Despite hating to leave things unfinished, and worrying for Vylon, I’ve got so much to do, and promises to keep. Glancing through my goggles, I can see the existential dread that rests upon Nyssa’Lina’s face. They’ve been through so much in such a short time.
It all started with me, my brazen attitude, making them face a possibility, and giving them hope. Defecting, finding out the truth behind the horrors of Terrorzin’s depravity. Facing down grief, with a jerk like me standing in the way, stopping them from their suicide run. Te is there with Nyssa, but she’s out of her element, out of her depth in trying to comfort and reassure Nyssa, while technically guarding both Nyssa from anyone in Solace, and anyone in Solace from Nyssa, as they’re still by all rights, one of Terrorzin’s high commanders.
The longer I take to get there and fulfill my promise, the more chances there are for things to go, what’s the phrase, belly up? Pits up? Tits up? Oh come on people. I roll my eyes at the giggles and snickering across my mental wavelengths as my allies hear my thoughts. I’m not actually upset at them, obviously, just a bit stressed. That was intense just now. I’ve got so much to accomplish, and I need to heal, badly. With my thermal and telekinetic senses, I can feel my vibration at the molecular level still unstable.
Gnawing on my lips, I check the teleportation artifact, but sadly, it’s not recharged yet. That means it’ll take me many, many hours, of winding along Vieriss Valley near ground level, to get back home to Solace. Grr, I don’t really have that kind of time to waste. What I wouldn’t do to have a few more teleportation charges in some of my items. Even just the short range ones, to make use of a secret. I’d almost—. Hold on.
We’ve got to heal up anyway. We’re banged up but good, fried to hell and back. Further clamping my teeth about my bottom lip, I wonder if perhaps a little gambit might be worth it. Show off the supposedly invincible Shellcracker on the way out, buy even more time for our defenders while cutting a bunch of hours off our journey.
Still, I’m not a hundred percent certain I’d survive what I’m thinking of doing. But, well, we’re me. I’m gonna do it anyway. Shaking my head at myself, I agree with the laughter rumbling from Shiz. It is pretty funny hearing thoughts like that.
Flicking my head upwards towards Shiz, I get his attention and request, “Much as I hate to do this, if I leave things in your hands, can you rally our defenders? And… and if… if Vylon can be thawed, saved, make sure he takes some time, gets home, and gets some rest?”
Thankfully, the amicable Thunderer answers, “You can bet your life on it Schism. What’s more, if I heard right, that big Rock lug, the one what broke my jaw when you took down my fortress, Boetah, Atty’s mate, talking to you before the showdown, well—. If I know my sister, and I do, Atty’s likely on her way, now that the clutch is secure, fertilized, safe. There’s naught more for her to do at Solace. She, like that big Boetah fella, will be wanting to ensure a world were my nieces and nephews, and nonnies, and her sons and daughters and enbys, have a chance. She’s coming, soon, plenty happy to announce herself as Attraxiaz the Loud, on the side of Solace and the Onyx Dawn. I’d stake anything to wager on it.”
Heartened hearing it, though sad that it means Atter has given up on the rest of her clutch, knowing they’re non-viable, I nod. I’m grateful for Shiz’s affirmation, and information.
A thought occurs to me, so I add, “I know you probably understand by now, how much we value life. If anyone asks for, or accepts mercy, I trust your judgement. We want to offer it, to everyone, but, well, there’s certainly the possibility that one might be pretending to seek it, in order to hit us where it hurts, our innocents, our loved ones. So… I’m sorry to saddle you with this, but just do your best to be your best. Please?”
There’s a gruffness, a wariness about Shiz as his eyes half-lid, his gaze distant in quiet contemplation. He nods at my request all the same, so I’m glad he’s taking his time to consider things. I send my love telepathically to Lil, my gratitude to him, and my wishes for his safety. Checking in with the Spellknights, and everyone else left out here on the front lines of defense in the valley, I make sure they all know I love them, and that I’ll be back with reinforcements as soon as I can.
Alright invincible conqueror that stared down the Ice of Rage—twice—let’s go spook some soldiers.
Winking and waving a two-fingered salute, to the gathered defenders, I leap into a backwards flip and land on a TK square that I conjure, surfing my way westwards towards the incoming horde. So. We’ve got a hundred SP. Yup. Y’know what that means. Yup. You’re gonna be a bozo. Yup. Hey—okay fair.
The fact that I float swiftly, yet nonchalantly above their ranks leaves tons of Terrorzin’s horde stupefied. I lay on my back, leaving it exposed to them, floating westwards across their formation like I were on a lazy river ride. Digging out more snacks, I munch while I contemplate. One thing I’m so grateful for, other than them not attacking, is me not having cosmic horror flavor passengers any more. Yeesh.
I’m pretty certain the horde has disbelief being sewn into their very souls at this point. What kind of audacious lunatic floats about with their back exposed to not just an enemy, but an entire thousands-strong force of enemies? They don’t know what to make of it, their enemy, the one that had been announced as having scared off the Ice of Rage himself, casually meandering about. They’re almost hypnotized, following me about, clustering, not sure if they should bother attacking or not.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
I do notice the Fire and Ice high commanders amongst the crowd. I could have sworn that Lil and Lucky had taken them out, or gotten them to surrender earlier. It’s hard to recall though, and I wasn’t able to watch every moment of the scrying feeds. Hell, I could be wrong, and it might be similar looking dragons in human form. Regardless, even they make no move to aggress me, wary, cautious of such a brazen player on the field.
When I’ve gotten a bit more than my fair share of attention, quite a bit more than I’m comfortable with, or safely likely to survive, I casually announce, “Hey there horde of Rage or whatever you go by. It’s me, your personal offer of mercy. Oh, yes yes, titles and all that. I’m blah blah blah, you know the drill. Or for those of you that don’t, I’m Reggie Shellcracker, a Hero of the Order of the Onyx Dawn, an Archmage Aliased Schism, and the Void Dragon Honors Causa.”
The fact that I sass myself mid-sentence has plenty of them perplexed and scratching their heads. Throwing them off their game is half the point, so I persist, “I’m a bit bored of playing around with all of you, so I’m going to go home for the eve, and leave my friends to clean up. If you value your lives, you can try one of two things.”
Glancing about, I wear a wicked, lunatic grin as I offer up, “Prove right now, that I’m not invincible, that I don’t come back from defeat, that I’m not unstoppable, chase me, catch me, heh, good luck. Let me just say if you try, you’ll be facing your own fallen comrades. I’m not above using the Ice of Rage’s own means against him. Did he happen to mention while he was fleeing, that one of those little titles of mine in there is pretty important? That I’m an archmage, and with that, comes a mastery of necromancy?”
Waving at the corpses all around them, my grin becomes a bit more sinister, as I start the process of reanimating their dead with create undead. There’s no way for them to know how many of the hundreds, and hundreds of corpses surrounding them I might be able to animate at once, or over the course of a short period. Thousands honestly.
There’s plenty of fearful looks, and wavering convictions, in both directions, to either stop me before I can raise their dead, or to flee from someone so insane. My spell finishes, raising a few dozen zombies, former comrades of members of the horde, that simply stand at the ready, at my beck and call.
Pausing my intimidation tactics, I offer, “Or, the sane option, go fall upon the mercy of my loved ones to the east. You’ll be treated well, taken in with the status of prisoners to be kept safe both from the war, and from the reprisal of your cowardly king. Hell, I’ll make sure there’s a feast waiting for you home at Solace if you do. Plenty of booze and gems to go around. My treat. Well folks, your move. Ta ta for now.”
Then, just to be a complete booger, I snarkily add a PS, “Oh, yeah, if you begin fighting, my zombies are on standby order to eat you all.”
The way they eye each other up has me stifling my internal giggles. I make certain my psi aegis circlet is in place, because I can see a few spellcasters in the crowd that might have psionic spells, either able to read my thoughts and find out how full of horsecrap I am, or able to take me out with a single brainblast.
I mean, I’m being honest about the feast, the gems and the booze. Just the rest of my bravado is horsecrap. I simply wag my index finger at the casters. Smiling, I put on a light show, flexing a few free powers, unlimited breath weapon foremost amongst them, as I soar up towards the Worldstorm. Several of the assembled forces, those that can fly, take the bait, taking up the challenge, trying to capture me.
But I do something that’s going to hurt. I fly straight up into the Worldstorm, through the dangerous acid clouds, through the rivers of lightning to what normally wouldn’t be empty skies above. They don’t know that it’s only a few meters of danger, maybe a couple hundred meters. I don’t spend enough time inside the lower segment of the storm itself to measure, using my LBBTKSLs.
For all their lives, for most of Rayileklia’s history, any dragonkin has learned or been told that the storm kills all who fall or fly into it. It was true, up until basically today. We just have to keep the secret about it no longer being fully true. Might as well get use out of that lingering sentiment, as we lose more and more of it, while Kinzul siphons back her dragonforce for the final fight.
The horde doesn’t know that my EM field organ protects me from the lightning if I can focus without a curse on me, or that my acid resist has been steadily growing, or that, even with these safety measures, a truly full Worldstorm would still kill the crap out of me. I pause within the hollow segment between the clouds, letting my senses keep track to see if any are willing to rise to the challenge, take the bait, and fly into the Worldstorm itself.
Thankfully no. So, the legend of the Shellcracker continues to grow. Someone capable of simply flying away into the Worldstorm without any sort of magical protection. Whew. This lets me circumvent hundreds of miles of travel, being able to head to the aerie over all the mountains, instead of having to follow the valleys below the storm. Still, OW OW OW. That acid stings like a motherglubber! My life tastes like tears and regret. Friggin’ hell Reggie that was stupid!
I know, I know, but hey, maybe we granted mercy and saved some lives. Y’know? It’s worth it. It also means we can make a bit of haste towards home, to show that Nyssa’Lina we mean to keep our promise. I don’t want to refer to them as a ticking timebomb, but whether of grief, of rage, or of loyalty, or fanatacism, they sort of are. And I’m not sure which.
And… even if they are or aren’t one of those… I want to help heal their hurt. I want to reunite them with their mate Jatrisiahl, this time, with Jatrisiahl being a whole individual person, not a fused broodmother conglomerate. I want to give them both a chance at a safe, happy life, where Nyss’Lina need not fight, nor do any of the horrible things they might have done under Terrorzin’s reign.
One step at a time Reggie. You’ve got to get home, and hope chaos magic isn’t pissed off at you, and that The ‘Twixt doesn’t try to screw you further in some fashion. I think at least chaos and I are on good terms still. What with how good-natured the random effects were.
I mean, maybe I’m anthropomorphizing something that is simply the RNG of the universe, but, well, I’d rather treat it with respect and camaraderie, and be wrong, than insult it and be dismissive, if I were right. I kinda wish I could check in with chaos and just get any sort of communicative feedback that I could be sure about.
Can you imagine? “Hey chaos, are you there? It’s me, Reggie Shellcracker.” The response I would get would baffle me, something like, “Hey yo homie what up dog! Tha’z the playa I’m talkin’ abou’! Gimme some skin! High five! You cray cray R G.”
Reggie? Mhm? What the everloving F&*() was that? I have absolutely no idea.