Luni looks like she wants to knock me upside my head but-good. I can’t say I blame her, for the stupid stunts I’m pulling right now. Empowering an energy rune without a spelliform, changing my blood-type manually, with the aid of purifying flames, after having taken injuries from someone as powerful as Lil who’d been being piloted by Vorzog? Yeah, this is me at my most heinously reckless and stupid. Why am I fighting so hard for someone that was my enemy a few hours ago?
Sighing to myself, I know the answer, despite not admitting it. Because that’s what heroes do. I don’t consider myself one, but I still want to try to live up to the standard. Guzzling down water, I focus on speeding my body’s translation of fluids to vital fluids. I’m utilizing shapeshifting to move the water along steadily through the normal biological processes, through biology that I don’t even have! I have to chuckle at myself, as it’s still hastening the fluid translation dozens-fold in speed. I’m ridiculous. This is simply ridiculous. Bodies don’t work like this. Shapeshifting isn’t meant for this. Magic isn’t supposed to do the things I bend and break it to make it do. Screw it all, I reject the rules of all realities and substitute my own.
Heh, it’s like a dungeon master having so many homebrew house rules that the tabletop game isn’t even recognizable as its source having me around. Oh, crap, I forgot I don’t recover mana when people are in my inventory, because it drains through my inventory to suffuse them. Worse, if they’re in there too long, they’ll be supercharged on my mana.
First of all, we really don’t need to let a ton of superpowered overcharged hostile mages out, anywhere. Second of all, if I take too long, they’ll be coming out as mana time-bombs. I think that because there’s more people to spread my mana around to, that the effect will take longer to overcharge them, but I don’t want to risk it. I’ve already got parallel processing going on for separate mana pools for my extra transformation forms. I don’t want to even think about what sort of mana residue sickness I could rack up if I suddenly had hundreds of new mana pools of my five thousand plus limit, after expelling people from my inventory.
We definitely have to make for Jeegoobotstan and hope that some of the refugees are already setting up, especially Tiago. For now, I’m going to rig a transfusion with some of the alchemy equipment that I’ve got packed away. I don’t think the shop system expected me to use cork-needles and distillery tubes to become a walking IV-bag, and yet here we are. I’m not a phlebotomist, not even an amateur at it, but this patch-job will have to hold. Come on Triorgraiz, hang in there. Chuck and the two lovebirds look mortified, but I can’t exactly afford to pay them any mind at the moment.
Similarly, Shlen looks like he’s once again contemplating escape, due to my weakened state, but I just roll my eyes and use my archsorc staff to glow with mana. I don’t really have any resources to waste on showing off to keep him in line, so I’ll have to use the SP-free stuff available to me. Once I’m glowing, I summon the ghostly hand, and have it wag a finger shamefully at him. There, that cowed him at least enough to get him to stop looking around for the best way to incapacitate me while I’m vulnerable. I do allow Chuck to run to the nearest bushes to relieve himself though. None of us wants to see what happens if he can’t expel.
I’m not exactly afraid he’ll make a break for it, with his intestinal issues. Even if he does, he seems like one of the lesser evils to possibly loose upon the lands. I can’t imagine him doing more than stealing a few cows or yaks or something to make some cheese, and some chickens for eggs or meat, and maybe a bit of gold or some other coinage. He’s not exactly the most imposing-looking Draconiac, so I doubt he’d try to use fear to terrorize a region and get it under thumb. He might be incredibly powerful, based on the average power of the people from Vorzog’s Keep, but it doesn’t feel like he’s the type to murder his way towards food and wealth. He was being bullied for crap’s sakes. Oh, oh that bully and toadie are totally dead. I hope Chuck didn’t think of them as friends.
Is Chuck the type of guy to feel like you’re a friend to him, even if you’re blackmailing him and playing horrible, awful pranks on him? He might be, but I have no data points to guess that. Anyway, I need to focus, and attempt to heal up from providing my blood to someone else, when I’m already injured myself.
Ugh, crap, I can’t really regenerate with my mana locked up in all these people inside of me. We’re going to have to let them out in Jeegoobotstan, but I won’t even be able to produce the mana required to engage the Backpotter form. Fricklefrack! How the hell can I—? Hm, I was able to cross the streams a bit earlier, and I do have other parallel mana pools set up. If I borrow from one of them, and pay an up-front cost, with an unfortunately long downtime, can I re-engage the Backpotter form? Hm—. It’s worth a shot, but I can’t test it til we get there.
Announcing my intentions to my party, as I bleed away to help keep Triorgraiz alive, I comment, “Guys, I think we need to make a pit-stop in Jeegoobotstan. If we’re lucky, I can introduce you to some of my friends from Aasimovia, and even a Fae from the Hidden Heart that I really love. We really, really, really need to get lucky, because I didn’t realize how screwed our prisoners are with my current mana d—.”
No sense announcing to Shlen, Chuck, and the two lovebirds that it’s actually *me* that’s relatively screwed. Rethinking what to add, I continue, “Anyway, are you okay with that Lil? I need to get a message back to Kinzul for her to— crap.”
Fudge, can’t really let on to the secrets of the Worldstorm either. This is incredibly inconvenient. Plus, if we open a permanent hole over Jeegoobotstan, dragons from Terrorzin’s faction could fly from their aeries above the Worldstorm, and land there. It’d be easy for them to wipe out the refugees we worked so hard to save. Triorgraiz seems to be stabilizing slightly, but shows no signs of improvement. At least her condition is no longer worsening by the moment. Huff, that’s going to have to be good enough. Time to get Chuck back in here and close up the portable hole, so I can talk to Lu and Lil in private.
Frowning as I share my plans, needs, and requests, Lil grumps, “Of course we’ll do the thing pal. It’d be mega bad, mega mega mega bad if you explode, or can’t heal, or regen, or whatever. I don’t really care about your prisoners blowing up, bleeding out, or dying, because I’m not that kind of hero like you. Terrorzin’s cronies can all go suck an egg—, wait, no, they can all go eat dirt. But, but Rej, I can’t stand the thought of you dying again pal, we almost lost you. I felt our connection, and it really hurt me to my core. I mean, like, my feelings. It hurt bad, mega bad, mega mega mega bad.”
Hugging and comforting Lil as best I can, I coo to him, apologizing for dying again. I lucked out, but there’s only so many ways and so many times my luck can hold out. Even if I’m like a cat, and have nine lives, how many times have I come back from a death or near death by now? Probably thousands times that, likely at least over nine thousand times. Lucky nudges Lu into me, and I just now realized that he’s still got the Draconiac woman in his mouth, that he’s been carrying around like a stick, or chew-toy. Facepalming, I turn to Lu, and she shrugs helplessly as she tries not to giggle. I guess Lil’s going to have another passenger. We can’t just abandon her here. I don’t think Lucky’s going to give her up, honestly.
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Calling up to our dazed, unwitting guest, I ask, “So, I apologize for not asking earlier, or, helping you out of my son’s mouth, but do you have a name we could call you by?”
That was stupid Reggie, of course she’s probably got a name, this isn’t Can’Z’aas. The Draconiac woman chuckles nervously as she gently pats Lucky’s snout from between his teeth, taking care not to anger the giant draconic hound who has her trapped in his jaws. She offers up, “I’m Kelsinzecktrix. Most call me Kelsie, my friends call me Trixxie.”
Oh, oh wow, those are adorable nicknames for her. Rattling my skull privately to myself, I respond, “Pleased to meet you Trixxie. Um, I truly, truly hope you accept my mercy and offer your surrender, because Lucky there—.”
Rapidly interrupting me, with her palms placatingly forward, waving wildly, Trixxie answers, “Yes! Yes, definitely. No qualms. I, I surrender. Glp. I am at your mercy. Please don’t eat me.”
Snorting back a laugh, choking on it for my troubles, I try to maintain composure. I was going to say because Lucky there seems rather fond of her. He’s being exceedingly gentle, despite essentially having her trapped between viciously razor-sharp fangs. Lucky finally drops Trixxie, and bowls her over with his absolutely enormous tongue as he laps at her. Trixxie appears a bit freaked out, worried that Lucky’s getting a taste before eating her, so she stands ramrod straight, stiff as a board, and incredibly still, after resuming standing.
Unable to help myself, I smile and shake my head while rolling my eyes at Lucky. Laughing, I offer up, “This is going to sound unusual, but welcome to the family Trixxie. You’ve got nothing to fear. We’ll get you set up at our home, because Lucky seems to like you. I hope you learn to enjoy his company and get along with him. He’s my son, and very precious to me, and all of us in our family. For now, we’re visiting some refugees before returning home. You’re our prisoner, but that means you’re safe. I’ll fight the forces of hell themselves to protect those under my care. Capisce? Am I clear?”
Nervously smiling, Trixxie answers, “As crystal,” before offering me a tentative handshake with her hand visibly quivering.
I probably shouldn’t waste any more S P today, since I’m so close to six hundred, but Trixxie looks miserable covered in Lucky saliva. As I’m about to cast a spell, Lu beats me to the punch and taps Trixxie with the soapstone, and offers her a polite smile, and even a kiss on the cheek. Luni trundles away back towards Lil, as Lucky begins to shrink, engaging more or less his spheriform stage, leaving Trixxie bewildered.
Raising a brow towards Luni, she shrugs at my curiosity. I guess she just wants to make sure Lucky’s new favorite friend is feeling welcomed, and safe. Waving towards Lil, Lu helps Trixxie aboard, as Lil begins to grow, before Lucky leaps into Lu’s arms, and I levitate the two of us up the rest of the way. We still haven’t figured out exactly how we’re going to do the things necessary to even get to Jeegoobotstan, let alone to save our prisoners, especially Triorgraiz. I whisper the directional heading, and distance, to Lil, from my strangely atlas-like memory of Rayileklia that has been developing over time. Sighing, I cast a last glance about at Vorzog’s keep, much of it in ruins, from what was actually an incredibly short engagement.
Gods, I can just picture it now, having to do an after action report about this. It’d begin, “It all started with an outhouse, a lot of gas, and a little fire—.” Snirk. Rolling my eyes, I can’t believe how cliche, silly, and stupid some of the events of today were. Others though, others nearly got me. My panic got me killed for once, literally. I absolutely, fully died, possibly for the first time in my— life. Sighing and hanging my head in shame, I shake my head and roll my eyes at myself and my mental monologue.
Laughing to myself, I correct myself to indicate that I mean, as much as I consider myself having died to the lightning blast from Lluxop and Rastoc, that a red potion doesn’t return someone to life, it just regenerates tissue. So, basically, I couldn’t have actually died there in this timeline from anything other than the tomes. Still, I’m surprised, and grateful, that actually dying, didn’t harm Lil the way that nearly dying did back there. Maybe the death from the tomes on Can’Z’aas changed things.
I also nearly died of my mana residue sickness when I got to Mount Solace, and Lil seemed fine, other than a twinge of pain in his chest. I’ve got no idea how Lil felt when I was blown to smithereens in The Gap, when Dippy saved me from the stone elementals. I guess our bond could just be different on Rayileklia, or maybe I’m different since I absorbed my first dragonforce from Kozzurth. Honestly, that’s probably it.
Hell, for all I know, Lil’s dragonforce was what was keeping me alive against my mana residue sickness on Can’Z’aas, then obtaining one of my own on Rayileklia severed a part of the reliance on that bond. I—. Oh, yeah, probably. I didn’t start getting really weary and weak on Rayileklia until Lil had been gone for a while, hell, I didn’t start getting my mana laceration stuff on Can’Z’aas until Lil and I had been apart for quite a while. Then when we got to Rayileklia, in such a short time, I got my hands on a new dragonforce. I was likely assimilating Kozzurth’s dragonforce slowly, to build that aegis around my inner self, against the strangling mana residue.
I suppose that’s also part of how I lasted so long, on Kozzurth’s semi-weakened dragonforce. Unlike the dragonforces I’m siphoning these days, Kozzurth’s I only got a chunk of, sort of claiming it as my own. It became tied to me, and was slowly siphoned to me, over the next few weeks, before I obtained all of her dragonforce. Similarly to how dragonforce can be tied to people, their titling, or enchantments or effects, and recalling it can take weeks to months, from anywhere on the planet.
That— explains a lot. Oh crap. Kozzurth had infused her blood with dragonforce to provide the benefits to the Plains Colossi. No wonder they’re dying while rationing and running out of her blood. Hellspit and Fel Fires. They might have been dying *in place of me.* The dragonforce reclamation going on that probably happened quicker as I needed more to prolong my life, or to recover from injuries, likely ended up screwing them over. Crap! That’s also probably why Kozzurth seemed to have such a weaker dragonforce, and that it was so quickly absorbed into me. Firstly I’d been a complete void at that time, empty and needing to be filled, secondly, her dragonforce was already spread out, in a way sort of similarly to Kinzul’s.
Facepalming, I realize how obvious it should have been, once I met Kinzul and started understanding more about her secrets. I might not have the logistics of it exactly right, but I’m closer to understanding what has actually happened to me since my rebirth on Rayileklia. The reasons I was passing out a lot, and why that seemed to stop after a few weeks as I likely absorbed more of the dragonforce from Kozzurth, reclaiming it from halfway across the continent.
It would definitely explain the reasons I was able to recover from terrible injuries, despite being denied access to so much of our power from Can’Z’aas. It’d explain the reasons that my estimates on how long I had to live kept wiggling around, because I was still absorbing more of Kozzurth’s leftover dragonforce as it made its way to me, over a couple of months. Just like how someone, Nala I think, told me reabsorbing dragonforce from revoking the titling of someone occurs over months. Oh, that might also explain how I was seemingly topped off almost out of nowhere, after the ShizTinth raid. I could still technically be drawing in tiny fragments of Kozzurth’s, Yisstendahl’s, or anyone else’s dragonforce, if they were tied up in other things, like titling. I wonder what’d happen if Lil titled someone, actually. Wait. Did Lil title me by naming me Reggie!?
Huh. Thinking about Lil’s dragonforce, and my bond with him, there’s a lot to unpack. Dehlia did say she was pretty sure Lil would die if I got seriously injured, near death, or killed again while bound to Lil in the same way. My bond with Lil is partially broken due to my having, and needing my own dragonforce? Did—? Did that have something to do with our emotional states on Rayileklia?
It could explain part of why, on a subconscious level, I was so driven to reunite with Lil and patch things up with Lil. It would also go a bit towards explaining Lil’s reaction upon our reunion, where he wasn’t really understanding me, or being as compassionate, or even feeling me die through our connection.
While I’m lost in reverie, Luni takes my goggles and passes notes back to the security center, and seemingly checks in on Te and the other group. She doesn’t look horrified or anything, so I assume the news is at least neutral, if not good. Similarly, I assume she’d look stricken if Kagired, or anyone else from home, had perished since I last checked in with Mount Solace.