[Hlaeth] Ch 30 - Hot-Blooded Healing

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            “This will be hot, but it will not burn.” Fiery Shards blazed to life around my arm, and promptly shot out before the leutnant could take back his words.

            There were multiple yelps of pain, and then a half-score of dwarves had jumped to their feet, their skin beet red, their beards and hair actually aflame, and they were jumping around, yelling and swearing as rough bandages burned away, burn scars were themselves seared away by fires within their skin, and steam was boiling out their noses and ears.

            A few breaths later, it was all done. Their skin cooled back down to earthen shades, their hair and beards faded to a rather gleaming charcoal black, and revealed skin that had been seared through by viscous draconic flame was smooth and unbroken.

            Their clansmen, after some suspicious looks at me, poked at the injuries and asked pointed questions. They even stroked the remarkably smooth and rather impressively dark beards.

            “Everyone seems fine, Hrimgol!” an older dwarf called out, backed up with reluctant nods by the others.

            “Well enough!” The leutnant glanced at me with darkly glittering eyes, dwarven eyes comparing favorably to gemstones in the right light, and I waved my hand casually.

            Brimming tankards zipped out to eagerly waiting dwarves, who snatched them out of the air with deft ease and promptly began to drink.

            “Rather light, but it won’t slow them down in the slightest,” I said casually, knocking back a mouthful myself. Leutnant Hrimgol just grunted as he had a long, slow draw, then noticed the bottle floating off to the side. He held out the mug casually, and the bottle zipped over and quickly topped him off.

            There were a quick chorus of calls, and the bottle was off to the rest of the squad and eagerly lifted mugs, realizing they might be drinking something for children, but it was free, so why not?

            “I may have spoken too soon,” I murmured, and the leutnant, his eyes now twinkling, took another easy drink.

            “A bit on der sweet side. Something a five-year apprentice might bin pouring,” he declared professionally, his words echoed as more or less appropriate by the others. “A tale for an ale, magos. What questions bin du have?” he asked politely.

            “Lore. Whatever you care to share.” I stepped over next to him, sat down on Haul to bring my head down to his level, and we were both facing the Yellow starting to discolor the hills beyond. “This is not my world, Leutnant Hrimgol. I am held here as surely as the gods are locked away. The only way to get out of here is to break a great Doom, and it is located thataway.” I pointed solemnly out into the Yellow.

            The dwarf’s expression didn’t grow cold so much as very wary. “Madness, hume,” he stated firmly. “None go into der rot-guld und bin kommen out sane or whole.”

            “So I’ve heard,” I nodded, not doubting his expertise. “Thus the Wards on your mountains, cutting them off from the Yellow and containing it.” I chopped my hands to left and right.

            “Du canst see der Wards, hume magos?” he asked, rather startled, looking at my face and the Hellscar crossing under my dark specs.

            I reached up, took off my specs, and let him stare at my burned-out sockets, and the dots of Silver deep within. “To be fair, Hrimgol son of Brogmal of Ironaxe, magic I can see clearly. I cannot see you anywhere near as clearly as that fine Armor of yours, however. You rather look like a faint ghost standing inside a fine set of smithwork, as do your men.”

            He stared at my face, a warrior culture appreciating scars of battle for what they were. I’d also just demonstrated I could Heal injuries, some of them pretty dire, and obviously I’d not Healed this one. “A tale for another ale, Magos. Dur eyes?” he asked firmly.

            “I was thrown across Creation by a Death Giant demi-lich’s Death Curse. I saw something out there mortal eyes are not meant to see, so they decided to turn around and try eating my brain.” Silver flames ignited in my eye sockets, and all the dwarves did not flinch, nope. “I regenerated them, they tried to eat my brain again, and they were burned away again.

            “As for the Hellscar, that was put in place by this fine fellow. He uses me to advertise the power of Hell, and I use him to kill the power of Hell.”

            Mortus Dius rose up, the Baneskull of Gorgriespiel spun out and swelled to full size, and popped into black and red anti-Hellfire flames in my grip in front of him.

            The dwarves grumbled and nodded at the appropriate fate. Marked and taking vengeance in turn, they could definitely understand the concept and appreciate my own vengeance.

            Far from repelled, the dwarf was actually mollified by the display, and not weirded out by my actions at all. He spit politely off to the side. “A fine fate for a thing of Hell,” he agreed, as I stowed the Baneskull back away.

            I could see he liked the storage space for the Baneskulls in my Staff, too.

            “I also bring something to this fight against the Yellow I don’t believe you’ve had before.”

            His skepticism was quite apparent, but he wasn’t fool enough to call a spellcaster wrong right off. “Oh?” was all he said, waiting.

            I flicked up my Shards, all the various energies within them, and then slowly and obviously wove vivus over and around them. The leutnant actually bent forward to look closer at the misty white flame, openly curious at what he was seeing, not so much for the magic he disdained.

            “A flame, a flame that bin… not white?” he asked curiously, obviously having different color cognition than humans did. 

            “Vivic flame. The Fire of the hunger of the mortal world. The Flames that eat the energies of death, and devour the powers of other realms that dare to intrude on this mortal soil, Feeding the Land and returning Creation to what it is supposed to be.”

            I could tell I very much had all of their attentions now. “A Fire that eats death?” the dwarven officer asked, reluctantly yet eagerly. “A fine weapon, if it bin harnessed…”

            The head of Mortus Dius lit up, and my Staff shrank down to his height for him to examine it more closely.

            “Perhaps you would like to see what it does, Son of Brogmag?”

            He eyed me steadily for a moment, then took a long swallow, not breaking eye contact. He held his mug out, and the bottle zipped over on its cheerful refilling chores, basically constantly busy now. Good thing it had a wide mouth and poured quickly. “Perhaps I bin curious. What do du have in mind?” he asked.

            “I’m guessing you have strict orders to patrol along the Ward, but not on the other side of it. Build-up of Yellow over the years can affect even people who live on this side of the Wards, yes?”

            He nodded slowly. “Yes. It mayan take decades, but there bin strong sons fall to madness und mutation from the Yellow who dared walk past the Wards. The land bin the definition of unclean, hume magos.”

            “Excellent.” He even blinked at me as I said it. “Then I think this is going to be most instructive.” I got up slowly, looked over them all. “If you would instruct all of your soldiers to put their helms on and weapons in hand, I think we might take a little stroll out past the Wards, and watch the Yellow Burn, don’t you?”

            He was no fool, and he hated the Yellow far more than he was afraid of it. He was also a dwarf, so he knew one trip at the fringes wouldn’t be a problem.

------

            Vivus fell past the dwarves, and they breathed in air clearer and purer than the very mountains, despite where they stood.

            Cold fires burned atop their helms, shedding only light, doing no harm… but there was a cool unwhite light attached to the flames, and it was fluttering and… sparking was the only term to use, although it was quite, gentle, like little moths igniting in the air and falling about them.

            It was the contamination of the Yellow, and as the mists from the Eternal Lights on their helms met it, it popped and Burned away.

            The dwarves were looking around, finding it surreal to be stepping past the Wards, on lands that their ancestors had once strode, and feeling no fear or qualms of unease about the Yellow.

            Leutnant Hrimgol looked about, inhaling deeply and with great satisfaction. “A fine trick, hume magos,” he said with satisfaction. “Will it protect aught against a storm ov the Yellow, as do the Wards?”

            “No,” I stated firmly. “They’ll protect against topical infection and breathing. If there’s a storm, that is what the Wards of the mountain are made to turn aside.”

            “A gaudy thing, but bin great value, regardless,” the dwarf huffed. “This mistflame, can bin replicated?” he asked shrewdly.

            “The Hungry Fires of the Land require magic to gather and take form, but are not themselves innately magical. As you saw for yourself, they do no harm to that which is of the Land, and they consume that which is not. They can be overwhelmed by too much unclean matter too quickly, but in time, like fire, they will Burn all that is combustible to them if not snuffed out.” The circle of resistance from me was a good ten feet across, continual silent explosions of particles of dust igniting around me, and the ground was misting and painted white behind where I strolled.

            “This bin a great thing to bin battle the Yellow,” Hrimgol declared. “What lore you wish knowing, Magos Aelryinth?” Hrimgol said after slow and careful consideration.

            “Weird stories of things you’ve noticed in the Yellow, details that seem to contradict, things you’ve been told to be wary of. Anything you think might be helpful in understanding it, so that we can kill it.

            “I will render unto you the way to add vivus to Cast spells, and the Vivus Enchantment to Weapons, with the sole caveat that you must give this knowledge away to any force, dwarf, human, elven, or otherwise, that asks for it. It is a weapon against all that is unnatural in the world, but is no danger to those of us born of its soil.”

            The dwarf reached up and passed his hand through the Light atop his helm, feeling only a vague coolness, and certainly no harm. “If that bin true, aye, spread it free as it were received,” Leutnant Hrimgol agreed calmly. “Now, tales ye be wanting.” He pointed down the slope. “Down that valley bin an old outpost, nae cleaned for years, und the Yellow taken up in it. Walk with us, und I be fillin’ yer ears as we go t’ clean it out.”

            “Certainly.”

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            There were things in the outpost, a collection of caves intended for shelter against the elements, small barracks, and the like, something manned only by a squad at best, a stopover for patrols moving back and forth.

            I didn’t know what they were, and even Assay couldn’t make it out. Aberrant was the only thing that flared up, impossible things that shouldn’t be still alive, and yet were. They were twisted, maybe humanoid at one time… or maybe evolving towards it, it was impossible to tell. They had signs of dozens of planar affinities on them, Elemental, biological, and otherwise, and not even the same types or ratios, although dominated by some sort of insectile pattern that seemed the most recent, and so came together simply on that common denominator.

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