Annoyingly, the disintegration beam wipes away my adamantite form. It does however leave me unharmed in the process, for which I breathe a sigh of relief. I figured I’d last through another one of those. I did last time for Teuila, when I was already wrecked, in the boss room of the dungeon leading to Maka-Akari Gaea’s Cradle. I re-equip my three, and five, from my Q C R. Necrosteel and Glacial Greaves.
I’d better start quickening another cast of it though, I cannot afford to not have it up if these jerks are slinging around disintegrations like they’re nothing. I pound in the skull of the necromancer I’d landed on, dropping rapid E S Ps into the kobold’s face. I’m not sure if I’m braining a man or a woman, and I’d rather not know any more details about the people that I slay than I already do. It hurts so much to be killing people. I know that they’re likely irredeemable, but it just hurts, it sucks to take lives, to snuff out sapience. I think it hurts worse that I and my family wouldn’t be alive if I didn’t do this.
Disheartening news reaches me telepathically from Shaylon in their delightful hiss, “Boetah says land reinforcements, heavy on the casters have somehow arrived from our rear, the way we’d come in. I must aid my partner swiftly. Your inner story sounds like you have the situations in hand my Schism.”
Nodding telepathically to Shaylon, I undertake resolving matters at hand alone with F F S up here. That said, I call out, “As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, I’m the Hero of the Order of the Onyx Dawn, and I hereby request your surrender, so that I may grant you mercy. Any act of vio—“
The screams of long live Terrorzin, something about the Ice of Rage, and the random brainmelting hisses cause me to shake my head in exasperation and shame while sighing. Moreso the various necromantic bolts flung at me cause me to drop an even weightier sigh. I finish my recasting of my Steely Body spell, and I’m out of adamantite shavings, so I fish around for another pouch within the dimensional pouch, and thankfully find one.
Whew, thanks Lu. Luni’d gotten time to get Deli or some other blacksmith to make sure I had pouches of legendary metal shavings. There’s a couple, but one’s enough for now. I tie it tightly in place, looping it through itself along my belt. The disoriented necromantic kobold beneath me begins to stir, and I look away as I pulverize its face in a brutal shower of gore, smashing open its cranium and jolting its brain with an adamantite reinforced E S P.
Let’s see, six, seven, seven more necromancers, an aeromancer, an armored foe, possibly another Spellknight, but their armor doesn’t seem anywhere near as good. In fact, yep, I can T K grip them. I swing the armored individual into a group of necromancers as the dracoliche begins to rise from the altar-table. The support pillars in here aren’t webbed with all the bone-silk like the previous floor was, from the fliders. All the bone silk made that room much less accessible to fight in, confining the combat arena to just about the forty feet or so in the center.
This room is wide open on the side of every pillar, though it doesn’t contain the same type of alcoves as the third floor’s lab-room. Instead of gated cubbies holding creatures at bay, they’re instead just piles of rotting bodies heaped up in those far recesses. Even without smelling it, the scent virtually wafts off of the corpse piles, vile rot and decay. Flies buzz about, and I don’t want to analyze the tiny wriggling I can sense in locations.
These necromancers are disoriented, and not very mobile. Frostburn, I’m just going to let you do the work. I float Frostburn about with one of my T K grips while the other two continue harassing three necromancer kobolds, and four necromancer Draconiacs, since I feel they’re the most threatening. When able, I use the T K grips to fling the foes onto my sword as it levitates around the room, chasing the now routed necromancers. Simultaneously, I’m firing my holy halefire crossbow rapidly into the dracoliche as it gets its bearings.
There is a lot of mass of bone to go through, and to its credit, when the dracoliche realizes I’ve got a weapon specifically designed to destroy it from range, it closes in on me while protecting its face with its wings. I’m not going to use the last charge on my raven-porting yet, so I sadly have to take a tail flick from the dracoliche since my T K grips are busy elsewhere. Whoof. The power in that tail sent even my adamantite body flying, and I’m not wearing the Wyverium chestplate right now, so that’s a ton of strength. I’m sent tumbling end over end to my left, trying to rotate my center of gravity in the air so that I stop spinning. What a hit!
Still, this form excels at taking blunt impacts. Whew, I breathe slowly, exhaling carefully as I raise to my feet from my accidental three point landing that left me skidding rearward. I feel so silly as I crack my neck and begin stretching while I take aim at the dracoliche again. Holy halefire bolts tear through its wings that protect its face, and it keeps adjusting them, trying to get to me to pin me in a corner. One of the necromancers is still moving around, and outside of my T K range right now
Since we’re on opposite corners of the room, making it something like, let’s see, forty five squared plus forty five squared, square root of that. What is that, sixty, sixty three meters or so from corner to corner? Dang it, but I’m probably in the range of some of her damaging spells, and the dracoliche is definitely in the range of her necromantic enhancement spells. Crap, yeah, she’s causing mass from the corpses around the room to float towards the dracoliche, patching up the damage I’ve done, but now I’m pinned down. Where’d F F S get off to?
Apparently F F S made sure the armored foe was dead. Whew, you’re a lifesaver F F S. I’m glad you’re finishing off any necromancers that were either just disoriented, or playing possum, and swiftly striding after the now-cornered last necromancer. Salamanderian’s been taking some pretty big hits though, and his body is looking a lot the worse for wear since I first summoned him. Salamanderian is looking much thinner, with rigid gouges and chunks missing from his humanoid form than normal, and the aeromancer flying around, blasting chunks out of him isn’t helping matters any.
At least I can do something about the aeromancer as she accidentally enters the range of my telekinesis. I rip her down from her flight spell onto the upturned point of Frostburn, then I pull her upwards while pulling Frostburn downwards, eviscerating her, before directing Frostburn with more control so that I can put her out of her misery. I didn’t intend to make her suffer, I just had no control over the dual fling that ended with Frostburn in her gut. Still, death takes her, and feeds the necromancer yet more material to keep enhancing the dracoliche.
F F S is having a hard time finishing that necromancer, they seem to be able to weave spells incredibly quickly, and are alternating between enhancing the dracoliche, and harassing or blasting F F S. I’m sorry friend. I hope you can weather the storm of blasts. More mana from the staff? Sure, but I’m going to leave two percent of the S P in the staff so that it can still recharge itself. That’s the last I can offer to help maintain your form. Thank you Salamanderian.
There we go, with that little boost, Salamanderian gets his footing, and a bit of his speed back, and finally finishes off the last necromancer. Thanks to that, I’m relieved enough to focus, allowing me to freely maneuver myself while blasting the hell out of the dracoliche, getting it within range of the holy halefire light that the crossbow produces, so that its wings weaken, leaving it unable to keep protecting its face with them. It snaps at me, but its neck and jaws weaken as it tries to take a bite out of me, and I simply fire bolt after bolt through the inside of its skull.
Salamanderian helps me out from the rear, smashing and carving off dracoliches tail. The more we disrupt its body, the less cohesion it has over all, and the closer it is to its final death. I make sure to cast my senses about the room, wanting to make sure there’s no necromantic energy whorl that’ll revive the thing, and thankfully there isn’t. There’s also no sign of a thermal signature, or movement in the various bone dust around the room, that would hint at an invisible necromancer, ready to revive the darn thing. Thankfully.
Finally, prising myself out of its failing jaws, one last pair of holy halefire bolts causes the dracoliche to rear back, and then topple. Its mass of bone causes a large tremor as they clatter loudly to the stone floor. It twitches once, twice, thrice, and I fire as many times across its spine in order to make certain it stays down. It finally rests unmoving.
Whew. Okay. F F S, you keep checking out the room for a minute please, just in case?
I walk back towards my prisoners and call out, “All clear.”
The stunned looks of disbelief on the twin Spellknights’ faces as I waltz back out, seeming no worse for wear, are almost cute in a fashion. They are both very attractive. If I knew I could trust them, I might tease them in some manner, in an attempt to try to be friendly. I’m definitely not at trusting levels yet though. They’re sorcerous knights who could at any moment decide to start casting spells to aid their allies, hamper me, or harm my other prisoner.
As I saunter away into the lab room again, heading up for the fifth floor, I race ahead a bit while my prisoners follow from behind. Simultaneously, I get a message from Illy, “Shiz and Tinth should be down to the fifth by now, we’re still spread out on eight and nine, just about to reconvene to head down to seven, making sure we don’t have any stragglers to tag us in the back. Pretty sure we’re finished up on these two. Sorry we’re taking so long Schism. It’s rough up here. We’ll hurry though.”
I try not to be an ass as I grin and chuckle, but I offer self-deprecation, “Hey, don’t feel bad, I skipped like two floors and I’m still only on four going to five. Boetah and Shaylon are facing some sort of reinforcements, heavy on the casters, so it’s me, my three prisoners, and my Salamanderian right now. I’m keeping my prisoners safe, not making them fight. Two powerful Spellknights surrendered, but I disarmed them and have them carrying equipment, staying out of trouble. Love you Illy. Keep at it, stay safe. See you soon.”
F F S and I march brazenly up to the fifth floor, and I don’t even bother taking stock of the mass of bodies awaiting me in the intersections between barrack-rooms. I just cast a G S E, quickened, calling out, “Darkest Star’s Event Horizon!”
There had to be nearly a hundred kobolds, and at least thirty Draconiacs in range of where I positioned my spell. Dozens and dozens die to the gravitational force, their screams silenced by the inability of sound to escape the event horizon. This makes for a truly effective spell. To think, it’s just shadowstuff, wisps of umbra. Leaning into darkness and void seems to—, oh, duh. I’m Reggie Shellcracker, Alias Schism, Latent Nothing, Void Dragon. Of course a spell that uses shadow to emulate other spells, will be supremely effective when I have it emulate a black hole. Jeeperz cripes Reggie.
I giggle to myself, unable to help it, feeling foolish for not having thought about it earlier. I shake my head incredulously at myself as I begin walking towards my own black hole. It’s like passing through warm jelly, almost comforting, like I’m being pressed by a soft embrace on all sides. There are a few survivors in this area, but I throw them towards the center of the mass with my telekinetic grip. They might not be affected by the pull of the spell, but being dead-center of all matter in the area coming to a compressed point is still crushing them all the same. One unarmored-seeming Spellknight resists my telekinetic grip, so I go to run him through with Frostburn, but it bounces off of seemingly invisible barriers. He’s armored in T K force, of course.
Grumbling I back him into a corner, because he’s not so mobile since he has to maintain and move all the force-parts of his armor simultaneously. While he slashes ineffectually at me, I pound against his armor, knowing it will crack eventually with my adamantite infused E S Ps that I guide with additional T K force of my own. It doesn’t take all that long surprisingly, before there’s a shattering, and he obviously suffers a shearing pain in his head. I begin to offer him mercy, but he literally spits at me, so I put my fist through him, and leave him to die, not wanting to peel apart the rest of his T K force armor to get at a more vital location.
Thinking better on it, not wanting to get shanked in the back by a telekinetic knife or something, I levitate Frostburn into the hole inside of him. Angling it, I carve upwards inside his innards, attempting to end his heart. I continue walking towards the doors as I let Frostburn find its way back to me telekinetically. Salamanderian looks amused as he finishes off several surviving kobolds who were out of the range of my spell, by throwing them into the black hole. He faces off against and duels a Spellknight, but I don’t want it taking too long, so I put telekinetic squares behind the Spellknight’s knees every time he tries to dodge, causing him to fall on his arse. Hm, her arse apparently, my mistake. I feel bad about that. Or then again maybe they wanted to present as male. Whatever the case, Salamanderian is now letting loose upon their prone form.
Salamanderian sends an Ignan chuckle across our wavelength, learning that there’s a lightning and poison dragon guarding the next room. I offer mercy, producing my full title, and I wave at the mess that is the sphere of matter that was once over a hundred living bodies, indicating my power and desire for peace. They angrily refuse, so I just shake my head while Salamanderian and I end them together, completely unaffected by their breath weapons. Two more hearts, four more percent recovery to my dragonforce, sitting at about ninety three to ninety five percent now.
I feel so callous. I have to start shutting my brain off for all of this violence, chaos, death, and destruction. Or I would, but I follow the directions to begin opening the door to the fifth floor’s altar-lab, when my three prisoners catch up.
Ahliyui yells, “Wait! Extra trap!” which engenders a bit of trust for me, as she rushes up to try to prevent me from springing a trap upon myself and F F S.
Her brother raises an eyebrow at her, and she admits, “Was my idea, bosses asked, I suggested, it would try to curse anyone not cleared for the upper levels. I’ll open it for you. Sorry, I— I didn’t think you’d make it this far. Not so easily. I’m sorry. I should have said earlier. There’s another on the sixth as well, coming from the bottom.”
I blow a sigh through puffed cheeks before responding, “I’m glad you decided to share. The sixth floor one won’t be an issue. Shiz and Tinth are in the room ahead. I’d been given telepathic confirmation of their whereabouts earlier, but I can also sense their dragonforces. Is there any manner of gruesome creature, or anything within? Anything you know of at all?”
Her brother looks questioningly at Ahliyui, apparently she’s a bit more in-the-know, and according to her brother, deranged. Still, she offers up, “Not creatures, this one’s an enchantment lab. Brings out and empowers Latents in a corrupt way, uh, other stuff too. I’m not really sure. Mostly only masters Shiz and Tinth use it, with head necromancer Fehzhliz, but you killed her down on floor four, saw her body in the room. This floor is bigger though, that room’ll have, um, four exits. North, south, east, west. North goes up, south comes down here.”
There’s a look of desperate contemplation as Ahliyui attempts to recall anything else she could add, to help regain, or gain my trust, from forgetting or forgoing revealing the extra trap earlier. She seems to be coming up empty though. I flash her a solemn quarter smile in gratitude.
Nodding in appreciation, I thank her, “I’m glad you shared this Ahliyui. I take it the east and west routes go to more barracks, but don’t really have any escape routes? Good. You three stay safe, I promised you I’d try to offer mercy Attraxiaz, so I will try. Ahliyui, Ahliyuri, I’d like you to stay as far away from the door as possible. I—, huff. I’m not entirely trusting of you yet, being that you are powerful spellslingers, but also for your own safety, because I may unleash titanic levels of power, if they do not accept my mercy. I will not allow myself to be defeated, or prisoners in my care to come to harm. Do you understand?”
The twin teal Draconiacs nod, somewhere between understandingly, hesitantly, and emphatically. Ahliyui opens the door for me, and she takes her brother to the western barrack hallway at the nearest intersection, doing as I recommended. Atter stays at the doorway, either curious, or hopeful, that I can offer mercy.
Pained grunting across my telepathic wavelength from Illy sets me to worrying as she calls out, “Seven, seven is pretty rough, we’re trying to push through, but six looks even rougher, with way, way, way too many casters. If—. If we don’t make it to you Schism. I—. Reggie. It’s been— something nice. Can’t think. Brain blasts, hurts. Hurts bad.”
When Illy doesn’t continue further, I panic, and check in with Shaylon and Boetah. Boetah grumbles, “More pouring in from the front my Schism. We act on your command however.”
Drawing a deep breath, I suggest telepathically to my Shield and Aegis, “Okay, use the hole I made through the floors to skip three floors and start heading this way. Do some damage to cave in the path behind you if you need to, if you can. I’m about to negotiate with Shiz, and Tinth, but even if I am in battle when you arrive, run past me, north up to floor six. Please, convene with the Dormir. They need you.”
I want to rush past Shiz and Tinth, to Illy’s aid, to the Dormir’s aid. I can’t let myself be cornered by two Latent-empowered ancient dragons while I’m focusing on trying to rescue people I love though. I—. I have to hope that I can quickly negotiate something, get them to call off their troops.
Entering the room, with F F S at my side, I immediately announce myself, “I am Reggie Shellcracker, a Hero of the Order of the Onyx Dawn, an archmage Aliased Schism, and I am the Void Dragon Honoris Causa. I will depose and destroy Terrorzin, and any who remain loyal to him over the course of this war. Those who leave his loyalty, I offer mercy to. I am here to request your surrender, for you to abandon siding with Terrorzin for you to call off your forces so at least some of them may survive. As you can see I’ve slain my way up to you unharmed. Please. Surrender. I don’t want to have to kill you.”
Shiz actually raises both of his scaled brows in surprise, in his dragon form. He’s a Thunderer, so he’s got similar scales to Attraxiaz. Tinth is a blue, and he’s crackling with power. Tinth grins evily, and hisses to Shiz who nods. Fine, a fight it is. I draw Frostburn, and I’m suddenly struck, though Tinth was on the other side of the room, he blitzed through my danger wraps’ sensory range so fast that I didn’t have time to react. It seems his speed comes with a bit of a disadvantage though. Either it weakens his force of impact, or my adamantite body is even more durable than I imagined, or he’s just weak for an ancient.
I equip number four, and begin drawing the lightning I see crackling along his muscles to me. If he’s like me, he’s using that to keep his reflexes enhanced, maybe his speed. Shiz barks a loud thundercrack testingly at me, causing me to skid, but I remain relatively unharmed. My Steely Body spell is already starting to fail again though. I’ll start prepping it, because I’m going to need to figure out how to track Tinth. He’s darting around the room erratically, at super speeds.
F F Salamanderian takes a hit, and part of him shatters badly. I frown sadly his way, but he offers me acceptance, knowing that his physical manifestation is soon to come to an end. His soul has absorbed a lot of ambient mana yet again, so he’s happy to try to follow along the elemental plane where he’ll be returned to when this vessel gives out. I just won’t have the S P in my staff to summon him back for at least a day. The staff might take two days to recharge being at such low S P levels.
Testingly, I put T K Squares parallel to the ground at Tinth’s eye-level, in random locations about the room. Sure enough, he connects with one, and screams with agony while he shatters it, shearing my brain with pain as well. Capitalizing on his momentary disorientation, Salamanderian and I leap upon him, I’ve switched to Wyverian for the mobility, so my held-breath leap powered by a lightning boost burst while wearing the cursed lightning pants gets me to his face quickly. I begin pummeling Tinth’s face as I try to get to his eye, knowing my E S P won’t do much of anything to him, but I am cracking several of his facial scales. I’m drawing more and more of the lightning out of his muscle enhancements, into me, and using it for much the same as he had been.
Shiz attempts to help his reeling partner out, by swatting at me. I grin though and let his claw connect as I channel an extreme burst of lightning up into Shiz’s arm barely missing his eye as it weaves and arcs and channels about his limb, scorching his scales, cracking them. In my distraction, I forgot I was on the maw of a lightning dragon. At least he hasn’t yet realized I’m fine with him breathing lightning at me. His snout flicks me upward, and he unleashes a quick blast of his element at my body while Shiz swats me to the ground. I crater slightly as my Steely Body spell wears off. I barely finish the replacement in time as the two dragons pounce on me, pummeling me into the floor. Huff. Last use of raven-porting of the day coming up.
Shiz has been more cautious, and his element hurts me more, but he hasn’t been using it much, or charging it all that much. Tinth’s super speed is problematic, so I’d like to put him down quickly. I Q C R to number one and raven-port away. We wheel, we dive, we angle for the Shiz and the Tinth. Lightning takes out one of us, a swat takes out another. Our third, high above, becomes Reggie Shellcracker, breathing quickly to fall at full speed.
Salamanderian manages to keep Tinth off-balance before being shattered by a brief thundering breath from Shiz, removing my ally from this realm. My adamantite body plunging directly down with Frostburn held out before me drives deep across Tinth’s right eyelid. Okay, I’m pretty close, is he disoriented enough that I can use a G S E on him? No, not after I just raven-ported. His mind might be thinking too much about tricks and illusions, since the crater where he’d been stomping me is empty. Frack. Do I have anything that can finish him off?
As I’m worried about my ability to finish the fight in a timely manner, Boetah and Shaylon arrive, barreling through from the south. Despite my warning, my request, they stop to aid me, instead of rushing to the aid of the Dormir. Boetah curls up and rolls at the pair of Shiz and Tinth, while Shaylon’s serpentine form guides the roll and adjusts Boetah’s course. Shaylon quickly binds Tinth’s hind legs, and then stops moving, slowly hardening around his limbs. Boetah bowls into our grouping, knocking Tinth onto his side, and knocking Shiz into a corner. Shiz and Boetah begin duking it out, trading swats and smashing blows.
I begin charging up my internal lightning, draining everything I can from Tinth as I crawl into his mouth when I get a clear shot. He manages to spit me out, something few other dragons, well, none, have been able to do, but he spits me for my target anyway. I jab Frostburn between Shiz’z eyes, and unleash a massive cascade of lightning I’d stolen from Tinth, dazing him as it leaps about his cranium, his skull plate, and some tickles the edges of his brain.
Boetah manages to take the opportunity to snap Shiz’s jaw with a massive haymaker, and to drive his fist into Shiz’s neck where his thundering organ would be, either pinching it, or crushing it entirely. Shaylon’s grip begins to fracture Tinth’s limbs, so I sigh as I stand atop Shiz’s face. Turning back to Tinth, I throw Frostburn at him, using telekinesis to drive it between scales along his eyelid, prying them apart enough to stick deeply towards his cranial orbital cavity.
When I’m sure I’ve got their attention, I demand, “I am a Hero of the Order of the Onyx Dawn, and I demand that you surrender, or I shall wrest open your chests and drink of your dragonforces! I’ve been lenient, I’ve held back my most devastating magics, but my allies on the sixth floor deserve my attention more than you, so if you do not surrender, and call off your goons, you die, now! Accept my mercy, or give me reason to finish you, what say you!?”
Attraxiaz appears in the doorway, and hesitantly she pleads, “Please Shiz, I know you’re not the worst sort. Take the offer. Schism means it offering mercy. Please. We—. Schism will save them.”
The fight drains out of Shiz and he slumps to one side just before Boetah can hit him again. He begins transforming into his human form, looking at me as he works his broken jaw, with fear and gratitude in his eyes. I understand the implication. Shiz holds his jaw in place to ask, “Please accept my surrender. I am at your mercy.”
I nod, motioning for him to stand near Atter. They might be mates, possibly spouses, or maybe siblings. If either, it’s likely in secret. Shiz also mentions, “Our troops won’t accept surrender, nearly all of them are Terrorzin loyalists to the last breath. I’m sorry. I can’t call them off. Perhaps if Tinth does as well, but I doubt even a fraction of them would listen at this point. I am at your mercy, whatever you decide.”
Drawing a deep, slightly ragged breath, I sigh belatedly. That is not at all what I wanted to hear. He looks fearful enough, repentant enough that it might be true. Tinth doesn’t look repentant at all, yet. Still, seeing his ally surrender, and feeling his limbs further crack, Tinth glares between all of us before grunting, and beginning to shapeshift into human form.
I urge, “Shield, Aegis, to the Dormir, quickly! I can handle it from here. Even if they decide to attack. As you can see, I’m unharmed. Hell, I’m better off than when I started the fight, I’ve got some of Tinth's juice flowing through me. Go, quickly!”
Boetah and Shaylon nod, and barrel there way up the north hallway into the sixth floor, where I can hear occasional shrieks, squeals, brain melting hisses, calls of Ice of Rage and Terrorzin’s reign and such. Further, there’s rumbling, explosions, and hissing more like steam or melting noises.
I don’t want to take my eyes off of Tinth, but I want to assure Shiz of my mercy, and ensure that he doesn’t decide to back out of accepting it. I motion him over, and purposely walk backwards between the pair of Atter and Shiz. We spread out a bit, mostly in a square.
Heaving a sigh, I speak, “Thank you for accepting my offer of mercy, each of you. You do not have to join in my fight against Terrorzin. I do request that you either find a way to prove that you’re stepping out of the fight, or you exile yourselves to the Untamed Lands, or you come to our home as refugees, where we will keep you safe from reprisal, so that you may either live in peace, or choose to fight alongside us.”
Atter comments, “Yes, you have my answer, I still want to see your home, and then perhaps get some aid evacuating my clan. I—. I believe I saw some of my less loyal clan following your two rock dragons, hostilely. There was a Terrorzin loyalist, a powerful one, among them. I don’t expect you to hesitate in slaying them. I am sorry that they were persuaded to join this fight, on the wrong side. I trust you understand, and beg that you continue to remain lenient.”
Nodding to Atter, I’d worried it was something like that. She knows she can’t prove she didn’t send a signal for them to march on the place while I was asleep. I remark as such, “I do understand. The implication is that there may have been a breach of trust, that you could be the culprit for the reinforcements from the ground, despite the trust we’d been building. I admit, it does look bad for you, but I’m willing to offer you this leniency. Especially with your aid in having talked down Shiz. Shiz, what say you?”
Shiz eyes me warily as he responds, “If you know who *they* are, to protect them, then I have no complaints, whatever your choices in the matter are. Thank you for this leniency. My jaw is killing me, so I’d prefer that we wrap this up without much further speaking.”
Turning to Tinth, my Steely Body spell wears off again, annoyingly enough. Between the hammering I’d taken, and all the lightning, the duration was shortened quite quickly. There might also be diminishing returns on number of uses in a day. I begin to ask Tinth for his cooperation, but I sense the crackle within Tinth’s limbs, the beginning of his reversion to his dragon form, the beginnings of the muscle motions, and hear Shiz growl, “Tinth you fool!” while Atter cries out, “Tinth no!”