Before She Who Burns can even deign to comment on my infuriating, yet confusing statement, Lil blurts out, “Awe Rej I think that’s a little fast. I mean, she’s a hottie, but like, I hardly even know her. I mean, give a pal at least a couple dates or somethin’. Like, sure, we aren’t humans or whatever, but I really wasn’t expecting to bring a new girlfriend back home to momma out of nowhere today, let alone wife. I mean, we were fighting Terrorzin’s peeps today, I didn’t want to bring anyone back, y’know? I mean, except you guys, safe and sound, because we’re the inner circle.”
Turning his attention back towards She Who Burns, Lil continues, “Sorry about my, um, parent in-law miss Burns. Rej married momma like, I dunno, just yesterday or somethin’, so it’s taking some getting used-to. Like seriously, we’ve been pals for most of my life, and all of theirs, and then I go find a momma, and then Rej goes and marries her! I guess Rej has all those titles, and keeps doing things momma likes, and like, it’s nice to see her happy, I think Rej likes making everyone happy. Well, happy or dead. If you’re nice, Rej wants you happy, and will make the whole world better to make that happen if they have to. If you’re mean, and hurting people, Rej makes you dead. Like, there’s no inbetweens, and no one really escapes. I think. Huh. Has anyone ever gotten away that you didn’t want to let get away Rej?”
Snorting with laughter, trying to compose myself, I respond, “No Lil, my best buddy, son-in-law, *no one,* has escaped both me and my Wrath. One perhaps, but not the other. Not even Kozzurth, Yisstendahl, Olashax, Vanathar, Tinth, Mydraig, Deviltail of the Evil Claws, Vorzog, Adkre, or anyone else that I can think of. Everyone who subjugates someone else, terrorizes people, harms, threatens, or kills to sate their own greed or lust for power. Every one I’ve ever met,” I pause for effect before finishing, “Is dead.”
She Who Burns *nearly* explodes with fury. The fear creeping up in her nearly catches up with the wariness that skyrockets however. Pondering something, I call out, “Hey Lu, I know you said you buried them, but you’ve always had foresight. Did you happen to keep a copy of Gae Buidhe, so that I can show She Who Burns that I wield The Four?”
The flub as She Who Burns states, “You hwhat,” with no questioning inflection nearly has me bursting with laughter yet again.
Sighing almost sadly, I spot Lu tossing a scrollcase high into the air towards me. I of course catch it in my fourth telekinetic grip, and do a bit of shuffling. I work so that I can sheathe Frostburn, and put away the book while landing so that I can levitate out Gae Buidhe, to its full length.
Growling, I announce, “I am Reggie Shellcracker, a Hero of the Order of the Onyx Dawn, an archmage Aliased Schism, I am the Void Dragon Honoris Causa. I am the mate and spouse of Kinzul, and I wield The Four. Gae Buidhe,” I brandish the spear telekinetically, spinning it, “Claíomh Solais,” I similarly brandish the archsorch staff and twirl it telekinetically, “The Stone In Two Parts,” I hold up my hand with the Fae ring on it, while levitating the stone on Lil’s neck, “and, well, Daghda’s Cauldron, though I haven’t quite figured out how to carry the sucker around everywhere.”
Floating towards She Who Burns, from her own throne, I approach her with a deadly spinning spear. Also upon approach is a legendary spinning staff. Beyond that, I continue to impress upon her my ability to simply will objects and myself to move around with no discernible cause, or necessity for even my own vision to be on the target of my telekinesis as I allow the legendary weapons to rotate around me.
Flinching, She Who Burns eyes up her subordinates, so I interject, “I don’t recommend attacking. Like Lil told you, everyone who has ever angered me, has ended up dead. Even those who’ve slain me. I simply brush it off, and slay them in return. Can you do the same?”
It is so friggin’ hard not to burst out laughing at how cocky I am and how full of horsecrap I am. Friggin’ hell, thanks Lil. Just great. Hah. Ugh, it’s so hard to fight this laughter. I really am so full of horsecrap right now though. Hah. I sheathe the archsorc staff in my double-ended drop sheath, not wanting to do something stupid while pretending to be so full of myself.
Barely maintaining my composure, I ask, “So, about those weaker than you. You wouldn’t happen to know how a group of refugees that I’d sent this way are doing, would you? I figured I’d stop in and check with this domain’s regional ruler rather than hunting them all down myself, as I’m sure you must keep very abreast of what happens in your lands. Mustn’t you?”
Wow, I did not think Fires could sweat bullets, but there She Who Burns goes proving me wrong. She responds, “As you must also be aware, that the refugees you’ve sent have ended up in the domain of Qlaxianna, She Who Burns, I indeed am aware of these— beings,” but balks as I raise my eyebrow, prompting her to continue, “I’ve, ahem, required an appropriate tithe, and labor from any unable to pay that, koff, tithe.”
Sighing, I’d figured as much. Fighting to control my wrath, as my eyes flash red with anger, I demand, “And the lives of anyone and everyone who has entered your domain? Have any of them ended since they arrived!?”
Really, I shouldn’t be surprised when She Who Burns screams out, “Attack!”
Sighing, I might as well use this stupidly deadly spear. That way, even if one of these foes manages to flee, they’ll either die by bleeding out over time, or hopefully at least be unable to really attack or harm others if appropriately weakened and injured. Lil engages the two Ices, while Lucky leaps from where he’d been backed into a corner, in order to take on the Blue consort. I’m left facing She Who Burns, and the Acid consort. Thankfully, as they both turn their breath weapons on me, I simply hasten my approach towards Qlaxianna, letting her evaporate the incoming acid. I can tell they’re both trying to engage their dragonfright, which would be affecting my companions, if Lucky weren’t wearing his new armor. Neither of the two can see my companions, or me from their current vantage point, so they can only assume that I’m frozen in place as I should be, from the dragonfright.
The two dragons I’m facing close in on each other, but Qlaxianna realizes she’s approaching a moving object within her blaze. I’d sigh as Qlaxianna does the smart thing, to keep me from getting into her mouth, she closes it. However, her consort is still belching acid, an incredibly potent, compressed stream of it, directly at her neck and face. Hey, guess what came to pass? Raven-porting time? Raven-porting time.
We are three, three are we, we wheel, we dance the sky of this cavern. We spot friends fighting, and foes in pain. We are curious about shinies, and realize we’ve left a shiny to get destroyed. Pointy stick, hated pointy stick sits in a nasty hurty puddle. We are in no rush to rescue it. Burning lady’s eyes are burning, and she is shrinking. Painful stream is being shot, and hits one of us, two of us. We must stop the dark liquid one, the Acid one.
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Rattling my skull as I return to myself atop the back of the ancient Acid, I withdraw Frostburn once again. She Who Burns is taking her human form in order to try to find a way to mend the chemical burns on her face. Her eyes are horribly scarred. I grimace at the injury that I sort of technically caused. She screams out an order that causes the Acid I’m perched atop to also begin assuming his human form. This just got a whole hell of a lot easier.
Sure, they’re still far, far, far more durable than humans in these forms. That’s probably because they have some strange dragonforce energy defenses available to them when compressed so small, but they’re still flesh and blood, hair and bone. It’s almost sad that so very few of them think to make their scales into any sort of armor or battle equipment in their human forms, foolishly leaving spots like their necks exposed.
Now, I’m not strong enough, even in RS2, to pierce the condensed flesh of dragons in their human forms, at least not easily. I do however have my Honoris Causa activated. Manifesting it, I viciously tear at She Who Burns, and her acid consort, aiming for their jugulars. I aim my fore, my maw, and my claws, at the Acid, to keep him from being able to hurt any of my loved ones. She Who Qlaxiwhatever isn’t really a threat to any of them, due to most of us being nearly heat immune, but I still aim my tail and dominant rear leg claws at her.
To keep them from being able to react or back away, I place the still-steaming Gae Buidhe behind the skull of She Who Burns, and Frostburn behind the skull of the consort, telekinetically. She who burns can’t tell what’s attacking her, since she can’t see, and hadn’t seen my Honoris Causa manifest before, so she unwittingly partially impales herself, the back of her neck, and part of her skull on Gae Buidhe, as she recoils from my assault. This also manages to drive a decent glob of acid into the back of her neck as she scrabbles away from my assault.
Grimacing at what I’m sure is soon to be a gruesome death, I turn my senses away from She Who Burns. She attempts to resume her dragon form once again, abandoning the search for something to mend her eyes, hoping to simply be able to flee with her life at this point. She won’t be getting very far, and I’ve got a more actively dangerous opponent to put down first. With Qlaxianna out of the picture, the ancient Acid is resuming his dragon form as well, no longer paying heed to her order to shrink and help wipe her eyes, or whatever she’d asked. Still, I’ve managed to gouge at the sides of his throat pretty thoroughly, though I can tell he’s maneuvering his scales to protect the weakened, rent fleshy areas.
This will put me into the six hundreds, but it’s worth it. I mutter under my breath, “GSE Balefire,” before the ancient Acid can finish transforming, with my palm in his face. I picture the point of origin to be inside his nasal cavity as it flares to life, cooking his skull from the inside, incinerating his brain. I was not going to let that jerk get full size again and possibly put Lu, Lucky, or Lil in danger by jetting out more streams of acid.
Speaking of, Lil is perfectly fine, Ices can’t do crap against him when he’s prepared, especially when he’s immune to dragonfright by being somewhat near Lucky. Lucky is taking this fight seriously, pinning down the Lightning’s maw, keeping him from being able to raise it to breathe on Lu, Lil, or himself. Luni looks sad, and upset, but she’s hammering away at the blue magically as she floats about its head, unleashing boom after boom after boom with her new scepter.
Deciding to risk it, since it’s been at least a couple of hours at this point, I remove my helm, and psionic protection circlet. The psionic pain feels like that of an encroaching migraine, the building pressure behind one eye, or even above or near one temple, but it’s steady. Calling out to Lu telepathically, I offer, “My Anchor, if you want, I can take over, you—.”
Stubbornly, Lu replies, “No. No. Let me do this one. Please. I have to fight. I have to be able to, to—. I just have to. Okay? For, for reasons. Thank you sweetie, but it’s okay. I’m okay. It’s scary, but I’m okay. Thank you. Thank you for caring so much. Maybe finish your own fight anyway.”
Blanching, I dart my gaze around. The Acid seems to be starting to disbelieve the balefire, but the damage is already done, mostly. They’re still as good as dead because of it. It has disoriented them enough that they’d been unable to complete their transformation, and their neck is bleeding out on both sides. Plus, I’m pretty sure it literally melted their frontal lobe.
Hm, then Lu is referring to She Who Burns. I guess I’ll dart off that way. I didn’t do much damage to her neck with my tail and one hind claw. I probably should have focused more on her, but I thought Gae Buidhe would finish her if she backed into it. I guess it only dug in a half an inch or so, before she figured to slide away from both my tail, and it, taking a bit of a kick to the neck.
Let’s see, if she’s going for the surface, if I remember, this heads a long ways that way, and loops, and the loop is really tight, so this wall is probably only a few feet thick. Here’s an ability we haven’t really put to use yet. I don’t bother stoneshaping. Rockwalk or earthwalk or whatever the hell this is called, stone melding, something or other, is all I need. Hoof, that’s, wow that’s a doozy, it feels like I left my eyeballs stuck in the wall. Ow. All my muscles along my neck and jaw are locked up. Gotta stretch them out while, ah, there she is.
Standing in front of the fleeing Qlaxxi whoever, I call out, “Halt. I offer you mercy, if you offer your surrender, and agree to discuss terms. Like Lil said. I want everyone to be able to—. Okay, fine, the hard way it is.”
When she tries to barrel straight through me, I manifest my Void Dragon form to its fullest, and catch Qlaxianna in a wrestling grip that might not work the best on dragons. I should ask Ixeyla for some pointers, since apparently she’s somewhat pro at the wrestling that goes on in Mount Solace. Seeking a point of leverage, I do manage to lock down Qlaxianna’s wings, so she’s forced to try to overpower me with her hind claws, as her forelimbs work to free her from my grip and defend her from my assault.
Qlaxianna is literally lashing out blindly, snapping at bodyparts that are points of contact in touch with her, but incapable of finding my center of balance, or my vulnerable spots, as she’s unused to being blind. Not to mention the difficulty that comes with fighting a dragon whose tangibility is only in the places most necessary. I feel bad for this, and for her. I was going to try to offer to work things out, let her maybe rule like some sort of monarch, as long as she was fair about it. Sighing, I shake my head as I sink my form’s fangs into her neck and twist hard to the side, slamming her into the tunnel walls.
Now that she’s got one leg in the air, she’s completely off balance, so I leap forward into a forceful push. This has the effect of sending Qlaxianna sprawling on her back, with me and my form pinning her to the ground. I manage to get additional leverage to tear into her neck with my form’s maw. Rending her scales from her neck, I’m able to tear gashes in it with my fangs. If it weren’t for the bloody, brutal nature of the battle, it’d resemble certain intimate activities, some of which I’ve even recently participated in.
Through tears comes laughter as Qlaxianna mutters, “It’s funny, koff, he always said, I’d go out on my back. The bastard. Finish him for me, would you?”
Gulping back a sudden wave of emotion, I can’t help myself as I release Qlaxianna. I rescind my form, my Honoris Causa, and float above her with telekinesis. She’s in a bad way, and maybe dying, but I can tell she just requested that I finish Terrorzin off. Taking lives always feels horrible, but it feels worse when you share sentiments with them, or hear or see things that humanize them, or, uh, dragonize them I guess. I’m unable to speak or make sounds at the moment as I bear witness to her laying there, dying. Seconds seem to stretch by into an eternity, while I’m unable to do more than observe. Perhaps minutes pass, perhaps more, as Qlaxianna continues to bleed out, only spasming, and twitching, making no attempts to otherwise move.
There’s fear in the query, in the raspy breath of Qlaxianna as she asks, “Are, koff, you there little hero?”
Since she can’t see me, I respond in the affirmative, “Aye. I’m here Qlaxianna. If you meant Terrorzin, I swear it.”
Wheezing one last breath, and one last word, she responds, “Good.”