The Fire and The Storm - The Nexus of Kellaran #2 novel Chapter 57

Part 11

“We’ve been working on that for a while, and we finished it yesterday.” Helemia grinned. “The demon’s psionic Shielding blocks almost everything, but one thing they don’t block against is someone simply projecting their awareness inside their Battle Shields, but outside their bodies. Like you would if you were going to Translocate there, for instance.”

“But what good does that do?” Dalia asked. “You still can’t get any spells past the Battle Shields they use to block physical and magic attacks.”

“Ah, but one thing their Battle Shields don’t block is sunlight.” Reggie stated, with a grin that matched all of his team-mates’. “If you blast ‘em with enough light to cause some damage they’ll block that, but they don’t block the sun unless you do, not the light of it, or the heat of it, or the Source, or the warlock’s Source. And if you’re really careful, when your awareness has been projected inside their Battle Shields, you can cast a spell from there, using the power that’s already in there from the Source and the warlock’s source that’s shining on them from the sun. It’s not much, but it’s enough to cast a tiny Translocation on a ball of stuff about two centimeters wide inside their heads. You only move it over a centimeter and you don’t cast displacement, so there’s a space left on one side that causes a little implosion, and on the other side there’s too much stuff all of a sudden, so it explodes because of the extra density. And just to make it both easier and more dangerous, you under-power the Translocation. That’s why a few of them lost their whole heads; the messed-up Translocations release some energy from the Translocation medium, and it causes a lot of damage.”

“It took all four of us pooling our awareness to do it to that many enemies that quickly.” Karzog pointed out.

“And it takes all four of us to cast the spell, too, even though it’s all automated.” Valentia added. “It’s a pretty hard spell. We call it the Brain Bomb, because it makes a bomb in their brains. Even if they grow their brains somewhere else in their bodies, we always target a few centimeters behind their eyes, so it’s pretty sure to mess up a lot of important stuff.”

“And you don’t think you should have announced that you were going to join the exercises before you did so in the middle of one?” Quewanak asked, sounding slightly miffed. “Perhaps I was trying to make a point with this one?”

“We waited until the outcome was pretty much decided before we intervened.” Reggie pointed out. “Everyone here knows that if it had been real, and if we four hadn’t been able to do anything, everyone would’ve been killed. The demons weren’t having much trouble finding the emplacements, so they’d probably have found the shelters soon, and if they didn’t, they’d have starved us out, like Alilia said.”

“Hm. Perhaps it wasn’t a complete waste of time then.” Quewanak nodded. “Do you realize what point I was trying to make?”

Reggie shook his head.

“Anyone else?” The green dragon asked as he looked around.

“We need a plan to escape from Hiliani in case we get overwhelmed here, and we don’t have one.” Mark stated immediately.

“That is correct.” Quewanak said with another nod.

“Oh, don’t be so growly, you old lizard!” Ria teased with a big smile. “They all responded extremely quickly to a drastic escalation in the immediacy of their enemies’ attack, and all of them were Translocated to shelter before any were injured. None of them got hurt until they took the fight to the demons. They kept their heads when they all thought the attack was real, and you and I never thought to make our simulations vulnerable to some of what had become ineffective before in order to protect the deception. Not to mention that what these children did was brilliant in its creativity and execution, and as far as I can tell, it would have devastated real demons as thoroughly as it did our simulations. From what the Triax told us, I doubt even the DemonLords have any defense against such a thing, and they have power to rival a god.”

“Because they’re still physical.” Mark mused. “They may have the power of a god, well a god of the Triax at least, but unlike gods they’re still dependent on their physical bodies.”

“How can we make a plan to flee from Hiliani when we’re confined in here by the time-bubble?” Talia asked.