After I telekinetically pilot us around a makeshift barricade past what’s left of the Wistenzlia peak disaster, I land in the mud on my back with Teuila atop me, and ask, “Te… if you had the barrier, and were going to deploy it anyway… Why did we have to face tank those plasma projectiles for any time at all, much less as long as we did?”
Slapping her knee and chuckling, Teuila fills me in, “Right, so, firstly, didn’t want to strand you on the far side, natch. But more strategically, those Orichalcum forcefield force-redirector thingie things work by resonance, yeah? Which propagates through solids further than through air, because of vibratory motion, right? Basically, they only project a big enough shield if they’re in an already solid enclosure more or less.”
Nodding along with Teuila, I’d vaguely surmised that, so I prompt her to continue. She furthers, “Well, the next nearest choke point, with enough solid matter between valley floor and Worldstorm, is a few miles east. I figured you wouldn’t want to give up that much ground on the first salvo. Yeah? Right Airhead?”
Well, she’s got me there. It still hurt like a mrgrgr to block those buggers with our bodies for any length of time. I’m honestly surprised our Honoris Causas didn’t dissipate. Projecting a partially intangible spiritual dragon form to wrestle with, grapple, and push back plasma projectiles the size of a Boeing 747, was not on my to do list today. It’s almost a miracle it worked at all. Whether that’s due to their part ethereal nature, or some subset of draconic resistances against things I hadn’t thought about, like plasma, or what, I have no idea.
Still, we were split instants away from a seventy-five meter black hole that had a one fifty meter event horizon, which went nova out to about one point five kilometers. And that’s before the other three plasma projectiles hit the forcefield. I couldn’t make heads or tails of what happened from that point, other than the Orichalcum vaporizing after absorbing all that force. Regardless, we’re going to need a supply pipeline to somehow get more of those Orichalcum force-redistributor fields out here, and a lot of luck. The only backup forcefield we have is one I’m loathe to deploy.
I inform Teuila, “The only spare Orichalcum shield generator thing I’ve got though, is one that Nala said will fail spectacularly, ie: explode.”
Shrugging, Teuila lifts me by the hand and bashes my shoulder with hers playfully before responding, “Yeah? Well, then we’d just better fight hard enough to not need to use it. Easy peezy lemon squeezy Airhead.”
Groaning and facepalming, I drag my hand down my face before muttering, “I really, really, really wish you hadn’t said that.”
This of course prompts Te to cackle, which is followed by me rolling my eyes as my face droops in sheer dread. Thankfully, to distract me from my utter terror as my genre senses ring the clarion klaxon of dire warning, she plants a kiss on my lips that leaves me reeling. The smile that plasters itself across my face is probably pretty goofy looking.
Vylon, Yui, and Yuri, are hustling about and prepping to receive the wave of foes charging our direction. I can sense that Boetah and Shaylon are a couple minutes out yet, being slower, what with them being rock dragons and all. Still, it’ll be nice when our Shield and Aegis get here. Boetah’s Latent, Shield, I want positioned further back, while Shaylon’s Latent, Aegis, I want closer to the fore. Mostly so that I can snipe and intercept any spells that might actually pierce through Shaylon’s near-immunity to lower tier magic.
Checking in on them, they’re lumbering or loping this way as quickly as they can, which is good and all, but I feel a bit bad that they’re so much heavier and slower. I can tell Shaylon could get a bit faster, due to their serpentine nature, but Boetah’s all bulk. I regret dragging Boetah away from Atter, during their conjugation time. Is he committed to staying at the front for the rest of the war? Or is he going to try to sprint back to Solace between waves, in order to keep… mating. Bluh. Brain, maybe don’t even try to figure that one out.
The emotional wavelengths around me all send the equivalent of raised eyebrows my way telepathically, while I simply grimace and blush. C’mon guys, maybe focus on the encroaching horde, instead of my stupid brain’s random thought trains? Yeesh. You’re one to talk Reggie. Oh shush. I know how easily I can get distracted. It’s half of what I do. Hell, distractions make up half of my plans. Like, I don’t mean like adding distracting enemies into plans is a part of fifty percent of my plans. I mean that my ADHD squirrel-brain logic leaping thought-train tracks brings me at least half of my random insights. Probably. I think. I dunno. Shut up. We’ve got company incoming.
That… has to be about five thousand troops headed our way. Thankfully, they’ve gotta funnel through a hundred twenty’ish meter tunnel. But, between fliers, and packing shoulder to shoulder, the first wave that hits us will be nearly, uhh, math. Approximate area of a sixty meter radius thing, sixty squared is thirty six hundred, times pi, three point one four one five nine two, is about, ahhh eleven grand square meters? Divided by the bottom row taking up about a square meter per, all the way across, so a hundred twenty at ground level, along with, urgh the fliers take up way more space due to wingspan, and motion.
There’s much more space above ground level within the plasma-forged tunnel, but they can’t pack in as well. Most of the fliers are dragons, so they’re far, far larger than the humanoid sized troops on the ground, whether or not any of the grounded troops are human-form dragons. Still, say about ten to twelve across at each height segment. Hundred twenty down there, subtracts that from the square area, then the… Argh, eleven height segments of flying space. Eleven times twelve plus a hundred twenty, around a quarter thousand of Terrorzin’s forces simultaneously. Up to about two hundred fifty two.
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Smirking at the numerical figures involved, shoving me aside, Vylon snarks, “Is that all Schism? Catch your breath,” before he begins to grow into his nearly-full dragon form on this side of what’s left of Wistenzlia Peak.
Vylon’s stance is unusual, and he’s not even aimed up the tunnel towards the foes rushing our way. Rather, he appears to be breathing deeply and counting under his breath, slightly hidden around the corner from our foes, his right side up against Wistenzlia’s rubble. Teuila makes as if to rocket up the tunnel into the fight, but I place my hand in front of her chest and motion for her to wait. I trust Vylon. He’s one of our Queens, and his Latent is Rend. I don’t know if Teuila’s seen it in action yet. I haven’t had a spare moment to see it in action, but I’ve surmised approximately what the ability is.
Sure enough, as the first wave of foes is getting within breath-weapon distance, Rend rushes from the north side of the rubble, keeping his right fore-claw extended, to the south-side, across the entrance of the tunnel bored through it by the plasma-ball. The space through which his claw tore—Wait, is that grammatically correct? Urgh, nevermind, not important. The space he tore through visually reads similarly to heat-mirage lines, faint waves in the air that distort vision. Realizing what’s about to happen, and why Rend is once again around the corner from the opening, I lunge and drag Teuila with me, further away from the mouth of the tunnel.
Sure enough, the stampede of foes essentially forces their first line into the perpetual rents in the air, ejecting viscera at stampede speed directly forward. Several fliers and a couple of lucky ground troops make it through spots that Vylon’s Latent missed, but they’re quickly crushed under the tidal wave of blood and gore and bodies of their fallen allies. Having accidentally created one, once or twice—especially memorable is the Mydraig the Hareslayer incident—I’d prefer to stay out of any “splash zones.” Heh, I’m sure the foes who made it through also wish and prefer they’d been able to stay out of any “splash zones.” I’m sure they’re not dead from that, but they’re inconvenienced enough to be picked off by our robobuddies, without risking Nala and Littlebit’s contraptions.
Speaking of the clankers, apparently sensing opportunity, they begin sifting through the gore and corpses. As they find living foes, they’re shanking the survivors of Terrorzin’s forces first wave. Once again, brutal, but efficient. I snag one of the bots, and ask to be patched through to Nala and Littlebit once more on my goggles. Are… are the security center team that’s watching our scrying sensors eating popcorn? Where would they even get—well, I guess the Can’Z’aasian digital shops might have popcorn. Rattling my skull, I have no words. I mean, it could be dragonbonemeal dumplings or something. I can’t be certain it’s popcorn. But they are snacking down as if watching a blockbuster action flick.
Calling across the goggles audio scrying feed, I plead, “Hey, Nala, Littlebit? Can you walk me through swapping one of your clankers over to sensory feedback and recording mode? Or whatever it is you felt it’d be able to do, that might give us data on Terrorzin’s aura if we happen to run into it. I’ve got a feeling we’ll be running into it sooner rather than later.”
Chipper as ever, Littlebit responds, “Sure thing Tiger, just uh, ignore the really erm, powerful vibrating uh, segment, and look for the unshielded positronics, like my ‘Twixt sensors. You’ll need to run a line from the positronics to the optics, and then down to the, oh, spoot. Do you have any paper on you? You’re probably gonna want some form of output. I guess it could maybe be a thin sheet of a soft metal like aluminum or something too. Basically you’ll ah, heh, tweak the vibrator to write out the analytics of the sensory feedback. Yeah?”
While zapping the crap out of myself, trying to work around Littlebit’s unshielded positronics in her clanker, I bite my lips and attempt to not roll my eyes. I also attempt to not imagine why she’s dancing around talking about the vibratory element. Of course I fail miserably in my attempt to avoid thinking about it. The verdant virtuoso of inventing is a hellaciously salaciously cute flirt. And she’d only recently reunited with Tiktik, only to immediately need to part from Tiktik to join our war effort. They’re the loves of each other’s lives.
I’m certainly not going to critique someone’s, um, y’know, whatever. Is it hot out here or is it just me? Phew. Reggie? Maybe don’t try to figure out what Littlebit does with that. Blah shush! I wasn’t trying to. I… think. Eugh blrblrblrghle. Vylon glimpses my way, smug as hell, and I avert my gaze for a while. fanning myself and working on the clanker. My senses are acting up though, and it’s not just from positronic shock. I read something off about my big ally.
Glimpsing at Vylon, he’s nursing his right shoulder, and I quirk my brows, raising them towards him, but he shrugs me off, declining to answer. After a few seconds, it’s clear that the enemies aren’t quite stupid enough to keep charging into a nearly invisible attack that rends them to shreds. Suddenly I feel a familiar tug on Rayileklia’s leylines. A deep, strong pull, to the farthest reaches, the furthest rungs, the ninth tier of magic. My eyes glance about quickly, trying to ascertain if a meteor is being summoned atop us, but no, it’s definitely not, because my eyes can’t move.
More than a little familiar with the magics involved in moving between moments, existing in the absence of time, my heart freezes. Or, well, it would, if it weren’t already stopped from beating, within this paused moment. My Time skill from Can’z’aas can’t exactly help me here, because I certainly don’t have eight minutes to try to activate it while someone is abusing a stopped flow of time for everyone but them. I just, I need to figure out who cast it, where, and what they’re up to in stopped time. I can’t spy anyone though, or anything that would clue me in.
In fact, absolutely nothing is moving. No dust particles settling, no rain drops splashing, nothing. Nothing is moving except for one ensorcelled foe, who blinks past Vylon’s Rent space, and takes aim at Vylon. No. No no no. That, that’s the beginning of a powerful word, a single word of power that, that… No! Come on, come on Reggie. You’ve got subtle-spell magical rigor according to Jarrah. Your mentor says you don’t need to move, or speak, to cast your spells. You are one of few beings in existence who can perceive in stopped time.
You can perceive, and you don’t need to speak. Do it Reggie, counter this jerk’s spell, do it! You have to! Please, please work! It feels like pressure squeezes my eyeballs from the insides, vacuuming my temples towards them. Despite the pain, I push harder. I know the rune sequence. I have the SP available. I can do this. So do it already! Please!