Chương 308: AF Chapter 307 – The Fires of Mount Esper

"Ye actually Healed them. Were a nice gesture," the Mick acknowledged, as we headed off over the surface of the River Esper and its headwaters, which would basically lead us directly to the Crater. The banderlings had gaped at the display as we ran off.

"Carrot and fist," I agreed, trotting along with him. His lightfoot was more advanced, but that just meant he wasn't running full out. Nothing we were passing was dangerous, but they did indicate what might be found in the area. I Darted the stuff down in passing just to keep in practice, while he casually swept Bunita through most of the stuff on the charge. Lesser olthoi, drudges, banderlings, golums, noogas, mosswarts, minor wisps, and niffis.

Nothing to get excited about at all, although their levels began to rise soon after passing the five-mile mark from Holtburg.

"Truth. Her Highness be more prone t' letting them limp a bit so the memory sticks in an' spreads."

"I expect they are using the buildings as hunter's blinds, or something. They should have taken the Dungeons outside the town if they were looking for space."

"Ye didn't clear them back then?" the Mick asked, a bit startled.

"Starter Dungeons are useful in many ways, and we didn't feel like making that judgment call on behalf of everyone else," I admitted.

"They can be cleared easily enough… that's a lot of excavated storage space down there."

"Aye, some o' those old Dungeons sprawled fer a good long ways, lots o' room t' make use of in them," the Mick agreed.

"Some were easy the size of a small town or more." Most of the Dungeons in the south had already been explored by the Scouts, posted, rated, and work was underway to either clear them and use them as barracks or garrisons, or to start cycling troops through them on training runs. Lower-level Dungeons meant training programs could move off of the crowded Dungeons in the Vesayans to some new locations, which also meant more people could shift away.

However, the civilian population was still completely restricted to the Sho areas south of the Blackmire Swamp. Main reason? Bonecruncher was probably never going to run that far just to hunt Isparians, and would have to go through too many other tribal territories who might put up a fuss. We had military presences in a wider swath of territories than that, but all the civilians coming in to resettle abandoned Isparian territories were staying in the south.

"Eh, visible already." He'd popped his shaded Mask of Clarity down, and I followed his gaze ahead of us. On the horizon there, tiny little lights burned on a dark mountain.

"I'm still going to think of something so getting those Stones aren't so tedious," I told him, as we both looked up at the rounded wall of the mountain above us. Unlike all the other surrounding mounts of similar size or taller, it no longer had any ice along its top reaches. The black stone was revealed, the ice and snow had melted off and away, and it looked like a great black blot among the cold white and gray of the Esper range around it.

There were Fire Elementals all over the bloody place up there, from the lambent reds of dim little Sparks all the way up to the hottest blue-white Hellfires. Some of the damn things were twice the size of any Elementals we'd seen before, and that included the ones on Asheron's island that the Harbinger had released, save for the Essences themselves. The place was also a churning mass of pyromancy, eating and burning at the Veil.

Pure aeromancy was being completely disrupted here, meaning flight magic was eaten away within moments and plopped you back to the ground. The dimensions were also in chaos here, meaning Teleporting here was going to be at best wild and uncontrolled, and at worst try to turn you inside out and warp you to some incredibly bad positions relative to the Fire Elementals there.

"Multiple Elder Elementals, and at least two Elder Monoliths visible. Just… sitting there." I whistled softly.

"That is a LOT of literal Fire power, Lord Mick."

"Aye, I be seein' that. Chances o' getting through peaceable-like?"

"Stronger than you think."

"Aye? The Lady Magos pulling another surprise out o' her hat?"

"Aeromancy isn't the only way to fly, and blasting isn't the only way to get through things." I smiled slightly.

"However, you're going to have to keep that famous tongue of yours silent and just watch." I flicked up a Disk for him to sit back on, which he did with a flamboyant jump, completely unperturbed that he wasn't taking lead. If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. I Shaped up my Phoenix Cloak and added it to my Void Phoenix Bloodline Wings.

A pair of very showy flaming wings replete with celeste stars extended up behind me as I took off, while my skin reddened slightly and golden flames began to peel back from my eyes and the ends of my hair. It was a couple thousand feet to the lip of the crater, most of the way nominally unclimbable. The ferocious pyromana buoyed me up instead of eating away my flight magic, and we climbed even faster on the magical updraft.

I shot up over the edge and past the startled attention of dozens of Fire Elementals sitting around and basking in the pyromana. They instantly flared to alertness, heads of man-like and beastial forms not normally found in the Elementals of Dereth all turning to look after us.

"Gor, those look like big wolves an' cats an' ursines!" the Mick exclaimed in disbelief. Indeed, the larger Elder Elementals all looked nothing like the typical Elementals that wandered Dereth, which was little surprise to me. Fire Elementals were the only rote Elementals that the classical set shared with Dereth. On Dereth, the Elementals were forms of magical energy, not the classic states of matter.

I flew right by a great stag, flaming horns reaching nearly thirty feet high, its fiery Aura reaching an effortless twenty feet away. It totally could have bounded at me, taken a swipe, or otherwise reacted to us passing. Instead, it just waited aloofly as I clasped my hands and bowed to an Elder of Fire, and I flew right on past and towards the inner part of the crater. It watched me pass and didn't otherwise react.

The watching Elementals, ready to bury me in a fusillade of flaming magic, all just turned away when the Elder didn't react to me at all. Ritual of the Burning Heart, become a Creature of Fire. Normally, this had no effect on anything beyond an immunity to fire and vulnerability to cold, as it granted the Fire creature Template. It was the equivalent here of making me into a natural creature of Fire, and not some random mortal, the equivalent of a local friendly dog or bird or something.

I also knew Pyric, the Fire Elemental language, if needed, but for now, I was just perfectly happy that they weren't bothering to shoot at me… or at the cool mortal I was obviously dragging along behind me. Below me, the inside of Mount Esper, the Crater, the most famous volcano of Dereth, sprawled out before us.

The first thing noticeable from up here was the molten secondary crater in the heart of the lake that dominated the middle of the caldera, with active lava showing there and scores of Elementals of all sizes lounging about it. It was dominated by what looked like a great blazing halo of pure flames that would have been difficult to look at without Devasight, white-hot as the thing was.

On one end of the lake was a small town of sorts, with several stone buildings obviously built as entry points and extending down and sideways into the floor and walls of the crater. It was dominated by a large standing tower whose design I'd seen in almost every town on Dereth. Some distance off to the east was the progression of columns and sparking stones that signified a Festival Stone. Such things indicated that this place had been a major population center for the Empyreans at some point.

The town was the only area not being occupied by Elementals to some extent or another. Most amusingly, there was a whole lot of green grass growing inside the crater, and the Fire Elementals moving across it didn't do anything to it at all, which was kind of surreal to see. At the northern end of the lake stood a sole Empyrean-style block building, with the bulging and distorted terrain around it of a Dungeon that had erupted back into reality beneath and around it.

I could pick out the two torches that framed the pass leading up and out of the Crater on the far side of the caldera, ostensibly leading down the other side of the mountain. Likewise, where once had only existed a Portal, now an obelisk marked a yawning hole in the ground where the Jahannan Vault was located over on the rim to the north of us. I wasn't trying to hide, and for some reason a person flying up in the air with great flaming wings is visible from quite some ways off.

The lake itself was nearly two miles across in a great circle, and there were docks extending out from the town a short way into it.

"I thought you said the lake was pretty shallow, Lord Mick?" I asked cautiously.

"Never more than waist-high anywhere, lass," he confirmed, looking down over the edge of his Disk behind me.

"Looks like only two shallows now, t' the east an' west o' the inner crater now, aye?"

"How do the inner numbers of Fire Elementals compare to what you remember?"

"Ye remember me telling ye how running the Aerefalle Quest would set off the volcanoes, aye?" I nodded once. The Fire Essences from the three volcanoes were key to upgrading the Swords of Lost Light.

"Well, when that happened, scores o' Elementals would spawn on the lake an' the center crater there. It were not too different from what ye see now. But it didn't extend t' the rest o' the Crater, an' certainly not up t' the lips o' the place. Ye've The Sight… how many o' the gas golums be standing about?" Not surprisingly, so much fire and water together made for a lot of mist and steam floating about. I paid more attention to them and the magic interacting with them, and slowly nodded.

"About one group for every five points of Fire Elementals, all with Summons markings." I spun about slowly.

"Ninety percent Summons down in the caldera. There's a much more even spread on the rim, where you can tell the Summons by their standardized forms. The Called versions are much more variable."

"Aye, belikes the other Elementals of Earth, Air, an' Water that ye Summoned in the past," the Mick nodded along.

"Shall we go down fer a visit? They might be a bit surprised to get a visitor like ye, I be thinking."

"Well, Elder Oswald's been a regular visitor, so they aren't too uninformed on things, but, yes." I began to glide that way at a sedate pace, giving them plenty of time to notice me and take whatever actions they were going to. The sharp-eyed sentries had noticed me coming over the rim, and a horn was ringing out in the distance, rolling over the inner hills of the crater, carried and amplified as it echoed off the stone walls.

Dark dots resolving into people gathered in the center of the town as I swept toward them. Lord Mick stood up on the Disk, and I adjusted the height of it appropriately as I glided down to the crystalline blue waters, noting that there seemed to be a rather inordinate number of fish in them as I headed for the docks there. This should promise to be interesting…