Mage Tank

Chapter 258: DRAGONS!!1

Ishi laid down fire on me like a battleship, lobbing massive AoE attacks from her bows, wand, and staff. I dodged the first volley with Shortcut, taking me the rest of the way towards the tunnel’s edge. I positioned myself so that my orbiting hammers began colliding with the wall, and all twenty crashed into it in a tight grouping.

Each hammer activated a shaped Oblivion Orb, which skewered the wall with a thirty-foot beam of spiraling eradication. I felt a force wrap around my body like an enormous hand trying to crush me in its grip, compressing my limbs and immobilizing me. Only my tentacles still had some room to move, like they stuck out of the bottom of a giant’s palm. I glanced at Ishi, whose wand shone with a brilliant light. She’d hit me with Telekinesis, and now she was trying to squeeze me into submission.

The Shielding she’d accrued over the last few seconds drained from around her, forming a tight column that flowed into one of her bows. I could feel the power charging, converting the energy of the defensive ability into raw force.

I opened a Closet portal against the wall, right where all twenty of my hammers had landed. There’d been two shapes on those Oblivion Orbs. The first had been the trusty Drill Beam. The second had been one we called Tube, and it let me sustain the spell. Rather than a focused beam that created a split second of deletion, the annihilating lances had stuck around.

It was expensive as shit to keep twenty sustained Oblivion Orbs in existence, but I still had a decent chunk of mana left. The resource went a lot farther when I wasn’t dumping half my pool into Explosion! as an opener. Still, it was 24 mana every second, which would drain me real quick. At the same time, it wouldn’t take long for this to bring things to an end.

The twenty beams created a strong draft as they sucked in air, sending it to Dread Star knows where, drilling into reality within a dark, unused portion of the Closet. I gave Ishi the briefest moment to understand what I was about to do, and I could see her head shift subtly between myself and the twenty-times death I had on tap. Her soul hesitated for an instant, then she fired her arrow.

All of this happened in less time than it took for Shortcut to end its one-second cooldown. The arrow cracked the air, traveling at a speed so quick it appeared more like a visible laser than a projectile. It shot through me at the same time I unloaded both of my wands at Ishi, hitting her with a double dose of Explosion! She teleported to avoid the attack, likely on instinct.

The moment that Ishi reappeared, I opened a second portal facing the twenty beams within the Closet, with the exit right beside her.

Ishi’s arrow didn’t have a spell imbued into it. She may have run out, or she may have been holding back for fear of killing me. Even without it, the arrow passed through my armor like it was an elegant chiffon coat, rather than Immutable Demon Bone. It shattered my sternum, detonated my heart, and tore through a couple of ribs for good measure on its way out.

HP: 1118 -> 617

Before I’d discover how much my heart really had been doing for me, my exit portal responded to Ishi’s shot through my heart with twenty unblockable Oblivion Orbs skewering through her entire torso.

To put that into perspective, if I was at full health and had to eat twenty of my own Oblivion Orbs without the defense Gracorvus gave me, I’m not sure I’d survive it. I really didn’t want Ishi to shuffle off her mortal coil, but I also wasn’t going to concede our duel because she was being stubborn. I’d given her enough time to understand what was about to happen, and she’d seemed confident that she could handle it. I’d let her deal with the fallout from that decision.

Ishi’s armor had to be Immutable like my breastplate because the beams lanced through it without leaving a mark. She interrupted the attack with a portal, sending the beams somewhere else, but her reaction was too slow. Those beams were now traveling from the tunnel to the Closet, through a second portal and back into the tunnel, and then through yet another portal and out into the tunnel again a hundred feet behind Ishi.

The princess sank a few feet as she dismissed her wand and clapped her hand across her chest. She released a pained growl that began as a sound that a human might make, then quickly grew deeper. Then it grew deeper still, until it shook the air as it echoed throughout the massive tunnel. I felt a presence bear down on me alongside the telekinetic hand, and if I’d had a heart to beat it would have been pounding out of my chest.

I had a wall of notifications reminding me of my immunities to both Bleeding and Fear, the crit reduction and organ redundancy from my Body of Theseus–which was 100% the only reason I was still alive–and how that evolution was also the only reason I wasn’t completely paralyzed from the entire body down.

Alongside all of that was an achievement for dealing more than 2,000 damage to a single entity with one attack. There was an asterisk by that one and some colorful commentary about how, yes, it still counted as a single attack despite being twenty attacks, since they all happened at the same time, and that I should stop asking questions when I got free shit.

My attention centered on that damage achievement. I’d hit Ishi with enough hurt to nearly kill me in one shot. Not only was she still alive, but by the look of her soul, she still wasn’t close to death. I didn’t think she could take a second volley from a literal score of Oblivion orbs, but I wasn’t exactly confident about that guess.

How much fucking health did she have?

Ishi’s growl turned into a roar, and her body began to grow. She exploded outward into a massive form, her face and neck elongating, muscle bulging along her thighs and shoulders. A long, sinewy tail sprouted from behind her, and her wings grew to be hundreds of feet across. It happened so fast I could barely make sense of it, but at the end, she was half the length of a football field from muzzle to tail tip.

Silver scales, jaws made for rending flesh, glimmering wings, razor-sharp talons, glorious horns, a majestic and powerful quadrupedal body, she was. A fucking. Dragon.

“Haaaaa!” I screamed, although it was only 58% as loud as it could have been, given the evisceration of my diaphragm. “I knew it!”

I tried to point at her, but couldn’t move my arms. I realized I was still bound from Telekinesis and cast Shortcut to free myself, then managed to thrust a finger at Ishi with a sluggish limb. “I fucking knew it!” I continued. “Eat a dick, Varrin! Get fucked, Xim!”

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The Silver Dragon’s growl went from one expressing her dissatisfaction with the world in general, to one that focused on me as the source of her rage. I held up my hands in a placating gesture.

“Wait, wait, wait,” I said, canceling my Oblivion Orbs and portals. “Hold on one second.” I reached for my inventory and pulled out a wide-brimmed cowboy hat. It was bright pink and lined in blue and violet feathers around the brim, which also had little wooden spurred boots I’d carved dangling from it. I removed my helm and fit the hat securely on my head “Whaddya think?” I asked, holding out my arms to either side. “Would you describe this as ‘silly’?”

The Dragon teleported–it was so fucking cool she could still do that–and appeared right in front of me. A taloned hand larger than my torso fired out in a blur and slammed me back into the wall. Ishi leaned in, her growl becoming a menacing rumble.

“If so,” I wheezed, “on a scale of one to ten, precisely how silly do you think it is?”

“Your impudence is astounding,” Ishi purred. Her jaws never moved, but her voice came both from within her throat and my own mind. It was a layered nightmare of her ‘normal’ voice and the deep, foreboding thunder one would expect from a creature of this size. “Is your sarcasm a ward against the reaper?”

“It was a genuine question,” I said, still struggling with the damage to my chest. The enormous Dragon’s hand pressing me deeper into the wall also didn’t help. It cracked and crumbled beneath the force. “And, not to be rude, but it would be an unfortunate beginning to the relationship between our factions if you were to slay me after I’d won our duel.”

“Won?” she asked. “Tell me, what distorted logic leads you to believe that you have found victory here?”

“Forgive me if this comes across as overly pedantic, Your Highness, but the regulations set out at the beginning of our bout forbade you from the use of ‘highly destructive’ transformations.” I had to take a deep, rattling breath before continuing. “I cannot imagine what else that rule was meant to proscribe, if not the form you have taken.”

“Such faith you have in my honor,” said Ishi. “But what power would enforce these rules, should I wish to break them? You would be a fool to rely on the nobility of your foes when death would be the outcome of your misplaced trust.”

“I figured someone would step in,” I said. “If not, then I would have no reason to continue treating you fairly.”

The Dragon’s head tilted, puzzling out what I meant by that, but I saved her the trouble of guessing.

I opened two more Closet portals, the largest I’d ever made. The first revealed Nottagator, flat teeth bared in a twisted grin as blue ichor dripped between them. Atop her stood Joma, fur glinting with a metallic sheen. A horde of Abyssal Gekkogs crowded Nottagator’s feet, tails raised and poised to open fire.

In the second, Vaulty had a dozen barrels pointed at Ishi, spectral energy drifting lazily from the gathering power in each. Over him floated Grotto, his little man body decked out head-to-toe in a set of heavy plate armor that I’d never seen nor even knew the Core possessed. Two thick shields orbited his body. Flanking the duo were a pair of Grotto’s Etja golems, dressed in modified suits of Zng armor and bearing the weapons of fallen King’s Guard imposters.

There was a brief standoff, and Ishi’s grip on me tightened ever so slightly. Then a booming voice interrupted us.

“Enough!” said Ishi’s mother, Her Silver Majesty and Ruler of some social structure that I wasn’t quite clear on. Probably a horde of Dragons. No, a lounge of Dragons. She now floated a few feet from us, silver wings spread behind her. “You have lost, Ishi. Cease toying with the candidate and admit your defeat.”

Ishi bowed her head in deference towards her mother and released me. I caught myself and flew back to eye level with Ishi before falling far enough to risk my dignity.

The Princess turned and bowed her head in my direction as well. “I concede our duel, Master Esquire Arlo Xor’Drel Esquire.” She peeked up at me, and I swear she flashed me a draconic grin. “You may add Rival of Dragons to your list of titles, should you so wish.”

I gave the princess a flourishing aerial bow to match her head nod, my internals sloshing around as I did so. “A title worthy of being placed right at the beginning of the list.”

“Now, if you two are done amusing each other,” said Silver, raising an eyebrow at us, “we have business to attend.”

“I would be most honored, Your Majesty,” I said.

“Of course, mother,” said Ishi.

Silver gave us another appraising look, then we were back in the throne room.

I appeared next to Etja, Varrin, and Nuralie, who all looked around like they’d also suddenly found themselves in a different place. Varrin was shirtless and extremely sweaty for some reason. Etja had a cocktail in one hand, a rose in another, and a pair of daggers in the other two. I did a double-take at the unexpected weapons while she stumbled and caught herself with her gravity magic. It looked like she’d been sitting on something before being teleported.

Nuralie was wearing what appeared to be a HAZMAT suit and was covered in, just, so much gross shit. It was like she’d gone scuba diving in the guts of a beached whale that had died two weeks beforehand. The smell wasn’t much better.

We all eyed one another, then swiftly ignored each other’s odd appearances. Just another day in the office as a member of Fortune’s Folly.

“You guys good?” I asked.

“I did not get enough kidney samples,” said Nuralie. Pause. “At least, I think it was a kidney. I am fine, though.”

“I’m great!” said Etja, toasting me with her drink. “There’s really a club here, and everyone’s super nice! They kept giving me gifts and we played a whole bunch of different games. Plus, everybody’s secretly a magical beast, but don’t tell anybody because it’s a secret.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, looking at the knives she held.

Etja followed my eyes to her lower hands, then shrugged with her upper. “The rules for this one were complicated. I don’t think anyone expected me to remember them all, but I made sure no one lost more toes than they could afford to lose.”

Varrin started to speak, but I held up a hand. “Let me take a shot,” I said. He sighed and closed his mouth. “While we were being tested, you studied the blade.”

He pulled out a towel and started wiping down his powerful chest. “Among other skills, yes.”

I chuckled, then checked the room one more time. My search was interrupted by Her Silver Majesty. “Do you require healing, Master Xor’Drel?” she asked.

I checked my health. “Nothing an hour of rest won’t fix, Your Majesty.”

“Oh, that must hurt,” said Etja. Ishi was back in her human form, face no longer hidden behind a helm. I caught sight of her furrowing her brow at my claim. I gave her a wink. She crossed her arms in reply. I could tell she found it charming, though.

“The man has his heart blown out of his chest, hmmm,” said a voice like a monster truck mixed with Morgan Freeman. “And he says that an hour will fix it. Ha.”

I returned to my survey of the room, finding the speaker on the second throne, the elephant-sized figure with horns, haunches, and feathers. The first throne had a bonfire shaped like a man sitting on the massive seat, which was much too large for him. I realized the room was extraordinarily hot and preemptively pulled out a fire-resistant salve that Nuralie had made me. I began rubbing it into my beard to protect the goods. Ironically, it smelled a bit like smoke.

The third throne was empty, while the fourth had a woman made of shining aquamarine liquid perched on it. Her head sat heavily on one palm, leaning askance against the throne’s arm. She looked like the concept of ‘grumpy’ had taken on what it believed to be a humanoid form, but couldn’t be bothered to research what a person actually looked like.

The fifth throne was occupied by Ishi’s mother, Her Silver Majesty, who had void-black hair and skin pale enough to make a Hiwardian feel like they had a solid tan. She was the most human-looking of the bunch.

“It is an honor to meet you all, Your Majesties,” I said with a deep bow to the assembled Rulers. “I am happy to see that my allies are in good health as well. However, may I inquire as to where our fifth member, Xim, might be?”