Hurtling face-first into a wall in the vault, I catch sight of someone standing at its entrance, someone who I do not want to be near, much less vulnerable around. That someone’s stony gray skin, full, impressive white beard, battlescars, entirely-white left eye, and disapproving stance are more than enough to tell me who they are. The human form of Terrorzin notices me materializing back into Rayileklia proper.
This is gonna be bad. I’m almost glad and grateful that he has a squad of human-form ancients behind him. Maybe he won’t engage his Latent-infused dragonforce ice-aura with them around? It’d kill them too. I gulp though, apprehensive of my circumstances. Of course, gulping is something which I wish I hadn’t done, as that invites another flavor passenger. Strangely though, this flavor, is cheeseburger.
I’m almost shocked. I mean, leave it to cosmic horror to trip you up and fake you out. Y’know? While also maintaining that aura of existential dread, as it seems to have read my mind from two realms away. The implications are, well, unsettling to say the least.
Sadly, I’m traveling at what seems, or at least feels, like it might be pretty close to fractions of C, light-speed. So when my skull crunches against the wall, the combinations of pains I’ve endured, and those that are lasting, and the obvious concussion I receive upon impact, I black out.
Being shaken with a concussion is never a fun experience, especially not one to wake up to. Being shaken with a concussion by a pissed-off human-form dragon king tyrant? Also never a fun experience. But I can’t help giggling and smiling widely when I realize Terrorzin has stepped into the vault to pick me up by the collar, while his lieutenants are in the adjacent room. This could get pretty silly. No fear Reggie. No fear. No pressure. Pft, no pressure, right.
While being throttled, I can barely hear Terrorzin’s question as he snarls, “What’s so amusing, and where are they, whelp!?”
Being as absolutely childish as I can, to buy myself a few seconds, I stick my tongue out and respond, “Depends. Who wants t’know?” as if I had no idea who Terrorzin was, and couldn’t recognize him just from his impressive aura and confidence, this stature, this presence about him.
His bloated ego is enraged at the implication. Of course, the fury that takes over his face makes me giggle more, as his focus is more and more on me, and just me. It’s not on our environment, not our surroundings. Keep him faltering, keep him off his game, don’t show the fear. I mean, I’m kind of not afraid, funnily enough. My smirk grows a bit more malicious, enraging him further, as he can tell that I know who he is and was only doing it to piss him off. Reggie Shellcracker, if there’s one thing you’re good at, it’s pissing people off.
My uh, let’s say my host, continues to throttle me, enraged, as he rants, “You insignificant whelp, you will tell me, and you will die here!”
Rolling my eyes, I tease, “Shouldn’t that be or I will die here? If not, there’s really no incentive for me to tell you big guy.”
The frothing of Terrorzin’s mouth and spittle that flies in my face is a little bit gross, which is probably the only thing that makes me want to piss him off a little less. But it’s also almost fun. Dangerous, but fun. Probably stupid too. But I keep pushing his buttons anyway.
While he’s got me he switches his grip to my throat, and squeezes, but I’ve got an enchantment that lets me breathe anyway. I dig out a roll of sashimi, and begin snacking. Hm, I’ve eaten so many of these across my lifetime. Go figure, Shellcracker Pond still providing, lifetimes and worlds away. I miss our home. I pretend to be consumed by consuming my snack, ignoring Terrorzin. His eyes bulge fit to pop out of his head.
Pretending to be polite, I offer, “What, want some? I’ve got plenty.”
The roar from my host at this range is a bit deafening. I burp in his face as he’s roaring, and compliment, “Hey nice roar, that’s one of the loudest I’ve heard. Not *the* loudest though. I give it say, a seven outta ten. Guess you could work on it a bit more. You could roar like this with practice,” and I burp in his face again.
There’s a moment where I worry Terrorzin’s just gonna go ahead and snap my neck as the veins on his head enlarge to ridiculous levels. Thankfully, he doesn’t. I’m pushing my luck, but I need his attention to be just a little more focused on me, just a little bit less aware of his environment. His mind is racing. I can sense that he’s thinking. He’s realizing something. Sneering, Terrorzin realizes how much I’m playing him, so he switches tacks.
Leaning so that his beard brushes my cheek, he whispers uncomfortably close to my ear while he’s got me by the throat, “Perhaps you don’t realize how precarious your situation is here, Whelp of the Onyx Dawn. You’re in the claws of the most powerful dragon who’s ever lived. You live only but moments more, and you will never leave, unless I wish your corpse to be brought out and paraded in front of your allies.”
While he’s nice and close, I use my cosmic roundsheath to conjure a giant titanwood block, filling up the exit of the room, airtight, soundproof. He doesn’t notice that I’ve just cut him off from his lieutenants, so I continue to sass, “Nah. That won’t work. Can’Z’aasians don’t leave corpses. I’ll derez. Oh you probably don’t even know what that means. You’re ignorant of us I guess. Maybe ignorant in general. I’ll put it in simpler terms you can understand. I’ll poof if I die. You’ll have to think of something else.”
Roaring again, Terrorzin claims, “You are trapped with me, and these are your final moments, and this is how you act!?”
Grinning cheekily, I can’t believe I get to use this line twice in one day, even better, one of them on Terrorzin himself as I give him the most malicious grin, and lean right into his face. I lick the sashimi flavor from my lips as I whisper, “That’s where you’re wrong bucko. I’m not trapped in here with you,” I let the sentiment linger, giving a Cheshire grin, even casting prestidigitation to leave a faint outline of that grin in the air, before I finish the cliché, “You’re trapped in here with me.”
Just as Terrorzin’s probably about to snap my neck, and before he can engage his Latent, or even realize he’s really, really stuck but good, trapped in that room, I ravenport out. I can sense the instant his rage turns to fear. The panic, his temperature changing, rapidly cooling. Three are we, we are three, we wheel, we fly, we peck and scratch, some we die.
Poofing to the far side of things, I continue to engage my Ravencoat to Ravenport, turning into three ravens, getting as far away as I can. We’ve only got moments, perhaps minutes, before Terrorzin realizes he can bust out. Then, a short while as he fights his way out.
Each time I port, I split off in three directions before reforming in my own body at the safest location, farthest from the most of the horde, while leading Terrorzin’s forces on merry goose chases in three directions, splitting off more and more of them. I’m so glad I only used the one charge of the coat today to impress Nyssa’Lina. Kinda wish I hadn’t used that charge, but eh, whatevs.
Doing my best to sense along the elemental leylines for where FFS fought, pretending to be me, I find where they stashed Riptide and Frostburn, and other magical gear. Cha-ching. Great job buddy. I almost can’t believe you were able to pull that off, but you’re a really awesome elemental friend. Do I deserve such awesome allies? I don’t feel like I do, but I do appreciate them.
Mumbling mentally to myself, as if FFS could hear my thoughts, I ramble on about them. I feel bad how often your body dissipates for me, violently, rather than getting to last its full duration for you to feed on ambient mana. I hope you know how much I appreciate it. Me summoning you into combat, and you being willing to come, again and again. It means more to me than I’ve probably expressed.
Heck, I mean, you’re basically family at this point. I mean, you literally counted as having a Shellcracker soul, well-enough to don my gear and wield my weapons. More than once in my life, elemental spirits have sacrificed themselves for me.
Trying not to figuratively get caught with my pants down—figuratively because my pants were burned, exploded, or melted off much earlier in the day—I try not to spend time lamenting, as I work to lose Terrorzin’s forces that search for me and chase me. It’s nerve-wracking, using every skill and trick in my book to distract and mislead my pursuers.
What skills Rej? Using my natural shapeshifting, my ability to engage my Can’Z’aasian Stealth skill with chameleon-like efficiency at blending into my surroundings, or rather rock octopus or something like that. Leaving temporary breath-weapon bursts directions that I’m not headed, to make it look like I was using some extra propulsion to head the way I’m not going. Everything I can think of.
When I’m mostly out of sight, I use another port to make my way up into the hollowed out Worldstorm. Completely losing all of Terrorzin’s horde, leaving them confused as they search about his encampments and column. Whewww. Phooph. Holy. Friggin’. Crap. I burst into hysterical, slightly-frightened laughter amidst the safety of the sky between segments of Worldstorm.
Just, just gonna let that kinda ride itself out. Just gonna be hysterical here for a little bit. Just gotta breathe. Breathe Air, breathe. Hoooooly crap. Holy crap holy crap holy crap. Terrorzin had his claws around my throat, literally. He was angling for something. He needed information. He was calculating, trying to keep *me* on the defensive, not knowing I was playing him the whole time. There’s a fierce intellect behind that rage.
I’m only lucky I pissed him off enough to distract him, and keep him focused on just his goal. He needed that information *more* than he needed the Hero of the Order of the Onyx Dawn off the board. That says something. Something big. I just don’t know what, not entirely for certain.
I know I’ve denied Terrorzin his plasma ball batteries, since he was treating his broodmothers’ souls as expendable fuel. I doubt that that’s all it was though. For some reason, when he said them, I think he was including the realmway tear. The fact that it’s out of his reach has him freaked out.
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Doing my usual LBBTKSL travel, but not at the ridiculously painful velocities I’d been pushing myself at earlier in the day, I head eastwards, to reunite with the Onyx Dawn defenders at Chokepoint #2. We’re still in the thick of things. This war is far from over. Really, this was all just a sidetrack, a diversion. One I’m proud to have participated in, but a diversion nonetheless.
Terrorzin is only trapped as long as it takes him or his lieutenants to dig through about five feet of titanium. Or, maybe less, if they realize they should just bust through the walls of the rooms instead. I know that they’re all panicking though, so hopefully they don’t think to take the logical, easier, shorter route. Heh. Reggie Shellcracker, sowing chaos, confusion, and panic? Nah, never. Pft.
Glancing through my goggles, I can see Teuila guarding Nyssa’Lina in Verdimenn, while Nala and Littlebit work nearby. They’ve done as I asked, and destroyed my special warren, to make room for the realmway tear project. It’s sad to see it go, and give up such strange, unique respawning resources, but we’ve got enough of them to rebuild another if we want to commit to that.
On another feed, I check the defenders at Chokepoint #2. Everyone seems in good health. Shiz is in good spirits, and slapping Vylon’s back while laughing about something. Lucky is scratching behind his own ears, and purposely laying over atop a bunch of—Shiz’s partner—Zelshiz’s Spellknights, trapping them beneath his bulk. There’s a mix of complaining, and belly scratching going on, from Zel’s Spellknights. Zelshiz and Shiz just look on at Lucky’s antics and laugh.
I know if the Spellknights or Lucky were needed for defense, he’d be off of them in an instant, and help them up. He might even teleport them into position, standing where they need to be. Snorting and chuckling, I shake my head ruefully. Ow, ow, ow. So many pinched muscles and nerves. Terrorzin throttling me by the neck certainly didn’t help.
Anyway, it seems like Lil, and Vylon, are taking turns keeping the chokepoint filled with certain death. Terrorzin’s troops are wary, and they’ve established their own center of operations on the far side of the chokepoint. Neither we nor they are giving any ground at the moment.
This is about the best outcome I could have hoped for. I want to get there as fast as possible, drop in, and deploy the Orichalcum forcefield that I’ve got on me. It’s the prototype one, the one that Nala said, “when this fails, and fail it shall, it shall fail spectacularly,” about. I’m not sure if I got the phrasing exactly one hundred percent correct, but the gist of it is it’s gonna explode.
Despite knowing it’ll explode, I want to buy our defenders as many moments of rest as it can buy them. I know Lil and Vylon have been pushing themselves. Lucky had been digging when he got the call to show up as a reinforcement for us frontline defenders. Yui had been soloing since much earlier in the day. Teuila’s no longer out there backing them up. It’s really not an ideal appointment of our forces, especially with Lucky out here, while we haven’t finished all our bunkers and evacuation routes and everything.
We swapped him out of his role a day earlier than we’d planned, to be able to counteract the high commanders’ dragonfrights. I mean, the security team, the Strategists Eight made that call, not me. I’m glad they did, it was nice to see Lucky, nicer to not have all our first wave of defenders die to the high commanders. As sad as I am to see our goodest boy, my son, go, we’ve got to relieve him and let him get back to tunneling and hollowing out spaces for false and real bunkers.
While continuing my way eastwards, to reunite with my friends, my loved ones, I pull out the tome again, the grimoire, and begin reading once more. It works twice a day to send me a little burst of SP after all. Might as well. I should probably also try to get it to teach me a spell other than the create undead spell, but I don’t know which spells it all has, and don’t have time to figure that out.
It might be safest to stick with the spell it already taught me for today, since it is pretty useful. Being able to animate a bunch of my foes’ fallen comrades behind them, tap them on the shoulder, and say look behind you, will be hilarious one way or another.
Either I get them to turn around, or they get eaten by their ex-allies. Good friggin’ lord that’s dark Reggie. Heh. Yeah, yeah it is. I just, I just need to distract myself from the fact that I’m taking, or enabling the taking of, so many lives. I have to coat it all in a wash of humor, dark or not.
I mean, think about it. Nyssa’Lina, one of Terrorzin’s high freaking commanders, defected, and had a grief-stricken breakdown in my arms today. If someone so close to his inner circle, someone so supposedly fanatically devoted as to rise through the ranks to be near him, could have a story, a loved one, a mission, regret, and all that, then who’s to say any of the snarling horde are any different? Well, there is one difference you’re forgetting. Huh?
The broodmothers. The snarling horde were born in a pan-dimensional womb, fanatically devoted from birth, by way of whatever rituals Terrorzin used. Ancient dragons might have their own allegiances, some of whom might be fanatical to Terrorzin, but anyone born under his rule, is devoted to him by blood magic essentially.
Oh. Crap. Yeah. Phooph. I don’t know how to feel about that. I mean, it’s obvious that not every single one of his soldiers was born that way. There was a chaotic defection civil-war between chokepoints one and two, when Nyssa’Lina stepped into the portable hole.
Yeah, but you literally cannot tell who is and who isn’t part of the blood-born brainwashed cult, so you can’t afford to dwell on it. You keep being you, doing what you’re doing, offering mercy when you can. When it won’t get you or someone you love killed. When you have enough of an upper hand, or stable hand, that the offer of mercy can be seen as valid, and not as a ploy to get out of a bind.
Sighing, I agree. I know, you’re right, it’s just—just what? It’s hard to let go of the possibility that I could be sparing, or saving, more lives. I can really only do it if I cover it with humor. I know pal, I know. Trust me, I get it. I mean, I’m you. Yeah, true. Sorry.
Getting all reflective and stuff while jumping east inside a hollowed out Worldstorm is just, well—. I suppose I could talk to the security center, and get patched through to either Teuila, or Lu, or the defenders at Chokepoint #2, or something. That’d probably take my mind off of things. I just, just don’t feel right about it right now. Just kinda wanna be numb for a little bit. Turn my brain off and read as I travel. Let things sink in, and process. Y’know?
Sure, sure. I get it. Plus, we haven’t fully kept our promise to Nyssa’Lina yet. We’ve gotta keep our defenses good, and get set up to where we can take a break. Once we do, we head back to Solace, chaos-proc our way back to the Astral Sea, and drag the broodmothers—Jatrisiahl, their mate included—and the tear back to Rayileklia when we pop back out. I just, I could only do so much.
I couldn’t fix their trauma. I couldn’t change their bodies. Didn’t even know what their original forms exactly looked like. I could only surgically sever fused portions, and duplicate those portions for the half I severed them from, allowing all the broodmothers’ to each have an individual body again. They’re still warped, and, and, and y’know?
Aye, I do. But I bet you one thing. What? To Nyssa, Jatrisiahl is going to look like the most beautiful woman in creation, upon seeing her, with her own mind, again. Smiling sadly, I nod, hoping that we’re right.
My brain sort of mutes itself for a while as I travel. Everything kind of goes on autopilot. Reading. Lightning burst boosted telekinetic square leaping. Gorram that’s a mouthful. An hour or more passes, because the book has charged my SP by a hundred.
I’m nowhere near as fast as Teuila, especially when I don’t want to push myself so hard that I’m injuring and burning myself out like I did earlier today. I can’t afford to keep pushing into unsafe levels of injury and such. Regardless, I see the shorn-off plateau of what used to be Wistenzlia Peak, the mountain I leveled, creating Chokepoint #1.
Being as safe as I can, so as not to take any unnecessary damage, I use what few tricks I’ve got available to get beneath the Worldstorm, closer to the far side of Chokepoint #2. It’s clear that several of my allies have been watching my scrying feed from my goggles, through the security center, because Shiz rushes up to pat me on the back.
Roaring with laughter, Shiz exclaims, “Caught it on them scrying feeds we did, you staring the Ice of Rage straight in the face, up close, givin’ him a real stroke. Then, that instant of panic just before your feed suddenly went blank and blinked in and out for a bit, best gift I ever got, harhar!”
For a moment, I ponder how, then I realize, that the realmway bleedthrough, the last bit of the vault being partially in another realm, turned into a cheeseburger flavor, and jumped into me. So the vault was entirely on Rayileklia by the time Terrorzin saw me, and picked me up to throttle me.
Whew, I probably gave Illy a panic attack though, splatting into the wall, and my feed being unmoving on the ground, as Terrorzin approached it. Yikes. Grimacing, I’m gonna regret that later.
Lumbering up to us, Vylon adds, “Schism, that which you pulled off, I’m of mixed mind. The Lightning, that high commander, climbed into your magic pocket, and a near civil-war fracas brewed. It bought us time, to be sure. But you and Tenith, delving that deeply behind enemy lines? Pure foolishness.”
Before I can react, he continues, “And yet here you are, after coming face to face with the Ice of Rage himself. Mark me not a man who cannot be impressed and humbled. Please though, Hero of the Onyx Dawn, see this war through, to its completion. Don’t let your candle be snuffed out before then.”
Blinking, I nod numbly, surprised at how emotional I feel by Vylon’s admission and request. Casting my gaze aside, I quickly wipe my eyes, rubbing the moisture that’s forming on my right eyelid away. Doffing my psy-blocking aegis circlet, I try to distract myself, and to love up on Lil and Lucky.
We meet up in our mindscape, Lucky dashing about the idyllic hill, chasing Lil around, as Lil flies circles around the region. Grinning, I tackle my son sideways to bowl him over for once, instead of him bowling me over with his giant tongue. Once I’ve got his mental avatar on his side, I give him the biggest rib rubdown and belly scritchin’ that I can.
Lil swoops in and the knocks me over, pinning me down. Lucky takes the opportunity to join Lil in pinning me, and my son and Lil both grossly lap at my mental avatar’s face with their enormous tongues. Bluh, you guys, you would *not* be doing that, if you knew what I experienced today dealing with taste and flavor. Heh.
After a few moments of levity, I ask everyone to fall back so that I can deploy the Orichalcum forcefield, “Alright guys, everyone, I want everyone to catch as much rest as possible. They’re not going to have any more plasma balls that instantly destroy these shields. Hopefully Nala and Littlebit can get more of them made, over the course of the week. It’s too bad about the bots from the first wave, but that shield saved us all.”
Sighing, puffing a breath, I explain, “This one though? Nala says it’s guaranteed to fail spectacularly, when it fails. That is, it’s guaranteed to explode, and that it’s not as durable as the other one was. So we need to keep our distance if Terrorzin’s people start beating on it.”
There’s a round of questions and a lot of back and forth talk, but my head is aching. Since they’re plenty capable of discussing on their own, I let my team, my loved ones, talk things out amongst themselves as I set up the forcefield as deep into Chokepoint #2 as I can.
Minutes, an hour, nearly two hours pass. We station ourselves in the chokepoint, and rest. The enemy forces occasionally check in, and testingly assault the focefield. When they do, we back off. We make it look like we’re worried about them, when really what we’re worried about is the explosion guaranteed to happen if they manage to break the shield. Then, the strangest thing happens. They leave. I mean all of them leave. Every last enemy soldier still on the far side of the chokepoint is gone.
Could, no, would he? I know he’s powerful, but it costs him to engage his Latent, and he’s been scared off once before. My heart races, so I send out my senses, and though I can’t verify it, I’m almost positive my conclusion is correct.
There’s a single, solitary creature marching this way. All the other heat signatures and creature lifesigns within my sensory range have left. I’m almost positive Terrorzin, the Ice of Rage, recalled his troops, so that he could come to the front of the line, get into a chokepoint, and take us all out at once with his aura.
Trying not to let panic into my voice, I call out, “We have to fall back, Terrorzin recalled his troops, because he’s on his way! He’ll use his aura if we’re here. In a chokepoint like this, he’ll take us all out in one fell swoop!”