The bird-man casts a spell on me, which leaves me floating in the air. I think perhaps he’s allowed me to fly, or levitate, but my brain still isn’t working out how to activate or use things other than my most basic muscles, and even those it’s struggling with. Lucky, and his triple-paladin squad, take turns casting magic at Vorzog-Lil, and eventually, he’s pinned down by enough magic, that the birdmen feel safe approaching him, apparently.

Laying hands upon Vorzog-Lil, I see one of the paladins glow, and shake his head, seemingly unable to accomplish whatever he’d tried. The three bird-men step back, and begin layering more spellwork upon Vorzog-Lil. Runic circles appear floating around Vorzog-Lil, as well as on the ground around him. The three once more approach Vorzog-Lil, and a second attempt is made, by a different bird-man who glows. Once more, that paladin shakes his head, and panic takes root deep within my heart. If, if Lucky’s plan, if Lu’s plan, if, if they can’t—.

Trust Lu, trust Lu, trust Lu. Please. Please work. Sniffling, I fight my fears, and take aim at Lil, from my position above him, about the only place I’d be able to hold my arm up enough to aim at him. I watch, nearly in despair as the three eagle paladins work spellwork once more, at a distance from Vorzog-Lil. It seems the first two have used up whatever abilities that allowed them to channel their previous attempts. My breath catches in my throat as I am certain that this is the last attempt to break Lil free.

Clenching every muscle in my body as thoroughly as I can muster, I begin to squeeze my eyes shut tightly in fear as I watch the final birdman lay hands upon Lil, and begin to glow. My eyelids vibrate and quiver under the strain of attempting to shield my eyes from the sight I fear will come to pass. I can’t close out the vision entirely, because I can’t clench my eyelids thoroughly. There’s startled squawking, and an immediate effort to shove Lil heavily to one side by Lucky, and all three birdmen. The birdmen are moments away from disappearing, as is all the magic they’ve put in place, but—. Lil is free! Inside the circle is, hurk, hoopf. It’s the undead essence of Vorzog, trapped in the circle. Now, now now now! Fire fire fire fire!

Squeezing off as many shots as I can into the pinkish, purplish smoky spiritual aura that makes up Vorzog’s current form, I’m unrelenting as more and more of my strength returns. Perhaps a tad uncharacteristically, I scream, “Die you bastard! Die and stay dead!”

Dropping next to the circles that are flickering out, I continue firing into the mist. The holy halefire crossbow bolts tear holes through the mist, disintegrating large portions of it, over and over. I keep firing off shots until my limbs quiver once again under the strain of standing. I accept the aid of FFS in order to make certain we’ve burned away every last spec of Vorzog’s essence. Before any reunions can happen, before anyone can make any plans, I take off like a rocket, headed for the eleventh floor of Vorzog’s Keep. Reclaiming my fallen equipment, I struggle to contain my fury, and fail quite spectacularly.

Growling out something that is probably pretty stupid of me, I work one more offensive spell for the day as my guttural utterance is loosed, “GSE Antimatter Burst!”

Reggie. Mhm? You’re a psychotic idiot. Mhm. You’re lucky that you know that spell is an illusion made up of voidstuff. I know. It’ll probably never work around living targets anyway. They have to have some concept of what element is damaging them, to be susceptible to it. Anyway, I’m now standing, floating on a TK square in something like a forty-meter-radius sphere of absolute nothingness. Air rushes in to fill the sudden void in space. All matter was instantly annihilated, but it couldn’t create the usual, actual byproducts such a reaction would normally incur. That was recklessly stupid Reggie. I know. Hey, at least it got rid of the gong, the phylactery, right? Heh.

Oh, or it could have just been an illusion that it worked. That was a rather convincing illusion. Fricklefrack. I’m the only sapient lifeform that noticed the area of effect, and I knew it was illusory stuff, so it was just an illusion. Or maybe it just can’t replicate something as powerful as antimatter. The matter appears perfectly fine, and I’m once more standing in the gong-room. I guess that was too convenient. I’d have been able to dispose of things like extra copies of Gae Buidhe safely. Hell, I could probably take down ancients more reliably than with balefire if antimatter had worked. Fudgeknuckles.

What the hell do I do to end this phylactery? What if you rockwalk, or stone-meld, and leave it under a billion tons of mountain? Hm, would that break it over time, or just hide it? If it’s hidden deep in rock, is his spirit ethereal enough that he can just float out, and possess someone new, with his phylactery technically protected til the end of time? Grr, come on Reggie, just summon up all your strength, and give it another go at destroying this piece of crap. Make sure your psi-blocking is in place. I’m sure all I need to do is crack it at least a fair way through to end its enchantment.

Wait. They had firearms. Firearms require ammunition. There’s probably either an ammo store, or gunpowder storage somewhere that we missed in one of the exterior buildings. Heheh. It’s probably on the far side from the flaming outhouse, and balefire that I loosed. Yeah, I didn’t check out the far side as well as I should have. Alright, another quick sweep is worthwhile regardless, so let’s do that.

Yeah, I missed this smaller side-building, it even has a little basement, a root cellar, more or less. Of course the gunpowder and ammo are all down here. Let’s make sure we grab those two awful cursed magic helms, telekinetically so we don’t actually touch them, and bury them in gunpowder too.

Okay, let’s put all these bedeviled objects into this trunk, and compress this gunpowder down around it, with a good thick layer underneath them. Alright, good, good. Now lets take some of this spare gunpowder, and compress it down into these jars, and toss a bunch of bullets in here. Now, let’s leave a trail of gunpowder to the trunk, with all the extra shrapnel in it, and surround that trunk with the other gunpowder barrels. Huff, phew. Let’s get as far the hell away from here as possible, and levitate a torch to chuck in towards the building. Thirty meters, I’ll go forty or fifty meters, and place a building or two between myself and the gunpowder shed, then chuck the torch with a TK grip from as far as it’ll reach.

Hoohoooho-holy crap. Boom goes the dynamite indeed, for at least the second time today. I’m getting some mileage out of that phrase. A series of smaller kabooms punctuates the massive overarching thundrous blast of the ignition of all the other explosive material at once. The stone building atop the gunpowder cellar is blown to pieces, and the missiles formed are deadly projectiles that rocket away from the blast site, possibly as far as miles away. I’m hoping none of that shrapnel retains any deadly force past a short distance. I’m also hoping enough of the shrapnel was packed in such a way as to destroy the gong. Let’s go check it out.

Nice, just— nice. I don’t think Vorzog will be draining anyone else, or coming back, ever again. I also just realized, that the gong had dozens of dragon’s hearts used in its construction, likely suffusing the material with raw, or well, refined dragonforce. Basically, dragonforce that can only be used for items, objects, and enchantments. It was probably powering all the wards, and definitely powering the phylactery. Huh, I wonder how old Vorzog really was, or if a Draconiac was even his original body. It could have been some human archmage that Terrorzin conscripted long, long, long ago. He might have been burning through bodies every few decades or centuries. Or a dragon archmage, or a Draconiac archmage, take your pick.

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Huh. Y’know one thing Vorzog didn’t, or maybe couldn’t drain from me? What? My species, with its ability to shapeshift. Okay, I guess. So? So, I’m still in the middle of transforming into my otter form. Hah. How would that have worked out if it had gone off in the middle of that battle while I was weak as hell? It’s not one of the forms with regeneration is it? No, at least I don’t think so. I think it’s one of the ones that has a new hitpoint pool each time it’s assumed. Sort of like how that chalice created a potion that creates a fully healthy adult blue dragon form for your consciousness to occupy.

Huh, then the inventory-otter form might have been fully healthy, undrained, and unstrained by Vorzog’s abilities. Still, I wouldn’t have wanted to try to take it into a fight against Lil, or Vorzog-Lil, or whatever. There’s got to be a better name for the form too than just otter plushie, or inventory-otter, or otter-for-my-space-skill-activation-form. Hm, games where there’s carry weight, sometimes there’s tricks with barrels, and jokes about barrelmancy. My barrelmancer form? Bluh, no. That doesn’t make sense at all. What about Backpack Otter? My BO form? Oh, bleugh, Lu would never stop laughing. Okay, what about, uh, Backpotter? Hah, that one’s kind of cute.

Huff. Ooftah, what a friggin’ day so far, am I right? Still, I’m pretty seriously injured, even though my strength and abilities are returning. Even regeneration as powerful as mine in RS2 should take a few days to recover from these hits. Ow, ow, ow. Stop complaining. I’m not, I’m just saying the broken ribs, broken jaw, bruised lungs, and punctured guts hurt is all. Heh. Anyway. Might as well get in position, and check out this mecha for a moment while we’re at it. Landing next to it, I unlock the magitek mecha’s rear hatch once more, and open it, letting it air out. As I study all the runework and auras running throughout the creation, it feels almost alive to me, almost.

What’s that FFS? Oh, sure. It was good seeing you. Thank you for helping us, and saving me, as usual. I’m so lucky to have an elemental spirit that’s willing to join me so often, to partake of ambient mana, and combat, on this side of the veil. It *might* be because I wield Frostburn, or Claíomh Solais, but I don’t exactly know for sure. Hm, I could swear I can almost feel the magitek mecha attempting to communicate with me. Maybe I’m imagining things. Anyway, it needs a name other than magitek mecha. Huh, for some reason, a name imemdiately came to me, Big-O’Keul. Weird. I guess it doesn’t sound too bad. Oh, whoopf!

Well now. This is my otter form, huh? I guess I can refer to it as my Backpotter form. This is nearly as tall as the magitek mecha, but nearly as tall isn’t tall enough, or big enough to drag it into my inventory. Good thing we’ve got a spell that can change that, hah. Hahah. Hahah. Oy vey, I’m cracking up a bit today. Anyway, I use the opposite side of the shrinking spell, to embiggen, or enlarge my Backpotter form, doubling my size in all directions, cubing my volume. Heheh.

Alrighty, standing at approximately thirty-six feet tall or so, I’m feeling pretty good about my chances of transporting things and people. I unzip my now incredibly enormous adamantite zipper, giggling slightly to myself as I stare at a void within me. This just can’t be real. Oh well, hah, anyway, Big-O’Keul, you’re insanely heavy, but how about I mostly lean over you so that, hupf, there we go. As more and more of you is in my interdimensional space, you weigh less and less on this side of it. Friggin’ weird, but hey, it works.

Checking in telepathically with my fam, it seems that they’ve caught on and are letting the prisoners and wounded know what I’m about to try. I feel a little monstrous as I begin grabbing a handful of people to shove into my belly. One handful goes in easily enough, but the second one seems to bounce off of an invisible field. Testing by swapping hands, that group of individuals still keeps me from being able to move my hand into my interdimensional space. Checking with the Callipygian, he is able to walk in on his own, so my interdimensional space is neither full, nor broken. It’s just this group of prisoners at the moment.

I check their enchantments, and no one has anything up that should screw with extradimensional travel. Consent. It requires consent. There’s a tiny possibility I might be able to get someone unconscious into my Backpotter form, if they hadn’t previously consented, but about as much chance that even if someone offers prior consent, that it won’t be able to drag unconscious people into its space.

So one of these people doesn’t consent. Fine, one at a time. Ah-hah, and now we’ve found our culprit. Just what are you planning? Voicing my concern, I state, “I can only offer security, safety, and transport for those who consent to becoming our prisoners of war, a status which confers protection, provisions, and even prosperity, for those that accept it. Everyone else, I’m going to need to make demands of, and likely slay, if they don’t agree to them.”

The Draconiac that wasn’t consenting glares at me, and I sense their bindings stretched taut over a sharp rock. Rolling my eyes, when the fool frees up their hands, and begins spellwork, I simply smash him flat. I’m a giant Backpotter with adamantite wristlets, and zipper, and a scarf of platinum-scales from The Platinum himself. What did you expect? That I was just going to sit still while you chucked a fireball at my soft fuzzy form?

Huffing, I grump, “Anyone else want to resist our request?”

There are several groans, several chuckles, and several nervous glances. For the most part, no one is brave enough to announce their intentions. I shrink Triorgraiz’s enormous mount with the archsorc staff, and he clambers into me after I show him that I’m trying to get Triorgraiz healed. As far as everyone else, I’m able to get about seventy percent of the wounded or defeated or seemingly surrendered into my interdimensional space. The other thirty percent are those that bounce off, not consenting.

When Lil, in a bloodthirsty tone, asks, “Does that mean I can kill ‘em Rej?” I just nod, not having the energy to deal with this nonsense right now.

Normally, I’d try to plead my case to these people. I could even understand hesitancy to follow a command when staring down the barrel of a literal void that all your friends are being tossed into. But I’ve given them chance after chance after chance already today, and their leader nearly took my best friend from me. I don’t have many clucks left to give, much less any more mercy.

Plus, I’ve got Zelshiz’s statue, or, body I guess, inside me, and I want to get it to Tiktik somehow, as soon as possible. I know that she knows a spell that can reverse petrification transmutations. Basically, I don’t have time to wiffle-waffle about the fate of these lunatics. I’ll regret it later, but it’s war, and they chose their side by not surrendering. I’ll start dropping my Backpotter form when I calm down for at least a split second. I’m hoping that with the long windup time, and the short time I used it, that I’ll be able to engage it again today, to free these people.

The only aid I offer Lil and Lucky in vanquishing their now-terrified foes, is to box them in with my telekinetic grips when they try to flee. I’m not letting merciless, unremorseful jerks free to roam the countryside. Not today, not after this whole mess. Lil and Lucky don’t exactly take joy in their chore, thankfully. They act with grim determination, and a hint of vengeful justice.

Checking my phone, the strange programming attempt I made with Kinzul actually worked. The NFC chip I created biologically within the Backpotter form logged the addition of each, erm, heh, item, to my inventory. Now it can be read in a small spreadsheet since I passed my phone over that NFC chip. At least this way, I won’t accidentally forget someone inside my inventory for eons with no way to view my mental menu interface. Sighing as I return to RS2, the pain returns as I resume my heavily-injured state.

Limping towards my friends, I lean up against Lil as he leans up against Lucky. Lu sways nearby, performing a rather provocative dance as she loops music from her harp. I gulp and blush as she changes out her robes, to the new ones we’d found for her, with the swath of enchantments on them. After all that, we deserve a breather, and I can’t say I’m not enjoying watching Luni. I can’t say that at all. Rattling my skull, I dig out Whisper. Making sure my helm and circlet are in place, I contemplate doing something that’s probably pretty stupid.