LSRO: Chapter 158 - At the Memory (Patreon)

So this one is 100% a cliffhanger

Just so you know

Also - damn this was fun to write

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Chapter 158

At the Memory

"Walked" might have been too generous a term. The massive stone golem shambled toward them, destroying the entrance hall in the process, or at least the entry arch, the ceiling around it, and the beginnings of all structural integrity. 

From what Quinn could see anyway.

The floor beneath it couldn't even be protected by the illusions cast over it. Each step dug into the floor, sending rocks and dust flying up, along with pieces of armor. This allowed Quinn to see that there were indeed Esposians operating the full body-sized armor inside. Or at least, she got to see the remnants of their bodies after they were squashed by the feet of the massive golem that seemed intent in its approach.

The golem took one very languid, massive punch at Nishpa, which the Fae easily dodged. But the hand went right through the floor. The golem almost overbalanced, but righted itself just in time. That's when Quinn realized that it was Adrito who was actually controlling the movements, which was probably why Latia was protecting him.

Malakai still fought the sword-mage, trying to break through the barrier and reach Adrito. But Latia was much stronger than Quinn had expected. Still, Malakai appeared to be holding his own quite well. Right now, with the size of that golem and the sheer destruction all around them, Quinn knew that the rest of them needed to focus on it.

So far, they'd mostly avoided injury, a few scrapes, a few bloody cuts, a lot of bruises. But this was far more dangerous than the guard navigated by Esposians who didn't quite get how to move with elongated limbs. The golem, while slow, moved erratically, and at that size... 

Chunks of floor flew and scattered like its own weaponry every time it stepped closer. 

Quinn studied it. Stone, what was the best thing to damage stone? She knew that she could hit it with a hammer and a pick and break into it that way, but this was protected by magic and she didn't have a large enough hammer on hand.

She could probably freeze it, but that wasn't going to penetrate the interior of the stone and thus wouldn't be able to break it apart when shattered. Even though it appeared sandstone like in appearance, that didn't make the stone immediately weak. 

They'd have to weaken it. She racked her brains even more, trying to come up with the best way to deal with the monstrosity in front of her. Finally, she decided to try soaking it first. It did have openings here and there, not to mention if it was similar to sandstone then it was definitely more porous.

She frowned as she watched the massive creature swing again. Nishpa's wind swords were cutting through it very gradually - sawing away at it was more accurate. Water, if water got into those pores and then she heated it, that should damage it and weaken it. She wasn't the best with fire magic, but water was her jam.

She scanned the creature, dodging here and there, even as she watched Aradie fire at it with her laser eyes and Geneva pelt it with whatever she did before. Then Nishpa would allow the winds to saw away at the exact same spot. She was attempting to remove one of its arms and her precision was actually terrifying.

Quinn was quite glad the Firionas Aunt was on their side.

On the other hand, Quinn needed to focus. She launched water at it in spears, tiny spears, so it would go in through any of the holes and suffuse the whole thing. The process was arduous. At first it barely felt like she was making headway, and time stilled in her mind as she worked the water with as much finesse as she could.

If she wanted to steam it out, the entire thing needed to be soaked.

As the water levels increased, it stumbled more, the soaked surfaces adding to its original weight. She then inserted fire and hoped to steam it out, breaking down the interior structure. It wasn't quite sandstone, but it was definitely not made out of rock. She wondered just what it was Adrito had made it out of.

Remembering how the city was built, she had the worst fears. It rumbled and roared and swung a fist again at Nishpa again. This time its speed was fueled by the controller's desperation and she didn't dodge quite well enough. It caught the fae's foot. The small Firionas yelped in surprise as she tumbled to the ground, momentarily stunned out of flight. Lynx dove in to pick her up and fetch her out.

Quinn wasn't sure if the Fae had her own healing spell, but she didn't have time to pay attention because now with all of the powers ripping into it, the golem seemed to have gained momentum. Perhaps it was a frantic speed that it now fought with, but it almost clipped Quinn and her hover ability barely yanked her out of the way in time.

She glanced back to see that Malakai and Latia were still locked in a head-to-head battle and Adrito was now on his knees, hands on the ground, muttering as the force field wavered ever so slightly. Quinn, her senses extended, could feel the power was still rushing into him, but she knew it wasn't his own.

And she wasn't entirely certain where he was pulling it from.

Naturally, as a magician, he probably had reserves stored somewhere, but even as she watched as the golem gathered itself for another attack, she didn't understand how this was all going down. Even as they'd wandered the streets, as they'd approached the palace, she'd been acutely aware that this was a trap -- even then she hadn't anticipated this.

Perhaps that's where experience came into play.

Aware that this city, this entire planet, was on the last vestiges of magic. The illusions were cast because it was easier than rebuilding, as well as less costly than rebuilding, energy and manner-wise. It felt to her as if the energy around them was barely enough to keep the islands afloat in the sky. 

Abject horror hit her when she realized the implications of her observations. But she didn't have time to dwell on those because it seemed the golem was ready to go another round.

What she wished for was a hammer she could bash it with, but none of them were adept in that weapon. Well, maybe Malakai could use it, but he was busy sparring with the silly cow who was protecting the idiot who'd summoned the golem in the first place.

She glanced at the shields covering them and then back at the golem and at Nishpa limping with Lynx by her side. She darted over to where they were narrowly avoiding another fist. She placed her fingers gently on Nishpa's ankle and exerted the heal that she'd only known how to use on herself.

It stood to reason that she could use it on others if she understood how to use it on herself. All she did was enable the blood vessels and muscles in the foot that she touched to rejuvenate themselves faster than they usually would. It'd still be weaker and require more healing, but it should enable Nishpa to move because right now they needed to.

That's when the golem suddenly sprouted spikes. 

They gleamed in the ever expanding light that poured in through the broken opening of the building - through the slowly crumbling ceiling. 

Obviously, Quinn's water barrage had been working, but that wasn't all. Not only did they gleam wet, but they appeared to be tiny javelins. And by tiny, she meant only in respect to how large the golem was. The spikes that began firing toward all of them were approximately a foot long and so very sharp.

The first one passed through Quinn's calf in its entirety before she even managed to scream.

The scream, when it came, tried to rip her throat raw. 

It seemed as though things had a penchant for impaling her legs. She exerted a healing spell on herself and could literally feel the interior of her leg knitting back together. She was only glad that it hadn't nicked the bone because that would have hurt ten times more, and been something she had no idea how to fix.

She was panting now, sweating ever so slightly with the exertion of healing. It wasn't nearly as magical as she'd first imagined. It took energy and effort directly from her in bucket loads to close a wound like that. She popped an energy ball into her mouth.

Now she was angry.

Looking up, she realized that Geneva hovered above her with a hand outstretched towards the golem, a thick shield protecting their group from the onslaught of the other spikes. But even as she watched, she noticed that Geneva began to perspire. Wordlessly, she handed the Furionas Fae one of her many rejuvenation treats and flashed her a smile.

"Thank you, Librarian." she panted out.

"Always, you know that," Quinn said. "So what do we do now?" she asked, starting to feel a little bit uncomfortable. It wasn't going nearly as well as she'd hoped.

"We've got this," Nishpa said. "It's a lot easier than I think you imagine. You're already weakening it internally. We just need to figure out a way to combust it as well as the man back there who lacks complete and utter intelligence."

Quinn laughed. "Yeah, he does a bit, doesn't he?"

And so it was they fought together. They coordinated their attacks. Both Quinn's water and Nishpa's wind. Lynx and Aradie worked on a series of lasers and what Quinn thought might be a type of explosive Lynx was throwing. Geneva concentrated on protecting them all, shielding from the inevitable spines that kept jettisoning from the massive creature.

Several of them broke through, but with their momentum slowed considerably, the wounds they left were mostly negligible. At least they were with healing at hand.

It swung and barely missed. The flooring jumped up more than several times, some of it cutting massive swaths into the person it hit. Quinn found herself healing more often than she'd anticipated, and kept an eye on her energy and mana levels. 

Luckily, Lynx could dodge completely by making himself momentarily incorporeal.

"Can you do that all the time?" Quinn asked.

"No," he said. "It's draining the energy I have that keeps me here. I can't afford to run out of energy while we're here." He bit out the words, most of his concentration going to dodging incoming attacks. 

"And you can't absorb it by eating either." Quinn mused for a second. Then a thought hit her. "So why don't you just stay back? We don't need to lose our manifestation right now, Lynx."

He looked positively wounded by the suggestion. "I'll stay back. I'll just..."

But Quinn had another thought as she yet again guided water spears inside the slowly growing holes of the golem. It seemed it couldn't replenish the material it was using to rain down spikes on them and was thus weakening itself rapidly. "Why don't you just transform into a bird and do what Aradie's doing?"

For a second he paused and looked at her, then morphed into an owl and followed Aradie into an aerial attack. Quinn sighed.

"Focus, Quinn. We need you. Can you heat it up?" Nishpa brought her back to the moment of the fight.

"I know a couple of small fire spells." Quinn answered dubiously. She wasn't as confident with fire as she'd had little chance to use it... but she couldn't help the feeling of excitement that ran through her when she thought about using it.

"Then do what you do best and adapt it for the current set of circumstances." Nishpa flashed her a smile, but even as she did, a shard of flying floor caused her to dodge out of the way hastily. It barely missed her, and that's when the Librarian noticed her allies were all pale and likely getting to the end of their energy reserves.

Or they were super worried.

This golem was a formidable creation. They were only lucky that the person piloting it wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed. If it had been someone like Kajaro? They'd all be dead.

Quinn frowned. That was a very sobering thought. But using fire? When she knew the bare minimum? She'd already been overheating. Her eyes had been very odd in the last few weeks. She didn't understand why.

"Fine," she said. "I'll just heat it up then."

The moment she said the words, it was like something clicked inside of her. Quinn wasn't sure what, but she held out a hand and simply said, "Burn."

She wasn't expecting it to do anything, especially since she'd used her home tongue, but after several seconds the golem glowed red like coals did when they were hot. As if it was being engulfed by flames from the inside out. But she'd made everything wet purely so steam could help ruin its structural integrity and make it easier to kill. She'd never intended to burn it from the inside out.

Water wasn't fuel, definitely not for a fire.

But the flames moved, jumping from one leg to another, almost like it was alive, gleefully devouring its prey.

The golem tried to jettison spikes, but they melted down each time it made an attempt - dripping down its torso and arms. 

A scream sounded behind them and Quinn turned to see Latia falling to a well-aimed sword strike from Malakai just as Adrito gripped his head and rolled on the ground in absolute agony. She could feel his pain from where she stood, emanating out in waves. But the shield was still there, wrapped tightly around the king or prime minister or whatever he was. Power rushed into it, replenishing it from an outside source.

The golem swayed from side to side and Quinn could practically see even more power flying toward it, trying to undo the damage her flames had done.

Clarity hit her, and the blue gold scales flared to life, coating her body in a protective shield that she instinctively knew nothing could penetrate. She held out a hand and made one motion from above her head to the ground. "Incinerate."

The flames shot up from the ground, from the inside of the golem through the holes its spikes had created. The creature let out a mournful groan. Pity shot through Quinn's heart at the memory of some of her golems back at the Library, and it only made her angrier at Adrito.

The power he pulled on rushed in even more as the golem began to fade, and Quinn felt a massive rumble underneath her feet through the hole that the golem made when it crashed into the throne hall. Out of the corner of her view, she could see one of the islands in the sky hurtling downwards, narrowly missing the island they were on.

Anger surged through her at the realization Adrito had pulled energy from the entire planet, the atmosphere, everything that helped his people survive. 

And the flames engulfing the golem turned white.

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RIGHT? RIIIIGGGGHHHHTTT???

Much love

KT