An Age of Mysterious Memories

Ugh, my QCR is on the fritz, everything keeps popping back into its chambers, leaving me naked. At least I’m currently clad in stone, sort of, since I’m swimming in it as I sense vibrations approaching my location. My foes’re unintentionally helping my longterm goals slightly, but someone’s definitely tunneling my way. It doesn’t seem like the full might of the horde, and I’ve got a few minutes, so I’ll be reaching out to Can’Z’aas for the time being. Well, in a manner of speaking. I’m just manifesting my Backpotter form. I don’t need to go bleeding light and life everywhere.

Pull back the curtain Reggie, what do you see? Follow the flow of time. Make educated guesses, and predict the actions and reactions of everything and everyone around. Thunder and lightning, sure, always. But a crack louder than the Worldstorm, sounding out across the lands, will follow my explosion within here. The ground will tremble, there’ll even be a decent-sized cave-in within the ‘Neath. I’ll certainly be drawing—hah—attention. We’re far enough away, in the opposite direction from where our ‘Neath trio had ranged, that the mite-hulk-adjacents that dwell within its subterranean realm are going to be stirred up from my actions.

Well, that’s just fine by me. Terrorzin’s horde won’t be majorly inconvenienced by them, but every little distraction helps. Still, there’ll be intelligent foes scanning for me after I unleash in here. I need to zip across the valley to tunnel structures in nearby mountains, in and out of several mountains, hopefully shaking my pursuit. Hm, it’s going to be rough. The ones on my tail are going to be smarter and faster, ones that’d waited to see how things panned out earlier, rather than the eager maniacs thirsting for blood that launched as soon as my Honoris Causa manifested.

I’ll have to make more evaluations in the moment when it arrives, before I can try to follow a tunnel to an aerie above the Worldstorm. Here’s hoping I can remain quick-enough on my feet in order to make the right calls to not endanger Ixeyla. Hell, here’s hoping none of Terrorzin’s horde feels like going above the storm to stretch their wings. Stay calm Reggie, breathe. Ixey can sense dragonforce just like any other dragon. If she senses anything heading above the storm from a nearby mountain peak, she’ll bolt, she promised.

Okay, well, the breathing advice doesn’t really work as well when I’m melded with stone. Speaking of, I need to finalize the position I’m going to be in for this explosion. This is so reckless. I mean, who the hell am I, deciding off the cuff to alter the very landscape of the Spine of the World? I’m virtually a hurricane, my own walking calamity.

Hm, whaddaya know? Reggie Shellcracker, land sky and sea, always getting caught up in waves, or causing them. Focus putz. Huh? Oh, right, crap. The rough texture of stone in a pliable near-liquid form as I meld through it grates on every fiber of my being as I finalize my position. My Backpotter form is nearing its manifestation point. When it arrives, I won’t have long to manipulate my Space skill in order to form the perfect hollow from which to blow the top off this mountain down into the valley below.

In a smoother, more magical transition than my Changeling Fae shapeshifting, my Backpotter form begins to digitally coalesce. The process begins elongating me, stretching me, enfuzzening me. Really Reggie, enfuzzening you? I mean, what else are you going to call growing a bunch of soft plushy fur? You’re such a dork. You’re right, but you’re a dork.

Okay Reggie, exhale smoothly. You haven’t tried using your Space skill, not really, since Can’Z’aas. You’ve dropped stuff out of your inventory, or shoved stuff into an interdimensional chest, your own chest, but this is applying Space around you like the old days. Claim the stone in front of you to your inventory. Step through into the empty space, now eject that stone, meld it with the stone around you.

Hm, my Backpotter form feels weird. Is that because I activated it without necessarily giving it enough time to fully regenerate its independent mana pool? It feels kind of… full. Swiping the smartphone from my hyperdimensional haversack across the NFC chip I’ve stuffed into my chest, my capacity seems alright. I’m a bit worried that I might lose access to this form permanently, too, like my lycanthrope form. Oh well. Stick to the plan, keep moving in that forward direction Reggie.

Eugh, it’s stuffy in here because there’s essentially no air. It’s almost a vacuum in the space I’ve cleared out. My head aches, but the neckchain of the ever-breathing has me covered so that I don’t end up O2 deprived at least. I really don’t need blood vessels in my eyes popping again or whatever the heck happens nearly every time I end up low on oxygen for a bit too long.

My skin—for the lack of a better term—prickles, my fuzzy plushy fluff standing on end as I widen this tiny cavern interior, making space for the glacier I’m about to create. I need to be quick, because if Terrorzin’s troops tunnel to me, most of the force would expel outwards down the tunnel they made, rather than evenly outwards in the planned direction.

Come on, come on. I’m not used to having to exert such conscious willpower to utilize my Space skill, though I suppose it’s not even intended to be entirely accessible in this form beyond the Backpotter having an inventory instead of a stomach. I’m grateful that it’s working at all. I keep breaking rules, and then either don’t understand the consequences, or they seem mild enough when compared to the successes they afforded me.

I need to be precise. Too wide, and the extra air space would reduce the total outgoing force, instead of compressing it as I need to. Too small, and I’d suffer the full force of the blast, contained entirely, just causing a small cave-in atop my own head. Punching some estimates into the calculator on the phone, using its graphing function, I’m fairly certain I’ve got the right total volume of force, and the volume of stone that I need to displace, in which shape, for a mountain this size. Are you ready Reggie? Me? Well, who else would I be talking to? Hm, true. Wait, stop being a doofus. Terrorzin’s forces are closing in.

Gripping my frost-enchanted knife, I begin tracing the cold rune in the air, preemptively empowering it with my will as I conjure my last cone of cold for the day. I let slip my knife, loosing it into the swirling vortex of cold that I conjure forth. The multiplicative, perhaps exponential effect is devastating on a geological scale. I’m smooshed into the side of my miniature cavern as a glacier coalesces, displacing what little air exists in this cavern, and of course my own body. It’s like watching a nature documentary about the Arctic Circle on fast-forward as a splintering crack echoes and ice blossoms forth like a deadly flower in bloom. Coughing, I groan in pain, and groan in anticipation of the greater pain yet to come. I’m practically hugging the still-growing glacier, a biting cold that thickens the very air, what little there is of it.

My breaths are visible puffs of white, illuminated by my spellwork in the otherwise utterly pitch-black cavern. Whispering to my little Foxfire Spirit elemental, I plead, “Come back to me after this Zorro, somehow.”

Reaching across the barrier, the divide between realms, utilizing the archsorc staff, Claiomh Solais, I seek out another FFS, Frostfire Salamanderian. Thankfully, they’re nearby and oblige, as we’d planned. Manifesting them into this realm as I utilize a non-spelliform flame rune, FFS embodies a monstrosity of colossal proportions in their current form, aided by Zorro. The relief I get from reaching cold and heat equilibrium from dangerously combining non-spelliform elemental runes is a massive boon.

Using the strange sandy-illusion cloak, I conjure forth a few hundred gallons of water. With my lightning spiritswarm’s aid, I electrolyze the water into free-floating hydrogen and oxygen providing fuel for the upcoming explosion. This is it Reggie. Changing the face of Rayileklia, even on a small scale like this, is so egotistical. First, just believing myself capable is beyond egotistical, second, it’s audacious to actually go through with it. I could turn back now, abandon the plan still, but this is the last opportunity to change my mind. After this, it’s all-or-nothing, an all-out retreating-skirmish, a flight to find my own escape route. There’s no way Terrorzin won’t have the full might of his horde on my tail after a move like this.

Breathe Reggie, breathe. Breathe air, breathe. Smoothly in, puff out. Destruction? I unleash thee. It’s a good thing my adamantite goggles are… adamantite. I’d facepalm if I weren’t in the middle of spellwork. This is about to become a hell-of-a show if it wasn’t one already, for anyone back at the security center.

Firestorm, a minor alteration to the fireballs produced by the archsorc staff, a non-spelliform heat rune, and a fire runic knife bring into existence a conflagration piloted and controlled by FFS and guided by Zorro’s influence. As they’re revving up, I loose a long exhalation of lightning-breath and fire-breath. Here comes force the likes of which would neutralize nearly any threat in such an enclosed space. The light provided by FFS, Zorro, and my breath weapons brings bursts of color into my otherwise darkened, gray vision. The colors silhouette jagged edges of stone, brightly reflected in the off-white, blueish mountain of ice I’d conjured.

How the hell am I expecting myself to survive this unscathed? Well, maybe not unscathed. I’m donning an adamantite body, while coating that one in a stony body. Simultaneously I’m using my Space skill in order to shift a small pocket in the side wall for myself, as well as enhance my miniature bunker with layer after layer of enhanced-density stonework. The chain of reactions is sudden, and violent. The glacier immediately vaporizes into steam. My lightning bounces around, helping electrolyze a bit more moisture, providing plenty of fuel for the mountainous explosion as the steam instantly superheats.

Turning my gaze sideways, while shielding my eyes and face, barely keeps me from being blinded by the blast. The sound that sunders a mountain simultaneously sunders my mind, or at least my skull. I might be slightly hyperbolic, but the exaggeration isn’t exceedingly grand. The explosion itself is a roaring beast unleashed, and the shifting of ancient stone is the groan of titans. Above both of them? The ringing in my head.

I try my best to focus on anything other than the scream of tinnitus that races about inside my cranium. Not that I succeed very well. The latest in the Reggie Shellcracker stupid schemes is in motion, as is about a third of a mountain that I’ve sheared off near Worldstorm level.

As the mountain and rockslide settle, I can feel it as untold tons of rock cascade into the valley below. I’ve changed the face of the world, again, only a day or so since sinking Stormspire peak or whatever Al’pa’ca’s domain was called. As the dust settles, there’s a bitter, metallic, sharp taste in my mouth. Despite the tremor of the landslide slowly beginning to end, I’m left with one in my hands, and a simulation of one in the rapid beating of my heart. I pray that this landslide, and resultant earthquake leave enough rubble blocking the path into the valley shortcut towards Mah’ruke. Wouldn’t that be a kick in the pants? Going through all this mess only to end up leaving a slight annoyance in Terrorzin’s path that his forces simply march over or around.

Probably shoulda thunk of that earlier Reggie. Yeah yeah, I know. Buzz off. Ugh, I swear I see stars and little birds circling my head like some sort of cartoon. Seriously, I can almost make out the sounds of incessant pigeon cooing from right-next to my face. Pressure built around me is an invisible hand shoving against every inch of my body in an overwhelming, suffocating wall of force. It’s as if the air itself solidified and closed in on me in irritation, annoyance at my audacity. Rattling my skull, I wait for my minor earthquake to end before dislodging myself from rubble. Oh I understand why my brain’s so rattled. I mean, other than the explosion, obviously.

I’m incapable of digging myself out of the rubble, lest I’d like to swim through the Worldstorm to get to safety. I mean, I knew I had to do this, and did it on purpose, but I kinda forgot in the chaos of it actually happening. If I was any lower, even if I’d have succeeded at blasting the top off the mountain—which would have been exponentially harder the lower I went—I’d have just created a new trail on which Terrorzin’s forces could march after a short climb. It’s not like they have to worry about elevation. Between dragons, drakes, and so on, they can ascend anywhere beneath the Worldstorm, and certain places above it, through mountains with tunnels to an aerie above the storm.

Right, anyway, now that the shaking has stopped, I’m going to swim through the stone and exit this mountain back along the northern side of Terrorzin’s horde. I need to remember to suppress my Dragonforce while I make my escape through the stone. I suppose I must have accidentally left it on display in some form or another before I set up the blast. Thankfully, anyone that was pursuing me by tunneling up towards me seems to have been crushed in the resulting cave-ins and rock-slides caused by my actions. It’s a gruesome thought, one that brings me little solace, as I’m sure to attract more attention before my final flight.

For some reason, I find myself dismayed that I haven’t written more down during the course of this war. Especially as-of late. But why? What purpose would it serve for me to record our goings-on? If we live through this all, and defeat the apocalyptic forces plaguing Rayileklia, we’ll return to Can’Z’aas someday. When we do, we’ll be able to read our logs again.

If we don’t defeat the apocalyptic forces, it certainly won’t have mattered if I wrote anything down. Who’d maybe find a few fragments of parchment in the ashes some number of millennia in the future? What purpose would it serve at that point? Reggie, you’re distracting yourself for no reason. It was a passing thought, and poorly timed. Just let it go.

Right, alright. Get moving Reggie. Wait. What’s that? I can hear a mighty thrum, beats in a synchronized cadence. The beats echo off the newly reshaped valley walls. Far too many of them, far too synchronized. A shiver rolls down my spine when I realize the sounds are evenly spaced, and… criss-crossing? It’s like they’re weaving. Oh. Oh they are. They’re weaving a net with their flight and foot paths, a net intended to catch me. Gulping, my mind and heart both race in anticipation of the chase to come.