An Age of Mysterious Memories

Oh, right! I’ve got a present for Pawn to help keep her safe. When I fish out the chalice that smells faintly of a spiced wine, Pawn spies it, and, knowing I want to give it to her, teases, “What, trying to get me drunk now Schism? No need for that if you want to make out.”

Flustering, blushing, I tease in reverse, “Fine, fine, if you don’t want the magic artifact, but would rather have my lips instead, I’m more than happy to oblige, you relentless flirt.”

There’s a hint of sadness in Pawn’s eyes as she struggles to figure out how to respond. Letting her off the hook, I pass her the chalice, and explain its use, “It seems to be able to produce a drink, once per day, almost anything, including a remarkable type of potion. Remember, it can only be used to produce something once per day, so I’d recommend saving it until absolutely necessary. When you feel out of options, and in great danger, summon a potion I’d seen an enemy use. If you run your finger along its edge, and speak, ‘Majesty of the Dragons,’ it’ll fill with a potion that, when imbibed, transforms you into a fully fledged adult blue dragon with a fully charged breath. It lasts for maybe about an hour, and any injuries you take in that form won’t carry over when you revert to yourself. If your dragon form dies, you’ll revert early, but, like Trixxie when Lucky was fighting her with this potion on, as long as your attacker doesn’t keep attacking your primary form, you’re as fine as you were when you became a dragon.”

Pawn’s eyes fly wide apprehensively, in shock and surprise as she realizes how powerful of an item I’m giving to her. The implication of how important she is to me, how much I want to keep her safe, and to help protect her from her fears is easily evident. We—.

~~~

Holding Pawn tenderly, stroking her back as she cries into my chest, I nod and nuzzle her cranium. I coo, “You’ll be okay. You’ll make it through all this Pawn. We all want you safe. You do so much for us, the Order. You are so, so, so very loved. Are you feeling any better now?” When she nods while sniffling, I further ask, “Should we head back to Prinny?”

Thankfully, Miraina nods, and hops off the bed, racing me towards Prinrin, beating me by leagues. Chuckling, I surf along to catch up. When I reunite with Lucky, Pawn, Pidge, Prinrin, and Trixxie, I slow to a halt on my TK Square. Slightly surprised to still not see Teuila returned, I settle my goggles upon my face, and stare into the security center for the panel that displays her activity. Hm, Te is fighting a dragon out near Mah’Ruke. Or, was. It’s dead now. I guess she’ll be returning when she’s done absorbing that dragonforce. It’s probably best to keep that area clear since Shaylon, Revinth, and Gresog aren’t back from their ‘Neath expedition yet. We might need to send a crew to head down there to recall them tomorrow.

Oh, weird, Selene’s not here. Ah, I see, Teuila can summon her to where she is in the blink of an eye, or reform her as a mana construct, however that works. Or maybe Selene really is like Tinpu, and can be called to Te anytime, anywhere, like Percy can call his familiar. Hm, since Te named her elemental canid, I suppose I should name mine. What about Zorro Motomoto Renard? Renard Motomoto Zorro? Yes, I know, I’m a basic bozo, just taking words for fox from other languages, and squishing hot-fire in there from another language.

Peeking into the pouch with the egg, I ask, “How do you like those names, Renard Motomoto Zorro? Sound good to you?”

The elemental, erm, flares happily is the best way I can describe the way its pulse brightens momentarily while flickering near the egg. Zorro also trills pleasantly inside my head, sort of. There’s a sound, and it’s not the same as telepathy, but not the same as regular sound waves. The sound spontaneously exists where my auditory nerves translate vibrations into sound for my brain. That’s a heaping helping of weirdness, but anyway—. I wonder—.

If I were throwing a fire-rune-empowered rune knife, and had Zorro riding it, could he take control of the resulting flame? I feel like that’s within his purview. Hm, intriguing, very intriguing. A few seconds of incredibly powerful elemental aid, if Zorro feels like aiding me in battle. Similarly if I use Frostburn’s fire slash, or even Frostburn’s fire slash aided by an elemental rune knife. That one would be a monstrous walking flame for a short period. I’ll try to hopefully remember to ask Renard if he’s up to that the next time I need to bring some heat.

Dropping off a bunch of goggles with Nala and Littlebit, I’m hoping they can get them ready to receive the size-changing enchantment, in a way that’ll work for shapechangers. Over the next two days, we should be able to get just about everyone equipped with goggles. Too bad I can’t figure out a more efficient way to get them to communicate with other goggles wearers than to be patched through by audio cables, and manually moved into position to view the other mirror.

Maybe Littlebit will be able to automate it with machines or robots at some point. We could hold up notes, and if the thing had video recognition, it could figure out a preset motion to move one sensor to another, while connecting their audio. Or something like that. Huh, I guess it’d be easier with audio recognition, but then the device itself would have to have an audio splitter, and—. I’m talking about telephone service. Hah.

I never thought I’d be leveraging so many concepts from my weird as hell Fakeworld memories. Yet here we are. Yep, yet here we are. Hm, what’s that in Te’s visual range? Is that Induul? If it is, we need to get his ass back in here, so he’s not assaulted by the siege. I wonder what we’re up against. Nothing seems to be directly near the entrance within Te’s visual range, nor around the Mah’Ruke sensor, or the entrance sensor.

Maybe what showed up to lay siege at first were simply advanced scout forces, and were either all defeated, or have fallen back? There’s plenty of crispy corpses around the entrance, which I guess would be the work of Vylon and Vyela. Yeah, if you assault Solace, where two of the strongest Golds in existence reside, laying in wait specifically for siege, what did you expect?

Still, even if we didn’t suffer any casualties today beyond Kagired’s injuries, if Pawn had to use her powers, and the strategists-eight used theirs, we need to start operating with the idea that most of the Order needs to remain at Solace, while we continue our assaults. I’ll be cooking up whatever I can in order to prepare for that. I think right now, we need Lucky and Lu permanently on Damnation defense, in case they show up. Even if Lucky can’t completely beat them, with his new armor, and new equipment, he should be able to land a few injuries on them, enough that they don’t find it worth sticking around.

Plus, Lu has more offensive options now. Wrecking a Damnation’s skull with incessant thundrous blasts would probably put a damper on its desire to remain assisting the siege’s forces. Between Lucky and Luni working together, as they have been, I think they can keep our defenders safe from the worst of the Damnations’ abilities.

Alright, every last tool in my toolkit, what else do we have? Hm, let’s go try out these crossbow bolts quick. I wasn’t paying much attention to them in the ‘Twixt. It seems like there’s a set already within the quiver, ready to be expelled, and that once per day, a new set can be generated. Did they refill their ability to regenerate in the ‘Twixt after all? Huh. Alright, well, what do we have here?

The mushroom cloud one, let’s fire these off. Hm, small explosions. Not exactly mushroom-cloud worthy, but I guess I get the icon now. The skull? Hm, a tiny, tiny necrotic pulse, that likely only affects the target. Okay, what about the snowflake? Yeah, that one was pretty obvious. It looks like it might do a little more if it connects with a creature, but it at least fills a small area with shards of ice for a few seconds. And last, the pineapple one that might be a grenade? Yep, should have seen that coming. Shrapnel.

Well, at least now I know what those do. They’re regenerating now, so I’ve got two more of each again. As long as I leave them in the quiver, I’ll be able to use up to sixteen tomorrow if I need to. If I have to use them all several days in a row though, I’ll only have eight per day, when they regenerate once upon request.

It’s kind of weird to see Prinrin chatting with Pidge, someone who theoretically is part of one of the most evil, powerful groups on the planet. Pawn is eyeing him warily, but snuggling up against her mother, and thumbing the chalice I gave her. Trixxie eyes the chalice a bit wistfully, since it is a magic item I took from her, but if she’s got Lucky’s affection, she probably doesn’t need any help remaining safe unless she wants to join the war effort at the front. Lucky’ll look out for her, if she even wants to start dealing with heading into battle ever again. Plus, well, she hasn’t exactly earned my trust yet to the point where I consider her enough of a member of the family that I want to be bestowing artifacts and powers on her.

Sighing, I suppose I should start wrapping things up for the night. It’ll be a relief to be heading towards bed, even though I should probably take responsibility for the intake of the dozens of Spellknights that I brought. I’m pretty bad about foisting that responsibility off onto others, hoping that they’ll vet them. Could you imagine someone failing at being vetted before being brought down from the aerie to Solace proper? Our citizens would haul that person over the edge of the aerie and just toss them off the side into the Worldstorm.

I spent quite a while crafting and enchanting again. My myconid form created a few more oddball contingencies too, some of which I don’t even understand now that I’m normal RS2 again, without the hivemind. Hm, speaking of new Spellknights, Zelshiz and Shiz are wandering down this way.

Unintentionally overhearing their conversation, I hear Zelshiz retelling my earlier assault, part of it at least, as they exclaim, “Your Schism had just tossed an enchanted object made of adamantite to Triorgraiz as if it was nothing, completely unconcerned. She looked through, and must have seen what I saw later. After Triorgraiz had fallen, I looked through them myself, and saw you, using that strange shop stall, and food just materializing into existence. Schism later showed me one of those up close, though I still didn’t quite understand it yet. Regardless, you were chatting and eating, and along came someone else, and more food materialized for them, and alcohol too! This little black Draconiac kept coming back and purchasing more and more alcohol! I mean, you know this, you were there, but I saw it, on a magic item Schism just threw at one of us, their enemies.”

Chuckling, Shiz responds, “Aye, sounds like Schism alright. Atty was saying something similar, about food just coming out of nowhere on the night she spent surrendering to Schism. I’d teased her about spending the night with the Hero, but she actually entertains the idea that they’re as eligible as any dragon. Well, I suppose since Kinzul married ‘em, might be true. I’ve come to like Onyx Dawn, and their Hero. Sure as hell beats beating the hell out of others to steal their food to survive.”

After clucking their tongue in the affirmative, continuing their tale, Zel recounts, “And the ways Schism fought! From the guard tower, I’d seen their original assault, when they’d been disguised as one of ours, then after losing their disguise, they’d been some sort of human or elf looking thing, infiltrating, and apparently rescuing some of our own from an explosive diversion they caused. They sling around magic aplenty, before calling a ceasefire, and asking Trio to surrender. Next, they’re going *into* a Damnation, and they come out as some sort of blue, horned-devil. When all hell breaks loose, and Vorzog turns on Trio’s wounded, Schism fought him for a bit. As much as I didn’t want to, I saw Schism being annoyed by Adkre, and knew if I wanted to keep Vorzog from killing any more of our subordinates, I’d need Schism’s help, so I stepped in to ward Adkre off. I was pretty certain Adkre was in over their head anyway, especially once I saw how Schism later dealt with them, igniting an eighth of our fortress. At some point, Schism became some sort of, I’m not even certain, sea-dwelling biped, with an enormous jaw, and some kind of razor fin. It seemed to recover from any injury in mere moments.”

Still laughing, Shiz nods along and replies, “Aye, that’s not one I’ve seen or heard yet, but Schism apparently just makes up new powers, Latents, magic or whatever on the fly. So that’s when you were turned to stone by that bastard? Remind me to thank Schism for ending him for me, and saving you. I—. I’m glad you’re here Zelshiz.”

When Shiz rapidly sobers, emotion lacing his voice, I feel the weight of his words even from the distance we’re currently at, where I’m only overhearing due to my oversensitive hypersensitive auditory nerves or whatnot. After approaching slowly for a bit longer, Shiz notices my gathering, and calls out, “Speak of the devil, Schism! Good to see you. Wanted to thank you for rescuing my, well—.” Shiz pauses and scratches his chin before continuing more quietly, “My mate. I mean, not like, just a mate. My mate. Now that is. Hell this is awkward. Zel, you know the whole thing, tell ‘em.”

Almost teasingly, Zelshiz explains for him, “What my lord Shiz means to say is bedmate, and later wedmate. I’m humbled and grateful to my lord for accepting my proposition, especially with my gender notwithstanding.”

I nearly choke on a laugh that I refrain from loosing as Shiz suddenly looks hot under the collar. He mutters, “Gender aint got anything to do with it. I mean, I guess just tell me how to call you little Zel. And quit it with that my lord stuff now. At Solace, only one titled like that is her Ladyship Kinzul. Not that I think she gives a rats rear end one way or another, but I’m no one’s lord anymore anyway.”

There’s the faintest hint of a devious smirk on Zelshiz’s face as they retort, “Either way to refer to me is fine, and as you wish my lord.”

Shiz spies the smirk, and grumbles about the cheek of Zelshiz before hiding his face behind a large mug, pretending to nurse whatever booze might still be within. I guess Zelshiz really is bigender though. Interesting. Hm. That’s most of the people I wanted to check in on. Well, I can think of at least one more. I’m leary of letting Shlendtikuar wander around unsupervised. He was the least receptive to actually surrendering, constantly looking for an escape route.

Turning to address me more directly, his face still hidden behind his large, likely empty, mug, Shiz offers up, “I know you had me guarding her with the weirdness Schism, but Pawn’s as brave a person as I’ve ever known. First notice of the siege, she blazed through Solace spreading word, and was the first to the front lines, standing before everything come to call, alone. Anyone could tell she was terrified out of her mind, but she did it all the same, and those that came up against her met those powers you’d shared with us. Shortly, when those of us that could catch up, did, we made the rest of the siege regret thinking about harming the poor dear. Stayed fighting at our sides the entire time, until the siege began to fall back, though I could see tears of fright in her eyes at every turn. Young lady deserves some kind of commendation, award, something. Damned if I wouldn’t reward someone so impressive in my subordinates.”

Seemingly sticking up for me, Pawn explains, “Schism kind of did already, in private. Um, a few ways, but specifically this magic artifact. One drink per day, possibly any drink, including a legendary potion that lets me become an adult Blue for a while. I—. I’m so honored, and feel so loved. It’s an amazing artifact. I think, if anyone wanted to thank me any more, I’d want them to give momma something to keep her safe. I’m so angry at her for coming back worse than everyone else all the time, because she’s the best there is, and always just, grr. Snfl.”

While Shiz nods contemplatively, thinking about our The Copper, I realize I do have something I’d like Prinrin to have for just such a reason. I flash Pawn a loving smile full of warmth and gratitude as I address Prinny, “You my dear, are going to wear this cloak, and never take it off. The tempest gryphons whose feathers adorn it are adept at being adapted to lightning, and the cloak shares some of their resilience towards it to its bearer. Not only that, but once per day, you can become a streak of lightning, up to around a hundred feet away, where you reform. I want you to use that to get *out* of danger, not to put yourself into more of it for your team love. Please.”

Miraina grumbles, “You heard Schism momma. *Out* of danger. Please. Please momma. You have to make it home.”

Before Prinrin can speak, she has to compose herself as her lower jaw quivers. After a few moments, she responds, “Oh dear me my dears. I’m so touched, and more than a bit abashed. More than a tad I tell you. My sweet Pawn, Pawn my sweet, my brave, kind, beautiful daughter. Oh Schism deary, I can’t take it feeling you and my lovely daughter feeling so irate with me. Mark me I understand why you’re cross I tell you. I don’t ever want to not make it home my sweets. Of course not. I’m trying to fight for that for Fen and Orth and Gil of course though my dears. I’ll be more careful, and use those powers Schism granted us more liberally. I saved them too long I did, just so.”

Facepalming, I don’t want to even imagine how many magical resources Prinrin might have left today. If she has all of them, because she kept saving them, instead of using them to cut down on the injuries she took—. I furrow my brow and cast a glare towards Prinny. Irate, and cross, is right. I can sense at how close to the mark I’ve hit. Standing, and striding to the sweet little old lady herself, I wrap her in my arms, and in the cloak, securing its magics to her.

Whispering sadly into her ear, I lament, “Prinny, you are so, so, so beloved. If this war ends, without you being there to see it, I’d feel like it was a loss, no matter the outcome.”

Prinrin hiccups as a sob catches in her throat. It feels like it’s quite likely the most emotional I’ve ever caught her at, and perhaps the first time I’ve caught her off guard enough to leave her speechless.