Chapter 410 - A Walk Through The Remnant Realm

Didn't get a chance to update the old chapters with my edits today. I'll explain them all in the next one instead.

The wizard temple quickly fell away behind Hump. Other parties faded from view, and soon, there was nobody around but Hump and his party. Surrounded by nothing but sand and stone, it felt like they were alone in this alien world. The stale, dry air was unmoving but for the occasional breeze. There was little warmth in the red sun. It wasn’t unpleasant, but Hump appreciated the properties of his new cloak keeping his body comfortable.

Hump kind of liked the walk. This felt like an adventure—at least, when he didn’t consider the warlocks they were hunting and the scale of the expedition. There was truly nothing around him. So much of Alveron was well explored, to find a place that perhaps nobody had been fore millenia was really quite spectacular. There was no knowing what he might find over the next dune. Well… sort of. So far he’d guessed the right answer every time—more sand and more stone.

As time passed, a sense of isolation came over Hump. It was easy to feel lost out here, but he only had to look at the map artifact he’d been provided to feel confident. It was working. The wizard temple was marked by a black dot at their rear, while wherever they went was an expanding section of yellow, along with wavy lines representing elevation. Even if they tried, there was no getting lost.

The next three hours were… long. They walked in a crisscross pattern as instructed, trying to fully cover the area around Elenvine when in combination with the other parties. The goal by the end of the day was to have a complete circle around the wizard temple mapped out. Occasionally, they would catch sight of Marcela or Randall’s parties on distant dines, then signal to them with a burst of essence, but it had been a while since they’d seen their other squad members. Hump and the others had veered off path after Nisha had spotted a tower stone crag in the distance. Changing from their crisscross walk, they made a direct line for the crag with the plan to climb it before their three hours were up.

“What do you think?” Bud asked, staring up at the great rock formation. “Can you get up this in twenty minutes?”

Hump’s eyes roamed the looming stone. It was the tallest thing they’d seen since coming to the Remnant Realm, towering high over the plains.

“Don’t you worry about me,” Hump said. “I’m not the same wizard I used to be. I’ve got dragon blood running through me now—I could run for days.”

Bud grinned, setting off and upward. “Excellent. We won’t get any complaining then. That’s perfect.”

“A nice peaceful hike,” Emilia said. “Sounds lovely.”

“I don’t mind going up alone,” Celaine said. “I can take a look around and tell you if there’s anything worth seeing.”

“No need,” Hump said. “I’d like a better overview of this place. Anything that’s different is worth us taking a look at.”

Dylan held up the sand timer they’d been given. “We don’t have long.”

“We’ll make it,” Bud said.

It took them most of the twenty minutes to climb the crag. Once, this would have taken Hump miles. Now, he ran it with the others, traversing what must have been a mile long, uphill hike in a matter of minutes. A layer of dusty gravel coated the entire thing, crumbling away beneath their footsteps as they walked. In places, entire sections of the crag had collapsed into giant piles of small stones. With the essence in this world in chaos, there was no earth essence to bind the rock together. With time, it would all become dust. It made Hump wonder how giant the crag might have been once. A thousand years was a long time for something to crumble—he could be walking on the corpse of a mountain.

As they reached the flat top, it was all worth it. From above, Hump gazed out across endless plains in all directions, the sand shimmering in the red light of the sun. Never had he seen anything like it. It wasn’t beautiful exactly. More… ominous. How many dead lay upon these plains? How much had been lost to time and devastation? What information they’d been provided of the Remnant Realm said that it was once a place of lavish forests and greenery, where plants thrived on essence. Now all that remained was their dust.

“Well, that was about as good a use of time as I expected,” Dylan said. “Turns out nothing looks the same from high up too.”

Emilia raised her brow and gave him a look. “Have any of us mentioned that you’re a little glum today, Dylan.”

Dylan sighed. “I’m sorry. It’s this place. It just gives me the ick.”

She smiled, and gave his arm a squeeze. “I’m only messing. I know it’s hard for you.”

He gave her an appreciate smile back and then held up the depleted sand timer. “Fortunately, this day at least is almost over. It’s time for us to think about heading back. How’s the map looking, Hump?”

Hump held it up for everyone to see. “Very yellow. If you look closely here,” Hump pointed at the big yellow section with his finger, his party gathering around, “you’ll see that this entire area has nothing in it.”

A small chuckle escaped everyone.

“I see,” Emilia said. “Now that is useful.”

Hump grinned. “Worth coming up here though. It will make for a good waypoint, and the map seems to pick up anything that I can see. It’s added to our progress.”

“I see Marcela again,” Celaine said, pointing to a distant plain, slightly farther to the north.

Hump squinted, catching shadows stirring vaguely in the distance. It could have just as easily have been rocks to him.“You sure?”

Celaine gave him a look like he was an idiot.

Hump frowned. “You’re sure.”

“Of course I’m sure,” she snapped. “Why do you always ask me if I’m sure?”

“I just like to check,” Hump said defensively. “No need to get cross.”

Celaine rolled her eyes.

“Are they looking at us?” Bud asked.

“No,” Celaine said.

“I have an idea,” Hump said. He used Distant Whisper, reaching into the distance for Marcela’s mind. It took a while—they were even farther away than he realised, but he found her, a flame of brilliant essence in a land of nothing else. She stood out like a star.

“It’s Hump. Have a look at the big rock to your left.”

A few seconds passed and Hump thought he saw movement.

“They’re waving,” Celaine said. She waved her arm back, as did the rest of them.

“Give them something to look at, Nisha,” Hump said with a grin.

The dragon arched her neck like a serpent and tilted her head upward. With a roar, fire erupted through the air, scorching heat against Hump’s face. He watched with glee.

“Good girl.”

Her tail whipped from side to side and she hugged his side, almost knocking him over as she rubbed against his leg.

“Right, shall we head back?” Dylan asked.

Emilia laughed. “Let’s not keep the poor druid here any longer than we have to.”

Nisha took off as they headed back down from the crag, flying high overhead and sending Hump a view of the area through their bond. Farther to the south, he glimpsed what could have been a tower, or perhaps it was just a stone column. Either way, it didn’t look natural.

Hump came to a stop, trying to spot the tower but it was on the other side of the crag. He’d need to circle around. “I think Nisha’ found something.”

“Is it more sand or more rock?” Bud asked.

“Possibly a particularly tall rock,” Hump said. “But it doesn’t look natural. If we head down the south side of the crag, I think we’ll pass it. It shouldn’t add long to our trip.”

“Want me to go ahead on my own and save us the time?” Celaine offered.

Hump shook his head. “Whatever we do, we do it together. I know it looks empty but there’s no telling what might lurk beneath the sand.”

“I’m not sure that’s true,” Dylan said, eyeing the ground. “I strongly suspect the answer to that is absolutely nothing.”

Hump snorted. “Nonetheless, we stay together.”

It took them fifteen minutes at a blessing enhanced run to catch up to Nisha. What stood before them was a towering pillar, taller even than the belltowers in the Temple District. Yet staring at the smooth red stone, Hump saw nothing etched on its surface. No tiles, no runes, and no sign of workmanship.

“Well look at that,” Dylan said. “It’s a rock!”

“It’s an odd looking rock,” Celaine said cheerfully. “Good job, Nisha!” The little dragon raced around in excitement and Celaine laughed, catching her in a hug against her leg.

Hump studied the weathered pillar, running a hand along its smooth surface. “This doesn’t look natural. Could it be the remains of something from before this world was desolated?”

“Buildings don’t survive millennia without magical reinforcement,” Emilia said, tilting her head in thought. “At least not usually.”

“There’s no wind here, and the environment doesn’t seem to change much,” Hump said. “It’s possible.” He crouched and began to dig at the base of the stone, but the effort yielded no results. “Stand back. Let me see if there’s anything under the surface.”

Bronze essence flared as Hump cast his spell. Tendrils of energy lashed out, swirling the sand into a controlled cyclone. The pillar’s base emerged inch by inch, but it extended deep into the ground with no indication of additional structures.

“Well, that was anticlimactic,” Dylan said, folding his arms.

“Give me a minute,” Hump said. He reached for the pillar with his own essence, tendrils of bronze working their way into the smooth surface. And inside, he sensed nothing. This thing was void of essence. For such a tall pillar to stand the test of time while completely void of essence… it was impossible. There was nothing to hold the pillar together. It should have deteriorated to a pile of rocks.

“There’s no essence in this,” Hump said.

“There are bonds in the earth—all the dirt and stone is linked by earth essence. Where the bonds weaken, it crumbles, like how that crag we climbed was covered in gravel. All of that was the stone deteriorating. Yet this remains.”

“Why does that matter?” Bud asked.

Dylan stepped closer to Hump, inspecting the pillar to. “It means that there’s nothing to hold the pillar together. This really shouldn’t exist.”

“It also means that this is almost certainly not natural,” Hump said. “If it was, it would be no different to anything else in this world.”

“If it’s not natural, what is it?” Emilia asked. “There’s nowhere to enter.”

“It looks a bit like a giant spike,” Celaine said. “You don’t think this could be the aftermath of a spell, do you?”

All of them went quiet for a minute. Hump leant his head back, staring up to the top of the pillar. How much essence would such a thing take to create? He certainly couldn’t do it.

“If a powerful wizard or god had created this, it could explain how it’s still here,” Hump said. “Though I still don’t understand how it could stand up to time for so long without any earth essence to bind it.”

Dylan was staring into the hole Hump had made, standing right on the edge. “We should mark this. Anara may want to send people to excavate the area. This may be somewhere of significance.”

“I’ll mark it on the map,” Hump said, taking out the artifact and using an application of will to create another black dot next to the crag.

“We’ve got trouble,” Celaine said. Hump looked at her, to see her squinting at a point farther south. Scanning the horizon, Hump saw nothing at first. Then his eyes were drawn to a faint dark shape in the sky.

“Is that a shade?” Emilia asked, voice tense.

Celaine nodded. “Just one. It’s probably drawn to the magic. Don’t panic.”

“Where there’s one, there might be more,” Hump said, then he frowned. “Isn’t that the direction of Randall’s party?”

Celaine shielded her eyes, squinting at the distance.

“If they were in trouble, they would activate their locator beacon,” Bud said.

“There may be an issue with the artifacts,” Hump said.

“Shades drain essence,” Dylan said. “It’s possible they could cause an artifact to malfunction.”

“Worth checking out then.” Hump turned to his dragon and smiled. “Nisha, we have a mission for you! Can you fly over and have a look for us, please. And be careful to leave the shade alone.”

Nisha’s stance changed. Her playfulness vanished, and suddenly Hump sensed her desire to hunt. A snarl graced her lips, a deep rumble escaping her chests. Warmth welled in her chest and Hump sensed her pride and excitement—she was liking this. With two powerful thrusts of her wings, Nisha rose high into the sky and headed straight in the direction of the shade.

Hump sighed and turned to Celaine. “She’ll be fine, won’t she?”

“I can’t imagine a single shade causing her any trouble.”

They stared after her… waiting. A minute passed. The shade and Nisha grew closer to black dots streaking toward each other. There was a burst of flame, and the shade was engulfed, that sensation of pride turning to absolute bliss. Nisha bellowed a great roar, and Hump couldn’t help but grin.

And then a vision of darkness appeared in Hump’s mind. A writhing mass of black shapes, broken up only by brief flashes of light within. A few broke away, drawn to the sky by Nisha, and Hump glimpsed a cone of Frostfire through Nisha’s eyes.

A battle was taking place, and it looked very much like Randall was at the centre of it.

“Activate our locator beacon,” Hump said. “Looks like we’re going to see some action after all.”