Chapter Text
They barely managed to catch her
She was so overwhelmed by the sensation of fresh air on her skin that she almost blindly wandered into the chaos. Xotchtil had to grab her by the arm and pull her back, and she obstinately tried to wiggle out of their grasp. They had to press the image of flashing steel into her mind before she finally, begrudgingly, cooperated. They pulled her back behind the doorjamb and fortunately hadn’t attracted any real attention.
I’m not going to stop you. Just…wait.
She was vibrating with barely contained excitement, but to her credit she did listen. She didn’t even want to hurt anyone in particular, but she hadn’t felt this much air in a long, long time. ‘I don’t like to do anything–I just do.’ She didn’t want to murder everyone in the courtyard with an electrical discharge, but it was going to happen.
Rhea brought up the rear, at least appearing to have calmed herself. She did seem unimpressed with their martial talents so far, but in her defense, she was right. Fortunately, direct combat wasn’t their plan anyway.
I think the whole courtyard is going to be affected. You should get your people out.
Rhea considered that advice. “I doubt I could make myself heard, and if I did, everyone would know, not just my people. Can you figure out which ones are ours and tell them to get out with your…?” she gestured vaguely at their face.
Again, few combatants in the courtyard had the presence of mind to keep them out, and it was relatively easy to determine sides on cursory examination. The sensation of defending one’s home was rather distinct from attacking someone else’s. They remembered the dwarves. Their home was already under siege when they were unceremoniously dragged up into the world.
The problem is getting them to obey. They don’t know me. Many of them won’t even like the feel of me.
They were arguably better than average at compelling one creature at a time. Many at a time was both difficult and carried a risk of catastrophic failure if the crowd dynamic shifted.
“Can you use my voice?”
That’s not how– but this wasn’t the time for that conversation. –I’ll try.
The first few recoiled, as expected. Not from the command itself, but from the sensation of something unfamiliar pressing against the edges of their thoughts. It took a few tries to capture Rhea’s cadence and, more importantly, her presence in a way that would overpower that. It would have been easier if she’d allowed more access to her own mind, but again, not the time.
They managed to create something resembling a tactical retreat at first. One guard dragged another back. A group backed toward an exit while looking over their shoulders. A wounded defender got pulled rather than abandoned.
Meanwhile, their sylph had slipped around just inside the courtyard and was tearing the air apart from the ground to the impossibly high ceiling of the cavern. It was almost like it was tearing apart two halves of a layered fabric…almost. It had braced itself in a stable pocket of air and gripped one half of the air in one hand and one half of the air in the other, steadily ripping them away from each other.
Not even the air–the energy inside the air. It was like a bit of stretchy sinew. The little elemental pulled and pulled on two intertwined bits of the universe, feeling the individual strands trying to snap back together. That was the intention. It was going to hold them apart for just a second, then let them snap back on anyone left in the cavern.
They watched the unlit torches, wall spikes, and the tips of banner posts begin to glow with the tension their little elemental was creating. It was odd getting to observe its elemental force without being the target for once.
The allies that had enough will to resist their influence began to feel the change in the air and started retreating, but so did the aggressors. The situation had shifted beyond strategic withdrawal. Xotchtil gave up on the careful retreat command and just started telling Rhea’s people to run.
A tipping point was reached. It was a combination of factors. It was the amount of allies that had gotten clear, plus how severe the situation was, plus how long their little sylph could hold the air apart, plus something in Rhea’s gut?
It’s time. Let go.
They thought they’d be clear of the blast, and the truth of it was that they were. They were clear of the main effect …and yet, there was no sense that was left undisturbed even being on the periphery. For what felt like several seconds, the world went white and the sound was so overwhelming it almost sounded like silence at first. They were actually worried they’d been permanently deafened until the screams managed to fade in around the ringing sound.
They hadn’t expected the scent of burning overwhelming their smell, or the tingling and tension that ripped through every muscle in their body. They didn’t expect the tang of metal at the tip of every tentacle as they tensed so hard to their face they screamed in pain. They didn’t expect to feel their own fingernails dig into their palms and the pain that had ripped through their arching back. It took every bit of willpower and physical strength they had just to stay standing.
The sylph was dazed, but it appeared to be more from the effort than the backlash, which they supposed made sense. This was literally her element. They glanced over toward Rhea, who did appear to be in significant discomfort. Compared to their shock, however, the resolve that remained on her face was startling.
The overall effect seemed to have netted positive, but not by much. By the psychic impressions of who made it out, a good measure of Rhea’s had escaped compared to the enemy. Still, it wasn’t a complete division; the electrical storm hadn’t been particularly selective about who in the area was hit. Those that did escape or survive had artifacts to their hearing and vision and numbness and pain throughout their bodies. They had managed to change the pure numbers in Rhea’s favor, but the combat that continued had become significantly more chaotic.
Rhea took the opportunity to break off along the border of the slightly emptier courtyard. They heard some kind of horn and drum combo in the distance. Again, the sylph moved for the open air, and Xotchtil nearly had to restrain her. Neither of them had Rhea’s agility or any other skill that would have gotten them across or around the border of the courtyard safely. They managed to pull her into a side room. She was tired, but not depleted.
Xotchtil was able to make do with a combination of the skill they’d absorbed and clumsily stunning the opponents psychically. The few moments each spent stunned was enough for the sword to find a throat or other vein. It wasn’t until one of them managed to sneak up on them that a problem occurred.
The drow managed to get ahold of one of its long tentacles. It wrapped it around their hand twice and went to slice it off. She felt its heart jolt and experienced an utterly surreal image of herself sinking her teeth into one of her–no, its–tentacles.
She pulled herself upright from the wall she’d braced herself on and jumped at its attacker, prickling with electricity. The drow’s hand jerked, and instead of slicing it off neatly, the blade curved up and ran lengthwise, slicing it in half up to about a quarter of the way up.
She finished off the drow while it stood frozen in shock. Xotchtil’s vision blurred together the two images of the past and present and it shoved her to the side as its mind reeled. The flash of memory had been a worst-case scenario, and yet somehow the present moment had still managed to outdo it. The halves of the appendage slipped around each other in its hands, quickly coating everything in thick, nearly black blood. in the outpouring She felt terror from it at an emotional depth she hadn’t realized those things even had.
Then the pain set in, and it hit the ground screaming. It had only done this to her once, when she’d inflicted a similar injury, but they were far from the only illithid to do it. That kept her on her feet longer than anyone in the room, but her vision still began narrowing to black as everyone else hit the floor.
All she could think was that she had only just found the air again, and she was already–