Alright Reggie, you have to assume there’s at least a few individuals at least as witty as your clever little ploy in such a massive horde. They’ll be able to put two and two together if you head right for your target. You can’t let that happen. If they throw together countermeasures that keep you from buying the time you need, you certainly won’t be moving mountains or making miracles.

So, how do I psych out an unknown opponent who’s probably smarter than me, that has had our entire intelligence network beat this entire time? Well, me being my chaotic little self is probably my best bet. If even I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, how can anyone else? Hah. Erm, gosh I feel silly. But it’s kinda true isn’t it?

So are you trying to convince yourself to literally, “Don’t think, just do,” Reggie? Well, I suppose that’s one way to look at it. You’re totally going to divebomb the horde and unleash giant dire shadow weasels aren’t you? Pft. Heheh. Maybe. Maybe.

Well, that’s definitely one thing they won’t be expecting right now. I don’t know how anyone would expect a Shellcracker satellite slam from the Worldstorm level. Drawing a deep breath, I hold it only momentarily as I armor up with my Steely Body spell. With this few bits of adamantite shavings, I attain my most durable, defensive form, that of an adamantite golem essentially.

I loose my breath and achieve a meteoric fall. Adopting an aerodynamic dive, I punch a hole through any pursuer in my way that hasn’t already been dissuaded by my explosive glacial acid-storm outburst. Literally.

Gruesome, but effective. Dragon and drake after dragon and drake fall before me, again, literally. However, this one’s trying to achieve a size and density grand enough to halt my fall, but I’m still driving them into the dirt regardless.

The iridescent black scales of my quarry cause my heart to catch momentarily. I know it isn’t Iylynila or Kinzul, but I can’t help how much the color of this beast’s scales affects me. Two of the most important people on Rayileklia to me share this draconic typing. This acid dragon beneath me is furiously writhing about, attempting to strike me and free themselves from my descending trajectory. I however have them pinned beneath my plummeting Honoris Causa’s draconic limbs.

The ground rumbles as I drive this dragon skullfirst into Rayileklia’s soil. I turn my head to the side and clench my eyes shut tightly. Brutality isn’t my way. It’s not what I want to be doing. But right now? The chaotic outbursts of random acts of brutality are one of the things helping keep my foes on their toes and off the scent of my true objectives. Suddenly, down here as far from the storm as I can be, sound other than unending thunder returns to normal.

That’d be a blessing it if weren’t for the fact that it’s just a massive din of snarling, roaring, gnashing, and hateful outcries of my foes. Foes that essentially blot out the sky above and around me as more and more close in on my location. At least there’s one sound that ends about as soon as it’d reached my ears. The breath weapons that’d been peppering me throughout my descent suddenly cease, I guess they don’t want to kill all their ground-force allies just yet.

Heart hammering up into my throat, I make a crazily mad dash into a segment of the landbound horde to the south of me. I joke to myself a bit, since I really am going to let loose giant dire shadow weasels amidst the horde. Quipping under my breath to no one in particular, I ask, “Hey buddy, are ya ready to exist yet?”

Feeling a little silly, I call out, “Let’s go, I choose you giant dire shadow weasel,” as I call forth one of my three lesser shadowy conjurations. I can’t help giggling a bit as both my call, and my enormous silly creature sew confusion within the horde above and around me. What crazed nincompoop drops in the midst of Terrorzin’s hordes, and unleashes a giant weasel as their onslaught?

This crazed nincompoop, that’s who. This crazed nincompoop also begins to void out their own presence. Hey, FFS, mind helping out the dire weasel for a bit? I’ll be calling you again once I get into position in order to enact my plan. Thanks pal, of course I’ll happily pay the sorcerous points from the archsorc staff to call you across the dimensional divide, through the veil into our realm.

Bursting into flames while coating myself in frost, I summon Frostfire Salamanderian atop myself while working to hide my Honoris Causa, and myself within its voided presence. For all intents and purposes, it looks like I assumed FFS’s form, as I let them take my place on the battlefield alongside my dire weasel.

Well, that first weasel who is now gone. I quickly conjure my second of three shadow weasels I’ll be able to call forth, summoning it near FFS as I tear away off the battlefield where the chaos being unleashed sews confusion far and wide amidst Terrorzin’s ranks.

I haven’t tried this before, and I think it’s draining a lot of dragonforce, so I can’t keep it up for long. Huffing and puffing, I try not to cough or give away my location as I make a break for the tunnel structures in the northern mountain along the valley path. My vision blurs, and my lungs burn and ache from the constant strain of swapping back and forth between deep breaths, and holding my breath, while exerting myself so thoroughly.

My legs ache with the strain of sprinting through deep mud as an adamantite golem, trying to keep my telekinesis to a minimum so as not to possibly accidentally alert any mages that can sense telekinetic force. FFS is back there, attempting to simply seem like they’re chaotically lashing out, which, I mean, they are, and that’s what I wanted them to do, but they’re sneakily being as evasive as possible in order to buy me more time before their form is discorporated from this side of the veil between our realms. Thanks pal. You’re a life-saver, literally.

Of course, my giant dire shadow weasels aren’t quite as, um, tactically ingenious. I have to resummon it yet again, my third and final casting of the day, if I want to refresh it. I’m going to save it for the tunnel structures though. They’re pretty excellent at fighting in tight quarters, specifically tunnels. Visualize it Reggie. Keep it together. Don’t focus on the idea that you could get beaten, slain, or worse, captured here.

Don’t think about it. Don’t. Just don’t. Okay? Not everything is riding on you, but yes, it would be a little catastrophic for you to be taken off the board right now. So you can’t afford to panic. Right, sure, don’t panic.

Reggie Shellcracker, don’t panic under pressure. You’ve totally got it handled. Yup, no biggy. Nadaprob Bob. Pft. Nothin’ doin’. I’m out of my mind with worry about the state of the war, and the possibilities that could spawn from this turn of events.

I can’t afford to be reckless though. I can be chaotic, nervous, and even a bit silly, but everything I do has to have a calculated outcome, and a fallback in case I can’t achieve that outcome. Current outcomes? Misdirection, deception, buying myself time. Damage to Terrorzin’s forces negligible. Primary long-term outcome from this engagement? The stalling of Terrorzin’s forces forward movement by derailing and or destroying the small path available to them beneath the Worldstorm.

Backup plan? Be a speedster when I really, really shouldn’t. Ugh, leave speed to the speedsters Reggie. I know, I know. It’s just a fallback. Hopefully. I’m whining to myself mentally. Oy vey. What a putz, am I right? Erm, focus putz. Right, right.

Anticipate being caught, as FFS’s form is starting to dissipate. Brighter members of the horde are going to realize that FFS doesn’t have my Honoris Causa, or any dragonforce to drink of, nor even leave a corpse. Mages will realize FFS is a summoned entity from another realm, or a conjured mana construct. Get ready Reggie. In about three, two, one.

They’re onto me! Dive forward! Let loose with my Honoris Causa! Come on, come on, follow me, think you’ve got me cornered. Believe my plan failed. You can catch me. I’m just panicking and heading into the nearest tunnel, which some of you might know is a dead end, and you don’t know that my senses already told me it’s a dead end. You have me backed into a corner.

Passing my breath out through puffed cheeks and pursed lips, I try to keep up the anxious charade without actually letting anxiety take me over. I wish I could afford some time to siphon the dragonforces of these foes. The best I can do is buy myself a couple of minutes to increase the confusion. To sell the illusion of desperation—though it’s not that far from reality—I begin loading my holy halefire double-barreled wrist crossbow with the cataclysm bolts, two at a time.

Peppering the encroaching horde with blasting bolts, necropulse bolts, shrapnel bolts, and frost bolts, I hope I’m selling my charade. The bolts are at least a bit devastating against some of the riders and ground-forces chasing me, but they’re barely mosquito bites to the dragons and drakes. I do try to choose my targets carefully while appearing to aim wildly into the horde. My priority is any caster that might be able to work out what I’m up to, or what some of my suites of abilities are, that I haven’t unveiled yet.

Donning number four from the QCR, my lightning-cursed leg guards, I engorge my organ. Rolling my eyes, I facepalm. I really need a better name for that thing. Anyway, my breath weapon sac swells to bursting with energy, and I loose it into the faces of the front line of pursuers, and amplify it with a lightning-enchanted rune-knife. While loosing lightning, my Honoris Causa is belching breath of the void. I’m no dragon, not truly, but I think I put on a fairly convincing show of being one backed into a corner.

Conjuring my three slowing fields at the mouth of the tunnel as I dive into it, one after the other after the other, I bring out my last giant dire shadow weasel. I also can’t help giggling a little at the creature’s nomenclature. Rattling my skull so that I don’t get lost in shaking my head ruefully at myself, I try to take stock of what I have available.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I’ve got the meteorites I can conjure, my thermal abilities that I’m saving to blow the top off a mountain, and, uh, huh, well, a trick or two that can move me through, about, and beyond a few things. Breathing shakily, I pat down my Ravenfeather Coat and Elemental Bandolier. Yeah, a few things.

Skating away into the tunnel in which I’ve chosen to make my facade of a last-stand, I continue drawing my foes to me. Just like Al’pa’ca’s domain, we’ll obfuscate our subterfuge, with other subterfuge. Three, two, one! I conjure forth a massive block of titanwood to stopper the tunnel behind me.

Surprisingly, dismayingly, one of the best fliers in Terrorzin’s forces makes it through the slowing clouds, my dire weasel, and bypasses my block of titanwood as it’s materializing. Well, crap. If this fool has any way to communicate with the forces on the far side of the titanwood, or can help bust out the tunnels around it more swiftly from this side, my whole charade goes down the drain.

I accidentally drop Whisper, or appear to at least. Pretending to fumble further, I continue to grasp throwing knives from my Elemental Bandolier, and shakily toss them vaguely in the direction of my elite pursuer. My valiant foe is a sinewy, sleek green dragon, who, to their credit, takes the knives seriously enough to dodge even my half-arsed throws. I guess it makes sense they wouldn’t underestimate the potential devastation of my abilities and equipment at this stage in the game.

Anyway, peppering them with holy halefire bolts, I levitate Whisper along behind my pursuer while I edge rearward away up the tunnel towards the dead-end. I need them to remain focused on me in front of them, and for them to believe I’m putting my all into a fighting retreat. I have to make a decisive strike so that they can’t think to call out that I’m not actually trapped in here with them.

My adamantite form absorbs a few blows from this dragon’s claws and tail, but it dissipates under a magical assault of some single use artifact or another. I’m pelted by an array of magics across a rainbow spectrum of elements and mystical types. It’s like I’m sprayed by a living prism. Oh, prismatic spray. Right. More and more things like that one particular tabletop roleplaying game on Fakeworld keep cropping up.

Luckily for me, my health pool and saving throws break the balance in that system, so I’m not as thoroughly decimated as I’d otherwise be. Also luckily for me, my pursuer closes in for the kill while I’m seemingly discombobulated by the magical assault, vulnerable now without my adamantite form of my Steely Skin spell. It’s in that moment I let Whisper knick my draconic foe in the tail, teleporting me out of harm’s way as a fairly deadly swipe claws through where I’d been only an instant prior, in my fleshy non-adamantite form.

Exhaling smoothly, I calmly utter, “LSE Balefire,” when I snake my way up along the spine of my foe, dragging the Riptide Katana through its back, eviscerating it, and filling it with consumptive black flames. The unholy shrieking that fills the tunnel I’m hoping either go unheard, or are mistaken to be me wailing in agony from being finished off.

Alright, if all this pans out, I should have a few minutes before anyone catches on to my escape, and more before someone imagines what I might really be up to in this mountain. Relinquishing my Honoris Causa, I dive into the stone of the mountain. My stomach lurches and it feels like my eyeballs are being torn out the rear of my skull as I plod through the stone like it were a membranous jelly. This will never be pleasant. I try to stifle my coughing, because I have no idea what might happen if my lungs decompress or collapse like this.

Picture it in Retrocognition Reggie. Find the structural weakpoints. Find the place where conjuring a massive glacier, and then superheating it instantly blows this whole mountain asunder. I’m going to have to use a couple of, hm, no, those won’t work. Crap.

I’m approaching the area I’ll need to be in to perform my feat, but I’m missing an element. I need a space in which to compress the explosive force that’s large enough to fit the glacier as it materializes, but essentially no larger. I can’t dive into the stone when I cause the explosion, because any cracks in the stonework that I’m melding through will crack me and separate me into pieces, killing me.

I have to facetank my own ultimate steam explosion. Again. Groaning, I facepalm as I swim through stone. Things never get any easier, do they? Pft. There’re something like twenty to sixty thousand dragonkin spread over a few dozen miles to the west. Yeah Reggie, things aren’t getting any easier. Get a grip pal.

Alright, alright, no need to be snippy and snark off at me, um, me. Facepalming yet again, I shake my head at myself and sigh. Hell I’m doing that so much today. Anyway, focus up putz. Right, right. How the hell do we do this? We’ve got limited time to figure it out.

Solace needs every last moment I can buy it with this operation. I know it was unplanned, but so was the entirety of Terrorzin’s forces, himself included, being on the move today. If they close in on Solace unimpeded, they’ll overrun it, destroying the dragonforce-reinforced stone of Mount Solace, killing everyone within. It’s probably one of the five largest mountains on Rayileklia, but withstanding an assault that contains thousands of foes capable of being titanic in size, on top of casters and kobolds and everything else? There’s no chance.

Del, Yerjhro, Alanea, Littlebit, Nala, all the fighting members of the Order, Leezahna, Zayzi, Ixey, my beloved Lu, and Te, and Lil, and Lucky, my wife, they’d all succumb to such a massive instantaneous onslaught. All the poor innocent denizens of Kinzul’s domain would be erradicated. All this isn’t really news, since we’re on the front lines of a war, but we’re also the only line of defense against this apocalyptic legion, and several others. All of Rayileklia is sure to be doomed, soon, if we can’t somehow mount a strong enough defense to keep our foes forces facing us, and whittle them down.

We need some time to figure out a path to victory. I don’t know how to even buy the time needed to figure out a path, let alone what such a path could be at this point in the war, seeing how poorly the odds in our favor are. Our advantages of choosing our targets, using guerrilla tactics, and facing only select quantities of our foes’ forces at a time are being stripped from us. Instead the battlefield is about to be our home, with all the innocent casualties that that entails.

We can’t even safely begin evacuating people yet. Taking to the air we can’t even get a significant fraction of our innocents to safety, let alone if we want to hold the line anywhere, since most of our capable fliers are also our fighting forces. If only we had succeeded in our ‘Twixt research already. I’d do something with that. It’d buy time at least. Sighing, I blink back tears and grit my teeth in frustration.

While blinking, my eyes happen to catch sight of several feeds in the security center through my goggles. Hey, crap, what the hell? Is that Vylon in the infirmary? What the crap happened while I was distracted? Where’s Gil? Where’s Te? Okay, Teuila’s nursing some injuries and snagging some eats in the feasting hall. Gilmeshtu is covering the Mah’ruke tunnel with Vyela. Prinrin and Fenric are covering the aerie.

That’s a pretty big shift from this morning. How the hell could Vylon get injured? Unless… magic. He’s nearly indomitable against any regular physical foe amongst dragonkind, since he can fill the air with devastation between him and his target. But if he’s targeted with a confusion spell? Mental domination? Necrotic curses? He could stumble into his own Latent’s attacks, and shred himself, not to mention what the foe could accomplish if he were even temporarily incapacitated.

This, this looks bad, really bad. The siege is already going so poorly, and there are dozens of thousands of foes coming en-masse to back up the forces of the siege against Solace. Veril and Farzhis are hanging out somewhere between Alanea’s temporary Verdimenn infirmary and the artificers’ crafting workshop. They seem to be engaged with Littlebit and Nala about something. Maybe there’s progress being made on the ‘Twixt front after all?

Kinzul and Iylynila are still nowhere to be found. I’d be more unnerved at that, but I trust them both to the ends of the world and beyond. They wouldn’t just sacrifice themselves somewhere, leaving us rudderless. Lil isn’t ready to lead the Onyx Dawn, and I make a terrible leader. Teuila’s good with attention, but she’s more of a showboat than an inspiration, y’know? Not to disparage my beloved Te. She doesn’t want to slow down and ponder over the tough calls, she wants to be out where the action is, putting plays into motion that no one else can.

Luni, poor Lu, I’d never saddle her with leadership on top of everything else she’s siring. Siring? Saddled with? Um, holding onto? Dealing with? Whatever, words words words. Point being, Lu, my beloved Lu, I can never forgive myself with what I’ve already put you through and done to you. I couldn’t imagine forcing more upon you.

Could you imagine Lucky trying to take over leadership? I mean, just imagine his orders being something like, if it smells like friend, bring it home, if not, kill it. Y’know? He’s not stupid, at all, in the slightest, but he is a bit simpler than the rest of us in some ways. Still, he did manage to rustle up his own platoon to go assault Mydraig’s lair with, with Lil. I still have no idea how the hell he managed that.

Speaking of Lil, I think Lil, Lucky, and the rest have re-converged at the farthest domain. What one was it? Inishish’s? Crepuul’s? Regardless, some of the Spellknights are looking a little haggard. Shiz is in top form, but Zelshiz could use another week or two recuperating from the whole ordeal at Vorzog’s Keep, being skewered and stoned and whatnot. Um, I mean petrified, not drugged. Snrk.

I rattle my skull to dislodge the laughter at my own stupidity. Focus Reggie. We still haven’t come up with a solution here. You’re trying to literally move a mountain in a moment. You’re pretty full of yours—huh, that might help—elf. What is Reggie full of? A whole lot of “Nothing.”

I know my Backpotter form isn’t fully regenerated energy-wise, but my Space skill is tied to it, and my Space skill could do some pretty crazy things by the end. Sure, not move an entire mountain instantly, but carve out a perfectly angled cavern by shunting stone into my inventory, over a few minutes? That it can do.

Remember how we chopped trees Reggie? Remember? I don’t know how I could ever forget. Teuila had to tackle us to the side because she was worried my wedges wouldn’t angle the fall properly. We’re making our own internal wedge. We can’t exactly even keep all the stone we’re going to be needing to move, depending on unit quantity. However, I don’t know how he does it, but Lucky does a thing with his digging, that somehow compresses more of the stone he disturbs and displaces into and along the edges of what he’s digging, reinforcing the floors and walls and ceiling simultaneously.

If we can borrow that principle from Lucky, we can, well, cause matter to almost occupy the same space as other matter. Essentially we’re filling out the space between molecules with other molecules of relatively the same matter, chaining them together with greater density. Is… is that how Lucky did it? He combined aspects of my Space skill with Cragbeast digging displacement?

I mean, I don’t know how, and maybe not consciously or intentionally, but I’m pretty sure that the method through which Lucky was born was massively influential in the abilities he has. It must have granted at least some fraction of the applications of all of the abilities the rest of us had at our disposal at the time. I wonder if he ever grew into infinite thermal resistance, like Lil and the Cragbeasts should have had. The lava took him from us, or almost did, if it weren’t for the Phoenix plumes, on the Night of All Burn. I’m pretty sure he inherited specifically fire immunity, rather than thermal immunity. I really wish I could look at our Can’Z’aasian stats pages. Grumble grumble.

Alright, alright Reggie, focus. You should have been having all these self-arguments in Retrocognition. You went and let yourself get distracted for several minutes. That’s not a good thing. Alright, true, true, we’re back. We’re here. We’re paying attention.

Oh. Gulp. I don’t know how, but they found me.