An Age of Mysterious Memories

Things don’t always—, scratch that, they almost never, go exactly how you expect them to, or want them to. There’s mental magic springing up all around us, it’s like the walls themselves are erupting with hideous laughter. Lil and Teuila are virtually doubled-over at this point, and the laughter is screwing with Lil’s breath-weapon lung-prep. He doesn’t need to charge it, but he still needs to have a lungful of air to exhale.

Well, at least this little wrinkle is something I can do something about, without wasting too many resources. Firing off two frosty lances into Quicksand’s face, I proc the runic clips in my bangle, dousing her with a host of elements, bolstering Lil and Teuila, and freeing their minds from the unending laughter. It’s weird that it’s a runic shard clip of the essence of law that lets me free their minds, but hey, whatever works, right?

To say Quicksand isn’t pleased with this turn of events, this development, is an understatement. To say she’s royally pissed, is barely cutting it close to the level of fury she suddenly displays at our audacity for being able to overcome the magical traps she triggered remotely from the room that sought our minds. Tough cookies Quicksand, mm, have I ever even eaten a cookie? In either lifetime? Friggin’ hell, I could go for a snickerdoodle right about now. Or molasses, or good old fashioned chocolate chip. I’d settle for friggin’ raisin bran oatmeal cookies. Why the hell do I even know what those things are? Reggie, more important question. Yeah? Why aren’t you paying attention to the ancient dragon whose jaw is inches from your face?

Crap! LBBTKSL’ing to the side, I manifest my Honoris Causa quickly under my breath, and catch Quicksand’s right side, preventing the yellow-scaled behemoth of a woman from making it past us into the room where she’d have an enormous advantage. My Void Dragon’s form isn’t strong enough to go against hers, she’s more ancient, more powerful than anyone we’ve faced thus far, save the Damnations, and she’s not even the ruler of the domain. Thankfully, I’m not in this alone, and, strength was never my - heh, - strong suit, but it is theirs.

Teuila’s Lunar Dragon form manifesting is still entrancing, enchanting to behold. I can’t tell if the translucent scales are more opalescent, or pearlescent. Her scales are lucent, casting a radiant glow about them, despite being nearly transparent, and the musculature of her shoulders and neck as she catches Quicksand for a quick-toss—. Ahem, right, focus. Lil hunkers low, gathers his breath, and clamps into Quicksand’s front with his strong forelimbs, and the magnificent tusks of his underbite-protruding jaw. Immediately upon gripping her, he starts roasting her up close and personal-like.

Of course, the second-in-command of a domain this powerful, and this large, has tricks of her own. As Quicksand begins to exhale a sandstorm that seems virtually alive, I bite my lips but hastily dig into several resources that I’d been hoping to save for the horde. First, since she seems to lose cohesion in some ways, becoming partially intangible, almost made of sand, particles able to drift around us, I seal the entrance of the tunnel towards the open room with a mass of titanwood. Not great in the long-run, but I can’t have her getting that advantage, especially since she’s even more mobile than I had anticipated. Second, I ask Zorro how he’s feeling about trying to lend a hand. My little vulpine elemental trills somewhere between sonically and telepathically.

Casting out with Claíomh Solais, I’m relieved that FFS is able to answer my call. Things are about to get really messy, and really hot. They have to do it fast, because Teuila’s already working a bubble of water around her face to protect herself, but it’s quickly turning to mud in Quicksand’s onslaught. Lil’s not doing much better as her animate sand breath seems to be trying to worm its way down his auditory canals and into crevices in his scales. I’m really, really starting to hate sand. I think I agree with Lil. It’s coarse, and it’s rough, and it gets everywhere. It’s quite irritating. Especially when wielded as a deadly living weapon.

Teuila is trying to glass sand with the lightning she can produce via Mjolnir, and other effects she has available to her, but this magical, dragon-breath sand refuses to balk to lightning, as if its entire purpose is—. Yeah. I get it. Sighing, I’d facepalm if I weren’t so focused on trying to end this threat. Her breath weapon is one of the main catalysts in the lightning-immunity of the keep. Its entire purpose *is* to not be balked by lightning, to protect against it.

Alright, let’s see how we do this, be careful Zorro. Lil, and Teuila are friends. You met Teuila last night. Lil’s providing a bunch of extra fire. How much can I risk doing here? Or rather, how much am I risking the lives of my beloveds if I don’t use everything at my disposal? We can leverage Lil’s Latent, and Frostburn’s slashblast, that offensive consumable we found on the Spellknights, FFS helping Zorro to pilot the flame as I enhance it with an elemental-rune dagger—. Can I double up the enhancement by risking myself and empowering a single elemental rune with my will? My internals will be on fire until I find a way to cool them down. Let’s see, cube the two—. Slashblast to the eighth power? Holy crap. Please make sure you don’t hurt Teuila or Lil you guys. Please, Zorro, FFS?

There’s a presence next to me, invisible, but massive. I see Scirocco far up the hallway, chasing along after Quicksand, but—. But that Scirocco doesn’t project the normal signs of life that would reach my extra senses. The one up the hallway is an illusion, a mirage. I think the real Scirocco is at my back. Probably for the best, with what’s about to happen. Let’s see, square, quad, to the eighth power. Blinking several times. I think I’m about to need to use that protective consumable charm. This should produce an explosion with a several kilometer radius. Not enough to glass a whole desert like we fought our way through in the rude room, unrestrained, it’d cool too quickly to melt and glass sand. In this hallway, with Lil breathing into it, with two fire elementals coaxing it into a contained area though? Phew.

Signaling Lil and Teuila, I begin backing up the tunnel, letting Quicksand think she’s got us caught in a pincer with the approaching illusion of Scirocco. Focusing, I let the Titanwood block dissolve that had been blocking our way down into the room with all the magical wards and traps. With her back turned to it, Quicksand doesn’t realize I’ve unblocked the path. I did it to focus the force of this blast all the way down into that room, to destroy all those magical wards and spell glyphs and traps. Here goes,—gulp— pretty much everything. Te and Lil launch my way as the the savage storm of silicates that is Quicksand chases them furiously, her animate breath still trying to strangle or scour them or their insides.

I pre-craft a rune of fire, building my will, my essence, my need into it. Drawing Frostburn in my non-dominant hand, I draw the fire-rune dagger with my other, and ask Zorro to hop out of my pouch down onto it. Good luck you little cutie. Come back to me, okay? FFS, time to come on out. Fishing out the two breakable consumables from the Spellknights, I chuck them at the nearest wall as I’m thrusting Frostburn and tossing my fire-rune-enhanced knife. Spending a single SP, I ignite my own innards painfully, empowering an elemental rune without a spelliform.

The two small magical items shatter against the wall, becoming a burst of light and colors, one forming a translucent shield where I will it, between us and Quicksand, the other becoming a myriad of sparkling prisms that trace the mana flowing through the air along the path of my fire-rune-enhanced knife. I’m trying to keep my breathing steady, so as to not aggravate or excite the flames consuming me internally. Maybe if I carefully empower a cold rune to enhance a blast of frost, along with the ice-rune-enhanced knife, I can bring the burning down to equilibrium. That sort of maneuver is to fight the prolonged battle against the horde though.

Zorro and FFS become a combined elemental, a living explosion with unheard-of ferocity and power, Lil’s Latent, Solar, leveraged with my multipliers. It would be a sight to behold, probably. But Teuila and I shield our eyes as the world goes white. Even Lil folds a wing over his face. A thick, acrid scent assaults our nostrils, smoke filled with ammonia, sulfur, and a hint of an irritating dry earthy odor is a lingering assailant as the shriek of Quicksand fills our ears. Her scream of fury quickly becomes one of pain and terror as she begs Scirocco and Al’pa’ca for aid. Her body completely resolidifies, incapable of maintaining its semi-intangibility when so much of her is clumping into crystals and falling off as she’s baked alive.

The roiling blaze punches through Quicksand’s defenses, literally striking like a fist, and slams her into the wall as she resumes her normal draconic shape, albeit, one small enough to fit in this tunnel. I cast my will down into the room with the spellwork and traps, pleading for FFS and Zorro to go wild within, destroying everything they can. I might not need to use Wardbreaker after all, in order to get us into Al’pa’ca’s vault, but I’m fairly certain I’ll use it before our mission is over. The fire moves onwards, flowing gracefully like a dancer, and I wish I could spare time to admire it, to praise FFS and Zorro. Instead, I turn my attention back to the injured, very angry ancient sand dragon.

Teuila’s busy flushing out her nostrils and lungs with water, Lil and I are dazed, our ears ringing. So, when an invisible Scirocco starts to finish the job for us, engaging Quicksand, intent on slaying her, I’m more than a bit surprised. I know he backed up with me, sensing I had a plan. He’s keenly observant, and noticed my subtle signals to Teuila, so he was protected by the same magics I used to safeguard them. He’s also tougher than I’d have given him credit for, based on his subterfuge and weasily nature. Given that he doesn’t seem dazed at all. Still, Quicksand isn’t going down without a fight, though Scirocco has his jaw clamped around her maw in order to silence her, keeping her from screaming out his treachery, or calling for Al’pa’ca’s aid.

That— would have worked for him, if the explosion, and my elementals, hadn’t just blown through the enormous vault door, revealing Al’pa’ca right on the other side, staring this way in disbelief. Ohhhh crap. Things are about to get messy indeed. I need to force Al’pa’ca’ either out, or further into his vault, so I can use either this tunnel, or the entrance to his vault, as my staging grounds against the oncoming horde. Scirocco’s treachery is on full display, but how’s he going to play this, after seeing me use a single maneuver to produce all that power?

There’s so much magic going off chaotically, wildly between us, and Al’pa’ca’s vault. And there’s so much free lightning as well, from all the shattered crystalline conduits. I know I said I wouldn’t want to take the hits, but my alternate form of lycanthrope RS2 is almost manifested. The one based on Linti, Lightning Hunter. Bzzt, ow. Ow. What’s— ow. What’s going on? Oh no. My eyes flash wide.

Pull Reggie, pull! I’m—, I’m being stretched, like taffy, electrically. I’m—. Spiritswarm, please, please help. My EM-field organ isn’t strong enough yet. If my form fully manifests, I’m afraid I’ll disperse, and be dragged along into whatever nefarious spellwork Al’pa’ca is doing. The acrid scent of blazing char of Quicksand’s burning scales and flesh is entirely replaced, washed out by fresh ozone as more and more electricity is loosed into the area.

Gazing wildly towards Teuila, tears in my eyes, I reach for her, flicking my gaze towards her dimensional sheathe. I need her to know—. She has to use Mjolnir. I can’t speak, because half of my face is being pulled one way while different quarters of my head and face are being pulled in other directions entirely. I must look horrifying, because Teuila’s face is aghast. Please Te, focus on—. Scirocco turns towards me, us, and blankets us with layers of illusion, fog, and sand. It dampens the pull of the keep’s inner workings, allowing me to regain control of myself. Not that he likely knew he was doing that.

Hissing nearly silently, Scirocco offers, “Say that you’ll slay Al’pa’ca, and leave his dragonforce for me, and I’ll see to it you make it out of here safely.”

This is the moment. Te and Lil both know we need Al’pa’ca’s dragonforce. They both know I hate being duplicitous. If I accept, I have to make the offer in good faith. The Sisters’ prophecy rings repeatedly in my mind, helping ground me. Despite my gut feeling, despite knowing deep in my bones, he’s going to betray us, I have to try. I have to offer that branch of trust. That’s the me I have to be, if we don’t want to lose Teuila.

Gulping, I nod hesitantly and announce, “I swear it.”