Chapter 420: Blazing through the sky to Sanguino!

I frowned as we walked back through the halls of the fort, back to the exit we’d made.

“Hang on.” I said as it clicked what was missing. “Something’s wrong here.”

Iona paused.

“What’s wrong?”

“Money.” I said, the one thing I hadn’t seen any of finally bringing itself to my attention as I’d thought of Amber and how she’d go nuts over this much wealth.

“This place is worth a lot, what do you mean?” Iona asked.

“We haven’t seen a single coin or gem anywhere. No coin pouches. No gems in goblets, no defensive arrays utilizing a gem, no stashes, nothing. Unless they were living in a coinless utopia,” I gestured around me at the obvious displays of wealth all over the walls, pointing out how absurd my premise was. “They would’ve needed, and had, money. Why isn’t there a single bent coin, gambling chits, anything here?”

Iona’s eyebrows scrunched up as she realized the issue.

“Brrrpt!” Auri agreed that something was weird.

“That… is unusual, yes. The only thing I can imagine is the coins were all… made from some sort of biodegradable material…?” The Valkyrie didn’t even sound convinced by her own argument.

“Weird.”

She shrugged.

“Weird indeed, but what can we do about it? We can complain about the lack of easy money until we’re blue in the face, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s not here.”

I grumbled at leaving the mystery unresolved as we exited the ancient Immortal’s hideout, back into the Pekari’s butcher room.

“You know, things were kind of hectic before, and this is going to sound like I’m an idiot, but there’s another exit to the room. One the Pekari made. Do we want to go deeper?” I asked Iona. One mystery was bugging me - what happened to all the coins? - and now there were even more mysteries abounding. Like what was going on with the Pekari. “I figure if we go deeper, we might be able to, I dunno, hit a place where the Pekari are manufactured and throw a wrench into future operations.”

Another nice thing about the Pekari? I didn’t feel a shred of guilt blasting them. There was no [Oath] to worry about, no chance of a living, breathing creature being harmed. Just pure point, blast, and melt. It was mildly cathartic.

“Yeah, sure, I don’t see us getting much further today, and we might as well do something with our day instead of sitting around.” Iona agreed.

We started walking down the tunnel, and I was on high alert for traps. This was new, untread territory.

At the very edge of my super biologically improved hearing, I started to hear a faint buzzing. It was just one sound among many, but it was putting my teeth on edge. I didn’t bother asking Iona or Auri if they heard it, I could barely hear it.

As we walked the tone slowly increased, both in pitch and volume. Finally I couldn’t take it anymore.

“That damn buzzing!” I swore. Iona froze.

“Buzzing?” She said. “Like humming?”

“I suppose you could call - OH FUCK!” I swore as I realized what Iona was saying.

“GO GO GO!” Iona yelled, grabbing Auri and turning on her heel. We started to sprint out of the lair, trying to get out of the place before the Pekari Hummer collapsed the tunnels on us. I could see Octopuses in the walls fleeing, heading deeper as we tried to escape.

Almost like it knew we were escaping, the volume and intensity of the humming grew dramatically. The tunnel started to shake at the pure bone-rattling intensity of the sound, and bricks and rock started to fall from the ceiling. Iona and I were both fast and agile, able to nimbly run around the detritus and deflect anything from braining us.

[Telekinesis] from Iona was invaluable, the tall blonde able to deflect and move the occasional rock out of the way. We moved in beautiful tandem, just knowing what the other person was going to do and not fouling each other’s movements. No rocks telekinetically thrown into me, and I knew Iona would shift some rubble but not others, letting me dexterously and nimbly run.

“Brrpt! BRRPT! Brrrrpt!!!” Auri was the slowpoke of the group, and everyone knew it. She stuck to cheering us on as hard as she could with her beak, occasionally throwing out a [Mage Hand] to clear out little bits of rubble, smoothing our path that much more.

Then we were out, exploding into the glorious sunshine as the humming reached a crescendo, the ground rumbling and slumping slightly as it collapsed.

“Oh come on, that wasn’t worth a level?” I complained at the same time Iona did a fist pump.

“It was worth a level for me!” She cheered.

I made a disgusted noise.

“Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrppppppppppttt.” Auri joined me in making noises at Iona’s celebration. She also wanted some levels.

“For real though, congratulations!” I told Iona. She grinned at me.

“Come on, let’s go see if the village needs any help.”

Iona didn’t waste any time to see what my reply was, bounding over to the village.

The village threw a party that evening. The Pekari assault had, among other things, resulted in a number of dead livestock. There was no sense in passing up the food and letting it rot, and it seemed like every other villager had a skill that worked with food, and made it still whole and edible even after it had sat out in a field for a few hours.

Magic was wild. There was a skill for anything and everything, and it made me curse the System’s limitations once again. Why was I limited to three classes!? Why couldn’t I take more than thirty-two skills!? Goddesses, it was so unfair.

I sat upwind of the cooking. Among other creatures, the villagers raised pigs, and the smell of roasting pork still turned my stomach like nothing else. A specialty of the place were llamas, and I expanded my culinary experience. Iona was in her element, talking with people, letting them see the sunny side of things, seamlessly integrating into a brand new culture and tight-knit community with no effort at all. She had them laughing, singing, and dancing, and even made it look like it was their idea!

Best of all, it mostly kept them from bugging me.

Auri was literally in her element, bathing in the campfire flames, ‘secretly’ doing all the cooking. She’d surprised people the first few times, but they quickly got used to a little white hat of flames fluttering around the fireplace, and a long beak just hovering there. Auri was made of flames in the end.

Adaptable lot. I suppose living out in a small village like this, people had to roll with the punches.

In spite of trying to hide somewhat out of the way, and not really being in the party, a woman sat down next to me.

“Hi.” I said, trying not to be unfriendly.

“Thank you.” She took a bite of her food, and my nose wrinkled.

Why did I leave myself with the ability to smell pork? That had been a mistake on my part.

“You’re welcome,” What else was there to say?

She shook her head.

“My name’s Viria. You fixed my knee. It’s been bad for years. I can walk again, run again, all thanks to you.”

She gave me a quick hug, then skipped - skipped! - away back to the rest of the party.

I had a slow smile as she joined the party, throwing herself into the dances with a decade of repressed joy and exuberance. It wasn’t that much longer until the pipes came out, the villagers communally smoking some herb I wasn’t familiar with. Weirdly, it was an activity that immediately got Fenrir accepted as a temporary member of their community, as he loomed over them with his own pipe. After a moment of terror, someone laughed, stuffed his pipe full, and he joined them, contently taking up an entire road with his neck as he puffed on his pipe with the rest of them.

Thank fuck for biology. There was no way he could get high off that little of what the villagers were smoking. A wyvern of Fenrir’s size without all his faculties was a terrifying thought.

They politely offered it to me, and I declined. Iona had some, and I watched Auri try to get the ‘magic smoke’ and failing miserably because she was a phoenix and it just didn’t work on her the same way.

Which naturally had the villagers curious. I turned in for the night as they started to see what effects happened as Auri burned the herbs with different flames.

We left the village the next day, and I was only slightly smug about my lack of hangover and general feeling-good-ness.

We headed to the nearest town, got directions, and after an evening where Iona finally got me into a tavern, started to head towards Sanguino.

The town was interesting, and we rapidly encountered an unusual feature of Exterreri. I’d read about it, but it was one thing to hear about it, and another completely to experience it.

Ash.

Exterreri was the land of vampires, the creatures forming the upper crust of society. Since vampires could only make new vampires by turning mortals, Exterreri had a whole system of picking out their best and brightest - best connected was my ungenerous, suspicious take of it - and making them Immortal. Like Marcelle.

Vampires had some minor issues when it came to sunlight. Instead of crippling themselves for half the day, their solution was ‘simple’.

Coat the towns and cities with massive, billowing clouds of ash. Classers had to be involved, people burning wood or just flat-out generating Ash with classes, then controlling and keeping it above the towns and cities, darkening the skies and keeping the pesky sunlight off the vampires.

Not every city and town had an Ash cloud, and I had a thousand speculations why that was. A lack of Classers able to handle it, or a lack of vampires in the town was the simple solution, but it could easily be more convoluted than that.

The prevailing wind often grabbed and blew the ash downwind, and the air was filled with little specks of ash. It gently fell down onto the vast swathes of farmland, helping nurture and fertilize the crops, letting the farmers grow far more than they otherwise would.

Also landing on the tree farms used to grow the wood, continuing the cycle. My mind boggled at the amount of mana and coin required to keep the cycle running for every single city, but I guess I just wasn’t used to the scale that Immortals could operate at.

Hell, at level 513 I cleared an entire city of a plague in a single day and night. What could someone at level 1000 do? 2000?

Iona coughed as we flew through one stream of Ash, and pulled Fenrir up.

“Blasted Ash.” She cursed as she directed the wyvern up and over the bulk of it.

“Brrrpt…” Auri liked the Ash. It was a sign of HUGE FIRES going on somewhere, and she wanted in.

“Maybe you can get a job burning wood?” I suggested to her.

That immensely cheered her up, and she spent the whole trip speculating about different types of furnaces and methods. Byproducts, furnace shapes, different woods and dryness, and hundreds of other factors I had never considered even when I’d been a Fire [Mage].

“We should have a name.” Iona said during one of our endless hours of flying.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Like the adventurer group. A name for our little group.”

I pulled a Face at that, letting my disgust be known. Iona rapped me on the head.

“Oi. You’re not being nice or reasonable here. I’m not suggesting that we become adventurers or anything, just that having a name would be nice.”

“Brrrpt!” Auri hopped to the front of Fenrir’s head, and burned letters into the air.

Auri and her Sparks.

I was impressed that she managed to hold the letters relatively still against the wind. That was some fine, fine control.

Iona shook her head.

“Nope.” I said.

“Brpt…” Auri muttered about traitors, and gave a new suggestion.

Auri’s Embers.

We didn’t dignify that one with an answer.

“The Duet Duet?” Iona suggested.

“What?” I asked. Auri shook her head, and Fenrir growled his displeasure.

“Well, there’s two pairs of two, and… yeah alright it’s a bad name.” Iona conceded.

“Mango Seekers! What? I thought we were doing silly names.” I defended myself against Iona’s disgusted noise, although Auri was minorly approving.

Auri’s Colors.

“The group is for all of us, not just you.” I gave Auri a pointed look.

“Day’s Turn.” Iona suggested, and we were off to the races.

The Moonlit Flame of Kindness.

“Sunset Aurora.”

Wings of Fire and Ice!

“The Bells.”

Auri’s Aurora.

“Twilight Terrorists.”

“Hey!” I objected to that one.

Auri & Friends.

“The Wings of Twilight.”

Auri’s Pest Extermination and Quality Baked Goods.

“The Flock!”

“That’s an oddity, let’s not.”

Auri’s Adventurers Against Apples.

“Order of the Mango!”

Auri and Company.

“Celestial Spheres.”

Auri’s Angels.

“Lunar Knights.”

“Hey, that’s not terrible…” I said at Iona’s suggestion.

Auri shook her head, and Fenrir growled unhappily.

Team Inferno!

Fenrir had a limited ability to speak, and rarely used it. He finally spoke.

“Eventide Eclipse.”

Auri trilled unhappily, but Iona and I looked at each other.

“I like it. Dawn and Dusk, the moons over the sun. A blazing fire hidden by something cold.” The last part was aimed squarely at Auri, who no matter how much I loved, was getting annoying with her suggestions.

“It’s a nice name. I could be happy calling ourselves the Eventide Eclipse.” Iona agreed.

Fenrir obviously liked his suggestion, and we stared at Auri.

“There’s three votes for it.” I pointed out.

Auri conjured up a little black hat of flames, and mimed throwing it down onto Fenrir’s head and jumping on it.

“Brrpt! Brpt.” She conceded that it was a fine name after working out some of her frustration.

“That’s that! We’re the Eventide Eclipse!”

Iona naturally wanted to celebrate in a fancy way that eventide.

The sights as we soared through Exterreri were gorgeous. From fields of golden wheat, to lush forests, sparkling lakes to shining city walls, from rich orchards to wide, well-maintained roads, Exterreri was beautiful.

Some of the cities had interesting features. One had a tower in the shape of a metal fist rising far above the rest of the buildings, another had what looked like marble angels patrolling the streets. I wasn’t sure if there was some sort of civic pride, inter-city rivalry going on, or just plain old bored Immortals finding something to do with their time.

One city was laid out in the stylized shape of a bat! It was incredibly obvious from the sky, the black roads carving out an impressive look. The shanty town and sprawl away from the walls sort of ruined the look though. It was still a nice effort.

We weren’t the only ones in the sky. Harpies were the most common by far, and the only thing we steered to avoid was a quetzalcoatl - the feathery snake type, like an extra-large coatl. We also saw a quetzalcoatlus flying around with a rickety house on its back, which was like a pteranodon stretched to the size of a giraffe.

I wanted to throttle whoever had named the two species so close to each other. Why!? Just why!? Give things distinct names!!

“Is that a flying fortress!?” I eagerly pointed to a half-sphere lazily floating through the air, armed to the gills.

“Looks like.” Iona steered Fenrir just a little away from it, not that we were on an intercept course.

“I want to live in a flying fortress some day.”

Iona laughed.

“Sure, we just need a few billion coins and we can afford one.”

We did get one scare as we were flying over Exterreri though. A roc, with a wingspan nearly as large as Fenrir’s, flew up next to us. A team of eight people were variously on the roc’s back, or hanging onto one of the dozen leather straps coming off of its side. They all had obsidian badges of a bat on their chest.

“Oh! Rangers!” I grabbed Iona in my excitement as they started to come closer. “They’re Rangers! Just like I used to be!”

I sort of forgot myself in my excitement, standing up to wave at them, balancing on Fenrir’s back. Hilariously, some of them were still throwing on pieces of armor, helping each other strap into their gear while they approached.

“They don’t look thrilled to see us.” I pouted a bit. Iona gave me a no shit look.

“Annnnnnnd your reaction to a fucking wyvern flying over Remus would’ve been…?” She said as she started to nudge Fenrir into a slow dive.

“Ah.” I promptly sat back down, the roc coming next to us.

“Please land!” One of the Rangers hanging from the straps ordered us in High Elvish. [Mage - 344] my [Long-Range Identify] came back. He was the lowest leveled of the eight Rangers, but clearly had some skill that let him be heard at the windspeed we were going at.

I cupped my hands over my mouth.

“We are!” The wind snatched most of my words away from me, but our intent was clear.

Also! Also! One of the Rangers was [Healer]-tagged! Interestingly, one was [Artisan]-tagged as well. An enchanter?

While I was getting strong Remus vibes from Exterreri in some ways, in others it was remarkably clear that this was a different country, a different culture. Leather skirts, galea helmets and vambraces were out. Heavy scale over mail, turning into a long split shin-length skirt, goggled hard helmet with mail protecting the face and neck, plate pauldrons, gauntlets, and boots were in. Trimmings were black whenever possible, and they were all sporting kite shields and slightly curved blades. The roc had a full complement of lances, and was almost as weighed down with gear as Fenrir was. It was clear that at least two of the Rangers were women, but I couldn’t tell anything about the ones who’d already finished getting their gear on.

Finding a spot to land was always a little tricky. Roads were off-limits, we didn’t want to block traffic. Field were off-limits, something about crushing tons of produce had people unwisely waving pitchforks and torches at us. Forests had lots of pointy bits aimed at us, and in theory we could just crush through the trees. In practice, who walked barefoot over nails?

Fortunately there was a small meadow, and we easily landed. Iona kept her armor off, but manipulated her ever-present mallium to present the symbol of her order, a small pair of wings near her ears.

“Let me do the talking.” She said.

I nodded furiously.

“That was the plan!” I wholeheartedly agreed. I knew I’d stick my foot in my mouth in some way, shape, or form. “Although, I am hoping to ask if they know anyone called Night…” I trailed off hopefully.

Iona squeezed my arm.

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll find a tactful way to ask. Should be a member of the organization, yeah?”

I nodded.

“Around the Sentinels.”

I popped my random utility spell book and summoned a comb. We had one packed away, but we had no time to go hunt it down and fish it out!

The roc landed a distance away, and we all hopped off our respective rides.

“How do I look?” I asked Iona, furiously trying to tame my hair from the windswept mess it had turned into. We were meeting the Rangers! I had to look good! I had to look presentable! I knew it was Auri’s influence, but damnit, it was right! I had to put my best foot forward! I didn’t want them to think of me as an ugly mess. That was a terrible first impression!!

And that was just my hair! I had dirt and scuffs on my tunic, I’d been wearing it and sweating in it for hours, I didn’t have a single earring or anything on, it was all wrong!

Iona put her hands on my shoulders.

“You look lovely. I want nothing more than to ignore the Rangers and drag you off to a bush, but we need to go meet them.”

Iona knew just how to flatter me and get me to refocus, and we went to meet the Rangers in the middle of the field.