Applying Exotic Metaphysics (Revenge, 16.6)

Shadowrend-as-Akulakhan screeched, too-long arms with too many elbows stretching from my manifested shadow. The hist’s spells- cast by the dozen, every moment, ripped away at the flesh of my right arm- as I continued to push down with inexorable purpose. I could feel branches and roots cracking, even as the amber energy reinforced the ancient thing.

My other hand shot out- this time toward the Warspore.

Right Hand on Red.

Left Hand on Green.

It was like playing fucking Twister.

I grabbed the warspore with my open arm, and tugged- ripping it downward. It crashed against the Hist- and then blipped out of my hand, warping itself through reality- reappearing at my side.

One of the mewling, empty shells screeched, and they scampered around the floating vehicle, reorienting mounted weapons. Ancient ballista, enchanted cannons. Stolen dwemer crossbows, oversized falmer bows. All of them weapons that had been meant for ranged offense. Whatever they actually were, it didn’t matter.

All of them were wreathed in crystallized cyan energies. Impossibly sharp, impossibly angled.

Then, at once, in one moment, they let loose.

A volley roiled along one of Akulakhan’s elbows, sparks of null-sum energies erasing portions from existence.

Shadowrend- connected to my heart- howled in pain. It hurt a kind of pain it didn’t understand. It couldn’t. Shadowrend was a being of potentia- of potential possibilities. Something that could become anything because it was nothing.

But the Hist airship- the Warspore- carried weapons of Certainty. Backed by fate. Mathematical accuracy, crystal-clear and Perfect. A weapon that reached back into its own past- dragging itself into the present. A temporal, anti-paradox circlejerk of warfare. A perfect weapon… if it worked on Dragons, of course. It wouldn’t work against any of Akatosh’s spawn- a weapon that relied on him could never hurt him.

Unless they studied the Jill- Dove into their dreams, studied their psychology. Learned how to make the Dragon Unalive Itself.

All across my shadows- across my potentia- in all possibilities, the attack sliced through them, ripping holes in possibility.

Akulakhan’s left arm fell off at the elbow. I wasn’t starving for potentia- I’d been powering it with pure magicka- so I couldn’t make use of the loophole I had when fighting Dagon.

The hist’s weapons seemed custom-made to fuck me over.

Good thing that wasn’t the only trick up my sleeve.

“Sessalan,” I said. His form appeared- his creatia warping into the Battlespire under new rules, new laws. My new, reforged version of Wraithguard- my Fatebreaker- clenched more tightly around the gem that controlled the Battlespire.

And the song changed. I was forcing more and more magicka into the conjuration spell, almost more than the spell had been designed for.

Sessalan burst into existence. He was different. Beady black eyes opened all along his body. Barnacles clung to his skin like armor, ancient papers wrapped around his limbs- all covered in ink. Tendrils spilled from his face, like the Seekers of his kind.

A second pair of limbs stretched from his second set of shoulders. Two maomer oar-blades sat in his hands- also made of the same carapace, twisted and carved- bleeding black ink. Neither of them were ones I’d conjured for him, but what he’d brought with him- each one held in two hands. He was a daedric lord, now.

“Go,” I said- and he shoved himself into my shadow- through the thick, amorphous mass- and exploded out over Gideon, arms windmilling as he landed atop the Warspore. The empty, hollow pseudo-Argonians charged him.

There was a single swing from Sessalan- and an arcing spray of ink hissed through the air over the warspore, slicing through stalkstrum and flesh alike.

My arm still pressed down, hard, on the Hist. Its shield was cracking, shuddering, even as it continued to cast spells against me. Battering against me- its ancient stores of magicka against the energies I was gaining constantly and consistently from the Battlespire.

In another day, against a weaker me, it would have been a battle of attrition and endurance. And that was something I wasn’t sure I could win.

So instead, I cheated.

The orrery spun. The shiftgate roiled.

Akulakhan’s remaining arm reared back, and the Hist paused for a moment to reinforce it’s shield.

“YOU TOUCH WHAT YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND.” The Hist boomed- a memospore slamming into me like a weapon. “FEEBLY GRASPING AT-”

My fist slammed down-

Through a shiftgate that led to the inside of the Hist’s shield.

Branches cracked. Tendrils shattered. Bark crushed to dust, the ancient tree cracking under my grasp like a tumbleweed. The Hist’s transmission cut out- just turning into a wave of pain and agony. Pain it had long since forgotten.

“Tell your kin,” I responded- broadcasting it back through the same telepathic channel it had opened. “You’re a memory of a world that’s forgotten you. You’re nothing. You’re trash. Trying to find solidity and stability in this world is fruitless. Padomay will always fight you- and it is her I stand for.”

“WE JUST WISH FOR PEACE,” It howled. Magicka roiled through Akulakhan’s arm, all the way down to the palm, and I pushed heat- flame, and fire into it. The Hist began to burn..

“By murdering everything else? Nah, fam. That’s what we call a dick move.”

“MY KIN WILL BE READY FOR YOU, ROOT-BREAKER.”

“Yeah,” I responded. “That’s what I’m counting on.”

“THERE IS NO WINNING. WE ARE ALL KNOWING. WE WILL FIND YOUR SECRETS AND FLAY YOUR SOUL ALIVE.”

“Skill issue.” I responded- then let go of the spell I’d been channeling. The shiftgate closed, Akulakhan vanishing- leaving just my shadow wretch, hovering in the sky.

Giving me perfect view of the inside of the Hist’s shield exploding into flame and heat.

Below the city of Gideon, the Hist’s corpse- what was left of it- would burn for weeks.