107 Volcano Harvest - Flaming Fire Spirit
Endless lands of scorched soil, colorless grey and black. A lot of small exhausting volcano eruptions all over the place.
It looked like the earth was filled with them and suffered any time when it burst its flames.
It was uncomfortable to come across such a place, nothing leaving left here. But magic signs were here before obviously,
and not once. This area had some magnetic and frightening power at the same time. Druid questioned himself of what
was so special here anyway? A huge lake lied here before this destruction, and so it was difficult to believe in this. Now
lava rivers flowed here and poisonous gazers streamed all over the place. It made a lot of mind discussions about the
reasons for such a catastrophe.
Wandering on the earth that was still passable, he found a magic activity nearby and went immediately there to
investigate, what it was and why it was here, on the border of the pure and dead land. He came up to a small flaming
magma river, which was spreading from a distant radius, somewhere at the centre of the former lake. It definitely had
an unnatural origin.
The first attempt of crossing this barrier led to the earth tremors, everything was good except six magma elementals
that rose just in front of him. They were one and a half human height and stood groaning their stone pieces in lava liquid.
An exact feeling came up to the druid, understanding that they were guarding something, but being brainless made them
stand like stupid. That’s why druid attacked first.
It was easy to deal with first two, they didn’t even understand what happened, but the rest four simultaneously charged
right at the druid, foolishly bashed one into another. Even zombies were smarter than these. But not for long… they merged
all in one big and massive golem, the height of a two-floor building. And it even grew more by the power of the ground.
Grew more and more and his swings were not so clumsy after all.
Druid’s feeling told him to flee and he gladly did so. But there was no place to hide - only ash wastelands and low rocks. One
thing for sure - he had time to consider the situation.
The human started to get out of reach but there was nothing to be glad for. He perfectly knew that his presence was noticed
and it was only a matter of time when he would be caught. Golems were just scary puppets. For a serious enemy they weren’t
a problem, at least he thought so, especially when he managed to escape them easily, towards the better worse…
A minute distraction and he felt being followed. Right on his tail a pack of… not birds but… gargoyles appeared to chase him.
They cracked from the nearest crags and began to catch up with the green dot on their land. Things started to be worse.
Dealing with several clumsy golems is one thing, but the ire of dozen gargoyles…
Only one thing left - to run. A half of a mile is up to get to him, at least it was something.
Meandering throughout the rocky cliffs, he ran into a somewhat warm and living, falling onto the ground. The fall was soft,
but the other ten angered orcs didn’t get the fun. They were all serious in that water magic armor cuirasses, and everyone
stared right at the druid, like there was nothing else to see.
This lucky maneuver helped out someone else, or is it better to say something? The fire spirit! It was surrounded and trapped,
but now the magical water moat was breached and the way to freedom was open.
Golem, gargoyles and fire spirit - the day seemed to be very lucky…
There was no time or possibility to examine him, he just burst out and fled, only smoky tail showing back behind. But the orcs
were seen quite perfectly - directly to theirs grin. Most of them ran after him, knowing what to become of them if they failed
to capture the spirit.
But the last two stood to teach druid a lesson and support their mate. Three orcs against the druid - a better layout rather than
ten. At first they tried to throw away the human, which they did quite good. Than the one, who was a bit bigger, attacked the
human, meaning to cut him in half with his rusty scimitar. It squashed the stone with a horrible sound, but the inertia did its
job and had hit the helmet of the orc. After that the other two bashed from the flanks and met with a friendly ding of their
weapons. By that time the druid managed to drabble himself in that water mud that held the spirit.
This mud gave a brilliant idea to what to do next - he made a quicksand soil and captured their feet very fast so that they were
immobilized and after that he went to catch the spirit. The burned after-trail gave a fine guarantee to find him quickly, but the
eyes were already hurt by the stink of this place, the smoke made things only worse.
“And here are the gargoyles”, - saw the druid, running now with more might than before, more driving himself to already
known trap. “Definitely the golem or even an army of goblins would make things worse”, - thought he, - “and there he
goes… - “Slowly trembling the ground the golem marched.
The sheer cliff became a new trap for the spirit, and again it was surrounded by seven orcs, but with open flanks. This situation
wasn’t too good for the spirit, he couldn’t burn them down because of that water magic armor they wore.
The gargoyles closed the flanks, and the golem covered the rear. There was no place to run... Now is best to say - out of the
frying-pan into the fire, and furthermore to taste a sweet portion of being a metal ingot on the madman’s anvil.
By the everyone surprise - the left flank suddenly broke, even not yet formed - the earth decided to set free some steam, to
relax a bit, and of course to unleash a portion of magma up into the air, growing in a small volcano. It didn’t have effect on
the spirit thou, but made nothing out of the gargoyles. The survived orcs fled in panic.
Than the spirit understood that he could slip away from here and stuck by the sight of the druid, which had already been
attacked by the gigantic golem hand from behind. Of course he missed and squashed the nearest part of the rock, blocking
the way for him by that action, but not for too long. That time was enough to meet the eye of the fire spirit. He hesitated,
not quite understanding what is happening now, why this human, only a human, is so calm in such a situation.
But the druid acted - he called upon the lake of yore and directed the stream flow right here. The ground shacked, unleashing
a mighty pillar of water, high in the sky, right there at the other flank of gargoyles. They were all washed away, but it didn’t
harm them as it was expected, just gave a matter of time. The spirit hissed by such an amount of water, horrified by the
consequences, but he would not have been a powerful element if couldn’t handle a single human.
Then he showed up his real form, intending to scare him off. It was a giant fire beetle; its flames were just veil, a shield.
Burning ornaments in fiery-orange, transparent-yellow wings that blaze in the air made it significantly beautiful. But,
unfortunately, it was injured on one wing, that’s why it couldn’t fly away…
The suddenly golem smash caught them by surprise, that was the time they realized the necessity of dealing the monsters
first and then with one another. By the combined forces, the druid and the spirit tore apart the rests of enemies, one by one.
When the golem died, he did break the ground beneath him and fell there. The gargoyles melted and were crushed like
an easy prey.
Everything was fine except a massive horde of a completely random enemies that had already surrounded them in a ring.
From beasts to monsters, living and undead. There has been only one way out here - underground. The spirit had gone
there first.
The heavens cracked with an unknown thunderous voice, giving orders to its minions. And something told the druid that
it would be painful, if they really managed to catch him.
The onslaught began. But still the army was far away from here. Someone ran, someone flew, even crawled, breaking
forward from the first lines to please their masters. And he was not so pleased at the moment, especially after the loss of
the spirit.
The druid have lost the elemental trace and decided to move forward, towards the more inhabited lands, remembering
that a dark elven outpost was some time ago at that point somewhere to the north.
He walked into a very extensive cave, and it looked like pretty usable. The rings of anvil hammers and the heat from the
furnace - made it clear about the purpose of its use here underground. Armor and weapons were made here for the army.
No one chased the human here - the tunnel collided as soon as he got down here.
He made it out somewhat in between the outpost and the elven forest, though the last one was really in a bad shape - the
burning land swallowed him slowly and it was only a matter of time when it could consume it completely. But for now the
danger had passed and somehow the conspiracy came up clearer.