Thankfully, I’ve earned Vylon’s trust over these past few weeks. At my behest, he thrusts downwards with all his might, plowing the tusk of the silt-odilian into the ground, preventing its forward momentum, and he begins shapeshifting into his human form, retaining his wings. Helping him out, I telekinetically toss one of the bots, juggling it, while I grip him and toss him up higher as his shapeshifting form finalizes. During that moment, I take a deep breath, hold it for the featherfall enchantment, and leap off the bot that I’m juggling with telekinesis, then proceed to drag everyone further skyward, skirting the area where we’d draw the Worldstorm’s lightning.
As I do, where Vylon’d just been standing, a second silt-odilian rises from the soil or subsoil, as if swimming through the land. As it rises in the only path it can, its skull is scraped along the tusk of the first creature, loosing a terrible, grating, bone-grinding cacophony. The path it had occupied under the tunnel, which it must have swam beneath on the way to us, now sprouts fissures, and sinkholes.
Terrorzin’s horde is a chaotic array of opportunistic scrabblers taking advantage of the additional space in order to crawl past and move ahead of their allies, and cautious troops navigating around these new hazards. The two creatures lock tusks, headbutting each other, loosing a jarring titanic crash, coupled with a snap, as the aboveground beast’s right tusk is severed from the impact.
Sadly, all the bots that’d been with us, save the two I tossed into the air, are now scrap, either from the upwards plunge, or the creature sweeping wide side to side with its tusks. The second, slightly-injured silt-odilian snaps its jaws at anything that scrabbles or bowls over the sides of its tusks towards its maw, destroying any hope of any of the bots even partially surviving. On the plus side, it did manage to weaken its brethren, and take out a few dozen of Terrorzin’s own troops.
Like Kinzul’d said, as the war rages on, Terrorzin’s going to care less and less about friendly-fire. His whole goal is killing everything and everyone on the planet anyway. Anyway, I need to figure out if this thing is actually necromantically animated or not. Firing holy halefire crossbow bolts at the one that just surfaced, it seems unfortunately not. Are these things native to Rayileklia, or are they one of Terrorzin’s chimaeric creations? I’m betting the latter. Oh, crap.
The newer of the two silt-odilians rears, snapping towards us, just missing knocking several of us out of the sky with its tusks. When it lands, its bulk shakes the canyon momentarily before it settles onto its belly and begins undulating away to the east at a rapid waddle. Crap, half the reason we’re here is to stall *anything* from getting past us, let alone living siege weapons.
Knowing what’s on the line, Vylon nods my way. I release him from my telekinetic grip supporting him aloft, so he glides swiftly after the monstrosity running along the valley to land atop it. In an instant, Vylon’s resuming his full draconic form. Even better, Shield and Aegis, that is Boetah and Shaylon, have arrived, and both hunker down in front of the beast. When their Latents activate, their stony hides become nearly impenetrable.
The charging silt-odilian shatters its massive tusks on the two rock dragons, as Vylon slams down upon its cranium repeatedly, cracking its skull. He’s charging his breath weapon again, and probably going to cook that beast’s brains any minute now. I can’t focus on that though, as I’ve still got one to deal with over here, with Teuila, Yui, and Yuri.
Though one of its tusks is broken, the monster we’ve got to deal with doesn’t seem any less fierce. If anything, it’s simply more pissed off, and rampaging harder as it flops about the canyon, stomping and thrashing side to side. Plinking it with a few cantrips and holy halefire crossbow bolts doesn’t seem to even get it to notice me. It’s just blindly—it’s blind. It’s a subsoil dweller. It senses through vibrations like some sort of mole or something. An enormous, hateful, reptilian, tusked mole, but a mole nonetheless. I wonder if these things are the apex predators of the ‘Neath. If they are native to Rayileklia after all. Speaking of, look who’s come to play Te. Only don’t look, because I really don’t need you getting whammied with a confusion aura right now.
Rayileklian albino mite-hulks pour forth from some crevices caused by the wild thrashing and charging of the two monstrosities. It seems they’re plenty agitated by the walking disaster-movie stomping atop their home. Glancing at Yui and Yuri, I check to make certain they’ve got their helmets’ visors closed, and they do, so I lower them carefully down towards the canyon floor slightly. Doing what I can to bring them in range based on their subtle tells, leans, muscle tenses, and other signals, I levitate them about with my TK grips. They both have some manner of devilish sight-like senses, that allow them to see even in magically pitch-black space. So, like me and Te, with our danger-weapon silent sonar senses, they don’t need to actually see in order to fight.
This works out a fair bit in our favor. With Vylon off to the east, he can’t get hit by the confusion whammy, as he works with Shield and Aegis to take down that silt-odilian. The four of us can simply annoy and direct mite-hulks back westward, into Terrorzin’s forces’ ranks, as they harry and harass everything stomping and charging about, while we remain aloft, not creating any ground vibrations. Glancing at Teuila, she’s probably got the same idea I do, so, while I’d love to remain in telepathic contact, I have to make sure my mind-blanking psychic-blocking enchantment is in place. We know there’s at least one archmage out there, probably gunning for me now that it knows I can counter some of its most powerful abilities. Best to not risk getting taken out of the fight with a single psychic blast or any mental domination or anything stupid like that.
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Calling to Ahliyui and Ahliyuri, I query, “You two have your conjuration abilities for the day available still? Want to sow some ultra-chaos with ‘em?”
Just feeling them smirk beneath their helmets with my silent sonar is confirmation enough for me, even before they respond. When Ahliyuri summons a radiant triceratops in midair, which crashes face-down into the back of the silt-odilian, spearing its spine with a resounding CRACK. The thing’s thrashing is suddenly about half as ferocious as it was a few seconds go. Further, Ahliyui summons an umbral rex midair, letting it fall feet-first onto the monster’s face. The two conjured dinosaurs loose respective elemental breath weapons, one a radiation blast, the other a shadowy inky breath, into the silt-odilian. They work together while wrestling to direct it westward, fighting, nudging, and spinning it, disorienting it, and sending it packing back into the ranks of Terrorzin’s forces.
The absolute chaos and carnage beneath us is—I lean swiftly to my right as a disintegration beam passes by my face. Well, some of the magical might in Terrorzin’s forces are either keeping their heads, or their confusion-addled brains are having them sling spells randomly. Neither is great for us. Fishing out a pair of Valkyrie bucklers from an interdimensional pack, I toss them towards Yui and Yuri.
While I can tell they raise their scaled brows beneath their helmets, I just mutter, “I know you guys can fight Florentine, akimbo, and two handed, but they’re slinging disintegrates around again. Better a shield we can dupe than any part of you or the armor your sibling crafted for you.”
They don’t argue, as they don the shields on their non-dominant forearms. Still, I wonder why Terrorzin didn’t use these land-leviathans or the plasma-balls earlier. Were they just so far at the rear of his troops, that it took this long to get them in position to fire, or to the fore? Or, more likely, was he saving them for when we showed up, knowing we’d be back to defend the pass. Or even… me in particular? Still, I wish our reinforcements and big guns weren’t so temporary compared to his. Yui and Yuri’s dino conjurations only last sixty seconds—hm, sixty six apparently. They must have leveled up in some fashion or another in the last few days.
There they go, poofing into the ether. Still, great positioning, summoning, intent, and power you two. Not that you can hear my brain right now with my psychic aegis circlet in place. Still, I flash the twins a proud look. I’m not certain if they can sense details in things like facial features with their blindsight or devilish sight. Using my telekinetic grips, I let them surf and soar about the sky, repositioning themselves to take on flying foes, responding to their subtlest muscle movements in order to direct them where they hint that they want to be.
Keeping the bots out of harms way is proving to be a full-time job, and thankfully it’s one that Teuila’s helping me with, by batting enemies out of the air, back into their own comrades. She grins cheekily at me, and bobs her head side to side, when she sees me noticing her work. I can’t help smiling at her and flicking my head ever-so-slightly upwards towards her in acknowledgement. Way to go Te. Oo nice shot. That has got to smart. The more foes that try to make their way around and over the rampaging silt-odilian, the more that end up battered down to its back, weighing it down, as Te, Yui, and Yuri strike them out of the sky.
We’re trying to conserve resources, because we’re going to be at this for hours on end, but I notice the faintest slowing of swings, muscle twitches that tell of building lactic-acid, and sweat pouring off of everyone’s brows. We’re not made of limitless endurance. No matter how hard we try to be. The twins notice me making note of their conditions, so I nod towards them. It’s time to start pouring on the hurt, using up daily-use abilities, SP, and other tricks, to push back on the horde a bit, as they’re overcoming the mite-hulks, and the silt-odilian.
Teuila crashes down upon the mammoth-mammoth-crocodile… yes I heard the mental redundant redundancy. Ugh, my brain. I mean the absolutely ridiculously huge mammoth-croc thing I’ve been calling a silt-odilian. She really brings the hammer down, literally, as she rockets downwards out of the sky Mjolnir-first. Her dive aims right into the back of the thing’s skull, driving it facefirst forward into the ground with a resounding crack louder than the thunder of the Worldstorm. The thing still isn’t going down. But from her perch, Teuila begins to really wreak havoc with the abilities I’d granted everyone back when we saved Prinrin from the necromantic blight.
Passing a breath through puffed cheeks and pursed lips, I try to keep note of every bit of the action, on every corner of the battlefield, like I’m some skyborne overwatch. Well, I guess I am, technically. Teuila is going ham on the skull of the silt-odilian, much like Vylon is from the back of the beast he’s engaging. Shaylon and Boetah have abandoned their Shield and Aegis stoic unmoving forms, in order to suplex the silt-odilian, aiding Vylon in caving in its skull, albeit slowly.
Yui and Yuri pick out high-value targets, generally elite Spellknights, like themselves, and urge my telekinetic grips to glide them into the fray. It’s a whole other level of focus, responding to their intricate movements, their amazing, excellent swordsmanship, in order to provide them with the aerial movements they need to best their foes swiftly. My brain feels like it’s firing five ways from Sunday simultaneously.
Hell, it sort of is. Four telekinetic grips juggling me, two bots, and two elite Spellknights, me plinking cantrips and crossbow bolts at anything that moves into range that ignores the carnage and makes progress eastward, and tracking everyone’s expendable resources. We, or perhaps our foes, are chaos incarnate. One way or another, the mess of entanglements, engagements, destructive abilities, and intimate duels going on feels like too much to manage in order to keep track of.
Thankfully, I’ve got a team just for that. Tapping my goggles, I get the scrying security center to open up the audio feed between my goggles’ scrying sensors, and them. They direct my attention to a squad moving with purpose through the ranks of Terrorzin’s forces, ignoring their confused allies, the mite-hulks, and even the silt-odilian. That’s the exact sort of thing I needed them to watch out for. I nod my thanks to the security team, and dive into the fray.