I think I clouded my brain so hard that I may have spaced out for half an hour or more. Lady Kinzul appears to be waiting patiently for me to return to reality, with concern plainly written upon her exquisite features. I heave a sigh and flash her an apologetic glance, trying to prevent my misty-eyed gaze from being flooded with tears. I don’t recall if I managed to disconnect from our private telepathic network, so it’s quite possible that our Lady has had to hear my entire inane spiral into resentment and self-loathing.
Ah, yep. The faintest twitch of her facial muscles clues me in that yes, she’d been privy to every last bit of mental verbal vomit being tossed up by my stupid brain. At least she’s wise enough to understand that right now, any words of support would likely only push me away, and make me lash out. I hate myself for it, loathe myself. It has been a long time since my neurodivergencies have been this bad. I’ve gone through despair, sorrow, and so much more since the last time, which makes it almost humorous to me.
It’s almost funny, *almost* amusing, that the thing that kicked me over the edge was playful, lighthearted, loving, a friendly running joke amongst, and about, people who love me that I love in return. It would even be endearing, since it cements that we have such a lack of jealousy, that my inner circle actively wants me thinking about the physical beauty of other people. The fact that they’re more than fine with it, but even amused by it, would be reassuring on any day when I wasn’t hit with a flood of neurochemicals so recently with too much Can’Z’aasian mana manipulation.
The other factor was the trauma flashback, the panic, and that every little bit of what we were doing relied on things that shouldn’t exist. Things that can’t exist. Things from memories that were always proven wrong. Things from mysteries long forgotten, but dug up like a fresh grave. They both knew I was in a precarious position though, and maybe I can understand Teuila not getting how badly my buggy memories can affect me, but Luni is the one fighting to keep them from destroying me!
F^&*! Kinzul evinces the faintest hint that she balks at my sudden vulgar mental outburst. I need about a week to calm down, but I’m not going to get that, so let’s get this over with. I don’t want her to see my mind in this state, any more than she wants me to see how she’s going to interact with a prisoner. I can sense that she has to harden herself, steel herself to treat someone poorly. She dislikes, nay, hates the idea that she’s going to treat someone without compassion, while pretending to do it without remorse.
Kinzul motions into the room where Tairkul awaits, guarded by two Draconiacs who’d volunteered, so I enter while finishing weaving the spell that will lock onto Tairkul’s mind. I’d been subconsciously starting the runework for the past couple dozen minutes, and it’s about to be complete, saving me a fair chunk of S P by not having to quicken it. I will likely need to recast it every time Tairkul’s will breaks free from the mental grip however, and at those times, I’ll need to quicken it, so that she can’t slip any thoughts by us.
Even as I open my telepathic mouth, I’m mentally berating myself as I talk down to Kinzul, “The spell isn’t meant for more than picking up a few lines of internal mental monologue, like you hear from me, and you know that I can lie to myself, or just think about other things, while holding a conversation. I can distract myself quite easily unintentionally, so I’m sure someone with a modicum of willpower, without my neurotic tendencies, will be able to fairly easily intentionally distract themselves. There is no compulsion that says truth will be among whatever I might find, and I might even get only fragments of words or pictures.”
Gritting my teeth, I telepathically add, “I can’t guarantee you anything will come of this, and I’m fighting myself from resenting you, being angry at you, shouting at you for putting my priority into this. It’s an illogical, intrusive series of thoughts. I know I shouldn’t, and I don’t want to have those feelings. I would have wanted to accomplish this fairly soon anyway, but I’m not in my right mind. Friggin’ hell, Argh! I *want* to be able to apologize to you for this tirade Lady Kinzul. I want to believe that the majority of me wants my emotions to normalize, and not seethe at you and everyone around me, but I can’t even bring myself to believe that I actively want to let go of this anger. Please, get on with this.”
Lady Kinzul struggles to mask her emotions from me, especially the despair and sorrow that are so very near the surface, but I have a spell going that is tickling at, prickling, and scraping at the surface of everyone’s brains in a thirty foot radius. I fight myself to try to order my brain to ignore the flashes of insight it gets into Kinzul’s emotions that are beginning to betray her. Focusing all of my current seething, loathing, hatred into one location, I center all of that psionic energy on one target, Tairkul. While Kinzul stands to Tairkul’s fore, at one side, I walk about behind our prisoner, facing Kinzul and the entryway.
I’m surprised when the one-armed, burly woman shrieks in agony as my mind claws its way into hers. This spell isn’t meant to cause psychic damage, or harm in any fashion. It’s only meant to sense, and copy random thoughts floating around at the edges of the periphery of one’s mind. With enough focus, one should be able to attempt to delve deeper, to know when someone is distracting themselves, trying to hide the truth, but it will not alert oneself to what that truth is.
I realize belatedly that it’s not my spell that brings forth the piercing howl of pain from Tairkul, not on its own, but rather my honoris causa. My honoris causa drinks of her thoughts like a parched riverbed when the rains begin. My honoris causa is a literal hungry void, grasping at and tugging at anything it can find within reach, along any of my senses. For the briefest of moments, I fear my attention turning towards Kinzul, I fear that I might want to rip secrets from her mind, to absorb them into my void. For sure, she has said she would come to regret anything she’d hidden from me, perhaps I could be the one to rectify that for us.
Lady Kinzul balks momentarily before glaring disturbingly angrily at me for my audacious train of thought. I hate myself all the more that I’m so easily influenced by the most negative, spiteful, angry intrusive thoughts that abound, but even in this state, I’d never have acted on it. Lady Kinzul knows it, and her expression softens. She sees my internal struggle, my war with myself within my own mind.
Despite not wanting to, I pick up surface thoughts of Kinzul’s that drift back to her vowing to aid me against that which plagues my mind. I can sense the discomfort, the brief annoyance, and the greater sorrow that she experiences at knowing that I’m unable to prevent myself from learning things that pass near my mind at the moment. We’ve got to get this over with quickly, so that I can drop this spell, and she knows it, or I might just lose myself in the act of tearing apart every mind around me.
Addressing Tairkul, Kinzul starts easily, asking questions she already knows the answers to, “Your name?”
Even if she’d wanted to resist, her mind spells it out plain as day, “Tairkul.” I nod at Kinzul, affirming that the spell is working when the prisoner responds with the same name.
Our Lady asks another question she already knows the answer to, “Did you use magic gained by Yisstendahl to attack us, some several days prior?”
There are bits of floating imagery, a first person view of accepting a runic carving, a goblet of blood, and dragonforce from Yisstendahl. At least, that’s what I believe the images to represent. They’re shattered fragments. Tairkul silently responds in the affirmative, leaving me nodding once more to Kinzul.
We begin to press the interrogation in earnest as Kinzul demands, “Who were your accomplices?”
Tairkul’s mind tries to distract itself, she tries to think of other things. Her mind only lets slip meaningless silhouettes, too distorted to even begin to guess, even if I knew everyone in these lands. Our prisoner’s response is, “I don’t know. I had a time to act, and I acted.”
I can’t tell if she’s lying, so I try to scrabble and claw at the idea of Tairkul’s orders, to see who she got them from, if anyone else received any at the same time. I pick and peel and scrape, but it doesn’t yield anything without prompting. I motion for Lady Kinzul to continue as I try to glance about at the various neurons firing within our prisoner, trying to make sense of the details that obscure themselves.
A barely restrained hatred burbles up to become a growl within Kinzul’s throat as she asks, “What, and whose orders did you act upon?”
Tairkul’s mind keeps crying out a single word, distraction, and I am not entirely certain that it’s of her own volition, trying to distract herself from loosing the truth from her brain. She refuses to answer for several long moments, as more silhouettes and broken imagery fight their way to the fore of her mind. She actively shuns these silhouettes, trying to push them aside, to cast them back into deeper recesses of her mind, but I grasp at them, and tug with my honoris causa.
I feel my dragonforce waning, straining at the effort. I almost feel grim satisfaction at the idea that I might simply die at any moment, putting an end to all the pain and misery, no longer having to worry about a self-loathing brain. I embrace that horrid thought, that idea, and I grip harder at the thoughts Tairkul is trying to shy away from. My void grasps hungrily at these shapes, sounds, voices, forms, each tidbit snagged costing me more and more dragonforce. Kinzul despairs at my internal monologue, and I barely refrain from telling her to go to hell as her mind attempts to send a request for me to stop.
Though it seems like minutes as I soar embattled in search of answers within Tairkul’s mind, the prisoner hesitantly responds, “Distract you. Your enemies.” Tairkul seems to be panting with exertion at the effort to even speak a few words, and remains hesitant, nervous, frightened of her own mind betraying itself.
The hesitation, I pick at it, and follow it down a line of misdirection, across a misleading attempt to tell a half truth. Six, no, seven figures at the top of a pyramid, a hierarchy. Tairkul is trying to keep herself from saying certain words. She’s struggling to hide words like Damn, and Hell. Why would she fight that? Is she afraid of retribution if she were to mouth off to Kinzul, after having already lost one arm by doing so previously? I abandon this line of intrigue for another, casting about within her mind. My nose begins to pour a fountain of blood, as does Tairkul’s, but I persist.
Despite the telepathic look of concern she passes me, Kinzul remains outwardly focused on her prisoner, and presses for the specifics, “Distract me from what? Which enemies?”
There are more, “Damn”s, and “Hell”s. Or perhaps damn is only part of the word, because it cuts off. It hints at more. The only words I can think of that one could cut their own mind off from finishing that begins with the phonetics for damn are damascus, damage, damaged, damager, damages, damp, dampen, damper, dampener, damnation. I sigh and cast aside the train of thought once more, seeking out what Tairkul is hiding along the distraction route instead.
In the distraction path, Tairkul is trying to hide feelings of hatred. Again, I don’t understand why she wouldn’t let it just show. It seems like those feelings of hatred though, are towards particular beings, targets, groups, and it stems from something deeper in her subconscious that’s easier to reach. There’s fear rather than fealty at its base. There’s a desire to please someone obviously sick and twisted, full of hate.
The trail of this new branch of thought pushes outwards towards a feeling that I’d almost have to describe as xenophobia, or perhaps racism. I don’t quite understand how that could be a sentiment amongst dragonkin. Tairkul doesn’t seem to hate Draconiacs, kobolds, or dragons as a whole. Yet there is some group that is, “other.” If we weren’t so new here, I’d expect it to be me and Teuila. Luni has been the only non dragonkin in the area for a while, and she didn’t constitute a whole group of, “other,” on her own.
Kinzul continues pressing for verbal details, but I’m trapped, caught in a landslide, no escape from Tairkul’s mental reality, so I can’t even parse my physical senses at the moment to hear what she’s saying. I go tumbling deeper within Tairkul’s psyche towards roots of hatred, simple ideas, concepts. For some reason, she keeps cutting herself mentally off from partway through the word metal. I suppose she could be cutting herself off from the word metallic. The hatred and disgust run deep in these lines, and consistently compare metal to, “other,” in simplistic rhetoric.
Suddenly, a wave rushes up from within Tairkul, neurochemicals of pleasure, satisfaction, relief. I’m trapped in their tide, barely aware of reality as my honoris causa leaks away, unintentionally maintaining the connection between our minds. I’m aware enough to notice Lady Kinzul suddenly trapped in a box of opaque telekinetic force. I’m aware enough to feel myself launched with violent force towards the rear of the chamber. The blast impacted me about my unarmored ribs, splintering and cracking them, and they further crack upon contact with the far wall. I’m aware enough to sense the two Draconiac volunteer guards die, burned alive, as bodies move to free Tairkul.
Or do they? Why use a slew of magic on approach, and not simply burn away her bindings? They don’t strike me as caring all that much about their ally’s wellbeing. They must have retrieved the trinkets I’d found in Tairkul’s hidden pouches and so on. I’m helpless to act as they free Tairkul, and hold her at knifepoint, directing her to attack the cube that holds Kinzul at bay. The incredibly tiny knife, barely more than a razorblade begins to pass through the solid barrier of force, and I could swear I hear a scream from the imperceptibly small hole cut within the forcefield-prison.
Three sailing knives enter my sensory range, and find themselves embedded in the necks of the three hostiles in the room. The knives vanish a moment after impact, seemingly transforming into smoke, leaving gaping wounds in their targets. Tairkul drops the tiny knife, and grips feebly at her neck with her only hand, too late as she slumps to the floor, bleeding out, choking on her own blood.
The other two Draconiac aggressors are a pale-green man and a darker-green woman apparently, as their faces are now revealed since their hoods have fallen back on their cloaks during the commotion. They fare slightly better at staunching the flow of blood from their necks being that they have two hands. That doesn’t surprise me, what does surprise me however is that they have small organs, sacks for poisonous breath weapons. They struggle to activate their breath weapons, causing a low, roiling fog of green gas to issue forth within the room, but it’s too feeble to matter as they slump to the ground. Lady Kinzul told me that Draconiacs don’t have the powers of dragons. Was she unaware, understating, or lying?
Our rescuer is the obvious. Spymaster glances about, sees two allied corpses, me, crumpled, unmoving, a nigh impenetrable block of force tightly squeezing her leader, and our now dying prisoner, and foes. She spares me a concerned, saddened glance, then shakes her head swiftly, as if rattling it to end a thought. Apparently satisfied that the situation here is as well in-hand as she can help it to be, Errissa rushes off to secure the area. When Tairkul dies, my mind escapes her mind, and I’m finally able to regain some semblance of control over my senses, my powers, and my body.
I wrest at the telekinetic force that makes up Kinzul’s prison with my own telekinesis, and only the mana around it bulges ever so slightly. I’m tempted to shave away at it with that tiny knife apparently made of a rare enough enchanted material that can affect it. I worry that I would cut into Lady Kinzul however, or, I’d cut into acid and melt the knife, rendering it useless. I sense that my leader, my Lady, has created a fairly large pool of acid within her prison, while she’d been attempting to break free of it.
F&*(‘ing damnitall. If I had dispellation right now, I could just break the enchantment that has created this prison around Kinzul by erasing the magic that holds it together. I fight off the irrational resentment towards Kinzul about her having had me learn thought detection. I’m dozens and dozens of hours, across quite a few days, from being able to master it however. I need to not resent my Lady for that, I wouldn’t have learned it in time by now anyway. It has only been a few days, and not enough time to finish off my mastery of the spell. Too bad the bypassed-wall spell specifies the type of materials it covers, and telekinetic force isn’t one of them.
Coughing a bit of blood, from, guess where, my right freakin’ lung, I hobble towards the magic that’s imprisoning my leader, our Lady. It has been a while since I took one of those injuries. For a while, it felt like every other time I got struck, it caused my ribs to perforate my right lung. I snort a disdainful laugh, though I’m not sure whether it’s at myself, the injury, or the paranoid possibility that the coincidence might mean something in some cosmic-scale joke.
If I hadn’t been so insistently digging so deeply into Tairkul’s mind, following whatever inane paths were available to me, I could have sensed the arrival of the interlopers. I almost regret not being the ones to kill them. I do actually regret the loss of lives here today, the valuable loss of information, and most of all, I regret the way I’ve treated, and failed, Lady Kinzul.
Lady Kinzul barks, “Enough! If I could seize this sickness inside of you, wrest it from you, to return you to your senses, to your state of adoration and love for those around you, I would gladly shave yet more years from my life. Schism. I’m at a loss. I don’t know how to aid you, to bring you back from this dark path upon which you walk.” Softer, compassionately, comfortingly, she adds, “You have not failed me. Please, Hero of the Order of the Onyx Dawn, open yourself to me. Receive my love, and be at peace, knowing you have not failed me.”
I let me head fall forward against the nearly impenetrable, yet impossibly thin wall separating me from Lady Kinzul as I weep silently. I struggle to let go of the building resentment, the anger, the pain, the self-loathing for having hurt those I hold dear. It’s a battle that rages within me, and I’m losing. I am trying at least, but I’m losing.
I can sense with my silent sonar, through the ridiculously small hole in the otherwise perfectly sealed prison created about Kinzul, and I chuckle, glad of it so that she at least has air to breathe. Wait. The quick-change ring could fit through that slice. The ravenfeather coat.
I call to a woman I love as deeply as any other, “Lady Kinzul, can you manage to spread your fingers, and get one of them near where you were sliced? It’s so cramped in there, I don’t trust myself not to injure you trying to cut you free. The wall is paper thin, and—. I just, I can’t. I’m going to do something, that’s—.”
I sigh, shaking my head, knowing what I need to get her to agree to to be able to help her, “I need you to join *my* family lady Kinzul. You have to be a Shellcracker. The objects are soulbound. There might be other ways of breaking that soulbinding, that our enemies could use, which is why I worry about the items being stolen, but I don’t know of any offhand. The equipment is soulbound to Shellcrackers, and even those induce pain upon transference if done improperly, if they’re even able to transfer at all. Your soul has to become a Shellcracker soul. I—.”
This is so effed up. This is beyond ridiculous. I can’t believe I’m going to ask this, or suggest it. Lady Kinzul cracks a smile within her prison, knowing where this is going. This is so messed up. My life is a cosmic effing joke. I plead, “Lady Kinzul, will you marry me?”
There is genuine humor, mirth, and perhaps a hint of delight near the surface of Kinzul’s emotions. She responds, “I do hope you’ll forgive me a moment if I contemplate the options available to us, before giving you an answer.”
I hate that my heart flutters. I loathe myself for feeling even the tiniest shred of joy at the merest possible chance of her acceptance of such a ridiculous proposal. We both know that I could possibly endeavor to very carefully slice this prison of force apart, and if I’m exceedingly careful, Lady Kinzul might only sustain minor injuries from it. Why the hell did I ask her to marry me? I thunk my head into the wall of the prison repeatedly.
The honesty, sadness, compassion, benevolence, and grace in Kinzul’s response astounds me as she decides, “If perhaps you were in a healthier, more assured state of mind when you made this offer, I may have delighted in accepting it, if only for the curiosities I could satisfy if magic were to somehow acclimatize my soul to the workings of your world, to my son’s world.”
Her explanation continues, “I must admit, the idea that such a thing were possible had not yet crossed my mind, and now I’m left with more curiosities than I’ve felt in ages. Curiosities that aren’t about dire portents and the like. If you feel better about your state of mind in an hour, and you offer again in an hour, I may very well accept, my Schism. For now, though we’ve matters to attend to, I hope you would not mind keeping me company, to see if perhaps this magic runs its course on its own? I understand you’ll be practicing runes towards the mastery of dispellation wherever you go.”
I hadn’t even thought about the fact that there’s probably a duration on the spell, and a relatively low one, based on the amount of power it would take to contain someone as impressive as Lady Kinzul. I slam my forehead into the prison several more times in embarrassment. My brain thought I had to rescue her immediately. What does that say about me?
Kinzul responds to my internalized question, “It speaks of your love for me, it is not a romantic infatuation that drives you to desire my safety. Shed these doubts, these aspersions, this self-loathing. You are the beloved Hero of our Order, my Schism. You have the largest fraction of my dragonforce residing within you, of all remaining living beings. I can’t help but feel that our souls are already intertwined in some fashion.”
My jaw hangs slightly slack as I’m reminded how much Kinzul cares, and how much she has treated me with respect, and put up with the inanity that is the inside of my brain. She allowed me time to wallow, without offering the support when I couldn’t accept it, and without chastising me for the need. She, as she said, has invested more of her life essence, perhaps even her soul, if dragonforce might be likened to one’s soul, in me. She saved me from grizzly pain, and possibly death, as we accessed belongings and systems from my world, things that can help me feel like we have a home here, a sustainable home.
I chuckle to myself, recalling how this mess of my emotions started. I was trying to categorize the love I felt for Lady Kinzul. I was struggling, and then I was unfairly distracted from that which I felt was a monumentally important revelation for my own peace of mind. The distraction cast self-doubt at my own motivations, at what I desired to accomplish. I was left reeling, confused by feelings I don’t want to have, and resented having them suddenly directed at someone whose importance I was trying to place within my heart.
I sigh, trying to still my mind, to let it all rest. I can’t fathom the answers right now. I’m still not in the right state of mind to decide what to believe about my own reasonings. I reverse position to slump down to my butt, leaning against Kinzul’s prison. Drawing my knees partway up to my chest, and my heels towards my butt, I rest my elbows on my knees as they spread at a partial angle like accordion folds.
I’ve been putting this other thing off, and perhaps now isn’t the best time to address it, but I was reminded of her presence when she saved us. I cough repeatedly as I try to move my arms, loosing up bits of burbling blood while trying to pat down my pockets and pouches. I dig out the few scraps of paper that have been planted around my pouches, and find even more, likely from when she’d been helping me cope earlier. I try to puzzle out Errissa’s communiques, knowing that several likely have words etched on them in either invisible ink, or no ink.
One note has the word “,Time”, preceded by a hidden word, “fun.” There’s also a hidden word that’s parallel to the word time, but it’s a bit obscured, perhaps scratched out. I think that word is, “lips.” On another note, the word “Thanks” is followed by a hidden word, “for.” I’m pretty sure I can parse that as, “Thanks for fun lips time.”
I chuckle and shake my head in disbelief, and wonder about how the hell Spymaster managed to have a note for that situation. Had she been planning to kiss me when she’d seen me eyeing her repeatedly since the whammy started? That’s only a tiny bit easier to believe than the idea that she somehow wrote me a thank-you note while we were pawing each other, kissing heatedly in the hallway. Or perhaps my accidental admission of my feelings in the feasting hall led her to create the note in an effort she would have used to tease me, making me think I’d forgotten kissing her, by sneaking it on me at some point.
At least, I’m fairly certain which two notes those were. They’d be the ones that Errissa planted on me in the hallway before I went to see Nala the other day. I think the new note is just this one that says the word, “Sorry,” followed by hidden words, “your friends.” It makes me think there should be another note somewhere, like Errissa is sorry my friends are some adjective, or did some verb. I suppose it could just mean sorry about my friends.
That note is more believable that Errissa could have totally made it in one of the moments when I hadn’t been looking at her, while I was telling her about the situation. Or she could have intuited it when I burst into hyper-emotional tears in the middle of a hallway, frozen, not approaching her. Errissa might have even had it pre-prepared, by perhaps having already been wanting to give me a note about how she felt sorry that Teuila hit me with the whammy that obsessed me with her.
Sighing, I think to Kinzul who is trapped next to me, as well as trapped in my inane thought train. I at least managed to not think about the physical features that I’m obsessed with on either of the two wonderful women. I continue to sigh and shake my head in mild dismay at myself for nearly having steered my train of thought in that exact direction just now.
Realizing I’m sitting unarmored, bruised, with broken, cracked, fractured ribs, and a likely perforated lung in a pool of blood belonging to a combination of a prisoner, two aggressors, and two guards, I grimace. I leap to my feet and quickly draw the first thing that springs to mind from the quick-change ring’s transdimensional conjuration. This of course brings the ravenfeather coat from my personal vault instantly to my body, which resizes to fit me perfectly. Perhaps this isn’t the wisest choice, since my ribs are shattered to hell, so I think instead of the wyverium chestplate that’s shrunk to a tiny speck and locked within one of the ring’s compartments. Instantly, the wyverium chestplate appears under my jacket, and both the apparel and armor resize to accommodate each other, as well as my form. I could think of the necrosteel chestplate, and that would replace the wyverium one, sending it to its compartment, but I don’t think I need such a grim thing while I’m surrounded by blood.
Kinzul comments, “Remarkable. Further talents prove themselves, your masterful use of a previously unknown magical item, based on your accurate analysis and deduction of its properties. This is that which you had hoped to be able to bestow upon me, with a soul-mingling marriage?”
I flush heatedly, embarrassed at how stupid it sounds in retrospect, but my Lady chides, “I reiterate, the magics within the items, your talents at bringing them to bear with no formal training, or prior knowledge, are remarkable, and the idea of you desiring my safety so badly that you would share such with me on the most intimate level, is not at all stupid, my Schism.”
I gnaw on my lip and nod, in part, to answer Kinzul’s question about what I’d hoped to accomplish. In another part, trying to accept Kinzul’s praise without furthering my own spiral of self-doubt. Perhaps to keep me distracted, she asks, “Which of these properties of these objects did you believe could free me? Could you demonstrate it for me?”
I shrug and flick my eyebrows as I wear a sad quarter smile. Nodding to her request, I answer, “Yeah, um, yes. I’d have given you the quick-change ring, coached you how to summon the ravenfeather coat, and then had you try what I’m about to try with it.”
I reach for the ability within the coat, and as I’m pulling mentally at its activation, I can sense it dipping into about a fifth of the stored mana within the coat’s enchantment as my consciousness suddenly splits into three. The three consciousnesses are implanted in new forms, ravens. I appear ten feet to the north of where I— No, I appear ten feet to the southwest of where I— No, I appear ten feet to the southeast of where I—. We, I, fly around, only momentarily discombobulated. We can do this four more times today, and it’s exhilerating.
In a mere moment, the joy of flight takes over, overriding the confusion and concern. We, I, fly in something akin to a triple helix, or perhaps a french braid, crossing over myself, each other, again and again. We spread out, and reunite, and spread out once more. All in the span of less than ten seconds. The magic becomes insistent, beckoning my consciousness to flow more heavily towards one of the three of me. I pick one furthest from the gore, and suddenly I reappear, myself again.
Lady Kinzul marvels at the ride she had taken across my internal monologue, and offers her praise, “You instinctively understood that you’ve four more uses worth of that ability today, dormant within the coat, at your beck and call upon a moment’s notice. In an instant, you adapted to having your consciousness severed into three equal parts, later to reform at one of those parts’ location! Pay no mind to the fact that it may have been your first time ever becoming an entirely different sort of creature. Please accept what praise I can laud you with, without having viewed it myself, my Schism.”
Chuckling, I allow myself a wry smile, unsure if I should remind Kinzul that I’ve had a draconic form in the past that was like some sort of winged Draconiac, and that I’ve also essentially transformed myself into a giant mite-hulk. I cough a moment, sputtering blood, groaning in agony at the bruised feeling about my torso.
Thinking about my old combat forms, those forms did take me far longer to manifest, and master however. I’m certain that the magic is responsible for the ease with which I—. I sense the sternness and disapproval from Kinzul as my mind begins to pick away at, and diminish my accomplishment, to downplay what respect or praise I might deserve. I’m left gulping, and blushing abashedly.
As if to distract me yet further from negative emotions, Kinzul offers, “My Schism, beloved Hero of our Order, you are worthy of the love and praise you earn. You need not concern yourself with deserving. I sense that particular doubt wriggling its way up within you. Tell me, can you assess this prison in which I am trapped now? Is your mind clear enough for that?”
I facepalm, and instead of responding I quickly crank up my aura vision spell in order to assess things. I find microscopic runes on the tiny blade, they indicate something like removal of impermeability. The prison however is laden with layer after layer of abjurative, evocation, and conjuration based runes that are set up to prevent anything from being able to penetrate the prison. The knife looks like it’s keyed to a string of unique variables within this particular prison. It would never, could never work on another construct of force. Testing the theory, I conjure my own telekinetic squares, and attempt to slash them, to no effect. The blade snaps after several attempts, rendering it useless.
I’d facepalm, about having just reduced our odds at being able to get Lady Kinzul out of this thing, but I recognize timer runes. They’re similar in kind to the ghostly steeds I conjure, only in need of far fewer digits, less space. They’re an order of magnitude shorter essentially. While my ghostly steeds could remain conjured for approximately a day, or a few dozen hours, this timer is on the scale of minutes, and not many of them. I repeatedly slam my forehead lightly into the cage of force, mortified at having asked Lady Kinzul to marry me, when all we have to do is wait another few minutes.
Kinzul understands that in my emotional state, I’m not ready to hear any more praise, or even her voice, or telepathic bond at all. We wait together in silence, and, in not that long a time, the mana construct dissipates, freeing Lady Kinzul, as well as the large pool of incredibly potent acid she’d released within. I leap rearwards into the air while holding my breath, and the enchantment on the wyverium chestplate sends me soaring as if I’m almost unaffected by gravity. I begin floating down however, and am precariously close to falling into the acid. The looming danger has me about to engage the ravenfeather coat when Kinzul instead reaches out to me to snatch me from the air. She wraps me up in her arms as she strides unfettered, and unharmed with knee-deep acid eating through the floor.
When she’s brought me a safe distance from the deadly pool, I groan, realizing I should have moved the bodies that are now undoubtedly destroyed, along with any evidence they may have possessed. Kinzul remarks, “Hm, that perhaps would have been a good idea, yes. But you were hardly at your best. As was I hardly at mine.”
As I try to regain my senses, I gasp at seeing Kinzul’s perfect flesh marred along her neck. The wound is bleeding more than a little where the blade had bit into her during the brief moment that it had pierced the mana construct prison of telekinetic force.
Kinzul remarks at my findings, “I admit, I was more tempted by the moment to take up your offer of marriage Schism, if you hadn’t been able to deduce that the prison would only last mere minutes, I may have calculated that it be best for my health to not risk waiting hours. Come, let us see Sponge. You’re far more injured than I.”
I shake my head, in some part, wanting to wallow in the misery and pain of the injury, in some part, not wanting to inflict this pain on others, but for the most part, wishing I could rush to the side of my beloved inner circle, to reconcile. The motion of shaking my head strains my neck, and pectoral muscles, meaning I accidentally cough blood upon the regal, immaculate chest I’m being supported against, and groan in dismay at having done such a thing. Worse, that it brings my attention back to the heavenly globes—. I sigh angrily at myself.
I ask, “Lady Kinzul, do I have your permission to use about twenty S P cleaning us up? It also might aid me in figuring out how to turn it into an ambient mana cantrip like other sorcerers are capable of using endlessly.”
A majestic brow furrowed in concern adorns my Lady’s face as she continues to walk us in the direction I assume Sponge might be found in. She responds, “I trust you to prioritize the use of your precious resources, my Schism. If that priority leads to some small act that would give you peace of mind, but push back anything else, I leave it to you to decide its worth. I do however strongly recommend that, for now at least, you grasp at peace of mind in whatever form it takes. You don’t, however, need magic to clean this particular stain.”
I can sense the idea crossing her mind, of taking my hand and using it to wipe her chest, to show that she has faith in me to not obsess over the touch. She is, after all, carrying me tightly against her bosom, as I’m exceedingly wounded, with broken and cracked ribs. If I rely on my dragonforce to sustain myself through the pain of this injury, it could very well fade before our first conflict. Lady Kinzul appraises which courses of action lead me closer to serenity, and determines that the previous thought would not be one of them, so she simply wipes clean her chest herself.
The chestplate digs into my ribs with every stride that Kinzul takes, leaving me occasional gasping for breath, or sputtering blood as I attempt to face away from her. Desiring to not cause myself further injury, I send away the chestplate and the coat, into their compartments in the quick-change ring. My eyelids grow heavy, as I realize that, between losing an enormous amount of blood yesterday, and being injured today, I’m really not doing as well physically as I am mentally, and mentally I’m doing terribly. Less terribly than I was an hour ago, and perhaps actually on the mend, away from this depressive, self-loathing slump, but still terribly.
I blink slower and slower as Kinzul picks up her pace, striding and transforming as she enters a larger hallway. The majestic acid dragon form that materializes carries me gingerly in one taloned foreclaw, close to her chest as she sprints, aided by the force of her flapping wings. I don’t think I’m going to get a say in the matter, about sharing my pain and injuries with others. I’m touched by the idea that someone might care enough to put themselves through that, but—. I fade into unconsciousness.