It only takes a moment at the security center in order to retrieve the mirror that corresponds to Tiktik’s scrying sensor. Arriving in the tinkering workspace, I’m not all that surprised to see Leezahna hustling about, checking in with Nala, Littlebit, Alanea, Yuri, and others. I am surprised to see a host of heavily enchanted objects piled up, looking ready to go. Moreover, I blink in amazement at the scads of combat-bot bodies prepped for Nala and Littlebit to animate, as their powers allow. There are a few animated at the moment, so that must be the limit of our pair of artificers.
Responding to my thoughts, Nala comments, “Quite, friend Reggie. I must say, it’s slightly taxing keeping such automatons animated, enough to make my scales sweat. Thankfully Miss Bitty seems to suffer no such drain. Or her cheer is strong enough to disguise such discomfort. Oh, before I forget, you should get the strapping Spellknight lad to inform you of our finds. Here, pack up all this, then shoo, off with you Schism.”
Littlebit glances my way, and shrugs apologetically while mouthing, “Sorry Tiger.”
Not wanting Littlebit to worry, I simply flash her a smile and slide her the mirror through which she can talk to Tiktik. The joy that alights upon her face is pure bliss, ecstasy even. Littlebit first hugs the mirror, then sets it gingerly down before leaping at me to hug me tightly in thanks. Despite enjoying her show of gratitude, I disentangle myself from the lovely lass, nudge her cheek with my nose, and begin packing up the things Nala indicated. Though I’m wondering if the bots will amble and slash or fly themselves, or if I should find a way to pack them up as well.
Thankfully, Yuri is near enough and apparently knows that I need to be informed, “Schism, there’s only one orichalcum-backed field of force so far, a few explosives enhanced by laced enchantments, those automatons, and this… thing. Based on a combination of putting our heads together, we think it’s some sort of locomotion enchantment device. Cutting short space, or moving from point to point, teleporting instantly. Takes a lot of focus, a lot of ambient mana, and a long time to activate though. And it can only handle a couple of bodies at once, and only a few dozen kilometers or so.”
My breathing stops as the possibilities race through my mind. Analyzing the object, it seems to do exactly as Yuri believes. The activation time takes up to as much as half of an hour, depending on how far its teleportation destination is. It has a heinously long recharge time between uses, even if you could provide the mana for it directly, and there’s a danger of backlash, or the device breaking upon use, depending on how much is being moved at once, how far, and so on. It’s really niche, and I might be one of only four or so people alive on the planet who can even use it. Despite all that, it’s a hell of a boon for the moment. I begin concentrating on activating it immediately, aiming to shortcut the distance to Vieriss Valley nearly ninety percent. At least, comparatively versus the ground trip we’d have to travel to round our way out our valley towards Wistenzlia Peak, via Vieriss Valley, based on the device’s distance radius as the crow flies.
It’ll take at least ten minutes, probably closer to half of an hour, but I could theoretically use quickening metamagic to speed up the process somewhat. The conversion rate for my SP to its quickening though would be abysmal. I wonder how large the SP pools of other archmages on Rayileklia are. Most, if not all of them—other than Tiktik—are under Terrorzin’s banner. Could any of them have better versions of this magical device? If they could teleport a few dozen troops, instead of a couple of people, and teleport farther, or more frequently, or all of the above… I shudder to think about the consequences of Terrorzin being able to place his pieces about the board that is Rayileklia with startling efficiency.
Trying to get my head in the game, I query, “Yuri, have you been keeping tabs on your sister? She’s out in Vieriss one vee one’ing Spellknights around my blockade. Do you want a lift out there to join her? I figure the device can handle a couple of bot bodies, me, and one or two other people at most.”
Nodding, Yuri answers, “Aye, I was hoping you’d offer Schism. That deranged sister of mine’s going to get an ear-full. But, well, I am proud of her. These goggles, mirrors, and all of this scrying stuff you have set up, it’s amazing. Seeing her fight, knowing she’s at the top of her game, and doing well, it puts me at ease.”
Speaking of scrying equipment, glancing through my goggles, Teuila’s rocketing back towards Solace with Luni in her arms. Lu is covered in gore, shaking, and crying. I think Teuila might be crying too, or the sweat is rolling down her goggles. Every muscle in me clenches with worry. My heart and breathing stop. Luni’s okay, she’s not derezzing, but the urgency with which Te is returning her to Verdimenn is unnerving.
In nearly no time at all, I see Teuila skidding to a stop at the infirmary with Luni in her arms. Poor Luni is quietly sobbing in pain, cradling her arms. Something about her forearms seem wrong somehow, I’m guessing they’re broken. Teuila nods my way as she carefully hands Luni off to Alanea.
Privately to my brain, Luni self-deprecates, “I’m sorry I’m not brave like you all, that I’m a big baby and can’t keep fighting when it really hurts. I’m a hindrance in battle, you guys having to protect me all the time. I—.”
Rebuffing her gently, I chastise, “Lu, you’re plenty brave, trust me, My Anchor. Bravery isn’t necessarily being able to get back up after every hit, or hell, even being able to survive every hit, or take them at all. I’m guessing you freaked when a big attack was coming your way, and you protected your face, blocking it with your forearms like a boxer or something. Yeah?”
Nodding meekly, Luni agrees, “Yeah, pretty much. Just, I’m, I’m trying to be better. Things get harder and harder from here on out. I have to pull my own weight too, or, or, or more bad things will happen. Injuries certainly aren’t going to make that any easier though.”
Quirking a raised brow in her direction, I query, “Is that foresight Lu, or waxing poetic about the nature of a war as it comes to a head?”
When Luni’s mental avatar assumes the “innocently whistling, rocking back and forth, hands clasped behind her back” posture, I’ve got my answer. I playfully roll my eyes as Luni and I stick our tongues out at each other through our mental avatars. Still, knowing that–somehow–Lu still has foresight, that there is still more to come, it’s a mixed bag of emotions. On the one hand, I feel more reassured that we’re still in the primary timeline, and Luni hasn’t brought up any changes we need to make to stay on track. On the other hand, knowing that our tribulations are only going to grow more and more challenging is balking.
Only moments later, Luni telepathically sends, “Erm, Hero? I, I actually am, um, nervous, sometimes. Scared even. Like really really. You asked me once, if I knew if we were still in the primary timeline, or if it was even possible to know. I don’t know. I don’t know and it scares me. I don’t know what it would even mean if we weren’t, aren’t in the prime timeline. S-sorry. Nothing you need to be saddled with. Forget I said anything.”
Raising my left eyebrow towards Luni, I see her loosing hesitant, nervous chuckles. She follows that up with shrugging apologetically. I sigh before blowing Lu a kiss. I ask her with my eyes, to tell me if she needs me to stay, if she needs me right now. Luni just shakes her head sadly in response, pouting all the while. I know Lu, I know. Me too. I wish we could spend more time together, especially now, especially when you’re hurting, and things are getting harder.
Calling out loud to My Wings and My Anchor, I suggest, “Hey Te, saddle up if you’re ready to head to the front for our first major push. Lu, rest up, feel better. Te, you took Yui out towards the front already, and she’s out there soloing and dueling Spellknights in T-zin’s ranks. I’ll bring Yuri and some bots with us. Oh, we’ll TP in a few minutes. Yuri, Nala, and Littlebit found this trinket amongst one of the many hoards, or maybe the shop system, I didn’t ask where it came from.”
Teuila whistles appreciatively, knowing just how impressive teleportation is, and how much I need sources of it to study in order for us to get home someday. Not to mention how many of my worries revolve around transportation. If we understand realmways—or portals or whatever—better, our evacuation plan projects can make headway. As is, we’ve stalled out on that end for the moment due to the necessities our engagement schedule requires. Nala and Littlebit have switched gears, focusing on crafting Orichalcum fields of force-dispersion barriers, an assembly line to piece together the bots for them to animate, explosives, and any other intermediate projects.
Dodging several cots, trainees, volunteers, and injured individuals, I slide up alongside Luni as Alanea tends to her forearms. They look pretty rough, and unlike Teuila, Luni doesn’t have an Honoris Causa to lean on for regeneration. She pouts my way, and sniffles, but I tousle her hair and lean down to kiss her forehead. I give Lu a gentle one-armed hug, rest our foreheads together, and nuzzle noses for a moment before I give Alanea a peck on her cheek. Whispering my temporary farewells, I beg them both to be well, and to take care. Both of themselves, and each other.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
I gaze down at the device in my left palm, its glow is steadily growing from near indistinct, to noticeable. The less solid matter this teleportation has to go through, the better, so we’d better head to the aerie. Plus, on the way, we can pick up Shaylon if Aegis is feeling up to it. We need to get our defenses up to par in Vieriss Valley ay ess ay pee. I’m not sure if the teleportation can handle another body though, at least with the bots as they are.
Thankfully, as I’m thinking about taking off, Littlebit and Nala show me how to fold down and unfold the bots. This makes transporting them a heck of a lot easier, though they’re still a bit too big to slide into my hyperdimensional haversack, or whichever extradimensional pouch I’m carrying around these days. Lu, Te, and I keep swapping it up, grabbing whoever’s bag is closest at a moment’s notice, so I forget who has what.
Once I’ve got the bots condensed down as far as I can, I lift them in a pile with my telekinesis, then I pick up Yuri, Te, and myself with my other telekinetic grips. May as well save every bit of energy that we can for the battle to come. Bidding the artificers, Alanea, Lu, and Leeza adieu, we telekinetically surf our way from Verdimenn up through the near-featureless tunnels and halls of solace. I say near-featureless, because there’s conduit and cabling being laid throughout Solace, as I requested, for its electrification.
Despite not wanting to interrupt Atter and Boetah during their conjugation, my approach is heralded by Shaylon and Boetah both. After a brief explanation, I can’t turn down Boetah’s offer to join us at the front lines. This does have me worried for the little transportation artifact though. I’m already struggling with activating it, but I suppose it does make sense, to get our nearly impervious defenders out to block off the pass as early as possible, while we set up fortifications.
Chagrined, but grateful, I explain my plan, and the device, “So, this thing takes a while, and a lot of focus, and power, to activate. It’ll transport us a good long distance though, especially when doing it from above cloudcover, without as much physical matter in the way between us and our destination. I guess it sort of bends space between points, or something. Anyway, without over-taxing the device, I figure the closest I can get us, as the crow flies, is at the northeast end of a tiny tributary that flows down towards Vieriss Valley. It’s still a good few miles hike from there, but most of us can spare the energy to fly, glide, ride ghostly horses, or otherwise locomote from there to our engagement site. Sound good?”
In their delightful slight hiss, with emphasis on ess sounds, Shaylon agrees, “It certainly sounds sufficiently good, Schism.”
I can’t help wearing a rueful smile as everyone nearby hears my brain appreciating Shaylon’s accent, and voice. Boetah claps me on the back heartily, and I’d normally take the contact in stride, or enjoy it, I have to rebuff him gently, “Careful, I can’t break my focus on this device and its activation, or I have no idea what sort of consequences we might be looking at.”
Abashed, Boetah nods, and rubs the back of his head. I’d comfort him if I weren’t so intensely focused on the artifact. It’s probably the most difficult magic I’ve ever managed. We hasten along towards the aerie in a larger group than I’d been anticipating, so the magic becomes exponentially more complex.
Arriving on the aerie, the wind whips and howls along beneath the roar of the ceaseless storm. It sets our cloaks and coats to fluttering in this tiny pocket of safety surrounded by acid clouds and lightning streaks. Our Lady has kept enough of the Worldstorm to surround Solace, leaving it seeming impenetrable from the sky. My focus is split more than I’d like, attempting to maintain activation of the artifact. In fact, it’s starting to feel like the magic is going wild, out of control, so when several Onyx Dawn members on the aerie question me, I barely refrain from snapping at them. I have to focus all my willpower into wrangling the stray magics of this artifact, attempting to corral the device into performing as intended.
Cranking up my aura-vision reveals a chaotic swirl of energy around the device thrumming with power in my hand. There are tethers, tendrils of energy, going to Teuila, Yuri, Shaylon, Boetah, and the pile of bots. The object pulses, flickering in a rhythm I can’t keep up with as the runes empowering it glow erratically. Colorful swirls in the air become jagged streaks of light that arc and sizzle as they come into contact with the storm, or the aerie. I worry what letting one of those arcs hit my loved ones and allies might do.
The wind’s rush whips into a frenzy of nearly hurricane proportions as the climactic energy for teleportation builds. Magic surges, and audibly crackles as it penetrates Rayileklia’s primary-realm-proper. What once was like a geometry-mesh grid, a parallel and perpendicular series of lines woven over all of Rayileklia’s topography and features, now appears tangled and frayed. The strands whip about, snapping and lashing out wildly as if struggling to break free of their bindings to the device or their bindings to the natural order of the world.
My aura vision brightens against my will, filling with deep blues and purples that mingle with sharp bursts of reds and yellows. It’s blinding, but worse–perhaps worst–is a pale, sickly green, near-white, at the center of the bursts of color, the artifact in my hands. It’s reminiscent of a few too many horrid events or powers I’ve witnessed upon Rayileklia, and I’m starting to regret even trying to utilize this artifact. The colors have a near-physical presence, as if their pulsing emits waves of pressure, striking me. The pulses, the waves roll up my body and shove me away from the other assembled Onyx Dawn members.
None of my allies seem to even be able to approach against the waves of pressure exploding outward from the epicenter, the device in my hand. None save of course My Wings, Teuila. I shake my head quickly at her, begging her to abandon her approach. As much as I’d cherish the solace of her embrace, or aid, I need to focus every ounce of my will, and every train in my brain, on activating this device safely.
My mind wrestles with magic itself, a familiar feeling for me, actually. Too bad changeling-fae aren’t meant to be magic users, let alone archmages. No time to contemplate your limits Reggie, push past them! Pain rushes through my face and cranium, as if a blood vessel has burst in or above my right eye. The fact that red begins washing down across my vision seems to indicate that that was likely the case. A grinding force arises in the pit of my stomach, feeling as if it’s gnawing me apart from the inside, but I’m forced to ignore even this inconveniently timed–and rather unpleasant–sensation.
My stomach invents a four-star Olympic tumbling floor routine, flopping about with wild abandon, and a series of waves of pressure slam against my body, rolling up it to concentrate on my cranium. The pressure pulses simultaneously inside and outside, hammering my skull, shared waves giving each other high fives with my skull at the center of their meeting.
I realize that Teuila, and others have been attempting to talk to me, but I can’t hear them over the roar of magic. Heck, I can’t even hear them over the wind for that matter, since the wind is physically influenced by the manifestation of magic. A familiar, terrifying feeling creeps over me. The bot bodies, my allies, Te, My beloved Wings, all seem to be spaghettifying, disintegrating. I rattle my skull and fight back my fears. They’re just being teleported Reggie, focus, focus so you don’t strand them in some teleport-ative limbo.
Vylon bursts onto the aerie with a roar, his voice echoing above even the ungodly loudness of the magic and wind, “Don’t forget me, Schism!”
My handle on the magic slips and worsens, a tendril lashes out from the artifact to entangle with Vylon’s natural energies. Blinding golden flashes spark and blaze in my vision where magic connects to magic. The teleportation magic threatens to spiral out of control, and it’s all I can do to think of and recite my titles, expressing my Honoris Causa. The dragon in me, my spiritual self manifested in dragon form, grips and tugs at the strands of magic, blocking out all else, voiding out all sound and light, so that I can focus on my task. The last thing I can see before the all-encompassing void of my Honoris Causa blocks off my vision is waves of energy rippling outwards from each of the auras of those around me, distorting when coming in contact with the power unleashed from the artifact. The pattern burns itself into my eyes, a disorienting mix of oil on water, refusing to settle into any recognizable shape or rhythm.
The device has definitely reached a critical point, if I can’t stabilize it now, it might fizzle out, or worse, explode, having unknowable consequences for my allies whose energies are now mixed with its powers. Despite having nullified and voided out events that could interfere with my senses, or even engage them at all, the stone of the aerie beneath me vibrates, almost sympathetically against the artifact’s wild pulsations. Focus Reggie, focus!
Drawing up all the willpower I can muster, I manage to clamp down on the erratic energy, and a million things happen at once. My Honoris Causa dissipates explosively, sending my senses into disarray as all of the sensations I’d been blocking out come back at once. Swirling colors align into sharp, bright lines, forming concentric rectangles, like some 70s sci-fi movie time tunnel. Wait, a what? Whatever, focus. The artifact’s thrum stabilizes from wild pulses down to a soft hum as the magic subsides. The air around me stills, the wind dying down to a mere whisper.
Well heck, the aerie is eerily silent after that tumultuous event. The artifact dies down into silence and lifelessness, obviously entering its cooldown state that will keep it from being engaged again for quite some time. That leaves me standing on a quiet aerie, alone with my thoughts. A silent and empty aerie. Silent and empty except for me. There are no robo-buddy chassises in a pile, no Vylon, no Teuila, no Yuri, no Shaylon, no Boetah. Wait. That means the teleportation worked. Right? Wait. Wait.
Crap.
Sure, it worked alright. I’d facepalm, but I couldn’t hit myself as hard as the realization that strikes me like a physical blow. The teleportation worked, but only for my allies. The magic leaves–or, left, I guess–me hanging out on the edge of a cliff, alone.