I’ve used up about thirty eight percent of my staff’s S P today so far already, between the two fireballs and the bypassed-wall, but that’s not too bad. That, thirty three of my own S P for a Steely Body, and my enhanced-fire-rune throwing knife aren’t too bad to have cleared out all of the truly dangerous foes on the first two floors, and apparently a large swath of foes on the third floor from where my explosion blew apart a hallway they’d been traveling down.
My Steely Body spell wears off, but I’m not concerned with it right now, my second casting of it is coming up relatively soon, and fire isn’t something I need it for. I sigh as the warm air ahead of a blast wave blows my hair about, feeling almost pleasant. I simply shake my head at the creatures to my fore.
Letting Attraxiaz drop slightly, to grip her with telekinesis far below the massive blast of flame that hits me, I roll my eyes in the direction of the offending party. Spying a trap that can help close off a route behind me, so that I don’t have to face foes from anywhere save the fore, I spring essentially a cave-in trap that blocks off the downward tunnel on the third floor. This will let me focus on the pair of red dragons breathing on me from ahead of me.
Standing in their flames, I call out, “I’m sure someone has told you during the sounding of the alarms. I’m Reggie Shellcracker, yada yada. I offer you mercy should you surrender. If you should be incapable of discontinuing your breath weapons, merely turning even slightly to the side will indicate your surrender to me, and I’ll let you live. Failure to comply will result in your death in five. Four. Three.”
One rapidly rattles their head around in fear as they begin taking their human form, that of a very average ruby-toned young man. He turns to face the side as he attempts to get his breath weapon under control, while the other doubles down and approaches me. I sigh aloud and continue, “Two. One.”
The ruby-hued man cowers at the side of the hallway, while the second dragon continues bearing down on my face, so I sigh one last time as I finish, “Zero. So be it.” At the same time, I leap upwards, holding my breath while switching to Q C R number two, and I drive Frostburn up through the inside of the mouth, and the back of the skull of dragon number two.
They topple over, convulsing as they die. Despite being dehydrated from the annoyance, I still manage to weep a tear for having had to slay what had apparently been a young woman. She was similarly average in appearance though not quite twins to the young man, but a remarkably similar ruby hue. I cast my gaze upon him as he continues to work his breath weapon to a close while facing the wall in fear of me.
Giving him a moment, I ask, “Do you offer your surrender, so that I may grant you safety?”
He nods rapidly, choking and coughing as he gets his breath weapon under control, so I ask, “What’s your name? I’ll give it to my forces below, so that they know to let you pass, to flee if you so choose. Or for them to protect you, should you side with us.”
There’s a whimper as the lad bemoans, “I— I can’t. Can’t side with you. No one, no one can stand against the might of the Ice of Rage. I, I’ll be killed. Please let me flee. Please. I swear I’ll leave these lands and never return.”
I frown as I demand, “Your name.”
Coughing, he nods rapidly, “Right, right, Azchunk. I’m Azchunk. I’m sorry. Thank you for accepting my surrender.”
Drawing a deep breath and loosing a long sigh, I ask, “How are you planning to survive after this Azchunk?”
He glances side to side, unsure of how to answer before responding, “I, I suppose, raid some human and vampire villages, find a small castle to hide out in, and pray? Take a few more humans for cattle maybe. Easier than actual cattle, they take care of themselves.”
Shaking my head sadly, with tears in my eyes, I state, “That Azchunk, is not the right answer. If I hear one iota of a whisper of a young red adult in human lands, hurting or raiding anyone, I would hunt you down and make your death far more painful than the one I’d given your friend here. Do you even understand why I oppose Terrorzin?”
Azchunk hazards a terrified guess as his eyes are wide, “Y-you’re crazy?”
Beginning to laugh, I want to agree with him, but I shake my head, “No Azchunk, that is not why I oppose him. That is why I will win against him. Why I oppose him is because he harms innocents, raids, steals, kills, and wants to take the world with him when it’s his time to die. Can you even comprehend why I’m offering mercy?”
Shaking his head, Azchunk trembles before me. Friggin’ hell. I call out to my other ‘prisoner’, “You’ve accepted my mercy prisoner, what do you think I should do to someone who doesn’t even understand the concept?”
There’s a gulp from behind me, as a sad voice laments, “If you truly care about everyone he might harm, I see no other option than to take his life.”
Azchunk begins backing away, screaming in terror as he tries to refresh his breath weapon towards me. I offer him one more chance, “My friend thinks you will harm innocents, that your life cannot be saved because you will endanger others. Do you understand?
He continues shaking his head, growing angry in his terror, glancing back over his shoulder at perhaps his only route to flee from me. There is a massive door in the way, easily thirty feet tall and just as wide. He continues to back away from me until his back is pressed against it. Sighing and shaking my head, I level Frostburn in Azchunk’s direction.
I simply ask, “Can you promise me that without a doubt, you’d never harm someone weaker than you, who hadn’t attacked you first?”
Azchunk growls at me, shaking his head as he begins to transform back towards his dragon form. I don’t bother letting him finish shapeshifting as I run him through both at his sternum, and then up through the inside of his maw towards his brain. He didn’t even have the guts to lie about it. At least he was honest.
Sighing wearily I ask, “Do you see why I feel that I don’t have the time to offer mercy to everyone if I want to end this war? To end Terrorzin?”
Attraxiaz nods before responding, “I believe I do, Hero of the Onyx Dawn. I believe I do. But I don’t believe you should go in there, Reggie,” as she points towards the massive door.
Raising an eyebrow, I query, “Why not?”
Her head shake betrays her fear when it goes on too long before she answers in a shaky voice, “ShizTinth is one of Terrorzin’s experimental fortresses. He, he ships things, and has magic done to them, and done to dragons. Done to other creatures. There could be things in there powerful enough to destroy even you. I say blow a hole through the ceiling again, or abandon this fortress, having weakened its forces successfully.”
I nod towards Atter contemplatively before addressing her concerns, “I’m grateful for your advice. If you’re correct about what’s in there, I would prefer you stay out here while I deal with the occupants. It’d be harder to protect you from things I might not know how to combat to begin with. As far as blowing a hole in the ceiling again, I could, but this time I’d pay a backlash price I don’t feel like paying right now It’s why I paid one in advance last night, well, three, so that I’ll never have to pay them again. At least, if I can get away with one of each of the three elements in a given day.”
Muttering and shaking her head, Atter comments, “I’ll reside here then, waiting for you. It’s remarkable that you so casually discuss advantages and limitations that you seem to create for yourself on the fly. It’s seems as if you feel your limitations were loose guidelines and annoyances that you’d overcome if pressed to. I’m wary of the scope of your powers, that you so casually reveal them to me, and seem unfazed in the slightest. No fear, no hesitation, yet you kindly consider my advice. If I understand even half of what you can do, I’d be terrified for all of Rayileklia if you didn’t seem earnest and merciful.”
Just a little bit, just a little bit do I hate myself for doing it, but I joke, “You aint seen nothin’ yet.” I almost prefaced it with the word babe or baby for some reason. Weird.
Atter quails slightly. I shrug while casting a playful grin her way as I untie the rope about my belt, handing her her own bindings. Before entering, I snatch the two hearts and dragonforces from Azchunk and his partner. I’d used up something like fifteen percent of my paired dragonforces surviving my stupidly risky enchanting last night, and I’ve recovered only about eight of those percent of my paired dragonforces from the dragons I’ve slain in here. Basically four young adult dragons got me back about half of what I’d lost doing one enchantment, or, well, three.
Hm. The glow thingy at that lobe in my brain is sort of inert, as if these dragonforces don’t even count. I kinda figured they wouldn’t. We were pretty certain that it had to be ancient evil dragons to find my cure. That also seems to be what will progress my Honoris Causa. I’ve been keeping it ignited in here in order to have challenging rights and so on, and to show dragons that I mean business when I offer mercy. I’ll keep it up as I enter this likely cavernous room. Making sure Atter is out of line of sight, I cast another bypassed-wall spell from my staff, another ten percent of its power gone for the day, forty eight percent used. If I use up another ten percent, I’ll save the rest to try to summon elementals twice.
Entering the room, it’s surprisingly blindingly bright, thankfully my eyes are closed, and I don’t rely on them for most things. It’s unusual, since everything else on Rayileklia is mostly either bits of glow-lichen, or luma tulipa, the weird “sun” flowers like street lamps. Part of the reason this room is so lit is because there’s a host of casters in here, and I immediately switch back to Q C R number three, Necrosteel as I finish up my second Steely Body spell. I hope Lu managed to snag an extra pouch of adamantite shavings, or even orichalcum or mithril. I’m running low.
The room is forty five meters long, wide, and about as tall, with a bit of a domed ceiling. What I’d call support pillars look more like some sort of biological bone-webbing. There are three colossal beasts on what looks to be a combination of a ritual altar, and a surgical table, two of which are dragons. The third, unfortunately, is a freakin’ hydra. Worse, it’s not really three creatures, not any longer, they’ve been fused into one monstrous, four-winged, eight-legged, three-necked colossal aberration. Further, there are three more of these creatures in caged alcoves along the walls. One alcove is empty, likely to contain the new one being combined on the altar table.
Further into the room, are two more caged alcoves, with different kinds of creatures that make me ill to my stomach. Eight legs for different reasons, large cephalothoraxes, larger abdomens, enormous bat-like wings, constantly twitching spinnerets and mandibles, compound eyes. The cream-colored exoskeleton on the legs ends in talons. The gates are coming down from all five of these alcoves, and I’m already wishing I’d listened to Attraxiaz as the enormous, creepy, flying, eight leggers begin to weave something that looks like thread, but solidifies into something like bone as they drag it about.
Also, unlucky me, there are definitely Psions, necromancers, and a whole host of oddities amongst these kobolds. All are kobolds though, which makes me wary of the chance that they might have magic similar to The Gap kobold clan. I’m worried that a sporomancer might be able to get fungus spores inside my mouth or lungs by bypassing my neckchain of the everbreathing somehow, because I see a lot of mushrooms around here, part of what’s casting the glow in fact. I can’t guess what everyone’s spellwork is going to be, so I need Aegis here. Aegis’s Latent lets them redirect spells to themselves, and most spells dissipate. This is why Lady Kinzul sent them with me.
Telepathically sending towards Shaylon, I ask, “Did you hear my thought waves Aegis? Third floor, straight up the tunnel, through the door I’d just carved a hole in with magic, a tremendous amount of magical presence turning my way at this very moment.”
Much more quickly than usual, Shaylon offers in their delightful hissed esses, “Yes Schism, soon I’ll be at your side.”
I’m truly grateful for Shaylon’s obvious haste in their response. Even still, soon might not be soon enough, as my nose starts to bleed from the first of likely many psychic brainblasts.