Hm, apparently Salamanderian here is genderfluid, I can roll with that. I mean, any approximation of sex or gender for an elemental like him is just, well, whatever they want it to be. He has some sort of minor ignan telepathy or something in the way he growls heat communicates short phrases and ideas to me. He’s, hm, happy? He feels a connection to me, that might be because I wield Frostburn, or because my first ever real breakthrough with magic was thermokinesis.
Let’s quickly take stock. I don’t have it in me to perform a use of retrocognition right now. While Salamanderian is vibrating in pleasure of absorbing the ambient mana of our realm, I’m vibrating in anxiety and muscle tension from the rapid bursts of activity. I’m going to need to start training with Teuila, or regenerating my nerve cores, or both. My eyes are heavy and my jaw keeps locking up, but I’m mostly unharmed from everything so far. I lucked out that, glp, the last person I killed only gripped me telekinetically instead of blasting my brain. I feel so effing horrible. My wrath says it was the right move, that she could have snuck around the battlefield, and brainlashed someone at a pivotal moment, or she could have reported to Terrorzin’s other forces, to join in the next battles.
I hate it. I hate it. I hate it I hate it I hate it. Killing is horrid, it’s awful. I’m ending lives of people that might be able to be redeemed. Sure, I can justify Olashax, he was a friggin’ unrepentant, monstrous, devious, underhanded, evil piece of crap that I knew personally from several encounters. I don’t know Vanathar though. Could he be talked down? Or should he simply be brought down? Could he be redeemed? Could he repent? Should I at least try to talk to him when we arrive? Lucky has him pinned down, but Lucky’s muscles are straining from the effort. What if he just lies, just so that Lucky will let go?
I suppose he could shapeshift to get out of Lucky’s grip, but he would lose the wing Lucky’s jaw is clamped down on, for sure. Would he talk, just for the opportunity to lie and get out of the grip without losing a limb? Have any of the generals tried to speak at all yet? Maybe Astridus and Kinzul are talking. Maybe Kinzul knows that Astridus has some kind of way to communicate with her other co-generals. Still, it’s weird. They should be at least announcing their name and Latent to empower themselves. Or is activating dragonfright such a mentally-consuming action, that you can’t even speak?
Olashax didn’t even try to speak, which was a bit odd. I think we really caught him off guard. He was literally speechless that this little familiar gnat dropped out of the sky and started beating the crap out of him even through dragonfear. A gnat that hadn’t been worth using dragonfear on previously, due to its waste of dragonforce. So, maybe it is something like that, like we caught them offguard, and they thought they’d just wipe us out with dragonfright, so they didn’t bother announcing themselves, and just went straight for the fear and the breath, being stuck unable to talk.
We’re almost there. Should I announce myself? Should I drop my Honoris Causa so I can dive into thinkspace in paused time to catch my wits? Something isn’t right here. Invisible mages, dragons not speaking, far more mages than expected, of types stronger and more varied than expected. More clues. It’s not that they knew we were coming, but they were pre—. They were preparing for something much bigger than just razing a few of the nearest cities. They know that they’ll have to hold a line against the Felgre horde, and the Celestial emperor’s forces, if they continue the direction they were headed.
How does any of this strategy make sense? How is Terrorzin stupid enough to attack the being who empowers his strongest sub faction? Why would he unleash the—. He’s unwillingly working with manxome foe, and truly wants everyone, everyone in the world to burn. He’d have funneled the Felgre forces towards the Celestial Imperium, not fought them, not razed the nearest cities immediately, wasting resources to keep razed ground.
Terrorzin’s playing a wiser, longer game than we gave him credit for. He might very well even be able to salvage some sort of activity in the Jaggedfen Bog, to possibly employ the hydras. Nietru was right. Who knows what other armies and plays he has in store? Dragons have supposedly been at war with vampires on the plains, but what if he gives them the push they need to let loose and go wild?
Urgh, push these thoughts aside, I don’t have the time for grand strategy analysis right now. I begin the runes for greatest shadowy evocation, to save S P in case I decide to use it to end Vanathar. The generals’re not talking, but I’ll give Vanathar a chance to surrender, and ask if Lu can tell if he’s lying if he agrees. If he lies, I’ll go for either nostrils, throat, or eyes. Still, I have to give him a chance.
Telepathically, Luni’s voice comes across in sad tones, “Oh Reggie…”
She knows how much I hate taking sapient lives. I know she already knows, but I try to explain telepathically anyway, “I’m, glp, I’m not cut out for this.”
Along our psychic wavelength, Lu nods while adding, “I know sweetie, I know. Your heart’s too big, too hopeful, too forgiving. It makes you so special, so precious. Never lose that. Please Air. Stay you, even if it hurts. I’m sorry it hurts. I love you, my Hero.”
Vanathar is stuck in a position facing the north, so we travel up his east side, and I leave Frostfire Salamanderian standing on his right wing, adding to Lucky’s efforts to keep Vanathar pinned. I can see that Vanathar has been charging his breath weapon, but I T K Surf myself out in front of him, just beyond the reach of his snout if he were to put everything he had into lunging forward for a bite. I level Frostburn at him, not in a warrior’s pose, not in a fighting stance, in a casual pose of victory.
I call out, “Vanathar, I will give you one chance to surrender. To either join our cause, or go into exile. I am Reggie Shellcracker, Hero of the Order of the Onyx Dawn, archmage, Alias Schism, and Void Dragon Honoris Causa. What say you?”
In a voice far too reedy, too nasally, for such a bulky foe, he grunts, “I say go to hell.”
His voice is strained and nasally because he’s trying to work up a breath weapon big enough to dislodge Lucky. I sigh while shaking my head as I try again, “I have slain Olashax and absorbed his dragonforce. If you do not submit, if you do not surrender, I will slay you and take yours for my own, for I am the Void Dragon Honoris Causa known as Schism.”
Squinting at me, Vanathar seems to be parsing my words. He calls, “You’re bluffing.”
Rolling my eyes, I call back, “Do you not recognize the dragonforce of one of your peers, now that it has been absorbed into me? Need I demonstrate my power, that has me summoning beings like the Frostfire Salamanderian upon your wing? My power that roasted open the inside of Olashax’s skull after destroying his remaining good eye? That eye by the way, is the one I left him with in the first place, after melting his other eye into goo with lightning. This lightning!”
I quick-change into number four, and let myself be struck, holding Frostburn to the sky for the dramatic effect. I embrace the excruciating pain with as much placidity as I can muster, charging up for one, two, three, four, five seconds before swapping back to number five. Electricity continues to crackle about me, leaping and arcing about my limbs and head, along my adamantite teeth. Vanathar has to shut his eyes for several seconds from the incredibly bright flash right in front of his face.
The electrical charge traveling across my teeth and tongue gives my voice a robotic hum as I offer, “I offer one last time. Surrender, submit. Live out your days as an ally or exile. What say you?”
Vanathar balks, gritting his teeth, trying to buy time for his answer. I already know it, because he’s trying to blink to clear his vision, he’s trying to be prepared to fight. I already know I’m going to have to bring Vanathar down.
I sigh as Vanathar grumbles, “I say blow me. Better yet, blow you.”
I fly directly into his jaws as they open up to begin unleashing a torrent of flame. I rake Frostburn along the roof of his mouth, and inside of his throat, scarring and agitating the massive muscles contained therein. I command Lucky and Salamanderian to do their best to snap, or carve Vanathar’s wings and flee so as not to get caught in my blast. I can sense Salamanderian returning to his human form in order to wield the Valkyrie sword to drag a long gash through Vanathar’s powerful dactyl leathers.
The panic with which Vanathar tries to flail his tongue about, and dislodge me from his throat is a fear I’m familiar with. However, as a being of adamantite at the moment, my density is far too high for muscles not used to working in the opposite direction they’re intended to.
I can sense Lucky gash Vanathar’s left wing’s dactyl-leather, and I can sense him put all his weight and leverage into drawing back on Vanathar’s wing’s outer ridge, while still clinging to his scapula. The resounding snap offers an interesting interaction inside Vanathar’s throat. His resulting scream of pain pushes the fire being released from his breath-organ to fill only half of his throat during exhalation. It feels like I’m standing in a warm bath while a calm breeze tussles my hair. My Glacial Greaves make it even easier to resist the heat building in Vanathar’s pitiful flames.
Aiming downwards towards Vanathar’s stomach, I finish quickening the rest of the runes of the greatest shadowy evocation I’d been building towards casting. Picturing in my mind what I want to occur, I mutter, “Gelid Rimefrost Glacier.”
A cold fog billows out from me, filling Vanathar’s throat, and passing into his nasal cavities, and other interior membranes from where I’d scored slashes with Frostburn. The fog condenses and shrinks while simultaneously more and more continues to billow out, filling every bit of him, even his tear ducts. It then supercools, expanding into a glacier inside his throat, nose, eustacean tubes, even his breath organ, completely choking off its ability to compress and expel the flame within. It further expands into bits of his neck muscles and interior neck membranes, and manages to supercool and freeze portions of his aqueous humor and vitreous humor from its location along his tear ducts. To his credit, Vanathar doesn’t die from it. These dragon generals are tough bastards.
Sighing sadly, telepathically I request, “Lucky? Salamanderian? Tear him to shreds.”
I begin cracking my way out of his throat with my telekinesis and Frostburn, hacking away at his frozen, taut muscles and tongue. I know Lu could probably end this, if she put a sonic attack into his cranium right now, but I won’t ask her to do that. She doesn’t want to be a fighter. I don’t blame her. I wouldn’t wish the torment of being a killer with a conscience on anyone. I think back to all the lives I’ve either taken, or allowed to be lost, and all my muscles sag in sadness.
I don’t have time to wallow in grief though. Vanathar is still alive, and still has powerful forelimbs, even if he can’t exactly see, or use as much range of his bite. His jaws are beginning to free up as he shatters his own mandibular muscles to flex his maw. I can feel Vanathar rocked from side to side as Lucky lunges for and swipes at Vanathar’s throat, knocking him off balance repeatedly, while Salamanderian works to grab and pry scales from Vanathar’s torso.
Vanathar takes a wild swing with his left forelimb, nearly striking Lucky as Lucky manages to barely shift his size out of the way while dodging backwards. The strike misses Lucky only by inches. When beings are dozens to hundreds of feet tall, that’s a close call. Lucky lunges for Vanathar’s throat again while Vanathar’s collecting himself, trying to get his balance after the swing. I feel the inside of Vanathar’s throat bulge as Lucky’s fangs connect. He begins to squeeze down, but between the resilience of Vanathar’s scales, and durable neck muscles, and top-heavy build, Lucky can’t produce enough force to penetrate Vanathar’s throat. Lucky takes swipes from both of Vanathar’s forelimbs in his current position attempting to capitalize on a vulnerability, himself becoming vulnerable. Lucky remains grappled to Vanathar’s throat, but he’s going to take more and more hits in this position.
I continue hacking my way up Vanathar’s tongue, to exit his mouth. Flying swiftly outwards and upwards, I seek out a vulnerable position. As I’m about to try to end it, I can sense that Teuila is doing something that causes her psychic wavelength to bounce and bulge, disorienting me, Lil, Lu, and Lucky. She’s absorbing her first dragonforce. She’s becoming something more. I have to focus though. I’m proud of her. I’m proud of My Heart, My Wings, My Anchor, and my son.
After I exit Vanathar’s mouth, I T K Surf towards his eye, and roar at Vanathar, “Keep your claws off my son!”
What would end this? What would quickly bring Vanathar down? He’s suffocating, but he has a barrel chest, that could take a long while, and his throat muscles might dislodge enough ice to start breathing again. I need to stop him from taking swipes at my son. My staff has used up about sixty four percent of its charge or so. I think maintaining the bond with Frostfire Salamanderian is currently worth more than trying out a couple of fireballs on a fire dragon’s insides. I should have empowered a frost rune while casting the gelid glacier, and just said damn the consequences. I’d probably have passed out, or become a block of ice, but Vanathar would probably be dead right now instead of hurting my beloved Lucky, my son.
Y’know what? I’ve got five whole seconds of lightning stored up within me. I’ve got the curse of number four, and if there’s one thing there’s plenty of on Rayileklia, other than acid rain, it’s lightning. The Worldstorm provides once again. I begin tearing my way into Vanathar’s right eye, hacking and slashing with Frostburn at any non-frozen bits. I tell Lucky and Salamanderian to once again make a break for it, so that they don’t get caught up in the resulting blast.
When Lucky backs off, he takes one last swipe to the side of his face from Vanathar, knocking him sideways, reeling backwards, but thankfully he was protected by his new Wolfium helmet. While it dazed him, it didn’t manage to let Vanathar get his claws into Lucky, similar to how Vanathar’s swipes and prying couldn’t cut into Lucky’s armored torso.
Inside Vanathar’s right eyeball, fairly deep, I jam Frostburn in towards his optic nerve as far as I can. Is this how I will destroy every dragon? It’s an extreme pain in the— everything. I equip number four as I begin blasting forth the excess stored electrical charge, directed through Frostburn deeply into Vanathar’s cranium. The sound of thunder reminds me that Teuila was fighting a thunder dragon, and I hadn’t heard much thunder other than the natural rolling booms of Rayileklia’s Worldstorm.
I’m struck, and struck, and struck again, by lightning that I allow to channel its painful energies through me. Perhaps my training will be to simply stand along the edge of Mount Solace, near the lightning clouds with number four equipped, and channel the lightning back into the clouds as it repeatedly strikes me. I’m fairly certain my electrical resistance and electrokinesis skills from Can’Z’aas are growing again.
I grumble, “Just die,” while being electrocuted repeatedly, slightly worried that Vanathar might be able to handle the shock more than me at this point, as my Steely Body spell is wearing off.
As the mountainous dragon whose eyeball I’m perched in slowly slumps to his right side, the countryside tremors with his fall. I hadn’t thought to note how Olashax’s fall was also impressively massive, a minor earthquake in its own right. Doing a Q C R to number five so I can stop getting my arse electrocuted, I flex my jaw as my eyeballs roll around in their sockets. I rattle my skull to try to shake off the daze. Thankfully, while I’m collecting myself, Salamanderian had already been tearing apart Vanathar’s torso, and Lucky is joining in to dig a route to his heart for me.
Weary, exhausted, panting, no longer in a Steely Body spell form, I stumble out of Vanathar’s eyeball, and catch myself with telekinesis, since I can’t even hold my breath. Huffing and floating around the massive monstrosity, the red-scaled Bruiser class dragon with the alligator-snout, I make my way towards the opening in his chest. Salamanderian and Lucky step aside as I finish carving my way in on my own.
Calling out to Teuila, I suggest, “Te, when you’re finished absorbing Xinthoz, can you please take out your lantern that we got from Milbert of Navica? I think that’s the one. There are invisible mages around the battlefield. We need someone fast who can reveal them, and maybe make short work of them. Yes babe, that’s you. Goober.”
I chuckle as Teuila’s mental wavelength, which seems incapable of responding while she’s absorbing dragonforce, offers a sentiment similar to, “Perhaps moi?”
This is going to take a while. This heart is utterly friggin’ massive, and I just ate one nearly as big like three minutes ago or something ridiculously short like that.
Calling out mentally, I request, “Lil, Lucky, Lu, Salamanderian, can you all sweep south from Te and me in a search pattern, to keep any of their forces from sneaking away, or sneaking up to shank me or Te in the back? I love you all, help the Vivant if you run into any. Lil, be careful, southwest of you there was something with a massive thermal signature. I’m sure the heat it’s putting out wouldn’t bother you, but I don’t know what it is. It could be dangerous. Gilmeshtu was embroiled in a battle with it when I could last check.”
Breathing deeply and slowly exhaling, I continue to teleport tiny little bite after tiny little bite of Vanathar’s heart to whatever constitutes my stomach. His dragonforce is being absorbed into mine, so I test lowering my Honoris Causa, as I feel slightly less rushed, and would rather save every ounce of dragonforce that I can. Thankfully, it seems like it’s working at the same rate. I’m still glad I kept it active, so that I could free Teuila and Lil from having to wait out Xinthoz’s dragonfright.
I wonder if I could continue absorbing this dragonforce while napping. Hm, maybe? I’ll take it easy in his chest cavity regardless.
Out of nowhere, telepathically I hear Kinzul release a terrible shout in anger, “Vivant! when you finish your task, *devour*, dispose of my daughter’s corpse, and her mate’s! I can’t stand the sight of them,” then her telepathic voice saddens, quiets, as she adds, “nor stomach the task. I’ll feast on the other two.”