An Age of Mysterious Memories

I’m a bit surprised and worried that Te hasn’t awoken yet. Her goggles are facing her, laying in the bed next to her at the moment. Her breathing is slow, but steady, and even Luni has already left bed. Between taking on the Worldstorm, moulding the tether for Lil, our entire adventure in Al’pa’ca’s lair, and holding off the Damnations and Evil Claws, I’m surprised Teuila was still standing at the end, and able to save me. She was even awake when I came to from my short faint.

I can’t help gazing lovingly at her sleeping form. If I were there, would I just sit and stare? Or would I be caressing those lovely cheeks? I suppose it doesn’t matter. Of course, as I’m staring at and thinking about her, Teuila finally rouses. Seeing her stretch out her rotator cuffs, crack her neck, and hop out of bed brings a smile to my face. Teuila clasps her hands behind her back, stretching her shoulder blades, and likely her biceps as she first leans forward, then leans rearward into a bridge.

In the blink of an eye, the goggles must have been placed on her head as suddenly the view from them is rocketing through the tunnels of Mount Solace. I feel bad for not being there when she awoke, while she was there for me. She knows we’re at war though, and that I made the judgment call to let her continue to sleep, because we need her at peak efficiency. She can probably guess that some emergency popped up, what with her having awoken alone in bed.

Actually wait a moment. There’s something wrong with Te’s dragonforce. No wonder she took so long to rouse. Cranking up my aura vision, I try to make sense of what I’m seeing from her point of view with the goggles. It’s like tendrils of light that snake forth, and are dashed to atoms upon coming into contact with anyone else. I can’t tell if she’s actually losing any dragonforce from the strange behavior, or if that energy is simply reabsorbed into her at some point. I’d like to have Nala look into it at some point, when Teuila and her are both free.

Wait. Was Teuila healing us? I notice pixellated bruising along her limbs in places that I saw others taking hits. Sponge. He’s in a coma. But Teuila’s Latent is precise control over the forces of attraction. Attracting our injuries into herself? Does she even realize she’s doing it? That would be why the energy tendrils seem to atomize in a manner similar to derezzing, when coming into contact with someone else. They take the information of some amount of the other person’s injuries, and translate them into the digital nature of a Can’Z’aasian critterkin in order to attract them, pull them to Teuila.

Crap on a cracker. The applications of that Latent continue to broaden. I mean, if I’m surmising correctly. Does Te even realize she’s doing it, if that’s what’s happening? It’s like she’s got a level in some paladin subclass that can expand its lay on hands pool by trading in its own hitpoints. What even are her limits—.

I find myself in a vast expanse, or rather, nowhere at all. In every direction is boundless impenetrable darkness, indescribable in truth, it can only be likened to that which I have some understanding of. Describing it is like trying to explain the flavor of water, or air, or heck, the color of air. Within this endless abyss, myriad golden threads, legion paths of travel head onwards in parallel.

Similarly in parallel do they all cease to exist at some sudden point in the distance. They all just stop, at some dead end. These harmonic vestiges of an energy that could represent anything reach a point of finality so stark, that beyond it can only be called oblivion. All golden threads reach some point at which they wink out, in unison in the distance, as if tumbling over the precipice of a cliff that overhangs the abyss itself.

This point of pure convergence into nothing, of the beautiful travesty that is the end of all things is marred in its perfection by only one faint, microscopic glimmer. An infinitesimally tiny thread continues beyond this metaphorical cliff, soaring away into the nothing that balks all else. Even I cannot see where it leads, as an observer to the path of these threads. Yet continue on it does, unabated by whatever cataclysm awaits.

Though I know not where it heads, or how it succeeds in its task, I can't help but root for this faint glimmer in the distance. I have to wonder what it means, what it all means. Is this destiny? Does everything, everyone come to an end, save one small, dauntless, stoic essence? Is that a reality unto itself? A whole world? A single person?

Suddenly I perceive reality again, and I've got whiplash from the whole ordeal. Okay, three times is no longer a coincidence. The pattern is pretty clear at this point. But what does it mean? Does this have to do with the tomes? Specifically the one Luni had to make sure Teuila cannot see? Is Teuila going to face the void alone, beyond the end of all things? Do we lose? Is Teuila the one of us six that makes it beyond a fated destiny of oblivion?

Do I dare share this with anyone else? Is it meant for me, and me alone, or am I the messenger, meant to convey it? Luni is supposed to be the Muse, the Seer, not me. I’m a nobody, I’m Nothing. Literally. Well now I’ve gone and hurt my own feelings. Yeesh. Furrowing my brow and scratching my head, I wonder if I should apologize to myself. Snorting a laugh, I shake my head at myself and continue onwards.

There’s so much to do, but can I afford to put such an ominous vision on the back burner? My face droops, weary with the weight of such a foreboding foretelling. Te. I love her with such a vast ferocity. I don’t want this for her, whatever it is. I’m fairly certain of it. Whether it’s the weight of responsibility, or the lonely finality of continuing on alone after all is said and done. What part do I even play in all this?

We’re all the hero in our own stories, usually, more or less. Or so I’ve heard. I think. But Teuila is my savior. She’s my hero. I know I represent similar in Luni’s eyes, for whatever cosmic reason she assures me that I always have, and always will. But if it’s all fated to end, the way the Sisters described, then what’s the point? Why not cherish what time we have left?

Because if you do that Reggie, not everyone gets the opportunity. Not everyone is as strong as you, or as safe as you. They can’t protect themselves from the evils approaching. In fact, many more of them would have their opportunities cut short, and relatively soon at that. Case in point, the forgeworks only a few short hours ago. If all the strongest of us gave up fighting and protecting, instead focusing on mingling and cherishing, the weakest amongst us would be crushed in a heartbeat. With great power, also comes—I know the line. I get it. Sighing deeply once more, I wonder if I’m really just arguing with myself sometimes, like this.

You can be a real eggplant sometimes Reggie. Y’know that? Uh, sure, I guess. Wait, what? An eggplant? How does that even make—.

I narrowly avoid bumping into several giggling Draconiacs as I telekinetically surf about the tunnels of Mount Solace. What was I thinking about again? I, well, I could just go to the locations I’ve picked, and hit my targets solo. Bad idea Reggie, stop trying to act as if everything is all on you, all the time. Plus it’s inefficient. The dragons are all far faster than I am when flying above the Worldstorm. Still, it sucks to take away any defenders against the siege when we’re in the thick of things like this, I can tell that right now Farzhis and Veril are tag-teaming some sort of sky-drake siege monsters being aimed towards Solace by some dragon-riding kobold necromancers. I almost wonder if—.

Apparently listening in on my brain, Ixeyla asks, “You uh, just need a lift, no other heavy lifting Schism? If all the Oh Dee members are all fighting stuff, or needed around here, I could get you around the Spine.”

Gnawing the inside of my cheek, I’m not sure if I can take Ixeyla up on her offer. I’d break my own heart if I broke Lil’s heart by doing so. Before I can go too far down the rabbit hole of self recrimination and doubt, Ixey offers up, “My prince isn’t gonna throw a tizzy just because you and I get busy. Um, riding, uh, to places.”

I think we both mentally facepalm at the same time about Ixeyla’s choice of phrasing. Though that would also be true. None of us would be upset if our partners found, um, rides, anywhere else. Blushing heatedly, I fan myself. Plus, Lil would be smug about it, insisting on how great Ixeyla is, and that he told me so. I mean, if we, urgh. End thought train! Please? Brain? Yeah? New topic!

The raucous laughter I get from several wavelengths clues me in on several of my friends and allies being near enough to listen-in on my nonsense. Ugh, that just worsens my blushing. At least Ixeyla is joining in on the laughter, despite having set herself up. The pair of us meet up, and bump shoulders jovially while shaking our heads with rueful smiles.

Greeting Ixeyla, I start, “I guess I’ve got no reason to turn down your offer then Ixey.” I balk and fumble as I attempt, and fail to, reassure her, “Uh. If, um, if things—.”

Interrupting me, ending up being the reassuring one of the pair of us, Ixeyla shrugs while irreverently asserting, “Hey, I trust your weird little butt to keep me safe from pretty much everything other than, well, the end of the world. Or uh, you I guess.”

Wearing a sad half smile I flick my head towards the feasting hall and the aerie. Ixey nods, so I levitate us both, having us surf over the crowds in the tunnels of Solace. Ixey looses a short excited squeal that changes from surprise to delight when she realizes both what’s going on, and that my telekinetic senses follow her slightest urging in order to shift direction, speed, and balance.

As we surf towards the aerie, I check in on everyone that I can through our scrying goggles. Things are probably going as well as they could, for being in the midst of a war where we’re surrounded on all sides by the enemy’s hostile forces, on top of facing down several additional apocalyptic scenarios. Heck, technically a lot better than one might expect, for anyone other than us.

Ixeyla begins to transform into her full draconic form, and I cast a glance out over the Worldstorm. Apparently not wanting to give me a chance to have second thoughts, or back out of taking her up on her offer, Ixeyla snatches me out of the air with her tail, knocking me towards her back. I’m unceremoniously tucked up against Ixey’s spinal ridge, and do my best to right myself as she takes off at an impressive speed. She’s going in vaguely the right direction, but I offer a course correction so that we’re navigating the heading we need to in order to reach the destination of my planned assaults.

The thunder, despite originating right below us, seems so far away as my mind wanders. The air is crisp, as usual, tinged with the scent of ozone, as always on Rayileklia. But even that fact barely registers. Things feel more and more like Can’Z’aas lately, but in some of the worst ways. Right now the Shellcracker Adventuring Party is handling things separately, scattered to the four winds. Luni is holding down the fort, while Teuila is embattled with the siege. Lucky and Lil are assaulting domains off to the east of Solace.

Oh, oh no. It really is like the last days of Can’Z’aas. Worse, I’m the one who appointed our spread. Just like we were on our last few weeks alive. The only difference is I’m not working at the edges of our settlement with Mataalii. Instead I’m off here trying to break up key parts of our foes’ forces. Or, well, that’s sort of like the days leading up to the insectoid scourge. When only Teuila and I would occasionally be at the Miracle Oak

One or the other of us, or both of us would be out hunting with Linti, generally one at a time. Luni was off who-knows-where, and Mataalii was either somewhere with her, or somewhere that she stashed until she needed him. Should I scour the world for Mat? Could I use my scrying abilities to find him?

Ixeyla bucks, and I reorient on reality as she asks, “What’s that all about? You dying, another world? Lil doesn’t like to talk about anything before his time at the Hidden Heart. It’s like he’s ashamed or something. I can’t imagine my prince needing to be ashamed of anything he could do.”

Sighing, I nod sadly as I agree, “I can’t imagine Lil needing to feel ashamed either, at least not for an extended period. He’s a goofball sometimes, so can make social faux pas or whatever. Still, I think I’m the reason he’s ashamed of—hey eep, hold on. I think he’s sorry that he got upset at me, about the time surrounding the end of our lives. I don’t blame him for being angry. Some things happened, we’d been separated for a long time, and when we finally reunited, it was mere moments—in the grand scheme of things—before committing to sacrificing our lives for our family, and world.”

I can sense the rage, and sadness, warring with each other within Ixeyla. The few tears that sneak out as we continue to wing away north-westward are lost to the breeze, though I sense them fall regardless. We travel in silence for quite some time yet. Well, relative silence. It’s never exactly quiet on Rayileklia, aboveground. Hm, speaking of, I wonder if we could, if we should, try to contact the Derbrightmine survivors. I mean, they’re belowground, deep at this point, from what I’d heard.

I’m not sure if it’d be better or worse to contact them. I feel like if I did, it would just be for our benefit. They’re taking care of themselves, and likely don’t need me diverting their attention and skills to projects I’d choose and prioritize. Ixeyla and I will just do what I set out to do, head towards the domains of Thraxxis, Xyzzor, Vash’taak, and a few others.

Several of them seem to have their domains situated radially outwards from a central point, perhaps a dormant volcano, by the look of the map. I wonder if they’re actually all friends, ruling their little domains so close to each other.

It’d be funny if the lords and ladies of the domains were all over at one of their keeps for tea or something. Do Terrorzin’s forces have get-togethers and gossip over a beverage in other domains than their own? Hell, do they have them within their own? Hell, do dragons even drink tea? Ixeyla’s bouncing with laughter while in flight, but thankfully she’s big enough and my limbs and abilities are strong enough that I don’t get bucked from her shoulders.

I’m fairly certain Ixeyla doesn’t stop laughing or shaking her head at me for the entire duration of our flight towards the convergent domains. Coming up on the closest one, Thraxxis’s domain, I can only spy a tiny fraction of ground below the storm through the ultra-fine tunnel in the clouds that Kinzul had opened up for operations like this. I’m about to dive into it, allowing Ixey to hover and glide about above the Worldstorm while I take care of business, when she surprises me.

Asking across our mental wavelength, Ixeyla prods, “Schism, think you can lift us both back up through it when you’re done? I uh, I wouldn’t know how long to wait, and if something happens—y’know? I mean, I know it’s just wide enough for mini wings form to carry us back up slowly, but I’m not that good at the whole shifted forms dealy like most of the ancients in the Oh Dee and, just, stuff, y’know?”

I offer up in response, “Yeah, I um, I can cover you. It’d be slow, but if I’m coming back up without someone like Lil or Teuila, it’s because I’m done, rather than luring the lords of the land above the clouds to fight. Most of my abilities manage crowds and affect things in a decent area, so I’m thinking I can get some pretty close to one-on-one battles when troops realize they’re more likely to get in the way and die than help their lords face me. Plus, hopefully shows of force that decimate their numbers, and take out their leaders get them to stand down from the war entirely.”

Without warning, Ixeyla is suddenly shifting into her human form and plummeting through the small tunnel in the clouds of the Worldstorm with her lanky limbs wrapped around me. I grump, “Maybe some warning next time!? I don’t know if the tunnels are enchanted to repel or divert the lightning or not, or if I’d have to nullify it you big dink!”

Cheekily, Ixey snarks, “You were going to ramble til my wings got tired, this is faster, duh.”

Rolling my eyes, I stifle a chuckle, and try to muster up some irritation at Ixeyla, but can’t really manage it. We’re both fine, and she’s right, it’s faster. The more domains we can hit today, the better. I mean, if I keep up the crazy level of recovery I’ve seemingly got since Al’pa’ca’s domain. Or if I don’t take too many injuries to begin with.

Anyway, point is, she’s right. I’m glad she’s not gloating about it too much. There’s a smug undercurrent to her emotional wavelength on our psychic bond though, and she’s playfully elbowing me with her bony arms as we fall.

All in all the plummet takes only a few moments, or maybe minutes, y’know, because of gravity, obvee, but it takes far longer than my brain says it should. Is gravity on Rayileklia lower than Fakeworld? Is that the natural state of things, or part of the Worldstorm enchantment?

If I remember correctly, Prinrin said something about back when dragons were heavier or something, she was still a fast flier, and had an easier time than everyone else as a runt. I wonder if the gravity is lower specifically for dragons only, or for everyone. I probably qualify as a dragon at this point in my life, so I’m not a good reference point.

Angling our descent with my telekinesis, we approach a widened cavern area that seems to house the keep of Thraxxis. It’s eerily quiet, I mean, minus the ever-present roar of thunder, obviously. Ixeyla clasps me more tightly, relying on me to pilot beneath the storm. I’d disentangle us and start my assault, but there’s no assault to start. I don’t see any motion within the keep, nor do I sense any heat signs.

Surfing the pair of us to a parapet beneath the overhanging cliffside with telekinesis, I land to survey the situation and location. What the fricklefracking heck? Hellspit and Fel fires. Did the entire keep get up to go have tea at one of the other leaders’ domains? Pft, it’s not that funny Ixeyla, I’m semi-serious here. I mean, the answer would be more like mustering troops, rallying them or something. This could be really bad.

I’m not prepared to try to face five keeps worth of foes at once alone, and there’s no way I’d endanger Ixeyla by asking for her help or even to remain close by while I attempted something so stupid. I could maybe lure some of their elites or lords above the Worldstorm if I were willing to expend the Dragonforce to manifest my Honoris Causa and fly up through the storm, ignoring any pain caused to the manifested form, or voiding out the stuff within its radius.

Alright, take a breather for a second. If Ixeyla’s fine either waiting here, or clinging to me, I’ll LBBTKSL around the region to the other domains to scout and check. Before I do anything, let’s see what’s going on at the security center. It seems the Vivant, well, its surviving members, minus Prinrin, so really just Gil and Fen, are ranging above the storm, driving back foes. Is the siege getting so serious that—. Is Gilmeshtu facing off against a dozen ancients? Crap. No no no. I know we’re not really friends, but, but I don’t want to see him die.

Wait, wait what? What? What. Okay, I know Gilmeshtu is one of the most talented combatants on the planet, but wow. He’s managing to outfly the Reds and cluster up all his non Red foes with aerial maneuvers. If he’s about to do what I think he’s about to—yup. Phew, that’s like Lil’s breath weapon after it’s ramped up for a few seconds, maybe a whole minute, just on a larger scale. In an instant the dactyl leather of Gil’s foes, those that aren’t Red, is burned to a crisp, taut and cracking, or ashed entirely. They’re sent hurtling down through the Worldstorm, to a definitely painful end. Now he’s only facing off against four Reds, and he outclasses them all, even combined, by leagues.

Pshew, go Gil. Fenric is being less reckless, facing less foes, but Fen is equally devastating. It seems last night has lit a fire in their hearts that can be quelled only by violence and retribution. Lil and Lucky are doing alright, as are Shiz and Zelshiz, thankfully, since they’ve just got to rout ground-forces for now, until they expand up towards the other domains. It might take them most of the day though, between the three domains. Veril and Farzhis are spiraling the aerie, keeping guard, making sure nothing makes it by Gil and Fen, or zipping out past the pair to team up on a frightening-looking foe with hit-and-run tactics. I’m glad they’re playing it safe.

Checking in on her, Teuila’s absolutely brutally driving back a horde from the base of Solace. To see her fling Mjolnir in sweeping arcs and teleport it back to her hand with a simple flick of her wrist is impressive enough on its own. But seeing Teuila’s Honoris Causa meet and grab two incoming attacks from separate dragons, and slam the dragons together as if they were magn—that cheeky little minx—etized is hellaciously impressive.

I can’t help chuckling as a grin spreads wide across my face. Observing exactly what she’s doing, I see Teuila broaden and master her powers over attraction more and more. It’s funnier to me than it might otherwise be. Mostly because half the reason she’s doing it is probably to get Illy to agree to let her test out the romantic attraction whammy of her Latent on our mutual possible-paramour. Maybe. Heh.

I suppose it’s a bit unfair to assume she’s just doing it to master her Latent to play around with the whammy on Iylynila. She’s also less able to use her preferred fighting style, so it’s advantageous to expand her toolbelt, especially in such effective ways. I understand why Teuila’s using her favorite fighting style sparingly, the Worldstorm is still deadly to her, and she doesn’t really need to ride the lightning down in a grav-assist spear stab to deliver earth-shattering strikes. Plus, many of her foes are massive, and driving metal a couple of feet into their scales will hardly tickle them, as opposed to smashing those scales deep into their underlying musculature and bones.

Half of the dragons I see Te facing are in forms large enough that their wingtips draw lightning strikes from the Worldstorm, nearly skirting the cloudbanks’ bottoms. The lightning seems to be irritating them frequently, or charging up the blues, but not doing anything else extremely beneficial to our side. Part of the enchantment I guess, is that the acid and lightning are far less deadly beneath the cloudbanks. That part is a bit of Kinzul’s mercy for the rest of Rayileklia shining through, even whilst the Worldstorm itself is a massive mercy that basically traps dragonkind in the Spine of the World to prevent the precise travesty that’s rolling on its way towards massacring the planet.

When Ixeyla elbows me, drawing my attention back to our situation, I frown, but not at her. There’s a single slate-gray Draconiac wandering about, her serpentine form all sleek curves as she’s skulking around the—is that Errissa? Ixey mutters, “Who? What are you looking at? No, look that way, the mud.”

My attention drawn towards Ixeyla’s insistent pointing, I follow her gaze, realizing what she means. Ruts, tearing, prints, craters. The mud off to the southwest is absolutely a scene of an obviously recent convergence. Worse, it’s devoid of that convergence, and it seems to head off southwest out towards the edge of the Spine. It’s as if waves and waves of ground forces marched through here, dragons, Draconiacs, kobolds, en-masse. Thousands of waves across the lands.

Gazing as I am in the direction of the tracks, I recall the strategic maps of the Spine that I recently committed to memory. The mountain range has to be traversed in certain ways by anyone who can’t exit an aerie above the Worldstorm. At least those who don’t have a guaranteed landing on an aerie above the Worldstorm elsewhere.

The path that I’m observing coincides with three possible directions. One, to the heart of Terrorzin’s domain, two, out of the Spine of the World to the rest of Rayileklia proper, and three, it wraps around to a narrow trail that is one of few paths towards the valley that leads up to Mah’ruke and Solace. With my attention split, and my focus off of the Draconiac that I thought might be Errissa, I of course lost sight of her. If she is here, I’ve no chance to find her if she doesn’t want to be found.

Sighing, I chastise myself mentally. I need to focus on this. We need to round the regions, and see just how many forces are missing. Analyzing my senses, I fear the worst. I think the hordes grabbed pretty much everything that wasn’t nailed down, in a relative hurry. The enclosed spaces I can sense are all ashambles. The remaining residents of these dwellings seem to be only relatively sparse furniture, mediocre bedding, rags, and the like.

We’ve got to curve around this caldera to check on the other lords’ domains, so I’m hastily explaining to Ixey, “I bet you can guess what I’m thinking, so I’m going to try to move faster than I normally should. I need you to hang as tight as possible so that hopefully the featherlight enchantment keeps us both aloft. I’m not Lil or Teuila, or even Luni for that matter. It seems like everyone else in the family, save maybe Lucky, is a speedster in some fashion. I’m just not built for it, as much as I’d like to be.”

Ixeyla nods her assent, and wraps herself around me much like I’d seen her wrap herself around Lil the other day. We both cough, blush, and avoid each other’s gazes momentarily at the mental pictures conjured up. Right, enough tomfoolery. Holding my breath after a massive lungful of air, I launch myself almost horizontally off of the parapet outwards to angle to the northeast, so that I can wrap around northwest, west, southwest, south, then southeast back to here.

My brain is entirely focused on the locomotion. Exhale when momentum is nearly faded, deep breath, launch, rocketing with additional lightning, again and again and again. I’m covering hundreds of meters per stride, but it’s still not enough, it doesn’t feel fast enough for what needs to be done. Ixeyla’s lanky frame is either light enough on its own, or close enough that she’s affected by my featherlight enchantment, so it’s not even all that taxing to be rocketing about, skirting the lower edges of the Worldstorm, using any stray lightning-strikes to boost my momentum.

Of course, it does take a little finesse, and finaggling with cursed greaves and my lightning Spiritswarm, to keep Ixeyla safe, but it’s worth it. Between the Spiritswarm, and my electrokinesis, I can send repellent electromagnetic waves through the air, to help coax any stray lightning around me. That, and direct it along my points of impact for the extra boost that the burst of power offers me. It’s tiring after a period, but who wouldn’t get tired leaping across the sky, for hundreds of miles, at dozens or maybe hundreds of miles per hour? I’m not hitting sonic speeds though, a bit thankfully honestly. I don’t need to shatter my limbs in the middle of this war.

No. No no no. Xyzzor’s domain is the same. No, please be wrong. Please be wrong about this Reggie. This can’t be happening. Rocketing along the edges of Xyzzor’s keep, if there’s anyone left in it, they’re making no show of it. At best I could imagine some deserters, or just lazy troops who couldn’t be arsed to get up to march with the rest. You’d think two empty domains would be reassuring, right? Two less keeps to fight the lords of, two less armies for me to deal with today? Wrong. Wrong in the worst kind of way.

Worse, my heart sinks into the pit of my stomach, which itself wins an Olympic gold for its tumbling routine when we start rounding the region to yet another empty domain. Does this mean we’ve already lost? Are they tearing across Rayileklia, razing it as we speak? Or is the siege about to get reinforcements in the tune of dozens of thousands of foes? Or worse, could they all be heading to the center of Terrorzin’s domain for some as-of-yet unknown grand plan that somehow siphons their power to destroy the planet, or teleports them across the world for distributed destruction, or, or—.

Ixey’s trembling. I’m letting my thoughts wander, and head down the worst possible rabbitholes. I bet she’s worried that I’m going to have to try what I said I wouldn’t even think of doing. Me going back in time, or even just sending a message back to myself at some point during my Rayileklian journey just doesn’t even seem like it’s possible. I couldn’t dream of being the me in the moment of the refugee rescue from Atter’s domain suddenly abandoning Ixey, Zayzi, Shiz, and Leeza. I was already pretty worn down by the final attempt, in which I still lost sixty three innocent lives. Failed to protect them. Same difference.

Gritting my teeth, I press onwards, pouring on every bit of speed I can safely muster without injuring either myself or Ixeyla. It’s several hours all-told, and by the final domain on my checklist, I’m getting frantic that there have been no enemies to confront. I stop to momentarily ransack the place for clues. I’m hoping I’ve been misled, that the mud tracks and prints we’d seen, and have been seeing, weren’t what we thought they were.

I’m hoping that these were domains with nearly no followers, and there was some sort of deception ploy, and that the lords and ladies offed each other somewhere nearby. No dice on that hope though. I know how unrealistic it is, or was, but there are no clues pointing to it even being a relatively possible theory, much less a plausible one. All signs point to wave after wave of draconic forces spreading out across the lands of this shared region to converge at Thraxxis’s domain, and then move onwards from there.

There’s only one thing left to do. I’m not going to risk Ixeyla to confirm my suspicion. What I’m doing is going to be only a scouting mission at this point. I’d prefer to have Ixeyla ready above the Worldstorm to make a fast getaway, if I happen to be spotted. I sense her frowning, but she doesn’t complain.

At least, she doesn’t complain so much as ask, “Just how am I going to know where to be, and when, if you’re going to need to make a fast break for it, after tracking down a horde, that we don’t know where it’s gone, when I’m above cloudcover and you below?”

Gnawing on the inside of my lip, I acquiesce, “Okay, fair, valid point. Uh, well, let me experiment with this.”

Digging out a minor trinket attached to the Shellcracker soul, bound to me in particular, I place it in Ixeyla’s hands. Focusing on it, I ask her to attempt to bond to it, to try to utilize its magics. Ixey grumbles, “Ugh, it, it won’t work. It’s like a tingling, and a tug, in my head, on my brain. It doesn’t hurt or anything, but it’s really persistent.”

Nodding, I levitate the two of us a fair distance apart, asking her to continue to focus on it, on trying to use it. As I move us in different directions, my theory starts to dawn on Ixeyla before I have to explain it. She correctly surmises, “It tugs towards you!”

Nodding, proud of her for having figured it out, we utilize a flaw in the soulbinding of items to our advantage. Ixey can triangulate where I am by focusing on the item once in a while, following its tug, minus the downwards direction it’ll always be pointing in. Landing in an alcove that I can tell leads to an aerie above the Worldstorm, I give Ixey a quick tight hug.

Offering her a playful shove, I suggest, “Get going, stay safe. Wish me luck? But at the first sign of trouble above the storm, bolt, forget about me. Abandon any notion of coming to my aid if any of Terrorzin’s forces are above cloudcover.”

She frowns, but Ixeyla agrees, and takes off up the tunnel through the dragonforce-reinforced mountain, to a spot above the clouds she can take to the air from. Puffing a breath, I gather my courage, and wits, as I speed off in a southerly course, using my LBBTKSLs to cover ground at a rapid clip, hoping to catch up to the myriad ground forces on the march.

Once again, I find myself focusing entirely on the motions; the bunching of my muscles, the telekinetic presence and pressure behind or beneath my feet, the coiling and springing as I leap forth from angled telekinetic squares while holding my breath, gathering a new breath only when I’m nearly out of momentum anyway. Denying my mind the ability to focus on anything else distracts me from where my mind could wander, and prevents me from going down devastating rabbitholes or trains of thought. It also however distracts me from reality, and most of my senses not dedicated to simply following the very-obviously recently-trekked-through mud path.

It must have been an hour or two of following the path when I finally snap to, realizing I’m in the air within sight-range of an awe-inspiring gathering. I thought the sky being filled to the point of concealing the cavern roof in Al’pa’ca’s domain was impressive, and even moreso the fact that there were probably around twelve thousand troops in the enormous hollowed-out mountain he’d called his home. This? This puts that to shame.

It’s not just waves of enemy forces gathered on the ground before me. It’s an entire friggin’ tsunami. It’s easily as many forces as were gathered within all of Al’pa’ca’s domain, maybe even double that. How? How does Terrorzin have this many forces rallied and mobilized already? Worse, why are they aimed at the path that heads towards the valley leading to Mah’ruke and Solace?

I thought we’d maybe have a week or two, because Terrorzin shouldn’t have received any reports that we were overtly waging war against him until the fall of Stormspire Peak or whatever Al’pa’ca’s domain was called. This suggests that he’s had these forces preparing to mobilize today or yesterday, for at least several days now. Does he want to wipe Kinzul out that badly, before razing the rest of the world? Our guerrilla war is over. Within a day or two, the full might of Terrorzin’s forces will be breathing down our necks, and breathing up the tunnels of Mount Solace, devastating our defenders.

There’s a chill in the air that isn’t just my nerves being on edge. The cacophony of the hordes below me is suddenly a distant memory as my senses try to make sense of what they’re sensing. I’d facepalm at the mental redundancy, but I’m too flabbergasted. Across my thermal view in retrocognition, I paint a wide three dimensional portrait of the expanse of lands beneath and before me. There are countless heat signatures blazing together, all of which abruptly stop across a wide radius that’s so cold it hurts my brain to even pick it up on my thermal senses.

I’d once said I never met anything colder than what I can produce. I’m pretty sure I can achieve full atomic stop, a lack of motion, thermal point of zero. Zero in the absolute sense. Nothing, a complete absence of heat or its usual atomic energy. This is somehow colder than that. This isn’t a void, this is an expansive—and still expanding—region of magic that pushes the boundaries of physics, and breaks them over its knee. I cannot rationalize it or make sense of it.

There are countless forces before me, enough to throw wave after wave after wave across the lands of Rayileklia, especially against one small mountain domain. That should frighten me, and in a way, it does. But all that force, all those foes? Somehow they pale in comparison to the moving zone of cold that defies logic, defies physics, and defies any plans or hopes I had for us winning this war.

The only thing I can do? The one thing my body thinks to do? Yeah, just one thing. It’s gulp. I gulp, and lick my dry, cracked lips, tasting the stinging wet of the Worldstorm for my troubles. If that zone of cold is what I think it is, we’ve lost. We’ve lost the war, the world, everything.