I didn’t want to have to go through the process of fast traveling the cultists all over again if I encountered any problems on the mountain, so I made a new save point before the encampment disappeared behind us.
The base of the slope was blanketed in melted footprints, but they circled around the bottom of the hill and disappeared around the curve, so we crossed over the muddy tracks onto fresh snow as we headed upward.
I let Kent take the lead as we guided the sleds up the slope, but we had to zigzag across the gradient in order to climb to the summit. The dogs struggled against the steep hill, but they weren’t giving up. Kent and his team had performed this trip before, but I wasn’t sure if the other two groups of dogs had the same level of experience.
Our guide seemed to have the same thought since he kept glancing back over his shoulder to check on our progress, but he seemed satisfied that we were managing to keep up. This was what the dogs were bred for, after all.
The slope was difficult to navigate, and despite the heavy snow coverage, there were still drifts ten feet tall in some places.
The dogs did their best to charge through every obstacle, but snow began to build up along the runners and beneath the footboards.
We paused around mid-day to give the dogs a break, and all of us were out of breath and red-faced. I knocked the snow from our sleds with my boots and checked to make sure everything was still strapped in securely, but then I rejoined the others.
Zenda peered around at the landscape as she jotted some notes in her journal, but Mahini stretched out her stiff arms and legs.
Jaxtom took a swig from a flask before passing it to me, and after a quick sniff, I realized it was some of the potato-based liquor we’d drunk back in Northwatch.
“I see you’ve taken a fancy to the northern liquor,” I said.
“It puts some fire in yer gut, that’s fer sure,” Jax chuckled and clapped me on the shoulder. “We need all the heat we can get up here!”
Kent checked all the dogs’ harnesses and the pads of their feet, but after they’d been given some water and a chance to lay down for a bit, the guide signaled it was time to go.
“How much further to the top?” Mahini asked, and she aimed the question in my direction, but I paused to let our guide answer.
“We will reach the summit before sundown,” Kent said, and he eyed the progress of the sun across the sky. “If the weather permits.”
The clouds were as gray and as dense as ever, but the falling snowflakes had only continued to increase as we gained altitude. It didn’t look like we’d run into another blizzard, but if we did, it would be difficult to camp on the side of the steep slope. In that case, I’d just reset and wait a while before attempting the climb again, but I was eager to reach the top.
We got back on our sleds a few moments later, and Kent took the lead once more. The runners sliced crisply across the snow, but we had to go a lot slower than I was used to as the dogs pulled us steadily closer to the peak. The air grew thinner the higher we went until it felt like my armor was squeezing against my lungs, but I focused on taking steady breaths until the feeling passed. My ears even popped a few times, and I worked the muscle in my jaw to help ease the tension.
My companions were quiet as we navigated the slope, but there were a few places where the trail was too precarious, and we had to get out and walk beside the sleds. The sides of the mountain
dropped off to my left as we angled around another zigzag, and the right sides of the sleds began to tilt off the ground.
“Put your weight on the right side!” I called out to my companions, and we all adjusted to the steep gradient.
It reminded me of my mom speeding around curves in her car when I was a kid, and I would slide across the back seat into the opposite window. There were several times I swore the wheels on one side lifted off the pavement entirely, but we never wrecked the car.
I scanned the path ahead of us closely but my gaze kept returning to the summit above. It still towered over our heads, and we were cast into shadows when the sun moved to the other side of the peak.
As we drew steadily closer to the highest point of the mountain, we circled around the tip until we came to a break in the rim. It had looked flat from the side of the slope, but up close, I realized it was actually shaped like a bowl. The concave curves created a circular boundary around a crater, but it leveled out in the center.
I’d half-expected to find a group of dragon worshipers gathered at the summit, but we still hadn’t encountered the mysterious Lord Caldera.
Maybe they’d been warned of my approach somehow?
I hadn’t left a single cultist in the encampment, and there was no way they could have managed to get ahead of our sleds on foot even with their fire magic.
Were we in the right place?
“Welcome to Mount Pacay,” Kent said as he jumped off his footboards, and the guide gestured theatrically around us. “The only volcano on the continent.”
“Fascinating,” Zenda breathed, and her intelligent sapphire eyes scanned over every inch of the concave peak.
It was probably the size of a football field from one end to the other, and the walls reached over a story tall. An entire village could fit in its center, but there were no signs of civilization anywhere.
There wasn’t even a tourist plaque.
There certainly weren’t any signs of lava, so it was definitely dormant.
“So, this is it, huh?” Jaxtom scratched his head as he looked around. “Don’t look like much.”
“That’s because it’s dormant,” Mahini teased. “At least for now.”
“What do you mean?” Kent flashed me a dubious look. “For now?”
“Ol’ Bash here is gonna light this thing on fire,” Jax said, and he laughed when our guide’s face paled. “Ye might want to stand back.”
“You can’t do that,” Kent gasped. “This volcano hasn’t erupted in over a hundred years!”
“I need it.” I shrugged. “It’s far enough away from any civilization, so it won’t hurt anyone.”
“What could you possibly need a volcano for?” Our guide looked like he was about to tear out his hair.
“I’m a god,” I laughed. “I’ve got godly shit to do.”
“It’s impossible.” Kent shook his head. “You cannot bend the laws of nature.”
“Maybe you can’t.” I smirked. “But Jax is right. You might want to clear the area.”
Kent stared at me in disbelief for a moment, but then he regained his composure and began to march toward the rim. My companions and I parked the sleds along the side of the crater, and they all stood back as I crossed the distance to the center.
I considered making a new save point just in case my magic didn’t work, but I was hesitant to give up the chance to return to the encampment easily. If my attempts to awaken the volcano failed, though, I’d have to redo the entire trip up the slope.
In the end, I decided against a new save point because I’d just look more awesome if we redid the journey to the peak, so I turned my focus to my mental repertoire of spells.
“Opposites nix, fire and water do not mix,” I muttered to myself as I shook out my arms and hands. “Couples merge, earth and air create the verge. Scaled and even, all is well. Mix three or more, and awaken fiery hell.”
I’d learned of the wizard’s warning through Ako, and it made sense to me, but there was no hard evidence saying it was guaranteed to work.
“Only one way to find out,” I said to myself.
I had several elemental spells to choose from, but the majority of them were offensive, and I wasn’t sure how to apply them to this situation. This meant it was time to experiment, and excitement shot down my spine.
A basketball-sized ball of flame bloomed in the palm of my left hand with a whisper of the word of power, and I threw it at the ground while simultaneously summoning air currents and manipulating the dirt itself. Then I added some water bullets before I repeated the pattern all over again with different variations from each element.
Fire. Earth. Air. Water.
The ground beneath me shook with the impact from the spells, and I paused to gauge the damage I’d caused. Huge chunks of dirt were dislodged at my feet, and they were scorched from the flames and muddied from the water.
But that was it.
No volcanic activity was visible, but I wasn’t entirely sure what to look for except spouts of lava spraying from the ground. On Earth, volcanic eruptions were usually paired with earthquakes, but there
was no guarantee this medieval fantasy world would operate in the same way.
I’d just have to keep trying.
I summoned my vines by the hundreds while tossing out fireballs and icicles, but my head started to ring with a piercing headache. I kept going despite the pain behind my eyes, but I wasn’t sure how much longer I could keep it up.
“Fuck,” I gasped as I bent over my knees to catch my breath.
Fire. Earth. Air. Water.
I’d used every spell in my memory bank multiple times, and the giant cracks caused by my earth magic spread out in a spiderweb of fissures around me, but still no lava.
“Any luck?” Mahini shouted from the other side of the crater.
I was hesitant to admit defeat of any kind, but the wizard’s warning was proving itself to be nothing more than an old wives’ tale, and my stamina was waning.
“Not yet,” I called back.
I wasn’t ready to give up yet, so I took a deep breath and went through the pattern in the reverse order.
Water. Air. Earth. Fire.
The ground suddenly shook beneath my feet, and I jumped back in search of stable footing, but everywhere I stepped was shaking. I dashed across the crater to the edge, but my companions were also struggling to maintain their balance. Then a low-pitched rumble echoed through the air, and I held my breath as I waited.
Did it work?
The rumbling sound continued to build in intensity, but then a loud whomping noise echoed up from the side of the mountain. I stomped my foot to activate the fleetness ability of my griffon feather boots, and I ran up the side of the concave peak to stand on the rim.
An avalanche careened down the side of the hill, and the fast-moving snow roared as it tumbled downward.
It was so loud I couldn’t hear anything except the whooshing sound of the densely-packed snow rushing down the slope. Trees were uprooted and carried along with it, and the entire path we’d traveled to get here was gone in the blink of an eye.
We wouldn’t be able to get back down that way.
When I looked back at the center of the crater, there were still no signs of any changes in the surface of the volcano. Even causing
an avalanche wasn’t enough to jump-start the fiery mountain, and I cursed under my breath.
What else could I try?
I’d come too far to turn back, but there was no way I was going to give up after we’d come all this way, and the only other volcano I knew of lay far away in the Eastern Ocean. Even with my fast travel amulet, it would still take me months to reach it, and there still weren’t any guarantees that I’d find what I was looking for when I got there.
I had to activate Mount Pacay.
If multiple elements wouldn’t work, maybe I could dig through the surface to the magma and release it. I hadn’t spent a lot of time using my earth magic, but I had one spell that still might do the trick.
I chanted the word of power over and over again as I made digging motions with my hands, and huge clumps of dirt rose into the air to fall into piles around me.
But the ground was hard beneath the first couple of feet, and the digging spell proved ineffective against the volcanic rock underneath.
“Bash?” I felt a soft hand on my shoulder, and I turned to see Zenda with a worried expression on her face. “It doesn’t look like it's going to work…”
“It’ll work,” I insisted with a determined lift of my chin. “It’s just going to take some time.”
“The light is fading,” the historian said, and her gaze lifted to the sky. “We should strike camp while we have time.”
“Go for it,” I said. “I’m going to keep trying.”
“You’ll exhaust yourself.” Zenda shook her head. “At least take a break? We can try again in the morning.”
I’d never failed before, and I was tempted to reset to my save point to prevent it altogether, but the Zaborian beauty was right. I wasn’t getting anywhere fast, and it would be even harder to do anything in the dark.
“I was sure I was successful when everything started to shake,” I said.
“Me, too.” Zenda nodded and wrapped her arm around my waist to guide me toward the sleds. “Maybe it just takes a while?”
I allowed my blue-skinned lover to lead me away from the center of the crater, but I wasn’t about to give up. There were no
instruction manuals on how to activate a dormant volcano, so I’d just have to experiment until I figured it out.
Even if it took me a thousand lifetimes to get it right.
“It’s alright, Bash,” Jax comforted me. “Ye can’t win ‘em all.”
“Like hell I can’t.” I frowned. “Just give me some time. Magma will be flowing before you know it.”
“We can try again in the morning,” Mahini said, but I could see the tinge of disappointment in her eyes.
We’d all been excited to complete our mission, but once I figured out how to activate the volcano, I’d reset and do it right.
Then we set up our tent-igloo structure for the night, but I was grateful for the rim of the volcano as it provided extra wind protection. My head throbbed from the excessive amount of magic I’d used, but I still managed to build an ice wall around the tent.
Once the structure was complete, we unloaded the sleds and let the dogs into the tent, and I was on my way inside when something caught my eye.
I swiveled toward the crack in the rim we’d come through, and I spotted the lizard-like mask of a hooded cultist for the briefest flash before they darted out of sight.
“Son of a bitch,” I cursed, and I took off running after them.
I reached the rim a moment later, but the only sign of the cultist were the melted footprints left behind. The marks trailed down the slope on the opposite side from where we’d come up, and I realized the cultists had been close this whole time.
And they knew we were here.
Mahini and Jaxtom trotted up behind me with weapons in hand, and they scanned the landscape as they crossed the distance to me.
“What was it?” Mahini asked, but then she noticed the footprints and inhaled sharply. “Dragon cultists.”
“Yep.” I pressed my lips into a thin line. “Right under our noses.”
“We goin’ after ‘em?” Jax arched an eyebrow and thumped his double-headed axe handle into the palm of his hand. “I’ve got some energy to burn.”
“I need to find out where they’re hiding out.” I nodded. “I don’t want them interrupting me.”
“Let’s do it.” Jax grinned and pulled the hood of his cloak tighter around his face.
“What about Zenda and our guide?” Mahini’s ice-blue gaze flicked back toward our newly-erected structure. “We can’t just leave them here.”
“Plus the egg and our stuff,” Jax added.
“We’ll all go together,” I agreed. “Grab the egg and anything valuable we can carry on our backs, but we need to move fast before the sun sets completely.”
“Got it.” The desert goddess nodded, but then she turned and jogged toward our tent.
Zenda, Kent, and Mahini returned a moment later, and the blue-skinned historian’s sapphire eyes were bright with curiosity as she noticed the melted tracks.
“A spy, perhaps?” she asked.
“Let’s find out,” I said, and I led my companions down the side of the mountain.
“I was afraid you would say that,” Kent sighed.
“You’re starting to catch on,” I said, and I clapped the man on the shoulder.
The snow blew in our eyes as we followed the melted tracks down the slope, and it soon became hard to see further than the next
print. The hill became dangerously steep in spots, and I had to help the women down ledges a few times. From the angle of the tracks, the cultist was moving at a quick pace, but I was sure they were more familiar with this side of the mountain better than we were.
The sun was quickly fading, and the chill settled into my bones, but I kept going. If I couldn’t activate the volcano, then I was at least going to remove the annoyance of the cult. With any luck, and possibly a few resets, I’d find this Lord Caldera guy and eliminate the cult altogether.
The God of Time didn’t give up.
We continued to follow the tracks down the slope until the trail leveled out and widened, and we were able to walk side by side for a while. A wall of snow bordered the path on the right-hand side with the steep slope of the mountain on the other, but everything was cast into shadows.
More footprints joined the ones we followed, and soon it became difficult to discern one set from another. It was clear cultists came this way often, and the path was melted down to the dirt underneath the snow. We sloshed through mud and snowmelt as the path curved around the back of the mountain, but then the trail disappeared into the side of the slope.
I frowned as I drew closer to the end, and I saw a stone archway on the side of the mountain. Two carved dragon heads adorned either side of the top of the arch, and they were posed with their spike-toothed maws open.
We were getting closer.
“This way,” I said as I dipped into the tunnel.
I had to duck my head to clear the archway, but the Reachers were all shorter than me, so they probably didn’t have any clearance issues. My companions were a step behind me, but I paused just inside the entrance to let my eyes adjust to the dim light.
We stood at the top of a set of stairs carved into the mountain, and they curved downward into the darkness and out of sight. Frost clung to the stone walls of the tunnel, and I could see my breaths condense in the air.
“Fur,” I murmured with my palm held outstretched, and a small flame bloomed in my hand. I held my fire above my head, and shadows danced across the stone walls. Icicles hanging from the ceiling sparkled in the light, and they released a steady dripping of water onto the steps, so the stairs were bound to be slippery.
“What is this place?” Zenda asked with an awed look around.
“This isn’t on my maps,” Kent said, and he glanced anxiously back at the way we’d come from. “Maybe we should get back to our camp…”
“Nonsense.” I grinned. “Don’t you want to find out what’s at the bottom?”
“Not particularly,” my guide said.
“You’re safe with us,” Mahini assured him, and she twirled her sword around in her grasp. “Don’t worry.”
“We goin’ or what?” Jax grunted.
“Going.” I flashed the blacksmith a wide smile, and then I turned to the tunnel ahead.
I stepped down each stair carefully, but a thin layer of ice had accumulated on every inch of the stones, so it was slow going. I redid my fire spell a few times, and I was grateful for the small amount of heat the flame produced. It kept my fingers from tingling with the cold, so I’d be able to maneuver my weapons efficiently when the time came.
The stairs curled first in one direction and then in the other, but there didn’t seem to be an end in sight. The air pressure intensified
the further we went underground, but then I noticed the chill in the atmosphere abated slightly.
It was getting warmer.
The ice on the steps transitioned to slush before disappearing altogether, and there were no longer icicles hanging from the ceiling of the tunnel. I couldn’t see my breaths anymore, and sweat began to drip down the base of my neck.
The warmth in the air continued to increase until it became almost unbearable, and my companions began to push back the hoods of their fur-lined cloaks. My ears popped from the pressure as we descended even further into the mountain, but I swallowed down the discomfort.
We were getting closer.
I could feel it.
The steps curled to the left again, and then steam filled the air like a sauna as the stairs leveled out. Hisses and gusts of air pockets releasing heat echoed throughout the tunnel, and my heart thudded in my chest at each sound. My nerves were on edge, and I gripped a panabas tightly in one hand while holding my flame spell in the other.
We weren’t alone in the tunnel.
I could hear voices up ahead, and it sounded like they were chanting something, but I couldn’t make out the words.
Then the straight tunnel ended at another archway with matching dragon heads guarding the entrance, and I glanced at my companions before I continued into the chamber, but I froze as soon as I saw what lay on the other side of the threshold.
A black stone wall flanked the chamber on either side of a dais, but inside was a pool of magma sloshing and churning like it was alive. Surrounding it was a horde of hooded cultists standing with their backs to me, and they all had their arms raised up as though in the middle of a prayer. The molten rock illuminated the chamber with an orange-red glow, and a robed man in a massive dragon skull mask stood silhouetted by the fiery liquid.
It had to be Lord Caldera.
It seemed as though I’d found their secret temple, and the magma I needed, too. Now, all I had to do was break up their little ritual and claim the volcano for myself. Then I could forge my armor and return successfully to Bastianville.
The God of Time always got what he wanted.
I grinned as I extinguished my fire spell in exchange for my other panabas. The handles were comforting in my grasp, and I took a deep breath to fill my lungs with hot, sticky air.
“Lord Caldera!” I shouted over the sounds of the chanting cultists. “Come face me like a real man!”