NOVEL NEXT B 3 C 30: The Paradox Problem
B 3 C 30: The Paradox Problem
I manage to convince Lil to gather the rest of the Nagas into the molten section of town to help the survivors of the attack. Also to get Lil to ask them to all join into a single party under Lil and Dehlia, for all of our safety and benefit, but also so that I can talk to them. I have to figure out who to ask for some kind of tracking spell.
The corner of the temple is rocked by an explosion, and the loud sound of a mass of shifting stone fills our ears. It’s followed by several more explosions from other corners of the town. Did Mat plant bombs to finish off anyone he missed?
Luni shakes her head and mutters, “Black Fangs.”
Oh, that’s ironic. They were planning a coup anyway. It’s a good thing we rallied the survivors in the molten, reshaped section of town, there are no explosion sounds coming from there. Wow, it’s almost as if, as if, huh. If Mat hadn’t attacked, all of the non Black Fangs Nagas might be dead. That’s, wow. My brain hurts to think about this. Is this why I still haven’t sent back future messages yet? Do I need Mat to continue performing atrocities that happen to put the right people in the right places? That’s so cold and ruthless. Should I just let Mat continue to run free? Is he playing into my future plans?
Luni telepathically whispers, “Stop guessing sweetie. You’re getting too close. It’s almost time, just not yet. Put that thought away please. I’m begging you, hero. Please?”
I frown and do as I’m bidden. I trust Luni more than any fact or being in the universe. If she told me the sum of a pair of twos is never four, I’d accept it. Okay, that might be stretching it a tiny bit.
Sighing, since I’m back to square one in terms of hunting down Mataalii, I ask Elder Sthenic about anyone that might know tracking magic. Barring that, I ask if he knows where a stash of magic items is in the city.
Elder Sthenic replies, “Come come now, isn’t it more important to rejoin one another in love, and rebuild what we have? One can never have too much joy in their lives, especially in a time of sadness. Surely even a lost brother’s atrocious acts can be momentarily forgotten, if not forgiven, to make the survivor’s peace and happiness a certainty. No?”
I grumble, “Look, you don’t know what you’re talking about. He, he’s going to end the world, he’s going to kill everyone. He basically already has. I just, ugh, it’s idiotic to even try to reason otherwise.”
Elder Sthenic jokingly replies, “Now, some might take offense to that, but not me, I’m good natured and high spirited.”
He’s infuriatingly cheery. I don’t know, maybe he’s right. I guess it doesn’t make sense to waste what time we have left hunting down Mat. I should spend it with my loved ones. Maybe I should JT all the way to the Lavaborn Alliance to at least share the news with everyone. I resolve that he’s right, I shouldn’t kill Mataalii.
I feel time itself rip asunder as I implode, warping inside out as I’m sucked through myself. Luni screams in pain and fear as she’s separated horizontally in several pieces. Lil inverts into their core, and even their core is marked with a scar caused by Gae Buidhe. Teuila finds herself impaled on Gae Buidhe as it appears out of her inventory against her will. Elder Sthenic just sits, nodding approvingly, smiling all the while, but he ages to dust and derezzes. Dehlia sits up, places her hands on the cooled stone that had melted into her collarbone, She struggles to remove it, but it re-ignites, she derezzes the moment it melts into her clavicle towards her heart.
I blink several times as I find myself finishing a sentence with, “It’s idiotic to even try to reason otherwise.”
I glance around, something is fishy, I could swear I just lived through this, but there’s no messages or logs. Elder Sthenic’s collection of uncategorizable books sits in organized piles, but one table is cleared off for Dehlia’s unconscious body. The ring of molten stone dug into her collarbone before I got a chance to freeze it, I don’t know how to safely remove it. I suppose I could try to carefully melt bits of it away.
Elder Sthenic jokingly replies to my mention of idiocy, “Now some might take offense to that, but not me,”
I interrupt, “Let me guess, because you’re good natured and high spirited?”
Elder Sthenic asks, “Well I surely am, how did you know?”
I’m not certain how to respond other than, “Lucky guess.”
He is good natured though. He doesn’t deserve the type of world that’s going to end soon because of Mat, but it’s too late. Even if Mataalii didn’t do it, someone or something would have woken the God Beast eventually. I thought Octorochi qualified as a God Beast so long ago, wow. How wrong was I? Yeah, it’s too late. First I’ll try to help Dehlia, not just for Lil, but because Dehlia and Dehlia both were integral to our life so far. They became a paragon of their society. After that, I should just enjoy my time with my family, what little I have left.
Every atom of my being explodes and shreds existence into a trillion trillion tiny universes that all branch out to one another, crisscross, expand, and then collapse. I witness billions of universes and timelines, times I’ve died along the journey to the now, times when I’ve lost people I care about, or who are important to the upcoming goal that I still don’t understand. I see a shining beacon, it seems to reach slightly further along the web than the rest. At its end I find TQ standing in empty space.
TQ shouts, somehow barely audible against a deafening silence that permeates the nothingness of this between-universes space, “Stop fighting fate! You’re going to rip the world asunder yourself!”
I blink several times as I find myself finishing a sentence with, “It’s idiotic to even try to reason otherwise.”
Elder Sthenic jokes, “Now some might take offense to that, but not me,”
I interrupt, “Let me guess, because you’re good natured and high spirited?”
Elder Sthenic queries, “Well I surely am, how did you know?”
I sneer, “I’m from the future.”
It’s finally time to hunt down Mataalii. I’m not sure what convinced me, especially when Elder Sthenic was trying to be so helpful and hopeful, but it’s definitely time. Hm, Dehlia looks pretty badly off though. I can spare a few seconds to help her. She and her brother are sweethearts of Lil’s after all. They had also become paragons in their society. Naga society might need them to continue on. If we can somehow turn around the end of the world.
I carefully begin melting stone away from her drop by drop. The ring of stone sunk into Dehlia’s collarbone, so I have to carefully siphon each droplet of molten stone away. I keep her scales, muscles, and organs chilled against the stone so that only it drips away as I superheat it.
I risk sending an exploratory spark coursing along her neck into her brain to sense its activity. It’s eerily quiet. Especially for someone with two souls. There’s almost no brain activity. The only things I can sense firing are automatic responses. The faintest flicker tells me their subconscious is active, somewhere buried deep. Parts of her brain are bruised. It’s weird to think about, a being that isn’t ‘of blood’ having bruises. I thought bruises were like, blood flowing to an area that’s damaged or something, or maybe blood under an area showing up as the vessels break, something like that.
Mat did this. Mat took another life precious to me, precious to Lil. I’m going to kill him. I might not have loved Dehlia in whatever way Lil was developing feelings for them, but I do love the people that join my extended family. Moreover, I love Lil and want their happiness almost as much as anything else that I might want in the entire world.
I gaze around, most of those that I hold the most dear are here. Lil, My-Heart. My oldest, original, and for the longest time, only friend. We’d been through so much together. I brought myself to near-death trying to prevent theirs. That action introduced us to Dehlia, Dehlia would be a new Octorochi by now if it weren’t for that crazy coincidence with a copy of Gae Buidhe that Mataalii somehow stole. Instead, here she lay, dormant, possibly forever. Similar to how Lil was stuck in their core when my attempts to save them failed. Mat was the cause of that whole mess. Including when Lil was somewhat corrupted. Lil was struck by a falling star because of where they had sullenly slunk off to sulk. How ridiculous of a coincidence is that? Wait, magnetic material that impacted at high speeds? The impact struck someone who had memories of Dehlia. Could that possibly help?
I draw the Starmetal Luckstone from my inventory and place it to Dehlia’s temple. I send more electric sparks probing into her mind. There’s the tiniest fraction of a percent more activity, but that activity is a trickle that grows. Even if it’s a miniscule amount, it grows by the moment. It might take weeks, months, years, but I think she’ll recover. I fashion a headband and weave it through Dehlia’s luxurious locks, the ones that aren’t burned away due to the lava that fell about her. The headband sheathes the Starmetal Luckstone against her head.
Everyone looks at me like I’m crazy. I huff and shake my head as I say, “Her brain activity is progressing now. It wasn’t before. I don’t know if it’s magic, electromagnetism, her own psychic talents leaching out the psychic energy stored in the stone, or what, but that stone conked Lil hard in the noggin a long time ago. Lil snapped out of a bad mental state. I figured, worth a shot, right? It seems to be working. But it’s too slow to know how long it will take. Weeks, months, years. I don’t know.”
The gathered look about at one another with a mix of excitement and solemnity. There’s hope, that’s the important thing. Somehow, things around me fall into place to give us hope. That’s probably all thanks to Luni’s incredible efforts. I was in the middle of thinking about each of my loved ones in turn. There is of course Luni, My-Anchor. This beautiful being, a soul whose strength is beyond measure, has fought time itself, and her own love for us. She’s done this all to make sure we don’t stray from some necessary path. I want to stare into her eyes and melt away, and forget the pain of this doomed world, but I can’t. I have to avenge the Nagas, I have to prevent Mataalii from killing more of our friends and loved ones.
There’s Lucky, Lao’s hunter hound, the lovable pup hated me at first, or seemed to. It’s like he wanted me to stay in an exact location at all times. Almost as if, huh. Almost as if he were afraid I was going to go away, like he would lose me. As if he’d somehow lost me once before. That’s, that’s crazy though, right? It must have just been Lao subconsciously wanting me to stick around, to prevent me from getting injured and adventuring dangerously. Surely. Right?
There’s Linti, I haven’t even come up with a nickname for my Lightning Hunter. She’s the first woman in my living timeline that I felt comfortable returning more intimate affection with. I didn’t think I’d ever share a kiss in that fashion. Let alone with someone who wasn’t already part of my inner circle. It was surprising, and it was only because of Fawn’s attempts at helping me relax that I was able to reciprocate. Otherwise I’d have been mortified and reacted more harshly. The confluence of events that led to us being together is beyond crazy. Those events also led to Linti joining the family, and slowly falling for the rest of my inner circle, most of them, well. The myriad actions that had to take place in sequence are seemingly incalculable. All the things that needed to fall into place just baffle me. There are all the times I had to have impressed her. Or times that I came up with ideas of combinations of powers to not kill her, while not seeming to hold back. The training we shared together which allowed us to surpass our limits. The fun we had while doing it. Was all that plotted by some future version of me?
Teuila, My-Wings, the one I love above all others, from deepest depths to highest heights. It may be because she’s the first woman I realized I could have strong feelings for, and that I nurtured them the longest. It could be because she tended to me when I was dying and near dead,as long as she did. It could be because she’s beautiful and strong and audacious and a complex individual whose depths she had left unexplored for the longest time, until she shared them with me. There are so many reasons that she holds the largest piece of my near-infinite heart.
Everyone except Luni seems to have taken Dehlia to a more comfortable location while I was lost in my reverie.
Luni huffs nearby. She telepathically sends angry vibes my way, “I hate this, I hate, hate, urgh, hate, hate th, hate. You. You’re just so, argh. Three times. Every time. But I promised.”
Stunned, I barely manage to reply, “You, you hate me?”
Luni frustratedly rants, “No! Yes! No, I don’t know, maybe a little. No. Ugh, just go on your stupid vengeance quest. It’s always you, always only you. Only you can do this hero, you, you alone have to make the choice and do the deed that you think is right. You can’t wait for a message from yourself in the future, if there are any, you have to ignore them. You are completely, and utterly alone in this. I’ll be leaving the family for a while, so I can’t anchor you or back up your choice. You have to live with the consequences. I have one thing to do while you’re out there. Whatever you do, don’t use that stupid spear.”
Luni stops responding to me, or any attempt I make. She stands sullenly next to me though, unmoving. Apparently waiting for me to leave.
Tears flood my eyes but I just stand there next to her. I suddenly have a thought, “Why did Mat have that bell?” I check my logs as I stand next to Luni. I’m searching for any excuse to be distracted, but I’m also hoping to absolve myself with some memory. To somehow buy her forgiveness in the past or future by finding any shred of memory that might aid me now. I feel time itself fracture. In one timeline, a future me tells me not to kill my own brother, but there are no logs here. I retreat into my own mindscape for quite some time, trying to make this decision. I know it has to be done. My-Anchor won’t give me a straight answer on the right path here. I play her last words to me over and over in my mind while I’m in my solo accelerated thinkspace.
“Only you can do this hero, you, you alone have to make the choice and do the deed that you think is right. You can’t wait for a message from yourself in the future, if there are any, you have to ignore them. You are completely, and utterly alone in this. I’ll be leaving the family for a while, so I can’t anchor you or back up your choice. You have to live with the consequences. I have one thing to do while you’re out there. Whatever you do, don’t use that stupid spear.”
Luni knew I was thinking of just waiting until the next time I saw Mat, and scratching him with Gae Buidhe. I’d have done that so that he’d derez on his own at some point, so that I wouldn’t have to bear it on my conscience as heavily.
The way she was talking to me cut so deeply. It hurt so much, all I’ve wanted to do ever since she shut herself off to me, when we last parted, was to mend the hurt between us. I was worried there was some hurt festering, but she seemed like she’d forgiven me. But now she doesn’t even want to talk to me anymore. Worse, she wants to leave the family. I, I can’t handle reality right now. I feel as if I’ll break down in endless tears and never do what needs to be done.
I falter, and I give in, retreating from reality. I weep for ages in an accelerated private thinkspace. When I come to, I’ve moved only slightly, and Luni is nowhere to be found.
Right, I need to buck up, or whatever the phrase is. It’s time to puzzle out how to stop Mat. I sniffle and rub my tears and snot away on my forearm. Mat’s got one of the danger wraps, so he’s hard to hit with anything from range, and I can’t get close to him without triggering a brain feedback loop. Wait, the danger wrap is why he teleports away every time I’m just about to unleash on him. Somehow he also gets feedback of my hostile intent, but I think even more specifically, the type of power I’m trying to call down on him.
I haven’t used lightning on him directly, and I definitely haven’t used breath on him directly. If I can breathe frost on him, I might be able to get close enough to jab him with lightning, or something.
For now, we have to find him. I think I have an idea on who can help me with that. I check my party interface, hoping he’s still alive. Good. Hang in there Szintoc. Things might look bleak, but I need you.
I seek out Szintoc in town, he’s using special variations on toxin magic to help soothe the aches of his fellow Nagas. That’s more versatile than I thought. I suppose anything is toxic in a large enough dosage. So he could make an anesthetic and then dilute it, like he’s doing. If he had managed to slam a thick wall of topical numbing anesthetic into me or Lil or both of us, I might have lost that match if I couldn’t feel my limbs. Or I’d have had to give away some of my powers that I was keeping in secret, by trying to score the goals with magic.
I kind of thought he was a bit of a lunkhead, he seemed so obsessed with the game, and he and Brastley were a little ruthless, but I guess the sport is just so important to him and others in Naga society. Any calling is important, and treated with respect. That’s what the whole chit system reinforces. Anyone can become the best in their field and be recognized. I bet if you develop a whole new field, you’re automatically its first master, and are bestowed a chit. Those marks of importance drive the innovation and passion of the society. A society that is now crumbling, in shambles, around me.
But Szintoc and Brastley surprised me more than just opening my eyes to their culture, they also surprised me by being tender, loving, strong men. They blubbered tearful compassionate goodbyes in a tight embrace. I don’t want to prey on Szintoc’s tenderness and compassion, but I also don’t want to leave him with fury, nor false hope. I don’t know the best way to approach this.
Heaving a sigh, I knock on a collapsed stone wall near where Szintoc is diluting more toxin that he’s producing from magic. He turns to see me, and even though I’m in my softskin form, recognition dawns on his face as a half-smile plays across his lips. He gives me a quick once-over, looking for wounds, then raises an eyebrow when he notices I’m unharmed.
I clear my throat, “I um, I couldn’t talk before when we weren’t in a party. I can talk and understand folk that are in my party. It’s, it’s a whole thing. Long story. Hi Szintoc. I’d like to beg you for a favor, but I also don’t want to interrupt you. What you’re doing seems important to the recovery effort. What I want to do is hateful, vengeful. I want to avenge the fallen and strike down the man responsible for this mess.”
Szintoc raises a fist to his chin as he ponders, “Strong feelings and strong words friend. After seeing your champion match, and what’s more, hearing what happened after it, I imagine you might possibly be able to do what you wish. How do I play into that?”
I respond, “I was trying to figure out a way to either track the bell, or whatever he took from the twins blessed by Quetzalcoatl. Or, barring that, tracking his aura. Do you have a way of contacting Brastley? Do any of the other Nagas still here specialize in wind? I can’t personally see aura trails, or auras at all. I was wondering if, if the wind could maybe somehow smell an aura trail, even if it leaves and picks up a ways away, when someone teleports. If someone could talk to the wind, they could tell me which direction that the aura trail reappears in, and I could take it from there.”
Szintoc’s lower jaw juts out and he chews his lower lip as he hems and haws, “Hm, I think I could possibly go a step further. It might hurt though. I’m not sure if it would be permanent, or if you’d sleep it off. I know you’re ‘of blood.’”
Szintoc pauses, so I prompt, “Please, go on?”
Szintoc says, “I could scar your eyes with a toxin that makes auras blindingly brilliant. You’d be able to pick them up from miles away, but, well, your vision would be difficult to sort out. Unlike someone with natural aura senses, yours would be constantly overwhelmed, and you couldn’t turn it down. The rest of us don’t always keep our aura vision at its highest levels, that would be silly, but you wouldn’t be able to adjust yours at all. It will be a constant state of hyper-aura-awareness until it wears off. If it wears off.”
I whistle appreciatively, “Phewwww, that, that might be exactly what I need. Is there any chance that you can bottle some of that toxin for me, in case it wears off?”
Szintoc frowns, “Only if you promise not to double up dosage. I don’t want to be responsible for blinding you. Brastley has mentioned how fond he is of your little pack, in what few messages he can manage the mana to send all the way back. He has been bonding with some human woman to help bridge the divide between the humans and the ‘rezzers.”
I question, “Rezzers?”
Szintoc answers, “Those that derezz, rather than being ‘of blood.’”
Oh, right, that makes sense. Although, I know there are some sort of critterkin that are also ‘of blood.’ Then there’s also the Fairies who are like humans, in that I can talk to them, but they also have the mental interfaces and aura and soul sight and all of that. I don’t know if all of the Fairies are ‘of blood’ or ‘rezzers, one or the other or a mix of both.
I chew on my own lip as I ponder how to answer truthfully. I might very well double up on the dosage if it gives me an edge in the fight against Mat. If I can maybe see where his aura will appear as he’s teleporting, with my lightning enhanced reflexes, I might be able to head him off. His teleportation might no longer be able to get him away at all, in fact, it might send him straight into my waiting grasp.
I express as best I’m able, “I don’t want to break your trust. I think I’m facing a foe where being blind to everything but the brilliance of aura is perfectly fine. I actually have practice being blind. There are a lot of things that have happened in my life, and I was blind for, hm, several months overall I think. I can prove it to you if you’d like, but I’m not sure either of us want to waste that kind of time.”
Szintoc frowns, but relents, “Alright, alright newbie champion. Actually, I guess it’s just champion now. I suppose I should show you a bit more respect, my apologies. I’ll fill a few vials. Just, don’t go getting yourself killed. A few of us look up to you, and this is a terrible mess. There were explosions a bit ago, we can use every last bit of hope and inspiration available.”
I rapidly transform via tethers up and down my evolutionary chain as I wave off the attempts to pay me more respect, “It’s, it’s okay. I’m just, I mean, look at this? Cherubic, tiny, the image of myself I have in my mind most of the time. This here? Draconic me, was almost entirely so I could talk to you guys. This one, tall, muscularly armed, femme? This one is to cuddle with my Lightning Hunter. But really, this small cherubic version. This is how I feel about myself. I’m not someone or something to look up to. I’m just some weird little creature stumbling through the dark, trying not to make too many mistakes.”
Szintoc laughs and interrupts, “Aren’t we all? Thank you, thank you for serpentizing yourself for me. It’s good to know our heroes and champions are people too. All the more reason to appreciate them while we have them. Here, take these with my blessing, and I wish you luck.”
I wince as Szintoc hints at calling me a hero, but I accept it as part of the term champions. I gratefully accept the toxin, and he shows me how to apply the first dosage, and how much to reapply if it wears off. He’s right, now I basically see only auras. Solid objects are still within my depth perception, but I can see how this might be used in combat to disorient an opponent who wasn’t used to being blind. I grin wickedly. This is exactly what I need. I gaze skyward for the last place I recall seeing Mataalii. Sure enough, there’s a nebulous swirl of blue and red and radiance. Radiance is corrupted, but it’s all over his watery soul. The red must be the additions from the Fire Biome, his lava powers and so on.
I resume draconic form and take to the skies. Sure enough, now that I know what to look for, I can see spots of his aura, and which are fresher. His teleportation radius isn’t that large after all, and it seems like after a bit of teleporting, he has to fly to recover mana. He can’t do more than say three of them without resting. Well, he may have a cap of three, unless he knows he’s being followed, and is trying to make me underestimate him. Let’s assume he always saves one or two teleportations worth of mana in case of getting blindsided. No reason to underestimate him.
Regardless, it seems he was last headed north. Perfect. Mataalii, you’re so dead. Still, I need to plan, plan with a contingency, and then throw all the plans out the window on first contact. Pretty much how I handle everything else, right?
I wonder if he’ll be able to dodge a sonic sphere on a collision course. I should make sure to enter the fight at full mana though. I have no idea what his current powers or limitations are.
My reflexes are over two percent faster than normal when being enhanced by internalized lightning now. My electrokinesis is steadily rising. Maybe I should take the easy flight after him, and continue to practice my electrokinesis and breath skills a bit more along the way.
He seems nimble, quick in the sky, but nowhere near as fast as say Valkyrie, Linti, or my top speed. I should be able to catch up just by doing my normal safe JT maxima.
I let myself fly a bit slower than I should. I’ve been practicing all the while, and we’re nearing the cliff’s edge that leads to Fire Biome. Mataalii is dead ahead. His aura trail has been gliding for a while without teleportation, so he’s likely full on mana as well. I wonder if he knows he’s being followed at this point.
I don’t know if he has some sort of base somewhere with creatures that are under his sway. If he has things like Vesuviform stashed somewhere, or worse, the roc or the phoenix, I should probably stop futzing around and take him out before he can reach them.
Alright, we’d better just take him out, we’re not allowed to use Gae Buidhe but a Valkyrie dagger to the heart should still do it. He blinked away as I thought about firing on him. He teleports, in a way where he seems to react to hostile intent by me specifically. I know that some items can sense hostile intent. Whether he has a power that mirrors that sense, or an item, I don’t know. He is wearing a cloak, but it isn’t doubling my vision of him. Let’s not give away just yet that we can see his aura.
I’m making a big showing of looking around, and honestly it’s good to do because he’s leaving splotches of aura all over the sky as he flits around. I’m already having trouble distinguishing which aura spot is more fresh. I’m not sure if that’s because I’m not used to the sense, or if the toxin is wearing off.
Alright, don’t think, just shoot. I fire towards Mataalii somewhat blindly, not consciously thinking about doing it. He barrel rolls to the right while tossing a glob of lava from nowhere leftwards behind him. The lava slows my Umbral Shot valkyrie dagger, letting him make a clean break without even getting close to scratching him.
Mataalii fires a spiky ball of lava towards me. I’m not sure if he thinks I'm an idiot, or what. I’m not going to cool it and just let it impale me. So, I dodge vertically, soaring upwards with JT propulsion magic. Mat closes the gap, to capitalize on danger wrap sensory overload. Ah, I can tell he’s trying to swing the spiky lava glob into my back while we both clutch our heads.
Thankfully, I’m currently a dragon. Or well, I’m draconic anyway. If he’s in range to overload my senses, he’s in range of my breath. I try to breathe fire towards Mat, he backs off momentarily, enough that I don’t have to keep clutching my head in pain.
The spiked lava ball closes within range for my danger wrap sense to warn me of it. I spin counterclockwise and freeze it as it passes me on a collision course with Mataalii. It loses its aerial velocity though and he doesn’t even need to dodge it.
My breath attack range isn’t quite enough to get close, and he seems to be able to handle the edges of our sensory overload better than me. I could risk unequipping my danger wrap to get closer. He’ll have the advantage over me. I try to picture myself jetting towards him with a dagger held out, and he teleports away again, but my aura vision is wearing off.
I glance about, heading the direction I’m fairly certain Mataalii is in. I feel the danger wrap overload, so I try to unequip my own wrap. Whew, less sensory overload, and my normal vision is mostly back. There’s a copy of gae buidhe that appears as if from nowhere, too close to my heart to block, parry, or dodge it, so my left hand comes up and shoves it away by the point. I receive a long gash up my palm and vertically along my wrist for my effort as I claim this copy of Gae Buidhe to my inventory. How did this rat have another copy? Grr, I’m sure there were a few that were left laying around near him at times. When they were unattended, he could have sent one or more into the future as they were despawning from transformation changes.
I remember when I first learned what this spear is. The very first night Teuila ever transformed into Valkyrie. Te guessed that one might be able to stop the endless wound if we cut the wound out, and let our weird regeneration handle rebuilding the larger wound, or lost limb. That’s also how we tried to save Lil. I don’t even hesitate as I use an Umbral Shot copy of a Valkyrie dagger to chop off my own left hand at the mid forearm. I seal the wound with a Frozen Frost Shielding spell centered on the stump. The buckler on my left arm barely stays on, because my frozen stump is slick in one of its harness loops. The other loop is secure, but now the shield wobbles as I try to maneuver it. It won’t be very useful like this.
Urgh, Mat capitalized on my distraction. There’s a massive pool of lava coming down. He knows it doesn’t really hamper me, it’s more of an annoyance as I cool it into a bowl. Breaking out I could do with physical violence, or claiming a section of it with inventory space magic. My aura senses wear off, that’s going to make wrapping up this fight difficult. I’m not sure where Mat is, so I’d better reapply the toxin to my eyes. I need to go with a double dose. I need every edge I can get.
I re-equip the danger wrap, not wanting to risk another spear incident. Now that I can see where Mat is, and also fluctuations in the air around us as aura begins to take shape from our will and movements, I’m certain I have him. I risk getting in sensory overload range, and exhale a massive blast of frost. Now I’ve managed to slow Mat down slightly, all I need is to deliver a decisive strike. Dangit, the active thought caused him to teleport away again.
I catch up after recovering. I can’t get close, I can’t land a ranged hit with US, or thermokinesis. Okay, let’s try to unequip the danger wrap again. Maybe if I shut my mind off and fight him with my FBF style, he might just slip up and take enough hits to slow down too much for the danger wrap to keep him safe. I know I’ve taken plenty of hits when I couldn’t react as fast as it wanted me to. As Mataalii reappears, we trade attacks with my Valkyrie longsword, and a blade he wields made of pure lava. I get disarmed due to the lava being able to simply flow around my sword like a liquid, then it twists sideways, spinning my sword out of my hand as the lava becomes dense as stone. I try to land SIPs. A right jab, he counters with his left palm full of lava. Another right jab, he pivots counterclockwise letting my arm swing past. I use flight to twist my momentum into a right hook, catching him along his left shoulder, freezing it slightly.
Mat lets out a soft “Tch” sound. I can’t vary my attacks too much since I’m currently missing a limb. But Mat grabs my face with his right hand and begins flooding conjured lava around my cranium. I grin, as I intentionally freeze water from my inventory where the lava is going to be, I conjure the thinnest Umbral Shot layer of stone around my face, and then hyper-ignite the water I’d frozen, causing a steam explosion that shreds Mat’s hand. While he’s reeling, I just need to stab once. Mat begins to teleport away, but I can see where it will be.
I JT to his teleportation arrival location with maximum velocity, breaking my own legs. I equip danger wraps to cause sensory overload while breathing lightning where Mat will be. Lightning only singes him, but inside the attack I hid several timebomb sparks that are working their way inside him. We’re both clutching our heads and plummeting out of the air because of how much closer we are than we had previously been when our danger wrap senses engaged each other.
I would try to claim his danger wrap, but I need him incapacitated so that he can’t figure a way out of the attack going off inside of him. I need to make sure he can’t teleport away somewhere to hide and recover.
There’s a beautiful vibrant azure aura on a fast approach from the south. Is that, but how? How is Luni here? Why is she here? She’s on a collision course, Luni no! Please, please open your mental wavelength! I’m begging you, please! Mat’s going to explode!