An Age of Mysterious Memories

As I race, the floor, the walls, and the ceiling all shudder. An ominous rumbling begins, and it shakes the whole gorram Keep. My senses are overwhelmed as the magical weave is twisted and distorted. My stomach turns. I don't have any way to prepare for this. The tremors are nearly lethal while I'm walking slowly through stone. Trudging through solid stone, feeling like I'm gonna barf my brains out, or like I’m trailing my eyeballs behind me, is unpleasant enough. Having to worry that My torso might be rent in two out of nowhere is more than I can handle right now.

Ahead, somewhere beyond my temporary shaking stone prison, Al'pa'ca looms larger in my other senses, since I can’t see anything but stone at the moment. His aura is exuding a feeling of pride, a sense of self-righteousness, and an overconfident cockiness, but there's something off about him. Finally the shaking stops for a moment, so I break free of the wall before it starts again, so that I’m not in constant risk of instant decapitation or separation of my torso or limbs. Eugh, bad memories.

What. That… is Al’pa’ca, right? He's just inky. Like, pure black, matte black, no color whatsoever. That, and there's a large black dome that Te and Lil are hammering on instead of Al'pa'ca. I want to cry out a warning to them, but they seem plenty aware of his weird inky form. Te and Lil both look like hell warmed over, like they took some really nasty hits while I was focusing on the horde. Wait, is it hell warmed over, death froze over, hell froze over, or death warmed over, when someone looks dead as shiz? Reggie! Focus! Right, right, sorry.

I feel the tugging again, on the magical weave, but it's not coming from the shadow of Al'pa'ca, sort of. It's coming from inside the black dome, but funneled through the--. It's like a simulacrum, and I think that while it's alive, that dome is gonna stay impenetrable. Not only that, but he can use it as his point of origin for his spellcasting while he remains safe inside. Have they tried hitting the shade of him yet? Is it invulnerable too?

Scirocco doesn't seem to think so, but he's waiting us out. Al'pa'ca is basically dead, ripe for the picking, and he's hoping Al'pa'ca finishes one or more of us off with Te and Lil looking like they're on death's door too. That dirty rotten sneaking scoundrel. Oh if only somebody could have guessed he'd try to backstab us. Oh, wait, we all did. Grr, technically he's not doing anything, but that's exactly the problem. He could finish this in our favor. Do I call the deal off? Is the moment passed? Or does he make a last minute, eleventh hour heel face turn or something?

Scirocco's getting greedy and antsy, sneaking up on Te and Lil, getting himself in prime position to finish off both them and Al'pa'ca at the same time. I've gotta take out Al'pa'ca first, or something. I don't know if Te and Lil can sense our invisible erstwhile ally. Come on Reggie. What've ya got left? Well, we've, heh, got, haha, Giant Dire Shadow Weasels. A bit more than that too, but, huff, let's see if I can pick apart that shadow before it takes Lil and Te out, or before Scirocco ends all three of them. Come on Reggie, quick, do the math. Scope it out, figure out what it's likely got. Dip your brain into the non. Slip into the absence of the flow of time.

Sliding into a frozen moment between moments, I look to Retrocognition to tell me about what the shadow is. Huh, it's... a copy of Al'pa'ca? No. That's not quite exactly the case. It's—uh—more like an extension of Al'pa'ca and temporary life force. A temporary life-force that will rejoin and bolster him, sometime soon. Likely from a contingency item. Based on the shade’s locations as it repositions, it can only go so far safely away from him, for some reason or another. Whether it's an absolute tether, or if he's just trying to keep in range to use it as a spellcasting point of origin, or something else entirely, I can't tell for sure.

Retrocognition says about sixty percent chance, that the shade has low health, and that Al'pa'ca has even lower. Like, tabletop-wise, Packbutt might be in single digits. I can see why Te and Lil want to get it over with, and get to him. Especially looking through Retrocognition, and seeing how evasive his shade has been.

So how did it go in the first place? Play it back in Retrocognition based on the senses we weren’t fully paying attention to. Alright, a little bit ago, Te’s going in for a strike, when Lil roasts Al’pa’ca enough that he topples in exhaustion. Teuila slams into a surprise dome of invulnerable darkness, and winces, nursing her hand.

There was an eerie moment, where everything was still, then bam, they’re suddenly in the presence of this shadow version of Al'pa'ca that starts rising from the orb around his beaten body like something out of a nightmare. It's kinda like his evil twin made of pure darkness and spite, his own personal bogeyman, all of a sudden decided to join the party. It really looks a bit like a bad photocopy or underexposed photograph.

This shadow Al'pa'ca is all kinds of nightmare fuel. It's like his sinister soul decided to go for a midnight stroll after crawling straight out of the underworld for a bit of fun. It's shrouded in this impossible blackness, darker than the ocean’s timorous depths, which somehow makes it -seem- impervious, since you can’t tell if your attacks are doing anything, and it’s definitely more resilient than regular Packbutt defensively. Ugh, resilient, and evasive? Friggin’ heck. Stupid thing is moving smoothly and eerily, like a ghost waltzing through a graveyard.

Picture a dragon-shaped void, a hole in the world where Al'pa'ca used to be. That's my schtick! This thing seemed virtually immune to just about everything they threw at it, though they were pretty exhausted, and maybe not realizing they were making any headway. They'd chased it at first, annoyed at its evasiveness, then hit it once or twice, and figured their attacks weren’t doing anything, so they returned to hammer on the dome. They know his body's under there since they saw him go down before it popped up.

Al'pa'ca is untouchable under that dome. Like, literally, they can't even get to him to try to lay a scratch on him. The dome or orb of darkness is invulnerable. But the shade thing's tough too, evidenced by the fact that Te’s and Lil’s hits barely seemed to faze it, like it was made of smoke and bad attitudes. It'd been floating around, all high and mighty, practically thumbing its nose at them.

My poor pals are stuck accepting more spells and danger from Packbutt through his shade. Meanwhile, it’s enjoying relative safety, high evasive maneuverability, and toughness out the wazoo. This shadow Al'pa'ca is throwing down, dishing out hurt like it's going out of style, as only a full-on ancient dragon can. The bugger had also been dishing out mid-level spells that I wasn’t paying attention for, and then of course two ninth level evocations that really wrecked house. I don’t think they were meteors, but maybe they were and Lil and Te both just happened to have just enough to survive two. I dunno, I doubt it, since Scirocco is standing, and I know he couldn’t weather two of ‘em.

This whole turn of events is like watching your worst fears get a power-up. And the whole time, there's this sense of dread, like if this shadow survives, Al'pa'ca's gonna pop back up fresher than a daisy in spring. It's the kind of thing that makes you want to scream, "Cheater!" Though I’ve had one or two of those occasions myself, hmf. Still sucks for us though. The battlefield had been this ridiculous swirling of a chaotic tango of destiny and doom already by this point. It's the kind of spectacle that would make a killer scene in a movie, but living it? Yeah, not so fun when you're the one having to deal with a dragon's shadow on steroids.

Could I just bypass this stupid part of the fight? Hm, my senses say it's a full sphere, not a dome, so I couldn't stonewalk down through the ground and pop up under Al'pa'ca to finish him. The buggering bugger. He is or nearly—grr—was nearly finished, but he's got a ghostly hand, or invisible servant, or a couple, shoving potions either down his throat, or splashing them over him inside the shadow orb. He's fully juiced. The next spell's going to be devastating as hell. If he decides on a meteor, that's it. All of us are toast. Except him of course, in his invulnerable bubble.

Catching up to the present in Retrocognition, the state of things hasn’t gotten any better. With Al'pa'ca's real body just lying there under this dome of darkness, smug and safe in his shadowy cocoon, it's frustrating as all heck. Here we are, giving it our all, and this sneaky dragon is just napping under a blanket of invulnerability.

Meanwhile, his shadow double is still wreaking havoc. It's like Al'pa'ca just hit the jackpot on 'How to be an Even Bigger Pain in the Butt 101'. If we don't figure out how to deal with Shadow Al'pa'ca quickly, the real one is going to spring back up, ready to turn us into dragon chow, if he doesn’t just nuke us with a meteor before then to be done with us. It's a dirty trick, and I can't help but grudgingly admit it’s a good one. But admiration doesn't mean I'm not cursing in every PG-13 way I know, because seriously, this is the kind of thing that makes you want to flip the game board and storm off.

Only, you know, we can't. Because dragons. And apocalypses. And duty. So, here we are, trying to outsmart a shadow while the real threat is just lying there, smirking in his sleep. Smirking, and juicing up to probably loose one last meteor to win this whole thing. Friggin’ Alpackers. I need to piss him off enough that he decides to use something else. What though?

What would the supposedly greatest storm sorcerer, someone who almost assuredly was within a few inches or hours of usurping the Worldstorm, be prideful enough about, that I could goad him into using, instead of the almighty meteor spell? Well, let's brag about our lightning for a bit. His shadow doesn't have his innate lightning safety, or any of those enchantments or whatever else he's cooked up to protect himself from the storm. Though, even if I can take it out before he full commits to his next spell, he might commit to meteor anyway, just to guarantee he gets us all, even if it takes himself out. So, yeah, Reggie. Time to go be annoying.

Sliding back into the flow of time, leaving the moment between moments, the space between spaces, I do my best to still my breathing as I cry out a challenge, "Al'pa'ca! You thought -you- could wrest control of the Worldstorm? I -am- the Worldstorm! The Worldstorm is -my- domain, and you're an intruder!" I've gotta keep taunting him, to keep him from going for the sure thing, the meteor. I engage my lightning lycanthrope's full abilities within view of him, for the first time. Well, within view of his shade, but I can tell he's got visual on me.

Keeping up my charade, while also accomplishing a fantastic job of effing up his shade, I unleash a full barrage of living lightning into it while crying out, "Fear the storm, storm summoner! You'd never have been able to tame it! Your control over my element is pitiful at best!" I'm actually having to focus on making sure my bolts, my breath, and my claws strike his shade, and don't bounce off and hit Lil or Te. It's not an easy feat, but my extra senses can tell the shade's taking damage from the impacts. It’s a bit disorienting, since I'm not used to being as fast as Linti, or crashing around as wildly as she does after all.

His shade is completely silent, I mean, impacts give off no sound, his motion gives off no sound, nothing, nada. But, based on the expression of its maw, I can tell I'm pissing him off, and he's ready to show me who the ultimate storm lord is. Things are about to get stupid. Whipping out the Riptide katana, the ludicrous fifteen foot long water katana, I finish running his shade through as I loose nearly my entire personal charge of lightning through the water blade into the shade. I feel Al’pa’ca tapping into the ninth circle of the weave, committed to lightning.

Pulling a good old QCR number four, I try to make sure he can't target Lil or Te even if he wanted to, though I've got to keep repositioning as they keep hopping about trying to find a weakness in the orb, so that I don't drag lightning through them. Wait, Scirocco, you greedy idiot—Teuila bumped into him, and bounced off of him. Well, I did say it was about to get stupid. Scirocco had taken another step, and aimed to hit Te, Lil, and with the shadow orb faltering, Al'pa'ca simultaneously, in order to finish them all off. Al'pa'ca, not sensing him, looses a multiplicative bouncing single-target chain-lightning bolt, towards me.

That is to say, chain lightning normally bounces from target to target, but he's got all those magic roids and enchantments and metamagical effects on him. The spell's so messed with, that he twisted it to be able to strike the same target over and over, at maximum potency, doubled, with resistance and immunity piercing. That's about as much damage as his meteors would have done before the double-up buff. Yeah, nine-sixty damage. That's enough to take out ancients. No wonder he's a friggin' feared archmage.

There’s a hiss and a curse under Packbutt’s breath as he utters, “Treacherous fool, you got what you deserve. Don’t worry, your new friends will soon join you, one way or another.”

Scirocco now a crispy-fried corpse, has accidentally saved Teuila. It’s the darndest thing. He did it by being in her way, so she couldn’t readjust into a position in the line of fire of an attack. Well, I can QCR back to number five, yeesh. Oh hell, now what? Suddenly, the horde starts breaking through in a way I didn't expect, meaning I've gotta trust Te and Lil to take out Al'pa'ca. Dashing back to the vault entrance, I veer to a small side tunnel they'd made. They chose to dig and cast through that, rather than digging through seemingly constantly respawning glaciers and rockslides and everything else I kept putting in front of them.

A couple of them must have banded together to start stoneshaping or wall-bypassing with all of their mana or spell slots or whatever. Crap, they're going to try to undo my work from this side, to get their allies through en masse. I've got my Giant Dire Shadow Weasel out, and it's honestly better than you might think, for something with such a silly name. I fight alongside the goofy critter in this tightly enclosed tunnel space that’d been bored through by the Spellknights and whatnot. It’s like it was made to fight in such tight quarters. Well, maybe it was. I have no idea how weasels act in the wild. Weasels or stoats or, y’know, what are they, mustelids? Huh. Otters are mustelids too.

Blowing through all of the resources I have left, to prevent this from turning into an all-out massacre on us, I'm tapped out of nearly everything, nearly. Huffing and panting, I try to focus on my own task as Te and Lil dive for the kill. I could swear Packbutt’s grinning, and not even trying to dodge this final blitz. Al'pa'ca's got some new vitality in him, or temporary ward around him, but he’s not stupid. He wouldn’t underestimate foes this late into a battle after getting to know our limits versus him. Yet he stands there brazenly relying on his warded defense after fiddling with another set of controls near crystal lightning conduits. Al’pa’ca’s new defense topples like a house of cards beneath the onslaught of Lil and Teuila. He should be dead. Why’s he moving?

What. What? What!? Are you kidding me!? What just happened? Was he a Brobdingnagian after all? No. No, he couldn't have been. This is something else. We're in his seat of power, and the lights have all dimmed. I'm talking maybe billions of joules or something of energy just sucked up at once, and Al'pa'ca exploding with a chromatic array of magical glimmering lights as his body raises up at the moment of impact from one of Teuila's strikes. His muscle mass ripples, his eyes spark with lightning, his wings unfurl. We just got, "This isn't even my final form"ed.