The Dao of Magic

71 - Unfeeling

"RE HAAN!"

Her large eyes stay closed as my shout does nothing. I climb across blood splattered scales and attempt to stop us both from spinning. The single leftover wing is turning this fall into a death spiral. I look towards the tower, but it is too far away to draw any qi from there. I'm sorry Tree, but this will not be pleasant.

I touch my necklace and pull. All the qi inside the pocket dimension that has not yet degraded gets pulled out. Half of the qi with my fingerprints inside the space is now in other forms, changed into naturally wild, plant or other. I inhale but choke as a stream of blood splashes my face. I pull some more and all the neutral qi around Tree gets pulled out.

I feel a passive sort of worry coming from the dimensional nexus point that is Tree. Golden threads start pouring from the piece of jewellery around my neck, dissolving into colourless smoke. I send a quick mental thanks to the perennial as I clear my airway of sticky, red liquid.

A powerful cough later the blood is back out and I breathe in what power Tree gave me. I sink it into my braincore and breathe it out again, the qi this time fully under my control. I sink it into the massive frame I am clinging to. Shit. Shitshit... Stop.

Another deep breath later I am calm again. I forcefully push through the natural energy resistance that any living being has and invade her body. Alien structures map themselves out in my mind. I scan totally unknown muscle configurations while pouring more qi into Rhea. Her bones are largely similar to other lizard-like animals, but her internal organs are a mystery to me. No animals or sentient beings I have come across so far are similar to anything I am sensing right now.

Shit, this isn't working. I ignore the rapidly approaching ground and think through my options. I ignore the world around me even harder as I sense three large shapes diving down towards us.

Dig out the ground? I suspect that Rhea will splatter with the massive damage done to her back if she hits the ground at terminal velocity. We will both reach the ground in twenty seconds and with the speeds we are going, even I might be hard pressed to walk away without permanent injuries. A dragon's terminal velocity is a bit higher than a human's, an aspect of my threat analysis process tells me.

The blood covering the scales I am gripping on to cause my grip to slip, a small application of qi fixes my hands to Rhea. I cast a glance upwards and an idea sprouts in my mind. I pull a small globe of qi to my palm and stare at it with my full attention, ignoring the splattering blood and screaming wind around me.

'BEING HUMANOID IS BEST, LARGE IS BAD, LARGE IS LETHAL, HUMAN FORM NOW'

I throw the sphere upwards and follow it up with a thin strand of augur. It hits the closest dragon's head on and I force the strand of augur inside the massive beast. The dragon closest to us is entirely red, scales glistening in the sun as I observe its rugged form. I'm not sure, but the angular and rough cast of its draconic face causes me to think of it as a male.

Making a thin grid with my augur gives me a very rough grid shaped crosssection of the beast. I see its eyes blink rapidly while it dives towards us, the blood splatters it is flying through not visible on its red scales. Seconds tick by and just as I fear that my trick didn't work, the dragon starts to glow. A weirdly shaped organ in its chest seems to twist like a lock. An unfamiliar energy rapidly spreads through the beast, and with my augur I sense its insides liquefy as the diving dragon shrinks.

Retracting my various senses from the now confused trio following us, I focus back on Rhea. Fifteen seconds left until impact. I locate the organ and feel relief that it seems intact. The attack removed a big part of her back, but the human transformation switch is located deep inside her chest. I gently try to twist it but it seems stuck. Another second wasted. I force it and feel something snap. The same unknown energy explodes from the small organ and the scales under my fingers start shrinking.