"Stay on my palm. Stay as still as you can."
I couldn't wait for Zirsna's answer, but I knew she would. We trusted each other. And right now, I had to be worthy of that trust.
No matter how adorable the little lizard looked right now.
Everything had seemed normal. After striking the Lich Lord down, Zirsna dropped out of her battle frenzy and shrank back to her regular beefy self. Except this time it didn't stop.
We were quick to conclude that the bastard must have had one last trick up his sleeve, within his final death.
It was an ancient curse, one that I couldn't decipher on my own. If I couldn't understand it, I couldn't remove it. A growth spell had no perceivable effect either, but the curse also didn't resist it.
If I couldn't remove it, I could break it by overloading it. That was the current theory...
...which was precisely why I was scrounging through every single notably magical item on the lich's person. The staff, the rings, his robes, the crown, all of them were radiating incredible power.
WHAT they were didn't matter. I'd break their power down for the most potent spell of my life.
There wasn't much time. She was already too small for me to hear her voice.
I brought my palm by the staff's jewel.
"Jump!"
For a lizardfolk approaching the size of a flea, Zirsna's leaping prowess was still a sight to behold.
I immediately began chanting and focusing my powers.
"Kasuvajo!"
A faint green light lit the crystal. It was shooting out of it, technically, but its target was in such close contact that it could not be perceived.
Nothing was happening, but that much I expected. I used my own meager powers to establish the target. Its flow was the channel.
Folding it as upright as I could, I stuck the staff into the messy pile of artifacts that I had gathered, making sure to never let go.
My parallel chanting worked both to maintain the growth spell and the act of breaking them all down into pure energy.
The effects were immediate.
The entire room was illuminated by the bright green light that emanated from the jewel.
The items were quick to start losing their luster as their lifetime was cut short, plundered to fuel a single desperate wish.
Even a shallow scrape was more magic than I had used during my whole life.
But I could not hesitate. There was no doubt in my mind that Zirsna was still my target, but I could not see her from amidst the light. She might still be dwindling, becoming dwarfed by dust.
I gripped the staff even harder and almost screamed out my words as I plundered all of it at once.
It all happened at once.
The searing pain that flashed through my mind, from handling forces way beyond my capabilities as a sorceress.
The explosion of the wand, jewel and all.
Destruction of everything by some sudden indescribable force.
And darkness.
When I came to be, the lair was gone. So was everything in the perceivable vicinity.
With the exception of her.
I could not see the figure's face beyond its enormity, but I knew this being whose claw dwarfed me to be her, so I could do nothing but cry tears of joy.
I hadn't lost her.