Here I am on Olashax, the ancient Ice’s eyelid, my feet planted firmly on the surface that’s slick with humor as I prepare to unleash a massive magical explosion in his eye. It all happens in an instant. Sure, Lil counted down from three, but he did it at the speed of thought. I can feel Olashax's scales shifting and moving beneath me, his massive body writhing and twisting as he tries to shake me off, realizing the heat that’s coming for his eye, the fire that’s roaring from Lilagni behind me, to join the powers I now unleash.
I hold my ground, focusing my will and summoning all the power at my disposal. I can feel the energy building within me, a fierce and fiery force that threatens to burst forth at any moment. Empowering the fire rune is a risk, there will be blowback, and this time, it’s in the form of setting my insides literally aflame. To say it’s unpleasant would be an understatement. I’d scream in agony if I could afford to open my mouth. Lil’s stream of fire helps focus all of my various fire energy towards the ancient dragon's eye. I can feel the heat and light from the flames, a deadly, decisive energy that complements my own.
I’ve unleashed my magic, all of these various minor powers multiplying together to conjure a massive explosion. The explosion is directed both inward and upward in a way that fills the ancient dragon's eye with a blinding burst of light. Olashax recoils, writhing and thrashing as he tries to escape the searing pain that now consumes his face. This frees Lil up from having to defend himself, so Lil can keep pouring on the heat. I hadn’t even thought about how Olashax might respond to having his skull blown open from the orbital cavity. His remaining good eye is beyond seared, it’s disintegrated. The eyelid scales are blown clean off, their muscles are rent asunder, leaving charred, scarred tissue.
But Olashax is not finished yet, and neither am I. I summon up what fierce determination I can while my friggin’ insides are aflame, I hold my ground, and continue pouring all of my power into Olashax’s eye in this empowered fire rune, while my aching arm continues unleashing the torrent of flame from Frostburn. The resulting unleashing of a storm of magical force finishes tearing through a tiny segment of Olashax’s skull-plate and leaves him reeling, but he still isn’t dead.
Psychically across our wavelength, I plead with my best buddy, “Lil, I need his heart, please open his chest for me! I don’t have a lot of dragonforce left! I might not be able to pry it open in time!”
Lil, the hottest fire dragon I know, in more ways than one, continues to breathe his own flames as he advances on Olashax’s chest, adding to the inferno that now engulfs us. Struggling together, we’ve unleashed a barrage of fire and magic, a storm of energy that filled the air with smoke and heat and light, and this bastard still won’t go down!
There, I see it. Enough of Olashax’s skull has cracked, fractured, and torn away. I leap to reach the spot, the tiny chink that gives me a clear view into his quickly drying cranial interior. Jabbing my whole arm in, with Frostburn out of its fire charge, I pull a Q C R number four. The tip of Frostburn just barely tickles Olashax’s evil, pulsating brain. Lightning begins striking me, and traveling through me, through Frostburn, into Olashax’s gray matter. I offer up the extra few seconds of overcharged electricity from inside my body as well, directing everything out through Frostburn, maintaining only what’s necessary inside me to function. Of course, it’s agonizing, excruciating being the conduit for so much electrical energy, but so is the fire burning apart my insides.
Olashax spasms, rears up, roars a last guttural cry which turns into a howl of anguish, and eventually even finally becomes a scream of terror, marking the first foe felled amongst the four dragon generals leading this army. His body comes crashing down as Lilagni, my best buddy, works to tear scales from his massive chest, pulling them free with his massively strong square jaws. His fierce underbite helps him get leverage beneath scales to pry them up. I’d help Lil, but I’m trying to put out the literal flame raging inside of me, so that it doesn’t cost me any more dragonforce to stay alive. At least I didn’t pass out, but this elemental rune empowerment backlash is bad!
Think, think, stay calm. Oh, this could get weird. I ask, “Lil, do you think you can burn up all the oxygen inside me, without killing me, by breathing fire into me?”
Lil sends a contorted face with a raised brow on his telepathic avatar into my head, asking, “What. The. Hell? Rej you are such a mega weirdo, mega mega mega weirdo sometimes. Maybe just try bathing in or drinking Olashax’s blood or something ya vampire weirdo, be all anti-hero edgy and stuff. If that doesn’t work, sure.”
I suppose Lil does make a good point. The fire isn’t instantly disintegrating my life force, but it’s also consistently increasingly consuming me, slowly growing faster and faster. With my thermal resistance, it’s going to take a long time, but it’s fuggin’ agony the entire time. Huff, alright, just, just help carve up Olashax’s chest. My vision is swimming, friggin’ hell. My head feels so light, I feel— dehydrated. Go effing figure. Ugh, the only fluid around is probably some of Olashax’s vitreous fluid that spilled out of his eyeball to the ground beforehand, because all the acid mud puddles are dried up between the intense cold and the intense heat. Not that I really want to drink acid mud puddles either. Yeah, I guess I’m going to be a vam— holy crap no.
I send my thoughts to the Sisters of the Mist, begging, pleading that they hear me. I need to ask them if this is the road that I go down, the way I become the vampire Reggie that they’ve had to keep locked away. I’m— I’m scared. Everything hurts, more and more every second, but, but I don’t want that. I can’t risk becoming that feral, ever-bleeding, ceaselessly pained beast. Is this why the creature was insane and feral? A ceaseless pain that couldn’t kill it?
Lil telepathically grumps, “You drama queen Rej, I was just making a joke. Besides, vampires live on the plains to the southwest in big misty castles, with their magic books and undead armies and crap. You can’t become one. I mean, unless they make you one. Dragons and vamps are kind of at war, but, eh, bigger fish to fry. Mm, yummy fish fry.”
I— oh. Wait. What? I don’t know whether to feel better or worse about that. I guess I’d better carve up Olashax’s chest quick, and dig in. I can find an aorta and suck down some blood or something, I guess. This is friggin’ gruesome. Bathe in the blood of your enemies, right. I doubt whoever said that actually had to stand under a giant showering vein of dragon’s blood.
Friggin’ hell, Olashax’s heart’s still pulsating. No more. Time for Reggie Shellcracker to chow down. Thank spoot that it just teleports to my stomach somewhere, so I don’t have to actually chew through every last bit of this annoyingly enormous muscle.
Huff, phew, okay, slowly absorbing his dragonforce while in here. I’d leave it for later, but I’d be afraid one of the other dragon generals would come by, and find a way to power up off of it, making everyone’s lives harder. Still, between the blood, the heart, and the dragonforce, I feel like a new, well, being? Creature? Not man, because I’m not a—. Bluh. Point being, I’m feeling better by the moment as the dragonforce works its way through my system.
Should I leave my Honoris Causa activated? It takes more to ignite it in the first place, than to keep it running, but keeping it active is draining dragonforce too. I don’t entirely know all of the benefits it’s granting me. I’d better keep it running, in case it makes the dragonforce collection smoother, faster, or better in any way.
Psychically to Lil I ask, “Do you want to go help Te while I finish absorbing this? I can’t travel as fast as you, to get to Lu next, but I don’t know how long this is going to take.”
My best buddy is too sweet as he responds, “It’ll be okay Rej. It’s-A-Secret and Gal-Pal are fine, and I’ve got your back. I know that you know that I don’t like this corpse business stuff, but, but I’m here for you buddy. I’m, I’m still sorry, about before. I, I kinda killed you Rej. But, but you just—. You just—.”
Lil gulps, and clears his throat so he can continue, with tears in his eyes, despite speaking telepathically, “You were the one that apologized. You weren’t even mad. You shoulda been mad. I love you pal. So, so no. I’m not leaving without you, and we’re not leaving til you’re done. So, please, suck up that dragon juice, so that you can get better. Okay? There’s hundreds of the evil suckers in Terrorzin’s forces. Eat every last one of the bastards if it’ll save you.”
I gulp down my feelings, and the last mouthful of Olashax’s heart, blushing at my buddy’s intimate admittance in the midst of the field of battle. I worry that I can’t afford the time to fully absorb the dragonforce lingering within Olashax’s system. Unlike Yisstendahl, it’s in every bit of his body. It’s massive by comparison, and Yisstendahl’s was much larger than Kozzurth’s. I do need it though, every bit of it. I know how much dragonforce I can accidentally go through in a single day, and I’ll be able to start quantifying things soon. Even if it’s just in percentages.
I could engage my Latent to speed up the process by bringing about the void within me to draw on the surrounding energies to feast on the dragonforce, but the only way I know how to really do that uses up dragonforce to begin with. Blargh. Hm, any spells in here that might help? No, not that one, no, nope, not you either. No, nothing really in my repertoire that doesn’t cost dragonforce says, “Get in my belly.”
Snrk. Yes I hear you goons laughing. I guess it couldn’t hurt to try the free spells from the staff. Arcane locking do anything? Nope. Arcane knocking doing anything? Uh, hm. I think maybe it’s opening the valves or something, causing the blood to flow faster, and more of the dragonforce is coming more quickly. That’s— something. Just means I’m getting more of a blood-shower than I intended. At least the fire is out.
Hrk, ugh. I drank so much blood my stomach is all woozy and swishy and gross, and I ate a heart that was literally bigger than my entire body, several times larger. How the eff does that work? Anyway, does the magic hand spell do anything fishing around in here? Nope. Okay, dismiss the hand, and go back to arcane knocking a ton of blood out onto myself.
Okay, okay there. I don’t sense any more dragonforce. Olashax’s is mine, and there’s some weird glowing inside my brain. It tickles at the edge of my thoughts. It’s hungry? It wants to help. It needs more of my glow? No, needs more glow in general. Dragonforce? It seems like it. I wonder if one will be enough. Seems like there’s a hint, two more. Am I talking to my dragonforce? To Olashax’s? To— just dragonforce in general? Or to maybe my Honoris Causa? Is it reading my mind? I’ve gotta talk to some of the dragons about this, or Lady Kinzul or Nala, but that’s a problem for tomorrow’s Reggie.
Y’hear that Reggie of tomorrow? Yeah, that’s what I thought. Snirk. Heh.