[Hlaeth] Ch 29 - Off to Houme

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            There were quite a few floors to go up, but she had no problem taking all the stairs, used to bouncing around trees as she was, and lightfoot treated stairs as level ground for all intents and purposes.

            The platform was empty of anything intelligent, nor were there any riders up in the skies.

            There was one person there. Eldritch was waiting on the platform, a grim expression on his face.

            Captain Fyanyl just bowed to me. “Staff high, Master Aelryinth,” she said quietly.

            “Arrows true, Captain Fyanyl,” I replied sincerely. She flashed another quiet smile before turning and heading quickly back towards the doorway and stairs she had just come from.

            I turned back towards Eldritch, walking up to him without hesitation. “Your instincts are good in one respect. Were you aware of the flow of Doom?” I asked him curiously, turning to face east as I prepared to leave. I wasn’t worried about anything clinging to him. He was an Eternal, and it would take a lot of power to get him caught up in something he didn’t want to be.

            His hesitation was answer enough. “No,” he finally admitted. “My suspicions were for… other reasons.”

            “Well enough. I assume you are here to see me off and verify I left. Is there any other reason?” I asked him, holding up a hand, starting to build a hum that made the field of the Legus around me spark into magical visibility in sympathy.

            He paused, but only a moment, before summoning two books out of nowhere. There was nothing magical woven into or around them as far as protective spells or tracking devices.

            “A small Libraim of minor spells. Ones that our young and old find much innocent enjoyment in.” He even permitted himself a minor smile. “And a primer on some of the most beloved songs of our people, and the history attached to them.”

            I accepted the books with a deeper bow than I’d given the elf’s own king. “I take this knowledge in the spirit it is given, and I will pass it on freely in the same,” I told him sincerely, the words enough to make him tongue-tied a moment as he considered me.

            Then he sighed and stepped away. “I would like to learn more of you and your people, Master Aelryinth, but not while you have such monstrous forces concerned with you. Perhaps those forces may bring us together again, one day… but do not doubt for a moment that I very much wish for that not to happen.”

            I had to laugh at that, and after a moment, he even joined in a bit. “Messing around with the Profound Forces is not a safe place for gods and entire worlds, let alone mere shrimps like us, elder. I return your sincerity in hoping not to meet again, for I’ve the feeling it will be very bad circumstances if we do.”

            He did not argue with me, merely relaxing and then pointing in a precise direction. “That way, past the ocean and the mountains that border the west of the continent. You will see the Yellow Sands if you pass the mountains on this heading.”

            “Good enough.” I flicked up the Holo, drew the arc around the world based on the map I’d been shown, and he nodded after only a moment. “Pleasant years to you, Elder.”

            “May you find your way home, Master Aelryinth,” he said, and I Linejumped and was out of there.

------

            The ancient High Mage of the Aldari stared after the blur of light that had leapt straight for the horizon and, he discerned, far, far beyond it, reappearing in a blur of motion hundreds of miles above the lands below, outside the very atmosphere wrapping the world. From there, the human could look down, see the continent spread out below him, and choose his next Jump with precision and care.

            That was a being used to making fast decisions with boldness and a thorough understanding of the consequences and use of power. He was truly a great threat if he desired to act against the Aldari, his influence and power like a great glowing flower spreading out from him with unbelievable steadiness and strength.

            The magic loved him. The old High Mage had never felt the manafield respond so positively to anyone or anything in his long life, including other Singers of the Sublime Chord.

            Ten years. He had accomplished such power in but ten years!

            The thought was mindboggling. It would frequently take one of his people a good century of study to break Ten, although adventuring and going to war could greatly accelerate that.

            But becoming a Sixteen, and of such crazed and impossible depth? The cost of such power, the discipline, the understanding across so many disciplines…

            He had never seen the like. At another time, he would have dismissed it as the typical foolishness of a human trying to master all paths of power, instead of cleaving to one and mastering it utterly, not knowing or caring how long it took just to learn one road to sufficient heights to be called adept in it.

            Now, now that road seemed like it had actually come together, and in doing so made a monstrosity of a spellcaster out of it.

            Master Archtheurge of the Eight Traditions, he thought, considering the implications. EIGHT full Traditions of magic. It would seem a road made for an elf and their long years, but could any elf truly master eight paths of magic?

            He didn’t think so.

-------

            Sub-orbital insertion was routine and easy. Hazesight clearly identified the edges of the Yellow Desert there, the rough continental shape matching the Aldari map, and I simply Linejumped down to the edge of the discoloration.

            I hit the stone, forcibly ignoring the disorientation as I scanned in all directions, Feature up on top of my head and quickly looking in all directions to see if there was anything nearby.

            The first thing I noticed was a massive Ward fueled by the Earthpower of the mountains whose foothills I was on, rising around me and clearly defying the magic of the yellowing soil extending down and away from them. The yellowing of the ground literally stopped about ten yards from me, the lingering magical residue either cleansed away or simply thrown back from spreading.

            There were other mountains about the Yellow Desert, which could also be containing its spread. I was perhaps unsurprised that Eldritch had not mentioned any of them, although this level of magic was definitely something noteworthy.

            Probably not elven, and so not something to dwell upon and irrelevant.

            Judging by the tenor, it looked like something dwarves might have put up, old and mighty and designed to last the ages, even without the gods here to back things up.

            Good planning and foresight, too.

            The other thing was the two firedrakes who seemed to be attacking a force dug into a section of rocks and boulders on the hillside there, about a half mile away.

            I had no more love for firedrakes than I did for true dragons. Cold Greater Shards swirled up around my hand, the air liquefying around the multi-hued energies within them, and then they collapsed down to a Shardray, Split on a force prism in midair, and went ranging out, lines of frozen vapor instantly encapsulating the two beams of uttercold, and they instantly slammed into the firedrakes over there.

            It was probably overkill, but then they Chained into the other one, too, just to be on the safe side.

            Crimson hides and blazing cracks in those hides went dark and cold, ice rimed all of their scales, and their internal flames were extinguished instantly. Wings locked and tails frozen in just a moment of surprise and disbelief, the two firedrakes promptly plummeted out of the sky and came crashing to the hillside, crunching, cracking, and breaking as they tumbled down it.

            Magnus zipped me over there with a DimDoor, and my scans for Detect Humanoid popped up about twenty dwarves taking cover over there.

            “If you have wounded, I can Heal them,” I addressed the dwarves in the variant of their tongue I knew. Probably a little too loose on the consonants and sloppy for them, but Racial Tongues are nigh-impossible for non-members to speak correctly.

            There was a moment of hesitation before a helmed head popped out of a depression in the rock I was certain couldn’t fit him a moment ago. “Who bist du, and why bin du here?” was the immediate gruff challenge.

            “Aelryinth of Heaven, magos, and I fell out of the sky about a half mile to the west by chance. Share an ale, share a tale?” I asked, flipping two tankards out of nowhere.

            More heads popped up at that invitation. Some tropes still seemed to hold true, it seemed.

            Magnus kindly fetched the Upcast Create Water variant of More Wine out of his Ringbook, always happy to be useful. It looked like I’d be providing drinks to a troop of them. The spell kept a single container of drinkable liquid full during the duration of the spell, but it would be empty upon expiration if more than the volume of it had been poured out.

            A nice way to allow a bunch of people to share a particularly fine vintage, as it were.

            “Approach, then!” came the wary yet not unfriendly callback, and I strode their way as more armored heads and bodies popped out of places too small for them. There were a bunch of Crossbows, Spears, and Axes ready, just in case, but none of them were pointing at me.

            They did find the pints sitting on a Disk of floating metal at my side fairly quickly, however, and the brown bottle pouring sparkling libations into each of them.

            The long-bearded fellow leading the bunch definitely had a wary eye on the way my feet never quite touched the ground, but the booze wasn’t touching the ground, either. He was clad in half-plate, light enough to wear on patrol, heavy enough to still be annoying armor, and it was definitely magical, as were all the Weapons and Shields that I could see about.

            Casual Assays pegged most of their Gear to be over a hundred years old, the officer’s here going on five times that. Ancestral Weaponry, passed down through the ages and upgraded as it went, the advantages of a long-lived culture of crafters and artisans. Facing an entire kingdom of stalwart and experienced fighters all armed with magical Arms and Armor was a daunting prospect for just about anything that couldn’t do likewise.

            I imagined that trying to fight the dwarves just to get their magical Weapons and Shields was something, but such things were probably family heirlooms and owning them was just a death sentence from dwarven scouts and retrieval agents.

            “Well met. Aelryinth of Heaven, magos,” I said to the officer, bowing hand over fist as Mortus Dius stood alone to the side.

            “Leutnant Hrimgol dar Brogmag, aut Clan Ironaxe,” he returned the courtesy, crossing the Axe in his hand across his chest. “What brings a hume spellcaster to der lands ov der Ironaxe?” he asked warily.

            “Serendipity, Elder,” I replied formally, earning his respect as he raised his head. “If I may, you’ve got six badly burned soldiers and three mildly singed. If I might Heal them up to full so that they can join us without discomfort?”

            A score of stone tankards spun up out of the ground, arced through the air to set themselves precisely on Haul, and the booze continued to spill out, one of the better Gould pale ales, although likely a bit soft for their tastes.

            “If der magos wishes, though they bin not much impeded by such minor scrapes und singes,” he sniffed proudly, an attitude completely shared by all of them, especially the wounded ones.

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