-Tabitha Booth-
Activating the skill I spent two weeks grinding for with experience boosters, I watched as Vertrala swelled into his larger original form before my psyche-summon, Obera, appeared from behind me and fused with him into his Dreaming Mode: a fairy-esque dragon with colourful ribbons swirling around his limbs and replacing his wings. It was smaller than his normal Dreaming Mode and he couldn’t conjure up his usual mist shroud, but that was because my ‘Unlock Dreaming Mode’ was still only level 1 and the skill tree I developed to get to it didn’t have that many levels or skills to it.
“Now then! Let us see if your feeble time magic can withstand the slicing blows of Obera and the Dreaming Mode,” proclaimed Vertrala as he flicked forward his colourful ribbons with slicing motions. As the Glory Daze member threw up a spell shield between him and the dragon’s blow, Robby managed to sneak in a blow of his own that sent the enlightened robotics tumbling.
“Everything is holding all green, but I will refrain from trying to deploy Phantasm Kinesio Eyes,” commented Aiden from the back of my head as I maneuvered myself behind Vertrala. It was a real godsend from the Vox Phantasm to incorporate Aiden and my cake-eye-balls into Vertrala Incarnate with the synthesis racial feature, Phantasma Kinesio Eyes, but it also sucked that I could barely make use it here even with my power-links to Vertrala’s system slots.
“Of course this guy would have time-based healing,” scowled Robby, watching as Clockwork Witchwork darted away from him and Vertrala’s ribbon assault, even going as far as moving vertically on top of horizontally. Doing the best to track their movement so I couldn’t get hit by a stray rifle shot, I saw what he was talking about: there were magical diagrams with clock-based designs hovering over the Glory Daze member’s wounds and healing them. It doesn’t look as strong as Tynna’s though, I noted as another healing spell flew out of the Alihi’a’Poungian’s stalk of white bathtub lilies and mending a graze on Mita.
“You’d think that five on one would be easier than this, especially since we have a freaking dragon!” shouted Mita in frustration, kicking up sand as he ran away from a hail of oversized hour hands. He wasn’t wrong, this was getting really annoying now that Clockwork Witchwork was making use of the giant clockgears floating in the air to stay away from Mita’s axe.
“Ha, I see you plebeians can’t fly like me,” laughed the Glory Daze member from his platform, wildly firing off bullets and oversized hour hands. You aren’t even flying, you’re just messing with spatial distortions, I internally quipped in annoyance as I watched Robby jump from clockgear to clockgear in chase after Witchwork Clockwork. Seeing the chance to mess with the robotics assholes, I mentally commanded Vertrala to block off their escape routes with ribbon strikes.
Avoiding Robby’s vampyric claw, the Glory Daze member launched himself backwards only to be slapped and sliced by Vertrala’s ribbons. Before I could celebrate that, Witchwork Clockwork conjured up a trio of clockwork rifles and started taking aim at me, Tala, and Tynna.
“Oh fuck me,” I shouted in shock before diving for cover, feeling a bullet graze my shoulder and hit the side of my leg, leaving a bruise with my passive spell shield. This place was perfect for Witchwork Clockwork: flat sandy wastes with no actual dunes in sight and a bunch of floating clockwork to use as sniping platforms.
“Careful,” gasped Tynna, sending a healing spell my way as Tala weaved back and forth between rifle fire on her floating hoverboard. Leave it to my girlfriend to dodge all the attacks even with someone slowing her down while I still managed to get shot up. At least I can actually take a few shots these days, I half-reassured myself, kicking myself up from sandy ground to see Robby and Vertrala still harassing the Glory Daze member with the aid of Mita’s forbidden magic-infused gold.
“You petulant wasters of my time, it seems my hour hands and rifles are wasted on you!” screamed out Clockwork Witchwork as they blocked a claw swipe from Robby with their shield.
“You mean not working,” shot back the alt-rhi, parrying a rifle shot before suddenly creating some distance. “What the hell?!”
“I see you sensed my perfection!” Perfection? All I would see was a weird shimmer around the enlightened robotics’s simulated body now, and for some reason I was getting chilled. Why the hell am I getting weirded out now? The rifles and hour hands weren’t scaring me, so what is so scary about a shimmer?
“He’s revealing himself as a recursive mage,” explained Aiden quickly, tugging on the back of my mind to see how that something was interfering with Vertrala’s transformation and it wasn't just cause ‘Unlock Dreaming Mode’ was only level 1. “Not just that, an anachronistic lifeform race splicing together a blackzone manager and a recursive mage, some sort of contracted existence hybrid.”
“You’re kidding me?!” I telepathically shot back as I felt Vertrala recoil and fall out of his transformation while the air around Clockwork Witchwork started to shimmer even more. Did we seriously manage to piss him off enough that he is going a cliche stage 2 on us?
“This is not good,” muttered Tala, swooping down to my side as Robby bolted to group back up with Mita.
“Now, let me show you my true splendor!” laughed the Glory Daze member as the air around them started to warp and be coloured by mana.
“True splendor? Your lies are so painfully obvious that it makes my beautiful skin wilt in disgust,” quipped Vertrala as the mana and distorted air around Clockwork Witchwork started to vanish as such as it appeared, revealing his new distorted form: a ten or eleven foot tall seraphic figure with clock patterns criss-crossing its body, wings, and giant tail replacing its lower half.
“Please tell you can make Vertrala supersized again,” muttered Mita, clenching his axe as rifles and hour hands started to slide out of Clockwork Witchwork’s wings. A quick answer from Aiden told me that dreaming mode was no go, meaning I’d have to use adventuring mode: something I probably would have done anyway.
“Adventuring Mode, but… we’ll have one shot, unless you want me to try and risk a crap ton of cross-karmic retribution,” I replied, already readying myself.
“Gah, why did this guy have to have a second form?” shouted Robby in frustration as his giant vampyric claw writhed awkwardly.
“Enough talking! It is time to be rid of you,” interrupted the Glory Daze member, sending out a hail of rifle fire and oversized hour hands, forcing us to scatter. As Robert and Mita tried to move closer, Tala peeled off to the right with Tynna while I went right with Vertrala. I didn’t need anyone to tell that whatever this person was using, it was something on par with a Grand Magus-grade mandala.
As the Glory Daze member paused between volleys to reload, I took my chance to silently activate Adventuring Mode. Shining with mana, Vertrala began to fuse with me and started to swell in size again, this time becoming more humanoid with his two front arms looking like my dragon-themed prosthetic legacy. I could hear Clockwork Witchwork yell in shock but I couldn’t make out what it was as Vertrala started to barrel towards him.
“Take this you foul timekeeper,” roared Vertrala before releasing a huge scale-patterned dragon’s breath. Before the Glory Daze member could throw up a time dilation field to dodge the blow, Mita intercepted with some of his gold.
“The reserves are already dropping, be careful,” commented Aiden to me and Vertrala as the enlightened robotics screamed in pain.
“Yeah, we know, we know, strongest form and most intensive to use,” I replied with a sigh, already feeling the wear and tear on my adventuring mode legacy: the Hybrid System of Flowers wasn’t doing any favors. Watching as Clockwork Witchwork suddenly pulled out a chainsaw, Vertrala and I challenged mana in our claw and swatted away at it, leaving an opening for Robby to claw at him.
“You are really getting annoying,” shouted Robby as he brought his claw down onto one of Clockwork Witchwork’s wings, leaving glowing gouges from his stratum 3 multi-system slot’s anti-non-real body ability. Reeling from the sudden damage from both me and Vertrala and also the alt-rhi’s stratum 3 multi-system slot, Clockwork Witchwork’s face darted back and forth.
“This is not worth my time! You are not worth my time!” scowled the panicked transformed Glory Daze member, gliding back away from us and picking up speed.
“No wait! Stop running!”
“Seriously?” called out Mita from the ground as we all watched the giant seraphic Clockwork Witchwork disappear.
“Fucking shit. I pulled the trigger too early.”
“It seems so, as it seems that the liar is also a coward,” commented Vertrala as he and I started to unfuse, not wanting to strain ourselves anymore than we have to. I can’t believe that freak bolted that fast, I thought to myself as I realized the entire fight only took a few minutes, even with him going stage 2 on us out of nowhere.
“Still, gah! We let them get away and now we’re going to have to deal with them at the ascension event.”
“At least we found out that they had a trump card with that transformation,” pointed out Tynna as she and Tala landed next to us.
“Yeah, that would have been an absolute pain to learn about later,” I followed up, trying to piggyback off Tynna’s attempt of reassuring the others that this wasn’t a waste. I mean we knew that a bunch of the Glory Daze members had similar abilities because of Tymai’s connections with the Vraglixian Blossom Rebellion and gossip from Johari Voght, but we didn’t know the exact details. A race of anachronistic lifeform that is two different types of pinnacles of mages? Just where the hell did they find that?
I only started learning magic in detail outside of blackzone cuisine recently, but even I knew how dangerous anachronistic lifeforms could be from my magic 12 courses. Just trying to factor in the fact it also had the potency of two different types of pinnacles of mages built into it made my head hurt: the magic involved that had to be stupidly high tier, even if it was oldmark based.
“You think Johari might have some countermeasures for that?” asked Mita after making his way up onto the floating clockgear platforms with us.
“Honestly, I have no freaking clue,” sighed Robby, pinching his brow with his non-transformed hand. “The guy is a gossip, not a forbidden magic expert.”
“Then maybe Reagan?”
“Maybe, but I wouldn’t bet on it. Gah, this is so frustrating.”
“You’re telling us,” I interrupted the alt rhi, looking over to my girlfriend as she and Tynna muttered ideas to each other. Knowing Tala, she probably had some ideas and some people on the same level as Reagan and Johari she could reach out to. Maybe someone who is actually friends with Reagan or Johari...
“That is likely given all that goes on in Neo Hollo Oceania, but I don’t think there are powerful mages allied with the Vox Phantasm’s guild who could help us,” noted Aiden, reading my thoughts and shooting the idea down. “The only person likely is Rya Malu, and she is the type of person who would be supporting Glory Daze, not stopping them.”
“Oh yeah… that leader of that cult that kidnapped Tala… Let’s just hope they don’t show up again. I’m pretty sure that would give both Robert and Robby an aneurysm if another group showed up to attack us right now.”
