An Age of Mysterious Memories

Te and Lil are still coughing up ash and dust on occasion, but the danger is passed, for now at least. I wipe my brow, sweating anxiously, so grateful for their survival. It looks like I’m sweating blood, or rust, as I scrub my brow, with how thoroughly the reddish sand grated and pitted itself into my flesh.

Of course, there’s no time to relax. No time to catch our bearings, no time to do anything more than hurtle myself into the way of oncoming spells, setting my TK-Squares into an overlapping diamond pattern directly ahead of me. First one falls, then another, then another, and as the last TK-Square falls, the shearing pain that lances through my brain sends a thick spurt of blood gushing out my nostrils, clearing out some of the grit and grain and mud that’d built up within them. Before I can be disintegrated, I QCR to a number one, and raven-port, intentionally taking beams aimed for my allies with my temporary raven bodies, while my third self, small, bird self, lands behind dastardly just-arrived foes.

Two do not notice, a third that did not notice is my target, however a fourth is smart, it understood the bird is, was me, and kept an eye on me. Drawing Frostburn, and Riptide, I uncork my waterskin and parry an onslaught of necromantic bolts while switching to my Necrosteel chestplate with my Quick-Change-Ring. Despite the danger to myself, despite knowing my friends can handle themselves, and having my faith in them recently bolstered, I can’t let these casters continue to aim disintegrating beams and bubbles of disintegrating light at my beloved inner circle. Thankfully, Riptide is ridiculously long, so even though I’m caught off-guard, and pushed away from my target, I’m still able to run him through from behind, from over four meters away. This weapon is ridiculous.

I’m struck with several bolts of chain lightning, enough to make my systems blow. It feels like it shuts me down, knocking me out for a short instant. Waking from the shocked stupor, I can feel the jolting energy coursing through me, deep into my bones. The snarls of my foes reach my ears, making little sense, “All will fray, all will fall, what you do matters not at all. The time draws near, the beast of the end is almost here.”

Or rather, I think that’s what they said, because something magical that I picked up from the last group of goons seems to be translating their draconic hisses. Now, did I inhale some chemicals, or are they actually rhyming? Or is that the magic of the—.

F^&*! What I feared just happened. Two of the three that were targeting Lil and Teuila just hit them with mental domination powers. No. No! No! Don’t think about it, don’t look at Lil and Teuila as they slowly rouse under the command of your foes. Don’t think, just act, go Reggie, go. Slash, slice, slide, slip, FBF style SIP, jab, block, tumble, kick up into a kip-up, uppercut, lunge, dodge, pivot, parry, cleave-in-twain. Huff, huff. Brain—, huff. I—.

Huffing, panting, I drop to my knees, my chest heaving with exertion, three of four foes laying dead before me. I was reckless. I glance at the blood pooling in my hand where I keep it pressed against a sizable wound, and siphon a layer of frost to coat the injury above my hip with. Our fourth foe attempts to strike me down while I’m seemingly vulnerable. Our fourth foe seems to have forgotten that the reason I just went ballistic was to prevent my friends from being locked down or dominated. My very, very, powerful, very angry friends.

To best describe what happens, I think I could put it colloquially to say, Teuila pastes the guy. As in, she turns him into paste with the power of her onslaught in a single volley of four simultaneous strikes. Huffing and puffing, I flash Teuila a thumbs up, even though she flashes me a disturbed, repulsed expression at having put her fists through someone again.

When my best buddy asks, “Rej, how’d you get hurt?” I try not to laugh at him.

Instead, I answer, “Just took a hit getting you out of a brain spell big guy. You okay Lil? Did it leave anything behind when the whammy hit you?”

Before he can answer, Teuila jokes, "A brain spell on Lil? That’s like using a lockpick on an open door – pointless and a bit sad, really."

Biting my lips, I struggle to not laugh, because that sounds pretty mean. But Lil’s response is only, “Hey!” followed by blowing a raspberry at Teuila, not overly bothered. I forget how much of a dynamic they’ve built up over the years of thinkspace time we’d had, they’d had. It’s comforting knowing that they’re at where they left off, any hurts between them fully healed. I’d almost say I wish I knew Teuila’s secret, but firstly, that’d be a bad joke, since she’s Lil’s “It’s-A-Secret,” and secondly I know she doesn’t have one.

Despite being unable to say the words, and express the feelings in the usual ways, Teuila loves passionately, intensely, and when you’ve built up trust and loyalty with her, time apart won’t change that. Nor even some arguments or heated words, or unkind exchanges. Te forgives others more easily than she forgives herself, by far. I suppose that’s probably true of a lot of us, or at least a lot of us in the SAP and the Onyx Dawn. Still, I wish the way her relationship with Lil works, worked that way for Lil and me too. We’re both still nursing hurts, both still trying to get the other to forgive us, or to forgive each other, or ourselves. It’s complicated.

Rattling my skull, I check the corpses. It’s so gruesome, but when the fate of the world’s at stake, rolling corpses for loot is just—, it’s just what you’ve got to do as an adventurer. Oddly, there’s that motif, or logo, again, on each of these elite guards. A withered, dying tree, held together by a rope, tied in several locations, a knotted cord, I guess. One knot is sheared nearly all the way through, a single thread holding this rope. It almost seems hopeful in a way. Though, maybe I’m interpreting it wrong. Anyway, between the two groups, what do we have.

Hm, spiritswarm, how would you feel about doing something similar to carbon-dating for me? I don’t know if Rayileklia has ever had C-14, at least I know it hasn’t really had sunlight in ages. Anyway, I want to mix a few of our, well, my, senses together, my telekinetic, telepresent senses, my thermo and electrokinetic senses, and my danger and aura senses. Hell, my genre senses too while we’re at it, though that’s more figurative. We’ve got some magical stuff from these elite guards that were following us, let’s try to suss out what info we can about the items, yeah?

Loosing a soft sigh, I know the spiritswarm can’t respond to me. Unlike King, or Bud, our symbiosis doesn’t give them an individual will aside from mine. They’re subsumed into my will, so any answer I had them give, would just be me giving it to myself. Anyway, let’s look over this pile of stuff while we’re on the move. Hm, unfortunately, several of these items have runes tied directly into the local artificial leylines. They’d do nothing outside of this mountain. Can I siphon off the excess enchantment power somehow, converting it to something useful? Hm, if so, the answer is not immediately. I’ll keep my spiritswarm working at it. Phooph. *My* spiritswarm. Friggin’ heck I feel like a monster.

Sighing and rattling my skull, I try to focus on the items while we continue away from the deadly sandstorm room. Pft, sandstorm. I can’t believe—. How in the—? Seriously. The rude room? D’rude room. It doesn’t make sense. No one on Rayileklia should have—. Maybe it was just a coincidence. Yeah, and I’m a one eyed, one horned, flying, purple people eater.

Hm, there’s a spell-parchment scroll here, like the stuff Illy was using that I placed enchantments into, for her to be able to place. It’s got a spell in it already. That’s good and bad, I guess. Good, because it’s an extra resource in our tool-belt, without costing us resources to load it, bad because I don’t get to choose what goes into it. It’s some kind of arcane ward breaker. Wardbreaker. Yeah, that sounds about right for a spell name. Too bad it’s in a spell sheet, and not a spellbook with a rune-list. It sounds like one I’d like to learn.

There are some potions, elixirs I guess, that seem to be basically arcane enhancement temporary steroids. That—. That sounds dangerous for someone like me. Possibly addictive. I can’t risk getting addicted to something that I’ve got no supply of, or really anything at all, no matter what advantages it might give me in a pinch. Leaning on and relying on literally juicing up, doesn’t seem wise. I guess I’ll put them in that potion belt when we get home, and save them as a literal break glass in case of emergencies. There are ten full bottles, and six empties. I’m guessing each had two bottles of the ‘juice,’ and six out of eight used one of their bottles when fighting us, or just before engaging us more likely.

There’s a small, rounded prism, and a triangular crystal here as well. They both remind me vaguely of the elemental gemstones that, when broken, cause elementals to be able to slip into our side of reality. So I’m guessing they’re also break-in-case-of-emergencies. The rounded prism seems defenses, the triangular one seems offensive. These I’ll probably use as soon as the horde starts closing in on us.

Well, whatever we’ve got, I’ll try to make use of it on the go. I ask, “Hey Lil, big buddy, mind shrinking down so that I’ve only gotta use one square for you, in case more mooks surprise and jump us up ahead? I’d have a shield free and each of us could be farther apart that way, less easy targets.”

Lil acquiesces, shrinking, so I catch him and Teuila on separate squares with my TK grips, and myself on a third, as we return to our journey deeper down Stormspire. Rushing us as swiftly as I can, making best guesses in retrocognition about the routes available to us, we avoid more and more traps, utilizing more and more secret doors and illusory-walled paths.

Trying to draw Te and Lil’s attentions, I clear my throat. Thankfully, both look my way in meatspace immediately. "Alright, guys," I say, taking a deep breath and sighing for a moment. My voice thankfully remains steady despite the epinephrine, norepinephrine and other neurochemicals coursing through me as I finish, "illusory walls and a few secret doors helped us bypass a few things, but let's not get distracte—, yes, I see the irony in me being the one to tell us to not get distracted.”

Huffily glaring at my two most beloved friends, I don’t sink to their level as they snicker. Instead I return to my point, “Alright goons, my point is, we’re almost there. My retrocognition says with bypasses like these, there’s only maybe a couple more snags between us and the seat of power. So we’re close, soon we’ll find Al'pa'ca, and end this."

Teuila nods, ever the Valkyrie, every bit a warrior. With her resolve clear in her eyes, Te demands, "I’m itching to brain Alpackers at this point. Point me where to smash Reggie. And hurry it up, would ya?"

An irrepressible dragon of unbridled optimism, Lil, jokingly adds with a grin, "Hey, don’t be bossy It’s-A-Secret. We've got bigger fish to fry."

Quipping her reply so quickly that even I’m caught off guard, Te responds, “I’m not bossy, I’m just aggressively helpful.”

I can't help but chuckle, the tension easing ever so slightly as I tease, "That’s certainly one way to describe you Te, heh."

Since I’m levitating us with my telekinetic grips, floating us along, I’m beyond arms’ reach, and Teuila can’t initiate an SFSF, a Shellcracker Family Slap Fight with me, so she playfully fumes my way before sticking her tongue out at me. Shaking my head while still chuckling, I direct us through yet another illusory wall. Passing through reveals a narrow, winding tunnel leading further into the depths of the stronghold, bypassing yet more magical traps.

The air grows colder, the energy more intense as we traverse. I can feel the raw power of the storm coursing through the walls, the lightning in the crystalline tubes seeming to pulse in time with my own heartbeat. Oh, it might literally be pulsing in time with my heartbeat, because of my new symbiote, the lightning-spirit spiritswarm riding within me, coursing through my veins as it revels in my electrokinetic EM-field organ.

As we move, I keep the Sister's prophecy at the back of my mind. It's a puzzle, a riddle wrapped in enigma, but I know that deciphering the intentions behind their as-always deliberate word choices holds the key to understanding what's to come. For now, even though it’s eating up a portion of my attention, I focus on the mission. We're here to stop Al'pa'ca, to prevent the storm from being silenced, in the first place.

Hopefully that’s enough to keep the threads of fate from unraveling. Wait. Threads. Strings to hearts. My Heart. Lil is My Heart. Heart of the storm? Teuila is My Wings, and was temporarily the Storm Dragon Honoris Causa I think, unless she was joking about that being mixed into her titles. Even if she was joking, she’s virtually a goddess of storms at this point with Mjolnir, Jarngripr, and her suites of abilities.

Gazing back and forth between Lil and Teuila for a moment, my heart pounds, racing, as panic rises within me yet again. A prophecy in which Teuila dies, followed by a prophecy that could be maybe interpreted as the world ending in an echo of wrath unleashed upon her death!? Panting, my breathing becomes further labored until I’m left gasping for air, clutching my chest and kneeling on my TK Surfboard. Shake it off Reggie, get a grip. Get ahold of yourself. That can’t be what the Sister’s warning meant. There were more parts to the prophecy, and their word choices are deliberate. Something that only fulfills one reading of one of the sentences probably isn’t the right interpretation.

Right, sure, just— just gotta convince myself of that, of the logical—. Huffing, rubbing my itchy eyes on my forearm, I catch Teuila frowning worriedly at me. Flashing her an apologetic smile, I shake my head, not wanting to bother filling her in on my random panicky thought train. I can hear Lil grumbling under his breath that floating along is even more boring than walking down the monotonous gray stone hallways. Before I can warn him, as we’re just arriving in another room, he hops off of the telekinetic platform I’d been using to have him surf around through the air with us. Of course, he lands on a mechanical pressure plate.

Chuckling and fidgeting nervously, Lil utters, “Ohhhhh crap,” before his voice takes on a high pitch with a questioning lilt, “Whoops?”

Immediately after Lil’s blunder, the entrance and exit of the room we’re in abruptly slam shut and seal with a hissing noise like a pressurized air lock. Shortly after, the rumbling sound of high-pressure fluid rushes through the pipes in the walls, filling the room. I’m guessing the fluid itself will be filling the room next. Sighing, I cast a slightly annoyed glare at my best buddy who offers me an apologetic shrug accompanied by a nervous chuckle. Teuila’s glare is quite a bit more annoyed than mine, but she just cracks her knuckles, and mimes rolling up her sleeves as she glances towards the far door.

Te mimics Lil, leaping from her TK Surfboard before my warning can even form. My palm meets my face as Teuila's landing echoes Lil's earlier misstep with a telltale click. I shake my head, biting back laughter at our comedy of errors, while Teuila dons a bashful grin. A torrential wave bursts forth, Lil's mishap now a gushing reality, as water engulfs the room, and a pack of giant electric eels is loosed into the water thanks to Teuila’s blunder. Thankfully, our Shellcracker otter lineage and an arsenal of magic items turn dealing with a single flooded room into a non-issue.

Similarly, as adventurers rivaling ancient dragons in strength, a pack of lightning-flinging eels, even in water, doesn’t faze us or slow us down in the slightest. Lil morphs full-dragon, snapping up several eels at once, unfazed by the electric frenzy jolting his skull. While Lil is doing that, Teuila is taking an unusual stance, which I think might be a modified version of her Mirage Flash. Echoes of Teuila flicker around the room. In a blink, her fists connect, a simultaneous strike. Eels are decimated, and the exit shatters open, freeing us while simultaneously flooding the hallway we’re about to traverse.

Well, at least my friends know how to take responsibility for their choices. They offer me their best 'oops' faces, and despite the gravity of our quest, laughter bubbles up. It's absurd, this juxtaposition of goof and gloom. We’ve got several prophecies breathing down our necks, and several thousand foes searching for us the way we’d come from, yet here we stand drenched in water and irony. On top of all that, we’re about to fight an evil ancient sand dragon archmage who may or may not possibly control hundreds of square miles of Worldstorm power condensed into a single room, or even object. These two goons, I love them to death. Oof. Let’s just hope that that’s not today.

Lil, as cheerily as ever, pipes up, "Well, that was refreshing! Who knew this mission included a swim?"

As we’re starting to situate ourselves, catch our bearings, and dry off, Teuila snipes back, "Only you could find getting drenched in a dungeon 'refreshing.' Next time, let's stick to traps that don't require a towel, huh?"

Grinning like the utter goon he is, Lil responds, "Hey, at least I found the trap, right? That's helpful... in a wet sort of way."

Smirking and half-rolling her eyes, Teuila sarcastically agrees, "Oh, definitely. Next time we need a bath, we'll just follow you blindly into a room. Who needs a spa day?"

I honestly can’t tell if Lil’s serious as he answers Te, "Exactly! Always looking on the bright side. No more sand in the cracks of my scales! And look, now we're all squeaky clean for the big fight."

Teuila walks over and slaps Lil on the rump while grumbling, "Squeaky clean and waterlogged. You're lucky we can all breathe water, or hold our breath, or you'd be on dish duty for a year."

I’m guessing at this point we’re done trying to be stealthy. Between the explosion, the two groups of elites that had caught up to us, and us flooding a room and destroying several more walls, I’m pretty sure the horde is onto us. So I don’t stop the pair’s joking bickering as Lil pleads, "Dish duty? But my claws scratch the plates. You wouldn't want that, would you?"

Snorting huffily, Te retorts, "I'd risk it. Might be worth it to teach you a lesson about trap detection."

More quick-witted than I’d usually give my buddy credit for, Lil quips, "Lesson learned: next time, send a water-proof scout ahead. Got any volunteers?"

Not missing a beat, My-Wings proposes, "How about we volunteer you for trap-testing from now on? You seem to have a knack for finding them with your face."

I can’t help snorting with laughter while floating us down the tunnel as Lil agrees, "My face is very talented,” before he continues, “But I think I'll stick to using my eyes next time. Speaking of, does this water make my scales look shinier?"

Snarkily, Te analogizes, "Sure, if by 'shinier' you mean 'dripping wet and utterly clueless.' But don't worry, your scales are always... sparkly."

It’s really hard to tell if Lil is always playing along, or if he sometimes doesn’t even get that he’s being teased, as he chipperly chirps, "That's the spirit! Always look for the silver lining. Or in my case, the shiny, wet scale lining."

Teuila beans Lil in the back of his head with a tiny pebble while grumbling, "Sure, just keep your scales and your sense of humor intact. But if you trigger one more trap..."

Interrupting her, making me question if Lil is ever as clueless as he sometimes seems, Lil queries, "You'll what? Make me swim laps? Because I could use the exercise."

Losing steam, Te comes back weakly with, "No, I'll make you carry all our gear. Wet gear. See how you like being waterlogged."

Since they’re both monstrously strong, Te’s last comment doesn’t really come off as witty enough to need a comeback, but Lil shrugs and replies, "Challenge accepted! But let's not make a habit of it. I prefer my adventures less... aquatic."

Snorting half a laugh, Te mutters, "Agreed. Now shake off like a dog, Dragbutt, we've got a world to save. And try to keep the tidal waves to a minimum."

My pair of gooberific goons continue their banter as we approach yet another obstacle. This one might actually require their attention though.