It's time to get serious. No more fun and games. I've got a horde to deal with, and no matter how many of them I kill, there's always more. There's a lot of things I need to keep track of, and the only reason we've put down as many as we have, is that our opponents are still not quite on our level, despite being some of Terrorzin's best. We're running low on everything though. If I had to equate it to that one tabletop system, since Lil, Te, and I are all level twenties, I’m guessing they’d mostly be about half that. There’s a lot of disparity in destructive power between those two levels, especially when you factor in that we’re from a different system entirely. That last fact is the only reason we’re still alive, with our hitpoint pools being ridiculously overblown compared to what’s normally available in the system that Rayileklia seems to use.

I can't get time to get a full draw on Scirocco's corpse, so I won't be able to siphon his dragonforce enough to count towards my cure, which is frustrating. That's two ancients—powerful ancients—down today, that I can't get to, to finish siphoning off enough of their dragonforce. The best I can do is help refill what I'd used up manipulating my Honoris Causa today.

Plus, even with all the gear I've looted, and all the resources I've gained from the slain, there's just too many foes to face. Other than the quite possibly addictive magical steroids, and a couple of things I've been snagging, I've immediately used or chucked any loose consumables I'd seen members of the horde carrying around. I’ve paid no heed to what the magic items might actually do.

It's kinda like playing a ROGUE-like, like the original ones, y'know, like NetHack, where all the stuff is unidentified, and you've just gotta hope for the best when you're chucking or chugging consumables. Wait, what? Is that a... game? Like a specific videogame? It's... almost a memory. Weird, and mysterious that… that memory. Those memories.

Ugh my friggin' head. It's probably just all the crap we've been through today. Anyway, just... just keep going. Huff. My eyelids begin to droop wearily. I find myself yawning, mid-battle, which infuriates the few mooks that've made it through once more. Sorry fellas and lasses and whatnot, it's not you, I swear, it's me. Hahah. Yawn.

Minute after minute ticks by, me and Lil baking and roasting and blowing up the horde as Te finishes siphoning off Al'pa'ca's dragonforce. We had to have slain hundreds of members of the horde. Heck, maybe even well over a thousand or two, what with my earlier big tricks, and Lil now buying me breathing room here and there, me covering him against fireproof whosits and whatnots. But I know that there's roughly eight thou or so of the buggers that I could see in the exterior of Stormheart's main keep. Then, there's the however many I couldn't see, up to another fifty percent of that.

Snarking between breaths as he refills his lungs for another long blast of flame, Lil quips, "Hey Reggie, if we survive this, remind me to never accept an invitation to a dragon's housewarming party again!" Moments later, as a new tunnel opens up from combinations of digging and magic, Lil adds, "I'm getting real tired of playing 'whack-a-mole' with these guys. Can't they just stay down for a nap?"

I wish I could reassure Lil, or even spare the breath to respond to him. We've maybe, maaaybe taken out an eighth of the foes in the swarming horde, and they're regrouping and widening areas to make their assault on us more effective, and easier for themselves. What we’ve taken down so far was with using up every last tool and trick that I came in with, and some that I didn't. Te even unleashed her own last few abilities she was banking.

I'm about to, huff, pass out. Lil's having a harder and harder time, keeping his lungs full enough to do a good long blast of flame, and it's not like he's uninjured from all the meteors and crap. He's nearly dead. Broken, bruised and pixelating. Teuila too. I'm almost tempted to have one of those, "Been nice knowing ya pal," or, "It's been an honor to fight at your side," moments.

Let's not jinx things worse than we already have though, huh? Te's calling out, "Reggie, I got it, now what!? Airhead, Dragbutt, hang on!"

Well, that's some good news. Now what, indeed though. Lil, Teuila and I work up a barrage to cave in even more of the tunnel structure and antechamber, and part of the vault. With Teuila's help, we manage a pretty significant cavein. We retreat almost all the way into Al’pa’ca’s former treasure chamber, next to the Worldstorm aperture that opened up early in the fight. It buys us a few minutes at least. To get out of here, we need a ride up the Worldstorm bolts that all of us can survive through. We need something new, something powerful, and protective.

I sense Lil's tether on himself dropping, it's about to send him back to his usual evolutionary stage that I used to call Lilagnewt. Good timing honestly. Remember how I said I couldn't risk just smashing open all those conduits and valves and who knows what else? Heh, yeah, we're about to get a little crazy in here.

My plan this entire time's been to get Teuila able to put a legendary godly tether onto Lil filled with storm energy, Worldstorm energy, focused and augmented through layer after layer of protection so as not to hurt him. Rather, it would alter the course of his normal evolution, granting him, hopefully, a form completely immune to the lightning of even the Worldstorm. And, if either my guesses or surmising are correct, or if Lil self-actualizes and hopes enough, he should be able to confer that temporarily onto us, or protect us from it one way or another. Te's got the focus tied on Mjolnir, but I motion for her to hand it over to me.

Y'know how someone asking for the bill will sometimes ask, "Alright, so what's the damage?" Yeah, that's pretty much what I've gotta ask myself right now. That, and, "Do ya feel lucky Rej? Huh? Do ya?"

Doing the math, there’s no way Teuila would survive holding the focus, while also being the focal point of the energies, not that she could even physically do so, being that there needs to be about twenty feet of distance from the target to focus the energies properly. Even if she has some sort of lightning damage immunity artifact or power like Mjolnir, she can’t have it activated to be able to absorb the energy anyway, she has to channel it out through Mjolnir though towards Lil. Thus it can’t be Lil, or Teuila, because Teuila has to accept the energy, and transform it into a tether to pass to Lil after she refines it on her own. So the real, and only question, is, “Can I survive it?”

I take a little less than six percent of the damage from lightning, electrical damage, and so on. Or, I did, before I accepted a new source of elemental spiritual essence into my very being. Will that help or hurt with this attempt? I guess in some ways, it doesn’t matter. This evolution is our only hope. We need to do this, because Teuila and Lil won’t survive the collapse otherwise, and we can’t fight our way out. We’re already tapped out. As soon as the next wave digs through the bodies of their allies, and the small cave-ins we’ve already caused, they’ll be upon us. I’d still like to know in advance if I’m going to survive. I, well, I would want to make my peace otherwise.

Six percent of damage, on something that looks hundreds of times the normal potency of lightning on Rayileklia, which is already painful enough. Even if I engage my tricks to reduce how much of the power forces its way through me, I won’t be able to redirect all of it. Gnawing on my lip, and factoring in the Worldstorm’s immunity and resistances piercing nature, I attempt to calculate the average damage of the stream that’ll be making its way past my active defenses, and partially penetrating my passive ones. On a completely, totally low end estimate, my passive defenses would have to contend with what would be nearing three thousand damage per second for its average. If that estimate is too lowball, and it turns out to be the next subset, that’d be fifty-eight hundred damage per second or so.

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Gulping, I press further with my math as quickly as I can. Approximately six percent of the lower damage is about a hundred seventy-one or one seventy-two damage per second that I’d be taking, double that if I’m estimating wrong. I need to survive for at minimum ten seconds, but also enough time to figure out how to properly activate the focus, direct energy through it, and then however much time it takes Teuila to attune to the frequency of the energy I’m sending her way. I’m thinking at minimum twenty seconds if we’re both completely in-sync mentally and emotionally while quick-witted enough to figure out exactly what needs to happen. One estimate is survivable at my current health. The other—gulp—is not, not even if I were fully topped off.

The math on whether to go ahead or not, is simple. We don't have time to do anything else. We're surrounded, and we need the power of the Worldstorm's energy to fuel the next stage of Lil's evolution. That means we need to tap into the bolts. More specifically, I need to. Phooph.

Passing a breath out through puffed cheeks and pursed lips, I loose a long puff, and another, and another. Lil glances at me like he's wondering if I'm making fun of him for his breath weapon, but I shake my head. I'm trying to psych myself up to try to wrangle the Worldstorm itself, condensed into such refined bolts of lightning. I've gotta do it while I've still got my lightning-lycanthrope form active, so I can't dawdle though either.

Taking off my psi-blocking aegis circlet, I fill in Lil and Te on how I expect it to go down. Te's consumption of Al'pa'ca's dragonforce should let her tap into this being the seat of his power, and, well, we've seen that he was attuned to it enough to turn lightning into physical mass, so my theory isn't even really a theory anymore. It's pretty much a verified fact that we can boost Lil in one way or another, but we're doing it in Can'Z'aasian style, half digital, half screwy, all us. The three of us snicker at my goofy thought train.

Grumping and slumping, Lil claims, "Well, that was a blast and a half. I need a vacation. Like, a five-year-long vacation. You sure you're up for wrangling lightning you two? I mean, I'm used to fire, but lightning's still sorta new for Te, right? Oh, Te, did you see me out there? I was like a barbecue, serving up roasted baddies left and right!"

Not one to let Lil disparage her, or boast much, Teuila snarks, "Oh, I saw you alright. You looked more like a dragon trying to light a birthday candle in a hurricane."

Grumpily, Lil retorts, "Hey, at least I didn't almost get my tail singed off by a meteor like someone I know. How's your 'rear heat shield' holding up, Te?"

Referencing the fact that, for the first time ever, Lil has burns and is charred all over, Teuila jibes, "Better than your 'flame-broiled face', Lil. You know, you really should consider a career as a dragon-sized candle."

I feel like I should stop this and get them to focus, but I'm starting to lose it to a fit of the giggles as Lil rebutts, "Ha! Coming from you, 'Miss I-can't-decide-if-I'm-a-thundercloud-or-a-sunbeam'. Make up your mind, will ya?"

Almost beaming with pride at Lil's attempt to antagonize her, Te chuckles while commenting, "Well, I might switch between thunder and sunshine, but at least I don't puff like a steam train and drag my rear on the ground when I'm out of breath, 'Dragbutt Locomotive Breath'."

There's probably something more important we should be focusing on, but I'm doubling over as Lil responds, "True, true, but I'd rather be a train than a walking weather forecast. What's the report for today, Te? Partly cloudy with a chance of mood swings?"

That was a bit of a low blow Lil, and Te's fuming a tad, so it sounds like their snark off is over as she claims, "I'll give you 'partly cloudy'! You just wait till the next time we're in battle. I'll show you a real storm!"

Sighing as I catch my breath, I ask, "Are you two goons finished? We're not exactly safe here. They're seconds from busting in. Come on, get in position, I'm about to hope and pray, that my lower estimates are correct. Or, if my higher estimates are correct, that my regen is stupidly ridiculously massive in terms of HP, but I can't gauge that."

A bit dejectedly, both mumble apologies about which I feel bad for eliciting from them. Making them feel sorry wasn't the point, but they take their positions anyway, wearing rueful smiles. And me? I head to the last segment of controls and conduits that I'd seen Al'pa'ca fiddle with in my Retrocognitive senses. Hoo boy. This is gonna hurt.

Alright, Reggie, deep breaths. You've done some crazy stuff before, but this? This is like trying to lasso a hurricane with a wet spaghetti noodle. You've got your EM-Field organ pulsing, ready to play chicken with the mother of all lightning bolts. The lightning spiritswarm is buzzing in your head like a hive of electrified bees, ready to help or maybe just to watch the show. We're knee-deep in our lightning-lycanthrope form, feeling every hair standing up in anticipation, or maybe that's just the static.

The conduit's right in front of me. All I need to do, is crack it slightly, and the torrent, the stream of lightning that pours forth, will be relatively about as deadly and dangerous as the one we needed me, Te, and her greater elemental to wrangle earlier. But this time, I have to do it by myself. I have to catch it, and funnel and focus it, and make it safe. Here it comes, a jolting stream of Worldstorm bolts, crackling with enough juice to power a city or fry me to a crisp. Start the countdown, twenty.

Come on Reggie, reach out, pulse the EM-Field with your internal electrokinesis at full throttle, trying to coax the bolt towards the focus. Nineteen. It's like trying to persuade a wild animal by waving a magnet in its face, or, trying to persuade a lightning bolt, by waving meat in front of it. Me, I'm the meat. This is not exactly going to plan. Eighteen.

The bolt dances, flickers, almost playful, but I can feel sickening levels of untamed power.

Focus Reggie, breathe Air, breathe. Seventeen. Te's there, Mjolnir in hand, a look of fierce concentration on her face. She's ready, ready to take this storm and mold it, ready to be the hammer to my anvil. Sixteen. She's counting on you Reggie. Lil's there, nervous anticipation eating him up as he worries about me. Fifteen. He's counting you Reggie. You've got to do this right, for Lil, for Te, for all of you.

Fourteen. Y'hear that? You can almost hear the spiritswarm chanting, a chorus of electric whispers urging you on. They're grateful to have been freed from that room. Thirteen. After this, the whole citadel, the entire mountain, is coming down, one way or another. We're transferring Al'pa'ca's seat of power into a mobile tether. Ripping the very foundation out from under this mountain. Almost literally. Twelve.

Rotate Reggie. Cast it forth. Keep spinning, even if it makes you sick. Fight to arc the stream of lightning around you through the focus into Teuila. It isn't working. Crap. Eleven. My brain aches, and it's a good thing I didn't try using my telekinesis to hold the focus in place. It would have shattered, and blown our only chance at escape. Ten. The focus only has this one use left.

The unending bolt, or stream of bolts, however you want to think about it, lashes out, a serpentine dragon of pure energy. Despite hoping to keep it in orbit around you, you catch it, your lightning lycanthrope form absorbing the initial shock, channeling it through the focus. It's like holding onto a firehose full of dynamite. Every cell in your body screams, but you hold on, redirecting the energy towards Teuila. Nine.

Eight. She catches it, Mjolnir shining so radiantly that it's hard to gaze upon, requiring us both to shield our eyes. Seven. She's the eye of the storm now, the center of a maelstrom of power. Six. Her figure is a silhouette against the blinding light, but you can see her determination, unyielding, unbreakable. Five. She's transforming the energy, refining it, preparing to pass it to Lil. Four.

Three. You're almost dead Rej. Everything in you is trembling and coming apart. There's Lil, standing ready, anticipation and a touch of fear in his eyes. Two. He knows this is it, the moment of truth. One. Teuila releases the energy, a tether of lightning, a bridge of raw, primal force connecting her to Lil. I tumble, incapable of fighting back the pain or holding on any longer. My lightning-lycanthrope form is overloaded, my EM-Field organ overburdened, my spiritswarm swelling. The energy stream I'd been channeling through the focus finishes leaving my grasp. Lil glows with an otherworldly light as he accepts Te’s evolutionary tether, and the focus begins to crumble as does the stone wall separating us from the horde. I crumple in a heap. Zero.