PreCursive

  I was instantly buffeted by the sting all about me. Even though my exertions in the trol room had felt like hours, it had to have been only minutes. A, in that short amount of time that I spent struggling with the door, Tatsugan’s influence had turhe skies into a veritable hurrie. A great cye had formed in the heavens to encircle the ey of the caldera, and the rain fell heavy enough that I felt like I was uer. Winds howled so loudly that I feared my eardrums would burst from that alone, much less the thundering of the proto-Camity as it battled Shacklod his forces.

  (Was that even still true? Had Tatsugan asded, and sin his oppo? I had no way of knowing.)

  And so I was caught iorm. Before the face of it, I was little better than an ant before the goliath.

  My wings were caught by the wind, and I went into a death spiral.

  I was falling, I khat. I could feel myself tumbliically through the air, as I fell towards the innd sea below me. The world made no seo me whatsoever, and my senses were overwhelmed. The sensation, my c calmly noted, was not unlike If I had been dunked uer.

  But I couldn’t do anything about it. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t angle my wings to catto the wild, chaotids that raged all about me.

  Panic overtook me, for a moment, and I became vihat I was going to die. Any moment now, I would pluraight into the raging waters of the innd sea, aorn to shreds by the innumerable stone shards swirling within it. That was if the impact with the water didn’t instantly kill me, though. This caldera was huge, after all, and the ‘dock’ had been quite a distance above the waters.

  Shut the fuck up, core.

  I’d had an idea, pierg through my panic. If my wings were what was causing the problem…

  Then they had to go.

  I released my hold on Vis Maledicta Exactoris. Immediately, I was lighter, and my helpless spinning stopped. With the whirling of the world solved, I was able to see again, even if the speeding rain stung my wide-open eyes.

  What I saw was the looming, lurking form of the gargantuan mountain. Gorenzan dominated my sight lines, almost appearing to sneer down at me from the rocky crags and sharp spires of its face. I could easily imagisugan’s roost speaking to me from the storm.

  How dare you think you could brave my domain, fool, it said.

  I narrowed my eyes, as much against the wind and rain as it was against the half-mad taunt I was anthropomorphizing.

  We’ll see.

  Ba my normal, mostly human form, it was easy for me to fold my arms aogether. As I did so, my orientation ged in midair, and my view shifted from the imposing form of the mountain to the yawning, ing pit of water far below me. Plunging head first in that dire, I thought that I could just barely see the mostly regur shape of the barge, bobbing up and down ourbulent, crashing waves of the innd sea. It didn’t seem to have gone far from the point it must have touched down upon.

  My friends were waiting for me.

  I guess I couldn’t keep them waiting then.

  I closed my eyes momentarily in my fall if only to steady my nerves. Strangely…

  Strangely, it came easy to me. For once, I didn’t miss the artificially calming effect that my lost middle ring could grant. I could do this myself.

  So to speak.

  But I was going to have to time this right if I didn’t want to end up as a smear on the deck of the a barge. The timing would have to be precise, down to the st sed. I couldn’t risk reactivating my transformation early, or else the veritable sails of my wings might blow me off course. Then I would risk crashing into the waters to be blended.

  It had to be at the st possible moment, to break my fall.

  …actually, would the force of such a thioo muy body to handle? So muentum being drained away in an instant might just snap my wings right off of my body.

  My c brought up a good point, I aowledged, as I pluowards my possible death.

  I should reinforce myself, in that case.

  I waited.

  A particurly powerful gust of wind threateo blow me off course. I tensed my muscles to streamline my form even more, a blow over me.

  I waited.

  A strike of lightning pierced down through the heavens and into the innd sea close enough that I was able to see it skitter across the waters. My core sighed in relief that it wasn’t close enough to fry us instead.

  I waited…and then…

  The deed in my vision, the barely visible forms of my panions staring upwards, searg for something.

  Or someone.

  Now!

  I activated Vis Maledicta Exactoris and Might of the Wyrdwood simultaneously.

  This time, at thirty-five pert. My struggles holding the door told me I could hahirty if I put my mind to it. Why not try five more pert, if only to avoid being a smear on a pnk of a wood?

  Instantly, I exploded into my transformed state, and I fred my wings out as wide as I possibly could. They shuddered violently, feeling very much like they would be ripped right out of my back to be cast into the wind. But only for a moment.

  Because in the , ghostly crimson vines began to crawl all over my body in a strangely purposeful manner. Only my core had the observational capacity to notice what they were doing, while my outer self was busy fighting to keep us together in the face of the immense physical strain we were under.

  The vines were f into what looked to be armor. Still vague, still indistinct.

  But armor heless.

  My fall slowed from the terminal plu had been into a mere fast drop, instead. Angling my legs downwards, the instant my feet touched upon the wood of the barge, the eructure of the ship shook violently from the force of the impact. Out of the er of my eye, I watched as Renauld stumbled and nearly fell over, only to be steadied by Kazuma.

  Both of them were gaping at me in surprise.

  As I rose to my full height, releasing my hold on both of my active Skills as I did so, I noticed they were the only ones. Liora was merely shaking her head at me with a small smile on her face, while Azarus was rolling his eyes. Venix gave me a brief, aowledging nod from his point on the bow of the barge, before casting his eyes back upwards to try and catch a glimpse of the distant struggle with Tatsugan.

  Meanwhile, Bel had leaned over the wheel over the ship above my position and was grinning at me. “Bout time!” She called out, shouting to be heard over the storm. “We was about ta leave ye behind! We got pces ta be!”

  I huffed a ugh, rolling my shoulders exhaustedly. The eruggle to lower the barge and then the pluowards might have only taken perhaps…fifteen? Maybe twenty minutes?

  But it had felt like a lifetime. I retty damn exhausted after that.

  Time for a pick-me up.

  I fished around in my supply pack for what I was looking for with one hand, as I shrugged the opposite shoulder at her. “Five me, Captain!” I called back, retrieving a small vial with a butter-yellow potion in it. “I was deyed by a pack of ne’er do wells.”

  Bel rolled her eyes at me as I popped the cork and down the mild Energy potion. Instantly, I felt most of my exhaustion vanish. Which was good, but I was going to feel that ter. I knew I would. The burst of energy these potions granted didn’t e with zero cost.

  Oddly, Renauld shook off his shock at my abrupt entrand marched over to me with a frown. He seized me by the arm, and started dragging me over to the small beh the helm. I let him, sidering my nearly implicit trust in the Gnoll.

  Besides.

  It was o get back out of the rain, if only for a moment.

  Kazuma trailed in our wake silently.

  Onside the darkened interior of the wheel house, Renauld irritably flicked out a hand and cast a light spell. The small orb ht white light floated up he bare ceiling and brightened. Helpfully, Kazuma imitated him, casting his own, Cultivator Art version of the same thing. His was instead a bar of light that he held in his hand like a torch, holding it above Renauld as the Healer kneeled down in front of me and…held his hands out over my leg?

  I looked down and uood.

  Ah.

  That scrape I’d felt as I was fleeing the dockside bunker had been a bit more serious than I’d thought. The talons of one of the Wyrmkin had tht through both the armored, mystically enhanced silk of my pants and the scales of my transformation. In the near-perfect illumination of the room, I could in fact see the white of my own bone from a rge gash that Renauld was iing on my right leg.

  I hadn’t felt the wound at all with the adrenaline pumping through my veins from the fight and flight. Now that it was fading, though…

  I tensed, hissing through my teeth as I struggled to keep my hands off the leg. The pain was hitting me all at once, and it was not slight. I did not appreciate the twitg feeling in my leg as severed muscle strands tried to tract.

  There it was. That familiar longing for my middle ring.

  Hello, old friend.

  Renauld ignored my twitg, instead of visibly casting one of his Healing spells, a slight green glow starting to flow from his hands to my leg. This wasn’t my first time being healed, and I was sure it wasn’t going to be the st, but it was still cool to watch as my flesh knit itself back together before my eyes. It only took the Healer minutes for the grievous wound that would have taken months to years ba Earth to heal to close pletely. In its pce ey, bck-scaled scar spanning the length of my right shin diagonally. Even that was more of a symptom of Renauld’s haste, though. I k ossible to have scars erased by a Healer of suffit skill. I just hadn’t ever sought that service.

  Maybe I should, though. It might help to make me appear less inhuman.

  I shelved that observation from my core for ter sideration. For now, I gingerly stood up from the chair Renauld had shoved me int the treatment aed the leg. No paied me, so I my Gnollish friend. “Thanks man. I didn’t even notice.”

  Renauld just rolled his eyes at me. “Yeah, well. I did. Try and be more careful ime, Nate. I’ve only got so much fuel for the fire, and we don’t know what’s waiting for us at the mountain.”

  I ignored Kazuma as he nodded wisely at Renauld’s mild rebuke, but still took it in the spirit it was given. I khat he just said it because he cared.

  Together, the three of us exited the to find that everyone else had ventured up to join Bell at the helm. There, they were huddled around…the map that Masayoshi had given to me?

  I instinctively reached for my supply pouch where I had thought the map was, but I found it missing. Bel must have seen the movement as we walked up to join them, because her eyes flickered my way. She wi me slyly.

  I grinned back, relutly amused at her quick fingers, but focused instead on the map with the others. There, I found Venix trag a lih his finger from the representation of the caldera’s edge, before tapping a position in the sea portion. “Here,” He said roughly, barely audible over the thundering of Tatsugan’s rattle. It had never really stopped. “We are roughly here.”

  The position he had pointed out was at around the four o’clock position on the caldera, very close to the wall. Meanwhile, the marking for the imperable wall that the Kawamaran’s called the ‘Gate of the Underworld’ was o the eight o’clock location on the mountain.

  Somewhere on that imposing cliff face y the bunker I had e so far for.

  Bel studied the map for a moment longer, before looking up from it to study the sea around us. She made an L shape with her fingers and framed a portion of the mountain with it, and then nodded sharply. “Get on the oars, boys,” She said shortly. “Liora and I will raise the sails. Renauld, you go bang the drum. With all o’ that…I get us there in about thirty minutes, mebbe an hour I’m thinkin’.”

  I looked aska her, as Venix, Kazuma, and Azarus departed for the oars. A grinning Renauld walked up to the a hide drums and picked the stick bound to its side. “An hour? Does Shacklock have that long? e to think of it…why hasn’t he already, you know. Core Colpsed?”

  Kazuma stopped long enough to grimace at me in passing. “Pride,” He said dourly, just barely loud enough to be heard over the storm. “Shacklock wishes to test his limits against the Oblivion Wyrm, iwilight of his life. I was informed that he inteo fight the beast as long as possible, before initiating his pn. And then the sword, and my aor, will be lost.” At that, he walked away shaking his head to pick up an oar.

  I exged a look with Bel, whed at me before joining Liora at the rigging. I shrugged as well, before joining the others on deckside oars. Plunging mio the ing waters, I did my best to ighe soreness in my muscles as Venix set the pad Renauld banged on the drum.

  At least this wouldn’t take too long.

  Not sure how much more exertion I could take.