Things have calmed down a bit at the castle by the time Tasha arrives. The two dragons haven't moved, and since Gwyndrael's not there Sasha is probably still rescuing Mressa. "Laundry day is over," Wormwood notes. "Time to get to work. Sharon is due for her lessons as well."
"Ready, willing, able," Tasha reports, offering a mostly hearted salute before dropping her hands behind her back. "To explain what I know, I read the Book of Life, composed of the Book of Destruction and the Book of Creation, Red books, I found in a very shady and probably hyperdimensionally, deity or demon sponsored, space. Also, something in the book said I had potential, but I followed a different path than what they suggested and I haven't heard from them since."
"What path had they suggested?" Wormwood asks.
"Talking with Gabriel and the others and learning how they control themselves and their strengths," Tasha explains. She then reaches to pat something invisible on her shoulder. "Instead I killed a dragon and ate it's heart. Now the leftover spirit gives me advice, which is mostly set things on fire, throw my weight around, enjoy treasure, and bang dragons."
"I didn't recommend banging dragons," Redfang argues to Tasha.
"Ah, the classic dragon virtues," Wormwood says. "How has setting things on fire been working out?"
"Yes you did," Tasha counters.. nothing, apparently. "Don't tell me you forgot. Or was that just a side-effort?" She looks about to say more, but then Wormwood poses his question. Her tail wags, which is an immediate give away. "I really like it. I wasn't sure magic would ever work for me, but fire is so.. fundamental? To my being? That it comes naturally. Like an extension of myself. I was the Herald of a fire god what feels like a long time ago, Abaddon, God of Smiths, and it's one of the foundations that changed my life. The events surrounding it, finding Gabriel, and so on. Plus, blowing things up never gets old, and it's flashy."
"Well, let us away to the training ground then," Wormwood says, rising to his legs and spreading his wings.
"Yes, let us," Tasha says with an excessive air of formality, copying Wormwood's accent. She also spreads her wings, ready to follow him in to the sky.
The training ground is far, just a sort of gash in the mountainside behind the keep. It's far enough from the forest to avoid causing a forest fire. "This is a safe place to let loose," Wormword says. "So I'd like you do that. Show me a full-power flame."
"The full power of the flame tends to come with the full power of me falling over," Tasha warns, but she does step out in to the clearing, taking the time to stretch. "I don't have the enormous well of magical power that you do, because I'm small, but I seem to have the capacity to shape and develop my fire -- and in far excess of my energy reserves. Well, here we go then."
Tasha's aura immediately erupts, the languid deep-to-moderate red that looks somewhere between roiling blood and liquid fire, which quickly brightens until she seems to surrounded in a cloud experiencing solar arcs. Holding out her hand, a pinprick, a marble, ball, orb manifests before her hand hovering before the palm as she reaches forward. She braces that hand, her right, with her left as the sphere grows ever larger, the arcs of prominence around her aura pulled to the draw of the sphere before she lets loose, causing her to recoil slightly as the incandescent sphere hurtles forward at alarming speed, streaking across the grass to strike the mountain in a blinding flash of light and a deafening, bomb-like roar that carries with it the rush of wind and small debris. What's left is a large smoking crater; rocks and materials continue to fall for some time. The explosion, visible above the building line and likely visible for miles.
And then Tasha falls on to her hands and knees, heaving. She gives a shaky thumbs up. Mission accomplished.
"You need to brace yourself better and reduce launch time," Wormwood critiques. "You don't have the mass of a dragon, so you have to consider what the recoil could do to you. Hmmm. Do you have any abilities to help with the recoil?" he asks.
Tasha flops to the ground, then rolls over. Easier to talk like this. "I can use.. " Deep breath, exhale. "I can use kinetics. The power given to me by Tia. I normally use it to offset things like this, but it takes from that energy reserve, and I don't like using too much form my resource pools at once. Although, it is a lot bigger now. So, more bracing, but also do it faster?"
"Perhaps try a different method. Instead of a plasma ball, a gout of flame?" the dragon suggests. "It is easier to direct and lasts longer."
Tasha pushes herself up. She reaches in to her coat and pulls out a bar from what appears to be two interior pockets stuffed full of them. This bar, it's label declaring it a 'Ultra Galaxy Bar' and 'Ultra High Calorie Survival!' in bold text on shiny silver foil has an alarming calorie listing, intended to be eaten over a long period. Tasha just bites one in half and gnashes the thing down like she's trying to power through eating a stick. Once that's done she shakes herself out turns back to the mountain.
Taking a deep, deep breath, Tasha spreads her wings, arches forward, and engulfs the landscape in a seething morass of flame spewed from her very jaws. It is, by far, the most overtly draconic showing of cardiodraconic diet. The grass stands no chance, nor does anything else that's flammable, rapidly reduced to smoldering destruction.
Once again Tasha can't quite stand straight, this time lowering herself more gently. "Whew," she goes, her mouth steaming, drool burning off in a pan's crackle.
"Were you able to keep your eyes open for that?" Wormwood asks. "Honestly, I expected you to use your hand, since it's entirely magical for you. What other power sources do you have to draw upon so that you aren't left so spent?"
"I was but I couldn't see anything," Tasha admits, pushing herself up again. Those bars must be something because she doesn't take another bite, at least not yet. "Besides using my hand just feels less.. Well, magical. I suppose I shouldn't get too used to being dramatic about my magic use, or it could bite me on the tail." She does look a bit disappointed about the lack of showmanship, however, ears dipping just so. "Uhh, others. I can manifest objects, like this gun!"
A gun, specifically a Vartan-style large caliber revolver, pops in to her hand like it just decided to exist suddenly. She demonstrates it's functionality by firing shots across the landscape until the cylinder is empty, then proceeds to make a show of putting it in her mouth. the illusion of eating it is reduced somewhat by it just ceasing to be rather than getting swallowed, however.
"Convenient, but I didn't sense any magic," Wormwood says. He then points at a boulder, and a nearly invisible beam of energy from the tip of his talon slices it in half. "Sometimes you don't want flashy, especially if you don't want to draw attention. Flame is heat, and heat can be focused, which also amplifies it."
Tasha looks highly interested in this beam of understated destruction. She's also really glad she didn't have to fight Wormwood. "That does make a lot of sense. I know it can also be used to trigger secondary effects, such as using fuels, compressing heat to a point such as in a fusion reactor, or using it to power some contrivance like a hot air balloon. It could be used to replace an ignition system in a gun or vehicle."
"The value of magic is that you don't need a weapon or vehicle," the dragon points out. "Now, try what I just did. You don't need to use your finger, but I find it helps in aiming at first."
Tasha does use her finger, rather, a finger gun. She braces one hand with the other to steady her aim and thus steady her focus, then she tries manifesting the same power and collapsing her auric energy in to a tight beam, which flashes with a crack like a high powered laser as it disrupts the air between her hand and the rock. Where the beam strikes, a hole is rapidly cut.
"Much better," Wormwood says, nodding. "How was the accuracy?"
"About where I aimed, it helps to use firing techniques I already know, or else I have to maintain my focus and my will in aiming the beam which could be a problem if I become distracted. I might turn the beam where I'm focusing, or worse, fear aiming it at someone and thereby do it. So treating it like a gun or motion keeps my mind on the right track by imposing physical -- and more importantly -- a mental framework," Tasha answers and explains. She 'sheathes' her hand, then grins. "Maybe with time I'll be able to do it without the tricks."
"I'd like you to practice firing streams of flame from your palms," Wormwood requests. "Both palms at once. That gives the ability to cover two arcs at once, which is useful if you are surrounded. I'm sure the guardians and military of your time are used to facing weapons, but fire elicits a more primal reaction."
"Well a lot of the guardians of my time wear suits made of thermally insulating metals and robotics." Tasha steps forward, spreading her hands, feeling her aura. She brings the power together, then bisects it along her center, channeling the power outward along her arms and beyond her hands where it bursts in a jet-like flame before simmering down to merely a scorching spray of incinerating death. As she guides the flame around, she yells, because she has to yell over the noise, "BY THE WAY, I NEED TO ASK YOU IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO JOIN US IN OUR MILITARY EFFORT AGAINST A POWER HIDING A DEMON!! YOU'LL NEED TO LEARN ABOUT OUR UNIVERSE FIRST!!"
"Hmm, I like the sound of that," Wormwood says. "I didn't come here just to sit in the sun, after all. Gwyn promised adventure and fighting horrific monsters, just like she did."
The flame dies off, Tasha shaking her hands out. An angel's wings of scorched heart spreads out before her, like her wings cast an enormous, smoldering shadow. She looks back. "You may be asked to meet with princes of a leader who hides a demon within. The city is vast, like a moon, and hangs in an empty void we call space, where planets and suns dwell. It is made of the technology of our reality, and maybe more beyond. You'll be asked to present the power of magic to entice this prince and so allow us to begin to manipulate them. I'll have the same task and a different prince; we may have to feign competition or even hostility. Our goal is to secure a path to the center of the city-world and locate the demon entrapped there, where Hakeber and I will answer our obligations."
"So, manipulate some mortals into letting us into their dungeon," Wormword summarizes. "What sort of dragons will they be familiar with?"
"As far as we're aware.. None. Magic, and dragons, are mostly a mythology of our universe. Dragons were said to exist in the time of the Celestial Empire's early years, but they eroded in their endless trek through the void, until they had to take in other beings or erode in to extinction. I have met a few across our universe, but they're very rare in general. And magic? Magic is almost unheard of. Only a select few even seem to know it exists, and the one they do know is what we call Wizardry -- a profound mastery of the laws of reality so complete it seems like magic. The Ogdru-hem use the magic of their alien origin, rules from outside," Tasha answers.
"So.. nothing to really oppose us," the dragon says. "No magic weapons."
Tasha waggles her hand; maybe. "I wouldn't go that far. The empires of the land we go to possess a wealth of technological weaponry, with the whole obliteration of entire worlds, suns, and more not beyond their ability. Directly on a personal level I don't think you'll have any problems, but don't underestimate them, they possess cunning and knowledge and tricky machines capable of thought beyond mortal limitations. Luckily for us both, most of their greatest weapons are outside the city, and they won't risk using them within. Just, you know, don't try and fly around outside the station -- rail guns are nasty business."
"And does Tia fear anything from them?" the dragon then asks.
"I don't know, but it's likely she won't be joining us. I don't think she would, but I'd have to ask. I can ask right now, in fact." Tasha touches her head like a holovid she once saw where people used psychic powers and had to be obvious about it for the audience or else seem to stare in to space, a behavior she has learned from personal experience makes people look at you funny. "Tia, what Wormwood just said."
"I have concerns about what artifacts they may possess," Tia replies. "Active Sifran crystal disrupts my energy functions. Granted, the only example I have is of a space-station sized piece that I was physically inside of. But it could disrupt ansible abilities in close proximity."
"Tia is concerned about what artifacts they may have and their impact on her -- and thus my -- power. Sifra Crystal, which looks like melted colored glass and may glow if active, is especially disruptive and should be treated with immense caution. The makers of the crystal are beings of immense power and possibly magic themselves, the first children of the Ogdoad in our universe, and the ones who entrapped those lifeless, timeless beings. Thankfully they seem to be inactive or waiting, so we shouldn't encounter them directly." Tasha steps away from the wing-burn in the ground, hands spreading. "I've never actually met one before, despite having been born on one of their worlds. A place called Sinai."
"Our power comes from within, as our very flesh and bone is made of magic," Wormword explains. "We will have to test our compatibility with your reality."
"That would be a good idea. The portal connects beyond; be aware the area directly outside is an empty, airless, cold void, which is the majority of space in our universe. The distances between inhabited regions are, um, vast. Really vast. Actually, it's worse than that, so immensely vast it might hurt to think about. Possibly forever-vast. You'll see," Tasha promises, grinning. "We normally travel in a ship to avoid inconveniences like no gravity, incredibly vast distances, the scourge of radiation from the suns, numbing cold and the like. You've already seen it, resting in the water."
"One of us will need to travel in your ship then, as a test subject," Wormwood says. "Although Gwyndrael has traveled to many worlds without issue, although all of those had some form of magic to them."
"Oh, we can just pop through if we need to. I can put on a space suit and use my powers to move and fly in space. I'm more worried about you three, however. If things go badly, it could go very badly, and then we'd have to reverse the ship and bring you back. I am sad to say you risk death by testing things." Tasha holds her hands out, as if death were in her hands, and she were sorry to offer it. "At least with me I can react in a second and push you through. There's no gravity in space, so your weight matters a lot less, and my power is nothing to scoff at either."
"A place with no air or warmth, is it?" Wormwood asks. "Not usually a problem. But it would be difficult to tell if any distress was due to the hostile environment or to some fundamental incompatibility. I may have a simpler solution, however. I will create a simulacra, which will go in your ship."
"A clone of some sort? That should work. Or I can just walk with it through the portal and we can return. Dispatching the vessel requires multiple crew members and the pilot, and the pilot is enjoying being in the lake trying to seduce anyone who gets anywhere near it. I'm sure I can convince him if I mention a magical dragon clone needs to be tested, however, if you'd rather not just have me do it," Tasha explains.
"I would like it to travel some distance, to be certain," Wormwood says. "And I've seen you and your mate operate the vessel while the dolphin stayed behind, although you may not have traveled far in that case."
"Oh fine, we can do it the safe and effective way then, not the Tasha saves time and gets to fly in space way." Tasha tosses her hands up; dragons today. Then they fall and she grins. "I need to rest, so want to switch to making Sharon do things?" For some reason she also winks. Heavily.
"She should be training with Thermoriax," Wyrmwood notes. "But we can check that she is at least staying out of the former's mouth."
"It would really be something if she somehow seduced Thermy out of her vows. Even I would be impressed. Who knew a part of me could be the most seductive candy pop? I figured that would have been Sasha, since he's the most obvious choice." Tasha shakes her head, wonders never cease. She then walks a few paces away, lets out a ragged breath, and then drops right down on to the grass. "Ugh."