Pov Vildra
The slight hum of annoyed bees annoy me as I sit in my bed, waiting for Aesmo to finish her preparations. Today was going to be a busy day, and I didn't want to spend it listening to thousands of buzzing. I try staring at the sky through the skylight. The 'eye of aesmo-daevva' floats across, proving to be more entertaining than the blank blue sky.
"What were you expecting?" Repha jabs at me, to which I only give a mental shrug. She's been getting agitated lately, but she won't tell me why. Maybe she hates bees. I'm sure the bees would hate her. The bees hate everyone except Fesmo.
The sound of silk alerts me to Aesmo's arrival below my bed. I adjust my position so that I can see her through the thin threading. She feigns a disappointed look up at me lazing about, to which I jokingly remind her that she's late.
I crawl out of bed and drop onto Aesmo's makeshift catwalk. She's already moving the beehives and blood into an empty room, leaving me with moving the jar of bees. Neither of us enjoy the process, but I finished the move without any mistakes. Once everything was prepared, I opened the jar and dumped the bees into the empty beehives. Some of the more aggressive individuals try to sting me or Aesmo, but find that their tiny stingers can't hurt either of us.
It only took a few minutes for the bees to start drinking from the bowl of blood. Seeing as the experiment was now in progress, me and Aesmo left the room with no further incident. (I ignored Mesmo's complaints of "You let three of them escape! That's a loss of 0.07% of the potential data!")
The next task for today is moving the mana spire. Since I intend on removing the fortress gats and stuff eventually, I'm going to surgically remove parts of the mana spire that have intertwined with the ruins. Then I'll reattach them to other, less obstructive areas. First is to locate the central bloom, which luckily is easy since the Esmos have been keeping track of it. Then I'll use 'deconstruct' to separate it from the rest of the spire.
Fortunately, we already have some exposed veins in one of the rooms I dug out, so the bloom can be transplanted onto that vein. Iesmo and Tesmo will surgically attach the bloom using thread, and from there it should naturally fuse. Just in case, we have second location in case the first one doesn't work.
I crawl down the walls towards where the gate is, Aesmo following me with a bowl for holding the bloom. Crawling past the broken gates, I feel the faint glow from the spire. It still feels strange, sensing light through the skin. I wonder if this is what newborn angels feel. I try asking Repha, but she wasn't there. I guess this is boring to her.
After a quiet descent, I finally reach the bloom of the mana spire. After making sure everything is ready, I reach out and prepare to cast 'deconstruct'. Yet the moment I touch the bloom, a surge of mana pushes me back. The bloom starts foaming, obscuring itself from sight. If I remember correctly, this either meant it would explode, or unravel into a bouquet. Seeing as there's nothing I can really do, I fly up and land on the gate. Aesmo is unceremoniously pulled out by my tail, screeching curses at me the entire way.
And then a beam of mana shears off her back legs. Doubting the stability of the gate, I jump further up until I reach an empty room and wait inside. Unfortunately, the beam burns my bed. I guess I won't be sleeping this week.
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Pov Apollumin, the 'weakest' dragon lord
The original plan was to hold everyone 200 km from the mountain and charge all at once. Unfortunately, with 500 dragons, making a plan itself is a terrible idea. Obviously, about a hundred charged ahead, and another fifty followed assuming the assault had begun. So when a giant wave of mana slammed into us, I wasn't surprised to see the idiots charging ahead getting vaporized by some sort of prismatic laser.
Though something was strange. The anti-magic laser that I heard of was supposed to use focused light rather than mana. Maybe they changed it between uses. After all, light can be reflected by mirrors, but beams of mana can only be blocked by thick or dense walls.
Another odd part was that there are 4 beams instead of one, but I'm not surprised it's capable of doing that. We've only seen it fired twice before after all.
For now, we'll just have to wait until it runs out of mana. Surely they must have a limited amount of mana. They're in the wastes after all. And even if they use some resources to fuel it for longer, that'll just mean less mana for later.
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Pov Vildra
I'm annoyed, as I left my ink on my bed, so I can't use the time I have now to write in my diary. It also means I won't be able to write anything until this beam stops. Worst of all, nobody knows how long it'll take. Mana spires aren't exactly consistent; sometimes their explosions last for a few seconds, sometimes a few minutes, and once it lasted for four hours.
Luckily, I brought a deck of cards to play with Aesmo. I'm thinking of starting with 'Anvil'. That's a nice two-player game.
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Fuck, I lost again. I swear, Aesmo has all the luck every time. The odds of pulling the same card three times in a row is astronomically low. Anyways, why is the beam still going? It's been seven hours now! This is a new record!
Oh, and right as I say that, it starts to wane and fizzle off. Of course, just my luck. Alright, I'll go down and check on the mana spire, Aesmo will go up and check for any damages. Oh, and tell Iesmo to re-make my bed when they have time.
Now, it shouldn't explode again, but just in case, I prepare 'gravitas' for a quick escape. As I climb down, I see the bouquet of spyrite glowing hot blue. Crawling closer, I feel the heat radiating off of the raw ore. There was a significant amount here, about 38 grams. This much Spyrite would be worth a dozen lives. I should probably keep it hidden. Don't know what kind of thief might show up if they knew this was here. Though maybe the giant beam of mana in the middle of the wastes i...
"Dragon! Did you invite an army?"
...Fuck. Not again.
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Pov Apollumin
It took 7 hours of waiting, but eventually the lasers ceased. After waking up those that fell asleep due to low ambient mana, we started the assault. Less than 20 seconds in, the laser reactivated (though this time with only one beam, thankfully). Oddly, this one was made of light, though that didn't diminish its effectiveness by much. It's hard to fly while holding a giant mirror in front of you.
Slowly, but surely, we reached 100 km from the mountain. Then 50 km. At 30 km, we could start the spell bombardment. I stopped counting the casualties at 200. It'd only fuel doubt.
The first target was the source of the laser. A floating metal orb made out of tarilite. While this makes it resistant to direct spells, it does not protect it from indirect spells. This is to say that launching a boulder at it is in fact an effective strategy at causing significant damage. The first boulder barely missed. The second broke apart pieces from the top. The next 18 buried it before I could confirm its destruction. Whether or not it got destroyed, it definitely got disabled.
Using this opportunity, I began the close-combat charge. It's unfortunate that we can't continuously bombard the mountain, but the wastes force us to rely on more physical solutions. What's worse is that Vildra has the advantage in this case. She's faster and stronger than most of us, and she's adapted to the wastes. We'll have to rely on overwhelming her and use tools to trap her.
15 km, I finally see Vildra leave the entrance of her den.
10 km, she remains close to the mountain, as we have her completely surrounded.
But then at 5 km, the air changes. Suddenly, the ambient mana increases. Somehow, she dispelled the wastes around her mountain. I hesitate. She starts casting a spell. I changed the plan.
"Blast her with your strongest spells! Don't let her get between you!"
38 ice spells. 49 fire spells. 22 wind spells. 16 pure mana spells. 125 dragons bombarding one target with their strongest spells. Unfortunately, just as many are hit by the crossfire.
Blue merges with red, merging with green and translucent white. A few cancel out, but more fuse together. A ring of destruction rapidly closes in on Vildra. There's nowhere to dodge.
'buridice'
Like waves hitting the side of a cliff, the ring of spells slams upwards into the sky and downwards to the ground. A pillar of kaleidoscopic light and mana obstructs Vildra from view.
'torl gate'
Among the mix of colors, an undeniable gate forms. It opens to reveal an unscathed, visibly angry Vildra. Some dragons do the logical thing of casting another spell. Others are too surprised or confused to act. I shake myself out of shock and try to prepare my own spell. She blitzes through the dragon to my left, leaving behind a headless corpse. Chaos sets in as dragons abandon their positions to attack.
The unsynchronized spells were easily dodged. She begins her own spell while flying between as many spell-casters as possible, causing far too many friendly-fire incidents. Two charge for her neck, only to get redirected into each other by a simple spin. Someone behind me tries to cast 'rirfire' only to have it blow up as Vildra throws a head into them.
118 remaining. I need to come up with a plan.
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Pov Vildra
It's been a while since I fought with so much mana. I haven't felt this much energy since I went out looking for mom. And unlike then, I'm boosted on adrenaline and whatever weird potion concoction Hesmo made.
'pleiades senses' alerts me to two chasing behind me. The one in front of me casts wall of frost, providing me with the perfect surface to slam the two chasers into. Jumping off of one of their backs, I pierce my arm into an older-looking dragon and angle them between me and half a dozen spells. I sense half a dozen surround me from all other sides, ready to trap me. I'm unlikely to avoid a direct hit at this rate.
I cast 'chains of hadon', ensnaring three and pulling myself out of the lunges of the others. A 'wave of frost' nearly hits my left hand, but I break the frost instantly. Jumping off of the chain, I sense an adamantite string in my path. I grab it and cast 'deconstruct' before it can constrict, breaking apart the string into tiny snow-sized pieces. I turn towards the nearest dragon, and send out more chains. They use 'cryptobiosis' in an attempt to not get damaged, ironically providing me with the perfect counterweight. I let myself get pulled around some small fire spells, before releasing the petrified dragon towards another.
I start hearing magic missiles to my left. Each one barely does any damage, but their low mana cost combined with high mana of dragons means you can get a swarm of thousands. I turn towards the swarm, preparing 'torl gate' to block it. I didn't hear the spear until it was already stabbing into my left elbow. Switching focus, I cast 'gravitas' and pull myself down out of the path of several spells. An odd burning sensation started to crawl up my arm. The spear was poisoned.
I first try 'antivermilion' to see if it would heal. It did, but the burning returned. I had to remove the spear. Unfortunately, its position required me to move my arm across my chest and in front of my face. Annoying and potentially dangerous.
Instead, I take Repha's advice, grabbing my upper arm and casting 'deconstruct'. My muscles unravel, bones disjoint, and flesh tear. A soft pull is all it takes to remove my entire left arm. Surprisingly, this causes the enemy to pause. I use the opportunity to pierce and tear out a nearby liver and chomp on it. I was going to need the mana soon.
First, I cast 'antivermilion' again to stop the bleeding. Then 'joneia' to make a dense ball of dirt. It conveniently blocks a fireball while I attach it to a chain, and finish with 'gravitas' focused on the dirt. This whole process gave me a very unpredictable flail that had its own gravitational field. The first dragon the lunged towards me learned why gravity is a dragon's worst enemy; their skull should recover if they can peel themself off of the dirt.
The dragons start distancing themselves from each other, making it harder to use their own attacks against each other. It also means they'll be slower to help when I tackle a young-looking dragon and 'deconstruct' their throat. A faint emptiness reminds me I'm using too much mana, to which I ignore by swallowing the liver whole. I then quickly grab a replacement, as I suspect that I'd be using way too many spells from here on out.