Thankfully Illy doesn’t need any help extricating herself so that we can leave the library together. There aren’t so many books as shelves, stacks, odds and ends like papers and ink. I bought what might amount to a thousand reams of paper or something at one point, only it was parchment, and parchment is thicker per sheet. Most of the books we have are just basically empty journals. There’s probably less than fifty actual books buried under all this stuff. We do have quills, and tons of ink, but now that I know we have some endless-ink quills over in our trove, it almost feels silly to keep them. I suppose we can let the Draconiacs have access to all the parchment and ink that they want at some point. I’m sure some would be creative authors, poets, or just enjoy writing a diary or letters to each other. Anyway, left here, right ahead, then right again, then two more lefts, and we make it out of this little maze of boxes of papers and whatnot.
As Illy and I are approaching the private vaults, Luni calls out telepathically, “Oh we found a glyphed suit of banded plate mail that seems shaped for a wolf, or maybe a horse, but probably something canine or lupine, and when Lucky wears it, it shapes to fit him! It looks kind of cute on him in a way, maybe. He looks fierce in it, but he’s still our derpy pup. I’m not sure if it has other properties, because, well, I’m not a wolf-like thing, and can’t wear it.”
I snort half a laugh at Luni’s final assertion, and notice some Draconiacs heading this way, rolling what looks like a two and a half-foot thick slab of adamantite and a series of hinges on logs in our direction. Wowsers, is that the door I had them craft? I’ll actually finally get a use out of this arcane locking spell, and its compatriot, the arcane knocking spell. I’m surprised at how quick they were able to work the adamantite, but then I just remembered, they can get smelter flames and forge flames to be impossibly, magically hot. If um, if they use dragon dung. Teuila snorts a laugh in think space, and begins chortling. Laugh it up Te, it’s good to see you enjoying yourself.
This might be the one place in the world where we have access to the ability to actually work the metals we got on Can’Z’aas so long ago now. I--! I have shrinking and growth spells! I have permanency enhancement enchantments! I can’t permanently enchant them on creatures, but I could do it on objects with the correct alterations! I can make new, improved, orichalcum or adamantite Valkyrie plate! Armor that will adjust size and shape as needed. Hell, if that banded platemail for Lucky doesn’t stand the test of tomorrow’s fight, I’ll make him the first priority to get a fully enchanted outfit. Ugh, it means I’m going to have to take a break from learning dispellation though. About another four days. Plus or minus any days where I go to battle, where I need to conserve every last S P for the possibility of the edges they might give me in battle. Oh! I’ve gotta ask the Draconiacs for some shavings from the orichalcum and adamantite! My Steely Body spell will be hundreds of times more defensive, and several times more powerful! It might even be less slow.
Illy blinks in surprise as she follows my train of thought before muttering, “I think I get it now, I mean, more than I already did. Why mother invested so much in you. You’re just moving around, doing things, and you suddenly create a whole new power for yourself, or an ability, or a way to gain more advantages. You just do that randomly, while thinking other things on the fly, while accomplishing other things. Holy hell Schism, uh, Reggie. What else do you have cooking in that brain of yours?”
I can’t help myself as I snark, “Most of the rest of my brain.”
There’s a round of uneasy laughter at the implication that my brain is cooking itself. The sad thing is, it’s sort of true. Still, what else do I have up here? Well, I was hoping not to mention it around others, for um, koff, reasons Illy. But I think we could use the orb as a one-off distraction. Something that buys us a critical moment if it’s launched from a sling. I think it might be fragile, and break relatively quickly after impact, but it could buy a split second against a truly dangerous foe. If my range on my telekinesis were longer, I could just position it above a battlefield, wait for the right moment, and drop it on an enemy, or sneak it up behind them, and float it up against them more gently. It’s not that far though. Oh!
We’ve got the resources here, I think I can get a third telekinesis grip going! It’ll take me a lot of hours of calculations on the gem makeup of the paste I’d need, it’d be easier with a book on gemology open while I froze time to use retrocognition. Oh!
I can run scenarios in retrocognition, and since we have telepathy on the battlefield, I’ll sometimes be able to get a good read on our foes. If we’re lucky, I might maybe find a weak spot in their reactions or attacks or something, and send that info instantly telepathically around the battlefield when I return to regular time to—.
Snarkily, Illy quips, “Okay, okay, we get it. A million and one things cooking in your brain. This is the first time I’ve really gotten to hear their brain. Are they always like this?”
Luni and Teuila both respond, “Yup!”
I blush, only mildly chagrined at the backhanded praise. It strikes me that there are unintended consequences to me being the backbone of all of these networks. When my passive broadcast is going to multiple subnetworks, it’s almost like they can talk to each other, because each other person that’s receiving my broadcast hears my train of thought that includes the responses of the others. I mean, maybe I planned that? I kind of forget things, a lot. I should write stuff down. Like all those ideas I had a bit ago. Something something, adamantite, something telekinesis. Oh, right, right. Now I remember.
Asking Iylynila telepathically, I try to layer apology into my mental voice, “Illy, do you want to wait here in the vault or come back with me while I zip back and forth for a second?”
Illy teases, “Just trying to tire me out so that we end up in the same bed again arentcha?”
She then meeps, remembering that right now that I literally just reminded everyone that my passive broadcasts are open to her, Lu, Te, and Lucky. I can sense the thermal fluctuations coming off her face from a dozen paces.
Teuila begins to suggestively waggle her psychic eyebrows as it were as she starts to salaciously tease, “I bet that’s not all you can sense co—“
I flash Teuila a glare telepathically as I mutter, “Te, don’t you dare please finish that thought. You *are* still trying to get Illy’s interest, aren’t you?”
Pouting and nodding across our telepathic wavelength, Teuila’s sorrow for just how inappropriate that tease was going to be is evident. She murmurs apologies to Illy, whose face is a deep crimson hue at this point. I think Illy can wait here while she tries to recover from the fluster. I love you gals, and Lucky, I’ll be right back. Zoom zoom zoom, zipping over people’s heads on my telekinetic surfboard, whee. I can even do barrel rolls by tossing my second psychic grip over myself as I’m horizontal or upside down. I’m such a dork sometimes. The laughter across my telepathic wavelength from several sources agrees with me.
Approaching a Draconiac woman whose sheer muscle mass is incredibly impressive, wearing only a blacksmith’s apron, I call out, “Hi there, um, if you’re working the resources we’ve set out, would it be okay for me to make another request for you guys to provide something? Thank you all for the door by the way. I truly appreciate it. I’m going to go help set it up right after this conversation. This request would be much smaller.”
She offers a curt nod, and a fairly serious smile. The glow of the forge paints an orange hue over her features, so it’s hard to tell if her scales are white, yellow, or red, or possibly silver. Her response, in her rich, smooth, deep voice, is, “Honored to, Schism.”
I beam a smile her way, her deep baritone voice sent a rumble through me in a wave of pleasant vibration. I sense some jealousy across my telepathic wavelength, but I pay it no mind as I request, “So, it might sound weird, but I need loose shavings of the harder to work metals, the really powerful ones, like orichalcum, mithril, adamantite, and so on. Pouches and pouches of the stuff, probably a few pouches before each major offensive that I’m deployed on. I don’t know if you can get me any by tomorrow—.”
The beefy, comely woman motions me to follow her to a back area in the forgeworks, where it seems scraps are being collected together before being smelted in a manner of recycling. She offers, “Should find some in here, you caught us before a recycling load. We can make note, pass around the info if you want us to keep filings and shavings separate.”
Delighted, almost giddy with glee as I nod emphatically, I plead, “Oh yes, please do! I’m so grateful! I, oh I’m a bit of a jerk. I don’t even know your name. I guess you know mine, but, um, would you mind sharing yours?”
There’s an intense smirk from the woman, Deli apparently, as she answers, “Friends call me Deli, don’t ask what it’s short for, not yet. Maybe over a pint of ale if you can start bringing in a steady supply. Happy to help Schism. Back to it I take it?”
Still nodding repeatedly, delighted, I respond, “Yeah, oh definitely, thank you so much Deli. I’ll see what I can do about learning whose shops provide liquor and spirits, and starting a supply chain to fill up the larder in Mount Solace. Thanks for that idea too, since I had rather forgotten that people enjoy the stuff. Never cared much for it myself, but I’d still be pleased as punch to sit down over a pint anyway. More the company than the— I’m talking your ear off. Pleased to meet you Deli, I’ll scrounge here for a bit, and I’ll snag some empty leather pouches to drop off later for people to fill up with more shavings.”
Deli’s strong features morph into a winning smile as she over-exaggeratedly bows my way, taking her leave of me. She throws a wave back over her shoulder, without looking behind her, as she sets about going back to whichever task she’d been overseeing or attempting. What an absolutely charming woman. I wonder if she’s one of our ground forces. She looks incredibly strong, and resilient. I wouldn’t try to conscript her if she wasn’t though. Maybe she just enjoys crafting, and has no intention to fight.
Oh, right, shavings. Shavings. Mixed piles. I’m not sure how well that’ll work, but I’m not sure I care enough to try to identify tons of minuscule metal scraps to sort them out. Oh here we go, this pile must be from my door project, it’s all adamantite. I think I’ll stick with this for now, so that I don’t risk separating into different hunks of metal or something weird by using a mixed pouch. Well, anyway, got what I came for, a couple of pouches of adamantite shavings and filings. This is fantastic. This should allow my Steely Body form to last longer and stand up to much more punishment than iron filings, or steel.
Woohoo. Every little advantage helps. Y’know? Honestly, on a personal level, this is no small advantage. It should put me on par with, or above things like stone elementals for strength, possibly lesser giants. Its durability should be pretty much unrivaled. The only real factor is the duration, and the limit of my S P. I’ll be able to get off nine quickened casts safely if I cast nothing else in a day. Maybe ten if my safe limit has hit six hundred sixty. That’s something like up to an hour and a half to nine hours of the form, depending on how the spell works with the stronger material. I’m really hoping it’s not going to inversely affect it, and make it last only a minute per cast. It might though. Nine minutes a day if using no other spells is a bit rough. Still, a minute of being able to be heedlessly aggressive might be all it takes to finish a single target.
Let’s see, what are some vulnerabilities I could shore up? I’d have to watch out for sonic attacks, vibrations, in any form, possibly moreso in the Steely Body forms. Not certain if it confers a weakness to vibrations based on rigidity. I don’t have any real resistance built up to them from Can’Z’aas. I should let Luni handle foes with those kinds of powers. I’ll have to quickly rotate in the necrosteel chestplate sometimes if I see necrotic blasts incoming, but I don’t want to be wearing it all the time, especially not around allies. It’s like a little void-life of its own, sucking vibrance and life essence away from things around me. I’m still extremely vulnerable to psychic attacks, ugh. That’s not going to go away. I’m also vulnerable to mind-game attacks, just messing with my head, or actual spells to confuse me.
Acid is going to suck no matter what form I’m in. I’ve only got about a what was it, sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety, yeah, ninety percent reduction in acid potency due to Jaz’s help? Ninety percent sounds like a lot, but it’s really only the difference between being completely dissolved in one second, versus completely dissolved in ten seconds, or something. Like, say I have a hundred health, and the acid does a hundred damage per second normally. I’d only be taking ten damage a second, but I’m still dead in ten seconds. It’s sort of the same thing with lava. Even if it’s only acting as if it’s something like a few dozen degrees, the heat builds up over time, because I’ve got no way to cool down without being stuck in stone, and during that entire time, it’s still doing at least *some* damage, ramping up the damage per second the longer I go without cooling off. I can say I’m functionally immune to most fire, because it’d have to be ridiculously hot to affect me as fast as lava can, since there is air around me for my heat to escape into, and I can generally walk out of the range of most fires before they can build up as much on me as swimming in lava would.
Cold is a mixed bag. I think Olashax’s Latent might be the thing that makes his ice turn into magical cube prisons. I might struggle with his breath weapon if I get hit. I shouldn’t lose consciousness, or be completely consumed due to the cold, but it’d take some finagling to free myself. That’s part of why Lil is coming with me to face Olashax I assume. If I get frozen, Lil’s flames are supposedly the envy of red dragons everywhere by this point, so Lil can just thaw me instantly without worrying that he’ll harm me. His breath also doesn’t have the sort of buildup and cooldown of Rayileklian dragons. He can just keep doing it as long as his mana holds out.
Last I checked, Lil had a solid amount of mana, a couple thousand in the end days on Can’Z’aas, and a solid amount of stamina to reduce mana costs. I think his stamina reduction multiplier was over two, so his abilities cost less than half of what they should have. His breath multiplier was over four, so he could divide the cost again by four to five for his base breath on top of other divisor, or he could crank its power up for the same cost as it normally should. Plus, the way it sounds, he’s been making progress on his skills, even here in Rayileklia. I wish more of mine were semi-passive, so that I could be working on mine too, instead of having to almost die to use any of the powers. My electrokinesis might be skyrocketing though, and my electric defenses as well. Can I use retrocognition to recall my numbers on the final day of Can’Z’aas?
Diving into a moment between moments, into the non, seeking out the absence of time, I work my way towards the space between spaces, the endless void of possibility beyond the realm of possibility. Within my mindscape, I begin conjuring images, and trying to clarify them. Every minute, minuscule adjustment of the screen requires further adjusting of all the other elements. Each time something comes into focus, I need to verify it against all other parts that have come into focus so far, and often need to start over. It’s like a four dimensional sudoku puzzle with very few starting clues. But, well, I’m me, and I’m patient, and I’ve got a fair amount of time here.
Better yet, I’m starting to see numbers that weren’t part of the menu, things hidden from me, values, percentages, math that make up the systems of our world, of Can’Z’aas. I can draw them up alongside my numbers, correlate them, crosscheck and confirm them with anecdotal evidence, and more.
Finally, after what seems like ages, I begin to get a clear picture of what I remember of the last day of my life. Some of the values don’t fill themselves in, the percentages aren’t all calculated the same, and some of the numbers don’t mean anything to me.
REGGIE STATS, SKILLS, AND PARAMETERS 4200.36 LEVEL 17 1.25 BRAWN 15 1.1 AGILITY 12 1.5 PLUCK 20 1.4 SMARTS 18 1.2 WISDOM 14 1.7 DUENDE 24 SKILLS 1.02 ACID GEN 5 ALCHEMY 202 2.292 BREATH 323 CAPACITY 32767 CRAFTING 420 DISENCHANTING 6 6.272 ELECTROKINESIS 1318 2314.628471 ENERGY 5543 7.452 S.A./SHAPESHIFTING 1613 16.068 SPACE 3767 7.727 STAMINA 6727 4.672 STEALTH 918 16.472 SURVIVAL 1934 16.608 THERMOKINESIS 3902 8073217.54 TIME 2,018,304,135 OFFENSES 6.2 BLUDGEONING 1300 4.72 PIERCE 930 6.2 PUGILISM 1300 8.24 SLASHING 1810 PAIN DEFENSES 0.0900090009 ACID 1011 0.04045307443 BLUDGEONING 2372 0.07587253414 ELECTRO 1218 0.4524886878 LUNG CAPACITY 121 0.9900990099 NEGATIVE ENERGY 1 0.113507378 PIERCE 781 0.9803921569 PSI 2 0.05892751915 REFLEXES 1765.38768 1597 0.09082652134 SLASHING 1001 0.02777777778 THERMAL 3500 0.3558718861 TOXIN 181 KNOWLEDGES/MEMORIES
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Hm, by this, one would think that I should perform more slashing attacks, that they would be to my benefit the most, *but* pugilism has its own multiplier, on top of bludgeoning. My reflexes are something like seventeen times faster than a normal human’s due to my reflex skill, combined with the extra boost from my internal electrokinesis, but I can’t make use of that as well any more. It’s harder to actively control myself to react as reflexively and quickly as I need to, by having to essentially manually pilot every nerve and muscle.
Is that forty-two hundred my health value? I think it is, or was. I wonder if this Rayileklian body of mine has the same value. It could explain how I’ve survived some of the punishment I have, since the start of our journey here. Living through a point-blank explosion after being pulverized. Kozzurth’s dragonforce was likely trying to help me regenerate even during the fight, keeping me from zeroing out. Then there might be some time while I’m at zero, before I derez, for someone to try to kickstart my healing.
This does remind me that I could create the organ necessary to have a breath weapon, because I have a natural skill for breath weapons, allowing it, thanks to Lil. I think the only element I’d be able to go with is electricity, and I’m not sure it’s worth it more than just pointing and firing. Well, then again, it is another multiplier on top of everything else. Stacking multipliers to stack advantages, the Reggie Shellcracker way of life.
None of this even factors in the weird exponential growth multiplier of using more than a hundred mana to do something. Each extra hundred was more than just the sum of its parts. I can’t truly make use of that here, unless I either have Kinzul and my entire inner circle for eight minutes, or if I want to risk dying from the use of the ability. Or wait, is that twenty three hundred the multiplier if I throw fifty five hundred mana at something? Holy crap! Thousands of times more powerful than a single hundred mana blast if I throw everything I have into something.
I’m also apparently over four times sneakier than the average person, but I have no idea how the hell to leverage that, unless Teuila trains me to do her weird mirage-step thingy. I could use the distraction to slip out of sight, around back of an enemy to attack as they tried to block the illusion. I don’t think my body would cooperate even if I could learn and perform the ability Teuila has.
Let’s quickly analyze what we’ve got on our defenses. We take about one eleventh of the damage from acid, one twenty-fifth the force of a bludgeoning attack like a punch, something like a thirteenth of the power of electrical attacks, and it takes over nine times as much piercing pressure to break my skin, or eleven times as much slashing pressure. We already knew my thermal resistances were ridiculous, and the toxin resistance isn’t too much of an issue, as long as it’s not delivered internally by a bite. I don’t have to worry about breathing or drinking poisons due to the filter from the neckchain of the ever-breathing. Contact poisons might mess with my body, but mostly only on local levels. I could sever my own flesh after isolating the poison with electrokinesis if necessary, at least, if I could reach it before it made contact with my bloodstream.
We already knew psychic and negative energy attacks were some of the strongest against me, and I’ve got no sonic or sound or vibration defenses at all. I’m trying really, really hard to not giggle at my time skill. Two billion. Over two billion. I had to run through more and more timelines, for each point of that skill, as it took longer and longer to increase each point. I went through billions, maybe trillions of timelines in the first testing room in the Temple of Time. Apparently, every so often at levels of major values, I unlocked a new trick with the time skill, one of which was that I would never steal time from others to be able to activate my skill. A price that, thankfully, while within the Temple of Time, was localized to myself, which then became a permanent part of the power.
I sigh huffily, trying not to reminisce about Can’Z’aas. I need to leave this frozen moment. I have wonderful people waiting for me. We’re alive, and together. We need to stay that way. This gives me more foreknowledge on how to keep it that way, for myself at least. I need to jot this down on parchment as soon as I get back to reality, and then I need to start making guesses as to how much growth I might have had on Rayileklia, or what I may have lost or gained simply from the act of dying. I can’t be certain that anything is exactly the same as, or better than it used to be, but we did verify several of my resistances being approximately correct, based on what I could map out mathematically from average temperatures of flames, coals, and so on.
Right, back to it Reggie. Has it been days? Weeks? Months? Years in this paused moment? Let it go, follow the flow of time, leave the absence, the non, join the others, snap back to reality. Whoops! How do I always forget gravity is a thing when I’m in there? Maybe I’m too used to being around Teuila, but I wouldn’t change that for the world. Time to zip back to my gals, to see what they’ve been up to in the— um, minute and a half I’ve been gone or so, hah. That’s a bit of an exaggeration, it took a few minutes to get here, and a few minutes to dig through the scrap. The conversation with Deli was only a few seconds though. Anyway, almost back to the vaults on my telekinetic surfboard. I should just shorten it to T K Surfing, or T K Surf.
There they are, three of the most beautiful people in all the universes. I sigh contentedly, finally returning to them, to welcoming smiles, odd looks, and teasing intonations. They don’t even know how long I was really gone, and that’s okay. Someday, someday I’ll get our accelerated thinkspace back for them, and our new additions if people like Illy choose to join us, if everyone else agrees to invite them.
Teasingly, knowing to them I’ve only been gone a few minutes, I call out telepathically, “Hey gals, didja miss me?”