Applying Exotic Metaphysics (War, 17.2)

Thelen Kaarn and the rest of the Psijics stood before me. Under the purple light of the shield spell surrounding us, I could see the wizards outside, sustaining the spell… But that was all they could do. A shield spell this strong, I knew, would prevent most magicks from working through it.

Which was why Kaarn, and a handful of his minions had made the mistake of standing inside the dome. The three psijics were channeling their magicka into wards, esoteric ones. In another day, another age, I wouldn’t have understood them. But here… they’re the sort of wards used to lock away a prince’s influence. A god, in theory, would be restrained. I didn’t care about the emotion ward- It would stop me from manipulating their emotions, but I needed magic for that- and the other mage had that ward handled. The ward resembled silence magic, but it had been tweaked. Reoriented from the literal to the conceptual, honed in on my own essence- what passed for my animus. It was oriented specifically against me. But that was fine. It wasn’t as if I could use much magic without breaking my cover.

The real problem was the one with Impossibility. Ancano, High Elf and future Thalmor, stood in place, incanting. It was his ward, locking away my Shadow magic, that would stop most of my tricks.

In front of those three were three more wizards- and Kaarn himself, standing in the forefront. A staff in one hand, sword in the other.

One of the wizards pulsed, a suppressive spell wafting off of him, something that howled into your mind, ordering you to stop, to stay still, to lie down and die. The lizards behind me quailed… but I didn’t.

Kaarn raised his staff toward me, pointing the soulgem’s tip at me, and I moved.

A torrent of flame and heat washed over me as I skidded underneath it, shooting toward the wizards as fast as possible. I closed the distance, slammed an icebolt out of the way with an axe, and leapt.

Kaarn levitated into the way, crossing staff and sword in a protective stance- a momentary shield flickering around him.

Both of my feet slammed into it, feet skittering off of the shield. I kicked off of it, throwing myself even higher… and threw one of my axes over Thelen’s head.

Ancano slumped, the axe sprouting from his chest, his spell falling apart.

A sigil- the one preventing Impossibility- burst. My shadow magic was back.

My shadow wasn’t- it was still hiding with Shadowrend, sustaining the illusion.

But that didn’t mean I was alone.

The lizards couldn’t resist even the most basic illusion spell. They had no true will, no true soul. Not even the typical ‘white’ ones. They’d been designed to work as receptacles, as empty, hollow shells. Something the Hist could use, could turn into citizens with fragments of themselves.

But I was the queen of Lyg. My servants didn’t exist, not truly. They were hollow existences, shapeless and formless. Souls without mass, without power.

I was thrown back, pulses of magic and shockwaves shuddering against me and my one remaining axe, trying to corner me. The lizards, slumbering and still, barely moved, even when I slammed into the Alpha’s bulk. His eye opened, slightly, for a moment- then closed.

Lyg was indomitable. Impossibly strong-willed, determined not to let the collapse of everything- of the world- be all they were. The Centaurs were their warriors, their blacksmiths. It was the dragonlings- the zeph- that were their wizards. The Dreugh, their rulers, the wise.

They fought, to the end, against the cessation of the world itself.

It was by their work, and their word, that they opened the Gate to Tamriel- the thing hiding within the supposed Eye of Magnus.

And they were with me now. Lost and forgotten. Souls without mass, without power.

And surrounding me, shells without wills, nothing but animal logic and a longing for something they couldn’t understand.

There’s a flash of light. Not magicka. Not even shadow magic.

It felt like remembering.

The alpha’s eyes opened. Determined. Willful.

His shadow stood as he did. But his shadow had tall, broad shoulders, a human’s arms atop four powerful hooves.

Blue light entered their eyes. Their wills, crystalized, pulsing with the will of the gem in my brow.

Another lizard stood, his shadow’s wings stretching. A third, claws and tendrils reaching forward.

My Lyglings stood, shaking off the illusion spell as a matter of course.

Another blast of flame slammed into me- into my axe, washing around me, singing away my skin and clothes. The axe’s rust was starting to flake off, the handle old and breaking.

“Go,” I ordered. Kaarn raised his staff- and I threw my axe again. He parried it, battering it away-

Only for his eyes to widen as my lyglings charged.

The lizards outmassed and outweighed the wizards and Psijics by tons, and they moved as one, indomitable. Echoes of echoes, whispers of the warriors they’d once been.

I may have been less than a shadow, magically. Less than an echo. But I still had a body, and I still had my skills. Skills that had been honed. I shot forward, with them, the parried axe landing neatly in my hand again. I jumped twice- first landing on the Alpha’s head, his large bulk under my feet- and then again, when he boosted me forward, shoving me upwards and forwards with his head.

But I wasn’t jumping the way a person did.

I was jumping the way Kirat jumped.

It was like being the wind, for a moment. Gravity held in suspense, the world turning under me.

My feet landed casually on the edges of the dome. I hung over them, suspended in space for a moment.

Thelen’s sword flashed. A lygling stumbled back, a gash in its side. He followed through with a sweep of the Staff of Magnus, a torrent of magicka blowing the beast away- and the rest of the beasts, as well, a single archmage holding them all back

The other Psijics followed suit, blasting at my tribe with spellfire, ice and lightning. But they were too overgrown, their scales too thick to do more than harm them.

I couldn’t say if Mawaleel had known this would happen. But I couldn’t say she didn’t plan for it, either.

Then I came back down.

Thelen sensed danger, looking up just in time for my foot to slam down into Magnus’s Staff. He dropped his sword, grabbing it with both hands as I landed on the staff, talons clenching tight around it. What little magicka I could bear, surging into it, trying to contest his ownership over the artifact. Thelen Kaarn may have been old, but he was still a nord- and strong enough to hold the staff and my entire bodyweight at once. Struggling magically, trying to hold his ground.

“That weapon is ineffective,” I purred.

Then I kneed him in the face.

His nose broke, and his eyes rolled back into his head as he slumped.

The Psijics instantly changed targets.

All of them, magicka weaving through their hands, spells charging with power.

My tail coiled around the Staff of Magnus.

The staff struggled against me, for a moment- unwilling to be held by someone who hadn’t been chosen. But it didn’t struggle against me for long.

The magic ward would prevent me from casting… But a ward hadn’t been designed, and a mage hadn’t been born that could stop the Staff of Magnus from acting.

The staff landed in my hands. I held it forward, streams of energy erupting from the tip.

The magicka denatured itself, spells falling apart as the magicka was ripped out of them. The emotion ward, the magic ward. Their enchantments, buffing spells, self-reinforcing matrices. The maze of complex magical circuitry that wove itself around us, even the overpowered shield.

It all collapsed. It fell apart.

The Psijics- all of them still whole, still conscious, stared for a long moment.

They all knew what the Staff of Magnus could do. It was notable not in that it boosted the magicka reserves of its holder… But the fact that it protected its wielder. It was more of an antimagick tool than a magickal one.

They were all mages. Thelen Kaarn was the most magically powerful of them… and he was unconscious. Their skills were worthless, as long as I held the staff.

“This would not be the first time that the beasts of the Black Marsh dragged its prey to the bottom of the swamp,” I declared.

“You foul creature!” One of the Psijics called. He began weaving- something I ripped out of his hands with the Staff, casually. It felt kind of like taking a scissors when someone’s playing with a cat’s cradle. Probably just as polite, too.

Then, using the staff as a particularly spiky club, I slammed the staff’s head into his gut. He wheezed, falling to his knees. I pushed the surface of the glimmering orb against his nose. His eyes widened, one of the staff’s pokey bits an inch away from his eye.

“You’ve heard the stories. Wizard towers destroyed. The Entire Mythic Dawn, killed. If you idiots forgot, I duelled Mehrunes Dagon himself while you hid away. I could have slaughtered you in a second, if I was trying.”

I tossed the staff back onto Thelen Kaarn’s chest. Probably the only reason it let me use it at all- I wasn’t planning on keeping it, anyway. The Psijics tensed, and I could feel some of their animas roiling, preparing to cast on a moment’s notice.

“If you’ll notice,” I said. “I haven’t exactly slaughtered you all. I don’t have the time or patience to play nice, anymore.”

I started to walk past them. Through them. The Lyglings- my new tribe, their souls neatly in place, followed.

“If you get in my way, you will cease to be.” I said.

The Psijics didn’t respond. But they didn’t cast anything, either.