down the last few feet, and I’m perplexed. Where’d the Blue go that Lucky was fighting? Wait. He’s got a yellow-scaled Draconiac in his jaws. Huh. She looks dazed, and a little bloody, but nowhere near as badly as her dragon form would have been over the bit of time Lucky had available in order to tear into her.
That means that the potion’s enchantment is a sort of polymorphing that provides its own body overlapping and taking place of that of the drinker. Similar to how some of my forms have their own hitpoint pools. If I get knocked out of them, RS2 still has whatever health and buffs RS2 had when going into them. Huh, nifty. I kind of want to give this chalice to Pawn. If she ever gets into any trouble she can’t handle with the suite of available abilities she’d gotten from our orb-time saving Prinrin, then suddenly becoming a fully fledged, fully-breath-charged dragon ought to help out.
This, huh. This was a lot more chaotic, and wild, than I was expecting, but somehow we’re also better off than I expected. If we hadn’t incited essentially a civil war, this would have gone down a much different way. Hm, FFS needs more SP from the staff to stick around. It’s probably best to pay the cost for now, since we’re not entirely certain if we’re done, or if there are any surprises awaiting us in the keep itself.
Also, to prevent the stupid magitek mecha from being used against me again, I’m transforming into my otter form, and I’m going to shunt the thing off into my inventory. Grumble grumble. Jerks realizing they can’t pilot it, so swinging it about like a telekinetic club. Grumble grumble. Grr. Morons. Okay, to be fair, I’d probably have done the same thing if I could provide that much animating force, or telekinetic lift.
This might be a bit rude, but I’m stripping all of these mages that are hopping and crawling around. I do not need to be blindsided by some artifact that rewinds the battle in their favor, or swaps their damaged and dead for our healthy states, or does any other number of crazy things. Plus, I can bind their hands with their clothes, so they can’t produce their mnemonics or craft runes, unless they’re capable of subtle-spell metamagical enhancement. The fewer of these jerks that can cast, or reach any sort of unseen items, the better.
Hm, there’s that scepter Adkre was using against me. Zelshiz must have dropped it before becoming petrified. Yoinking that. Definitely don’t feel like having it used against me again, when all of my defenses are down. That thing could cave in my ribs, skull, eardrums, just about everything. My lycanthrope form took such a hellacious pounding, and every time I started to recover from something, I got hit with something else, up to and including getting my right lung run through yet again. I can tell you, my armpit gils did not like the feeling of my blood and various humors spilling out of them.
Crap on a cracker, we’ve got two raven-ports left, a few SP, and, like, nothing else. There are a few runic clip things still available, but we need to take the bangle off and let it sort out its overloaded runic circuits. Ugh, scan the courtyard, is there anyone left that isn’t bound and gagged? Holy halefire double-barreled wrist-mounted crossbow, and fire.
Yeah, I heard you you invisible idiot. There’s so much water, you’re sploshing with every step. Don’t worry, they’re just kneecaps. I’m sure you’re fine. Oh, hey, look, it’s that goof that was trying to get away while blinking between realities. Annnd down you go. They’ve got that silver neckchain and enchanted set of robes. It looks like they were recovering from Lucky slamming into them several times.
I’ve been at this, tying these fools up by hand and telekinetically, for thirty minutes! Alright, *now* do I have everyone stripped, bound, and gagged out here? Seems like it, and I’ve a pile of enchanted trinkets too. Huh. What’s our plan with prisoners, or even just, more survivors accepting mercy than just a couple? Can—, can my inventory take in people? Gnawing on my lip, I fret about the implications, worried what Lil will think if I bring it up as a suggestion. Doffing my circlet, I try to hide my recent thought, so I can just get a gauge as to how everyone’s feeling.
Lucky is trotting around with the yellow Draconiac woman in his mouth like she’s his new favorite stick, or other chew toy. Oof. At least she’s alive, for now, I guess. Not that she necessarily accepted mercy. The Callipygian is being somewhat amicable, which I did not expect at all. I also didn’t expect him to be a man. I guess anybody can have a big butt. That’s my bad for assuming. Let’s see, where are the other minds that I’m looking for. Seriously, where the hell are Lil and Lu?
Starting to panic, I jab the goggles onto my face, and quickly scribble a sign to re-center my scrying sensor for the security center. It won’t do any good, since I didn’t give more than one set of goggles to a single group right now. Did I give one to Lu for the Triple L Squad? I can’t remember while I’m this panicked. Diving into my thinkspace, terrified that I’ve lost them somehow, I find Lu and Lil cuddled up, lazing happily against the tree atop our hill.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Shouting as I rush towards them, I call out, “You butts! I was so worried! I took off the circlet and couldn’t find your minds!”
Blinking slowly, Lil yawns and offers, “Sorry Rej. Was just kind of bored pal, mega mega mega bored since your brain was offline with that psychic blocker thingy. You didn’t want us to keep fighting, so it’s mostly just been sitting around chatting with weirdos that actually like Terrorzin. There’s only so many sayings like, ‘hail to the Ice of Rage,’ I can take before my brain just shuts off, y’know?”
Sighing, I glance towards Luni, who nods confirmation, affirming she feels more or less the same. I can’t exactly blame them for that. I admit, I probably overreacted. Still, I’d have felt better if they had been able to hear and respond to my mental monologue right away when I took off the circlet. I suppose that’s a bit full of myself to expect them to be listening out for when my brain goes from off to on.
Despite me starting to get a bit down on myself, Luni rebutts, “No sweetie, we could have been, and should have been. Today just did not go at all like how it was planned. It’s still not even close to noon. What sort of magic and plans are you working on right now? What’s next?”
Blushing as Luni presses her telepathic avatar’s curves tightly up against my avatar, I try to remember what my plans were. Oh, right, I answer, “I’m going to, um, see if maybe—. I’m starting another transformation, one I was going to go into earlier, but didn’t. It—. We still need to check out the keep, see if there are any subterranean levels, or anything that survived that’s hostile in the levels that got hit when the Worldstorm descended. Y’think Lil’s up for exploring a spooky, acid-soaked keep?”
Perking up, Lil quips, “Am I!?”
The two of us can’t help grinning at Lil’s jubilant nature. Luni and I hug tightly via our telepathic avatars as I continue rounding up fallen or surrendered foes. Lucky trots into my mindscape while I’m busying myself with this, and has his telepathic avatar depicted as if it were equipped with his magic scarf. Lucky fishes about in his scarf, with the magical hands of the frayed ends, and presents several strings to Luni’s avatar. Oh. Oh wow. I catch up to the pair in meatspace.
Sure enough, Lucky definitely found and looted Adkre. Lucky’s wearing the boot-coverings that produce the weird neon blue, and allow him to hover. Lucky’s handing over a bunch of heavily enchanted harp strings to Luni. My son is also wearing something I think I spied under Adkre’s armor, though it was hard to tell with that weird, shifting, aberrant nature to their scales. It’s a golden disk on a fine gold chain. The golden disk is surrounded by its own circular platter of emerald, and that itself is yet surrounded by a halo of gold. It seems to be enchanted with a shallow pool of SP that recharges daily, and has some movement effects. Examining its aura, and runework, I find very familiar runes, some of which are on my own—. I drop to my knees and wrap my arms around Lucky.
Sobbing, I’m so glad he found that disk. Tears stream forth unbidden, but I can’t help it. The bearer of that disk, and everyone they deem friendly within thirty feet, can breathe water, and swim through any strength of current, as if it were still water. I sob and weep openly. More and more of these items are surfacing that could have saved our family, that could have saved so many people on Can’Z’aas. Lucky is supposed to be Lao’s hunter hound. He needs to always wear that disk, never take it off, and be reunited with her. He needs to never leave her side, ever again. I continue kissing Lucky’s snout and the bridge of his nose while crying and hugging his neck.
It’s not like Luni is silent either as she hears my mental monologue. She gasped, and then hiccuped as she held back a sob. Now she’s weeping silently next to me as she rests a hand on my shoulder. Still, trying to take her mind off of the same sadness that I want to escape right now, I offer several things to Luni.
Gulping back my sadness, blinking back tears, I turn to Lu while fishing out certain magical items I’d found. I hand over the silver chain that’s set with the emerald, and the incredibly gorgeous, heavily ensorcelled robes that I found. My Anchor flashes me a loving smile and half shakes her head with faux exasperation. She still accepts the magical equipment, but is rolling her eyes playfully at me for trying to distract her with gifts.
Sighing, I know of at least three other fairly powerful magic items that were used against me, two of which I want to make sure get destroyed. The hellfire skeleton helmet, and the psionic aberrant dragon helmet both need to be destroyed. They’re incredibly obviously cursed. The second one fractured Adkre’s personality, making them argue with themselves in a manner that even I could sense was more than just coping mechanisms. The hellfire skeleton helmet seemed to be corrupting Vorzog the more he used it, seemingly making him desire nothing more than to use it more and more. I think honestly that it’s one of the only reasons that I beat him. By the end of the fight, it’s like he was an addict with his gaze darting around searching for a fix. He was too distracted to focus on defending himself from my final assault since his gaze couldn’t find any wounded allies to toss, due to FFS’s ice walls.
The odd, floating, orbital-laser-firing gemstone that Adkre had been using is somewhere near the area that I destroyed with balefire. I don’t really care whether it gets found or not, either by us, or by our foes. It’s a tiny advantage for whomever has it, but meh. This cape, and this chalice though. Even just once per day, their abilities are incredible. I really don’t want to be run-through by someone turning into lightning again, so I don’t want this lightning-gryphon cape to fall into enemy hands. I want to give this chalice to Pawn, and have her use it to create the specific potion that transforms its imbiber into a dragon whenever she’s in need.
Oh, this scepter. It’s unlimited thunder, or sonic damage. This goes to Lu too. I almost want to giggle at the idea of her with it, since she also has sonic-enhancing equipment and abilities. Luni getting equipment that falls under her specialty is almost perfect in a sense. She’s the mistress of waves, soundwaves mostly. Lu snorts at my brain calling her a mistress of anything, due to the implications of the word. I glare at her suspiciously, but she quickly avoids my gaze and pretends to whistle. Sure Lu, real smooth. Anyway, it’s still neat to find things that we might be able to swap the binding over to the Shellcracker soul relatively quickly, now that I’m learning more about magic items. Well, things with dead prior owners thankfully don’t have any special requirements, a new user simply attunes the item to their will.
Then there’s the perfect bonus of Lucky having new armor that makes him, and those near him, immune to frightening mental effects. It couples well with him also now having an aura, or radius of area in which he provides the ability to breathe water, and swim effortlessly. I think there’s a pennant, a weird banner thing, back at Solace, that Lucky might be able to use, with his scarf. It lets those near the wielder see invisible creatures or something like that. I’ll have to figure it out later. Thankfully Lucky apparently dragged Triorgraiz’s mount out here with the rest of the wounded, or maybe Lil did.
Anyway, Lucky, Lu, and FFS can handle it out here. Let’s help Lil check out the keep. I rush towards the keep in order to catch up with Lil. Ugh, poor Lil. It looks like he’s caught in some sort of psionic emblem trap. The thing literally has its claws in his brain. Fudge, do I have enough S P to dispel it? Hm, I can just destroy the glyph. Heading back towards the entrance, I pick up a long-poled warhammer dropped by one of the many Draconiacs. Now suitably equipped for smashing, I return to free Lil from the magical trap. Shattering the glyphed tile with the offending enchantment thankfully frees my best buddy, so I flash him a smile, and motion to his invisible goggles.
Even if Lil can’t see auras as well as he could on Can’Z’aas, he’s got amazing observational skills, and his powerful analysis skill. He should be able to see the runes themselves, even if they’re microscopically carved, with those goggles of his. They magnify vision up to like a hundred times or something ridiculous. Since I don’t want to accidentally get caught permanently in a psionic trap, I re-equip my psychic-aegis-enchanted circlet, sadly cutting myself off from my beloved telepathic bonds once more.
Lil and I continue exploring, room by room, one or the other of us pointing out dangerous glyphs that I shatter from a distance with the warhammer. I don’t even need to be personally wielding the hammer, since I just float it telekinetically in range for a strike from a dozen meters away or so. There is a *lot* of ruined magical reagents in here, which sucks a bit. There’s gem-binding paste, gem dust, powdered bone of dragon and other powerful magical creatures, various herbs, minerals, organs from supernatural foes, ectoplasm, and all sorts of things, and it’s all ruined by having been washed through by acid. If I felt like taking a few days, I could maybe salvage a fair amount of it, but I’m neither that patient, nor free for that much time to spend on such triviality.
Okay Reggie, think for a moment. What are the odds that something survived in here? These floors are looking more and more damaged, as we get to the level where the Worldstorm touched down upon. Anything still up here would have had to have been incredibly durable. Something like, oh, that incredibly cursed-looking gong with a demon-face upon it. Nope. Nope nope nope.
As Lil heads towards it, I hiss, “Lil, get the hell away from that. Can’t you—. F@(k.”