An Age of Mysterious Memories

Caught up in my own mind, worried about my own morality, I almost don’t notice it when the three of us nearly cross an obvious thin silver magical aura. Crap, I’m almost positive that’s an alarm type spell. Something about this is nagging at me, tugging at the rear edges of my mind. Wait!

Te and Lil glance back at me in confusion as I whisper-shout, “Wait! Crap, be right back guys!”

After my exclamation, I turn on my heel and spring back through the Nexus of Storms or whatever the hell the machine room was called again. I leave Lil and Teuila looking bewildered as they stare after me, but they know to trust my random impulses, even if there is a palpable tension in the air as I disappear past the edge of their view, back the way we came.

Dashing into the room where we’d left corpses stationed to look like the guards of the room were still sitting around, or just sleeping drunk, I begin stripping the guards, keenly aware of a genre trope that—. Fudge. I knew it! The guards have black-char tattoos of an identical nature. My aura vision can tell that these identical brands on them are magical, a magic I don’t know how to replicate right now, but a magic that is probably keyed to all the defenses on the lower floors. Ugh, genre-senses, why did you have to be right about this? Grr!

Huffing and rolling my eyes, I set the corpses back the way we’d left them, and groan as I trudge back to my companions. Shaking my head exasperatedly I motion for Te and Lil to head back my ways a ways away from the alarm type spells and traps up ahead. Grumbling to myself, I take a minute to gather my thoughts so that I can express them to Lil and Te.

Loosing a long sigh, I start out, “Ugh, I knew it. Guys, realistically, you don’t trap your own home, because you live there, you’ve got to walk through it, you don’t want to have to be dodging swinging axes or buzzsaws or vats of acid or whatever the hell else. Unless—.”

Half grinning, but facepalming regardless, Te interrupts, “Unless you have some sort of key card, or magic that tells your traps to leave you alone, and only bother intruders.”

Lil gasps and drops his head, grumbling and shaking it exasperatedly as I respond, “Yup. From what I can guess, just guessing, if we take a decent path, we’ve got maybe nine or so things between us, and Al’Pa’Ca, if we take the most direct route. An indirect route might seem safer, but it might have even more traps. I can’t afford to be blowing through a ton of magic dispelling each magical trap, and we can’t afford to be getting our limbs hacked off by non magical traps. This friggin’ suuuucks.”

When Lil shrugs and responds, “Well, at least look on the bright side pal,” I glance at him incredulously, my left brow raised fit to fly off my forehead, before he continues, “I mean, he probably didn’t brand -all- of those thousands of mooks out there, right? So if we -can- sneak by some of the traps without disabling them, they’ll help thin the heard that’s gonna be after our butts when we take on ol’ Alpackers. Seems like the kind of thing you’d have done anyway Rej. A mega smooth move, mega mega mega smooth.”

Unable to keep myself from grinning, I nod and shove my hand in Lil’s face playfully. He chuckles and licks my hand to get me to withdraw it, which I grimace jokingly about. He’s right though, it’s definitely one of the few upsides to the situation, and a move I’d be planning to try. If we can just manage to—. Antisorcery. A field of null magic that travels with me, but—. But I don’t have the spell mastered yet. I’ve been hit with it once or twice, and I know the number of runes, and approximately what the runes are, but I would need a lot of days to practice the spell. But then again, I’m Reggie Shellcracker, Aliased Schism, the Void Dragon Honoris Causa, with the Latent “Nothing.”

Alright, let’s do this. We’re more and more in touch with voids, absences, lacks. Heh, we certainly lack plenty. Shut up Reggie, now isn’t the time. Right, sorry. Rattling my skull, I try to get back on topic. Whew, this is something alright. This is gonna be rough. I’m me, I’m a Changeling Fae now in a half-Fel body, devilishly smooth-skinned, horned and tailed, blue, like a certain infernal set of playable creatures in a popular tabletop RPG. I’ve got this new connection with Fel magics that I haven’t explored at all, and a very new connection to the lightning-leylines of Rayileklia. I know that electromagnetics, at least a giant spherical shield of lightning around me, can mess with spells a bit, either due to line of sight, or maybe something more. Think Reggie, think.

Gorrammit all, Lu and Kinzul are gonna be pissed. I think I can maybe use a fractional release of my Void Dragon Honoris Causa, lashed to the Fel, and to Rayileklia’s leylines. Hm, yeah. I might just be able to mimic anti-sorcery, the spell. If I’m lucky, it won’t even cost me hundreds of days of Dragonforce. Passing a breath through puffed cheeks and pursed lips, I sigh several times, collecting my thoughts, steeling myself.

As I approach the shimmering barrier of the alarm spell, I pause, taking a deep breath. I've never tried this before, but if there's ever a time to experiment while hoping for miracles, it's now when everything is on the line. Closing my eyes, I reach deep within, tapping into the void, the "Nothing" that is my Latent power. It's a sensation of emptiness, of absence, a stark contrast to the vibrant energy of the leylines of Rayileklia that I’m now connected to through the lightning elemental spiritswarm housed within me.

I mutter my titles to manifest my Honoris Causa, “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.”

Thankfully, the manifestation itself isn’t costing me too heavily, especially as I tie it to these other sources of energy, and how saturated and permeated this entire fortress is with Dragonforce. If I were really ingenious, I might be able to slowly siphon off and gain Dragonforce, while here, but I don’t have the luxury of experimenting when it might cost us our mission if I trigger some sort of warning. Rattling my skull, I center myself and focus on continuing my attempt to anti-sorcerize myself. Drawing upon the Fel magics, I attempt to weave them with my Latent, trying to mimic the effects of the antisorcery spell. I can feel the push and pull, the opposing forces of the Fel, Rayileklia itself, and the void, but I persist, focusing on the runes of the antisorcery spell that I've studied but never mastered.

Slowly, my Void Dragon aspect manifests as compactly as I can manage. Within its intangible presence, a bubble of null magic envelops me, creating a zone where magic is suppressed, if not entirely negated. It's not as stable or as potent as the true antisorcery spell, but it might just be enough. It certainly disorients the hell out of me, being cut off from my own magics, and my magic items being currently nullified. Taking a tentative step forward, I pass through the barrier of the alarm spell. No alarms sound, no magical energies lash out. It worked. At least for now.

I can't help but let out a sigh of relief, but I'm also acutely aware that this makeshift solution is temporary and unstable. I need to move quickly and cautiously, making the most of this advantage while it lasts. Motioning to Te and Lil, we begin rushing quickly towards the next level, navigating by my retrocognitive senses, and the combinations of all of our best senses and perceptions. We’re able to bypass several series of these alarm enchantments, it’d have taken me over a hundred thirty SP already, just to dispel these, not counting the other magic I sense up ahead, that we’re hoping to leave active, rather than dispel.

Gnawing on my lip, I worry that I’m putting too many eggs in the baskets of needing to, and being able to, counter Al’Pa’Ca’s spells. I’m seeking out solutions that might be limiting what else I can do in the fight, attempting to preempt the possible highest tier magics he might throw at us. I have to though. I just have to. Magics of the ninth circle are incredibly powerful and deadly. Even some of the ones along the sixth, seventh, and eighth circles are game changers.

I—. I couldn’t bear it. If Lil and Teuila were frozen in time as he summoned a meteor, or something ridiculously potent like that, if Al’pa’ca tore into them with a barrage of other potent magics. I know I might be letting my feelings cloud my judgment on the most efficient course of action, but—. Who can blame me? It’s Te and Lil for crying out loud! We’re going into the single most deadly situation any of us have ever been in, with the odds stacked against us by the thousands. My innards tighten at the thought of what could happen to Lil and Te.

Sighing, I try to calm myself, and reorient on the present. I can feel the antisorcery flickering, and I don’t know whether that’s because it has an incredibly short duration when done like this, or if my emotional turmoil is messing with it, or what. Annnd there it goes. Crap. Drawing a deep breath, I sigh again while shaking my head incredulously and exasperatedly at myself.

Te and Lil notice me pausing, so thankfully they hold up before triggering the trap that’s right ahead of us. I mutter, “Sorry guys, I’m trying to keep it reined in, but my thoughts are getting jumbled, and I can’t keep this antisorcery patchwork shenanigan going. I need a second. I’m just, I’m just worried about this. Everything, absolutely everything is riding on this. There aren’t second chances for this one.”

Teuila slugs me gently in the shoulder and murmurs, “I know, my Airhead, I know. We’ll win though. We have to. It’s us, the SAP, the strongest there ever was, the strongest we ever were. I’ll carry your asses out of here myself if I have to, after dropping Packananny like a sack of rocks.”

Of course, Lil chipperly chimes in, “Me too pal, no matter what, we’re all getting out of this, even if I gotta tear through a hundred, no, a thousand, no, a million evil mage dragon dorks to do it.”

Between Teuila and I, I can’t tell which of us is snorting harder with laughter at Lil’s assertion, but we both hug my best bud, the goofy dragon that he is. They’re right, I know they’re right. Any of the three of us is going to look out for the others, and pull out our ultimate stops, nearly killing ourselves, if the others are hurt. Te and I both have our Honoris Causas, while Lil can call out to Can’Z’aas for an evolution, one that might be charged up enough at this point for him to be able to loose his Wrath of Godsbreath. Plus he also has an evolutionary form that, if I recall correctly, Kinzul and Lu helped him design. The one that looks a bit like a fighter jet when viewed from above while in flight. I’m sure it’s incredibly powerful.

We’re going to make it through. I mean, aren’t we fated to? Sort of? We’ve still got other apocalypses to worry about. We have to be on the primary timeline, right? I’d have found something, some way, to somehow course correct, if we weren’t, wouldn’t I? We’re supposed to make it home someday. Although, I don’t know if that was so much prophecy, as estimation by Lu. I wish I understood her foreknowledge better. Though, if I did, apparently my brain would literally explode. Ugh.

Right, right, fuhgedabout it. For now at least. Focus, try to—, nope. I can’t stop thinking about all the things left undone, and left unsaid. My throat closes momentarily as my heart races at the thought of all those I might leave behind. If this is the last I might ever interact with anyone, I—. I scribble a note, and hold it up to the outgoing scrying sensor of my goggles, a simple four word message, “I love you all.”

Te offers me a sad half frown, realizing why I’m emotional and sappy at the moment. If we fail, but survive, everyone else suffers. If we fail, and die, we’re never seen again, and maybe, just maybe, someone steps in after us and finishes where we left off. More likely, if we fail, there’s no one who can make it here in time, and face down Al’Pa’Ca with a horde over ten thousand strong on high alert.

Get a grip, Reggie. Great, now I'm back to chiding myself. Yeah, because distractions and panic got you killed once already. Let's not encore that performance, eh? Ouch, below the belt Reggie, easy there, champ. Back then, I was trying to wrest back control and keep the panic from getting me killed, and I—. I'm arguing with myself, and using entertainment metaphors.

It's a veritable circus act in here. And there's Reggie Shellcracker, folks. Let's have a round of applause for Schism, the Void Dragon Honoris Causa! I jest internally, complete with an imaginary bow and the echo of an absent crowd. I'm on the marquee 24/7 in the theater of my mind—no intermissions, no understudies.

I loose a breath that’s part laugh, part resignation. Mocking myself? Sure, but I'm allowed. It's the dark comedy of my reality, and laughter is the wildcard I play against the deck stacked with anxiety and dread. It’s a fine line, teetering on the edge of insanity and insight, and guess who's got front-row seats?

So here’s to the headliner of today’s tragicomedy—me, Reggie, doing a balancing act on the precipice of what feels like the end of the world. I can't afford to fall, not when the stakes are this high. So I chuckle, because if you can't laugh at the absurdity of being your own toughest critic in the face of armageddon, when can you?