Into the Hells

by Christopher Johns

  Jaken disappeared into the back, and Rowland turned back to us.

  “Thank you. Any nails that you might have or that the village may have access to would be appreciated,” the enchanter informed Rowland.

  “Do they need to be a specific kind?” I asked Vilmas.

  “They need to be able to hold the plaques in place—other than being able to do that? No specifications.”

  “Let me get some of your scrap iron ore or some ingots from you Rowland—I’ll take care of the nails,” I offered.

  Rowland handed me thirteen ingots of iron that probably weighed a good three pounds each. I took them and turned to the ladies.

  “What now, boss?” I asked Vilmas.

  “We prepare.” She looked around. “We will need a place that I can work, preferably somewhere I can be alone?”

  “The tavern should work.” I thought for a moment. “Though I’m not sure if there will be room, but we can always ask Willem and see if he can recommend a place.”

  It took us a few minutes to get to the tavern, and luckily, the chef’s quarters had been vacated so that the chef could move in with his new blushing bride, so Yoh had taken his. This left Yohsuke’s old room up for grabs.

  “This will do.” Vilmas sat on the bed and sighed. “We will need those nails in order to secure the plaques, but we will need to purify them before we use them. That way, your mana will not interfere with my own. I will teach you how to do that, but we will do so in the morning before we begin the enchanting. For now, I need to have some time alone to think about the engraving I want to use, then the list of effects. We should also see if there are any components out there that we could use to aid us. Raw ore would be fantastic.”

  I’ll keep that in mind, I thought to myself. Could I possibly find some in the mountains?

  “You’ll be safe here, and I’ll work on making those a little later on tonight.” I thought for a moment, then added, “I’ll be going to the mountains north of us to see about collecting some ore. Rowland has to get his from somewhere, and there used to be a rare bird who lived there. Has to be something special about the place other than just being attractive to lightning.”

  I’d ask Rowland, but I didn’t want to ruin his focus on the task ahead, and I wanted to try out some of my own abilities.

  “When do we leave?” Vrawn looked at me expectantly.

  “I take it you aren’t letting me out of your sight?” I sighed, half expecting this.

  “No.” She smiled resolutely. “I told you that I would spend time with you. Unless you do not want to? I would gather from your sudden disappearance to a Dwarven settlement made you leave me behind, and I understand why you might, but leaving without a single word makes me think my company is a burden for now.”

  Where is this level of emotional terrorism coming from? I wondered as I watched her cross the room to stand by the door.

  You know what? I had earned this. I was going to make it right, and rather than risk her puking from teleporting, I’d offer a different mode of travel. Time to make up for it, Zeke.

  “If you’re going to come with me and we want any hope of getting this done quickly, I’ll need you to get into my collar,” I explained. She looked at me in confusion, and I heard Vilmas wander over to us. “It takes one willing creature into it and puts them in a sort of stasis until I let them out.”

  “And you promise to let me out?” Her eyes narrowed at me.

  “I will. I promise.” She thought for a moment before offering me her hand gingerly.

  She touched the pitch-black gem in the setting, and I willed her into the item. Her large form began to dissipate into a cloud of smoke that filtered into the gem slowly at first but then fully a second later.

  “That’s an impressive bit of enchanting. I assume lady Shellica did that?” Vilmas asked. I nodded. “I hope I can do the same at some point. Good luck out there.”

  Well, there went the whole dimensional bag idea. Damn it. And I had really been hoping to pick her brain about that.

  I nodded and walked out into the hallway. The tavern was beginning to fill with people looking for an evening meal, so I dodged some folks on the way outside. Once I was out, I shifted and took flight. My owl form rose into the clouds on thermals that seemed to not care about the trees, and I was quickly on my way to the mountains.

  The travel time in flight was much faster than running on the ground, so by the time I made it to the mountain, the sun hung low in the sky. Once I landed, I shifted into my fox-man form before letting Vrawn out of my collar.

  Smoke filtered from the gem in the collar and solidified into a mystified looking Orc woman.

  “That was a very odd sensation,” she informed me a little breathlessly.

  “I get that sometimes,” I replied with a little cheek. “I’m going to be gone for a little bit, unfortunately. I need to go into the ground in order to see if there is any ore here that we can use.”

  I saw her shoulders fall a bit, and I moved to get her attention. “I promise, as soon as I get a minute, I will come and spend some time with you. This is likely going to be a process. Please, be patient with me.”

  That last, to me, felt more like it had more meaning than I had meant, but it seemed to work.

  “I will wait for you here,” she said with a sigh.

  I nodded once and assumed my earth elemental form. I felt the necessary mana drain, and my body shifted into a being that looked like a large-ish golem made of diamond, my legs were roughly the same size, hell—I was roughly the same size. I just looked like a giant man-diamond.

  “Shiny and very odd.” Vrawn’s hand smoothed over my shoulder. I looked at her, and her gaze went through me. Odd. Oh well, time to work.

  I stepped away and began to trudge forward and wade into the ground as if it were water. Once I was fully immersed, I felt everything around me. Every bit of earth within, I don’t know, hundreds of feet? This kind of awareness was mind blowing. I could tell where the trees were, where Vrawn stood, and the depth of the mountain in front of me.

  It was massive.

  The sheer depth of it was enormous, and it just felt dense. I pressed myself against the stone beneath the ground and tried to make my way through. I felt a little give, and there was an immediate pressure back that kept me out. I narrowed my sensory vision and focused on the mountain. How would I even try and find this ore? What did it feel like? What did it look like?

  Tiny Druid, you would have yourself in this kind of predicament. The mountain is beyond mortal understanding. Even with your flesh-made-diamond, you are not strong enough to become one with the immensity that is the stone. The bones of the world. The spine that holds the earth beneath your feet together and gives it shape. Allow me to show you a glimpse so that you are made aware.

  The world around me crushed inward, the pressure most likely necessary to make the diamonds I was made from. The shearing, grating presence of the tectonic plates crashing above me and around me. When I thought all was lost, the pressure was gone.

  It is not wise to tempt the mountains, tiny Druid. You are well, and I still like you a great deal. Allow me to show you then, what the presence of the precious metals you seek looks like to those who are like me.

  The world shifted, and the sense of connection and oneness I felt with the earth opened wide. It felt like I was looking at the night sky. The smatterings of golden and silver-hued dust off to the far north of my current position took my breath away. The clumps and clusters of the little stars looked like they were galaxies against a backdrop of the blackened earth. There were small bits of gray, green, yellow, and even a little blue one further out from me toward the western portion of the mountain.

  Thank you, Primordial Earth Elemental. I appreciate your favor and your wisdom. I tried to sound as grateful as I truly was. It’s not every day someone opens your mind to new experiences.

  You are welcome. Be wary on your travels, and remember—even the smallest pebble can bring a mountai
n down on something larger. Goodbye for now, tiny Druid.

  The presence of the Primordial faded from me, and I surged out of the ground, rocketing into the air toward the nearest speck of light. The green faded for a moment, but as soon as I touched the mountain again, it was visible once more.

  I made it about halfway up the mountain to my destination just before I felt my elemental form beginning to fade. I quickly shot a set of five earthen spears into the stone and perched myself on top of them just in time to stop my fall.

  I heard Vrawn call from below, “Are you alright?”

  “Yeah!” I hollered back. “Be right down!”

  I looked down; the trees had become a large shape of green below me. Once I had an idea of where I needed to be, I leaped from the side of the mountain, shifted into the owl, and coasted back down to Vrawn.

  “That was rather quick,” she observed. She had a small pack in her hands that she was rifling through as she sat on the ground. “Come and join me for a snack?”

  I smiled at the thought of food and sat across from her. I pulled out an iron ingot and began to think of ways I could shape it. I could just enchant it with fire and then try and shape it.

  No, the heat would still fuck up my hands. What did I have spell-wise that I could use to make things with?

  Okay, I wanted to help, but I hadn’t really thought it fully though until just now. We needed this shit done.

  What if… What if I used… That was it!

  I used Stone Weapon to make a shield with hundreds of thin, hollow spikes facing away from the guard portion. Then I sat it on my knees before pulling out the iron ingots and sitting them next to me on the ground. I brought one into my hands and began to channel flame aspected mana into my hands around it until the molten metal began to drip down into one of the holes. I took my time, ensuring that the metal didn’t drip elsewhere. It would be shitty to waste any of the resources at my disposal.

  After about ten minutes of constant heating, there were dozens of holes filled from the first ingot. My mana was recharging well, but I did myself a favor and cast Aspect of the Owl. My wisdom rose by ten, and my perception of the world around me was much deeper.

  I spent another twenty minutes making minor adjustments to my work so that it was just about as efficient as I could think to do it. Once I was finished with my fourth ingot, I cast Winter Blade and used the icy weapon to cool the heated iron carefully. I was cautious with it, hoping that the superheating and supercooling wouldn’t fuck me and ruin the nails.

  I noticed one beginning to grow a little brittle on the right-hand side of the shield. I brought the weapon into my hands and began to superheat it with my flame aspected mana, and the water dripped into the lip of the shield cooling the metal. This was a good turn out, so I decided to let the items cool for the minute that the weapon would stay corporeal out of my hands.

  “Once that shield disappears, will you gather the nails for me? I’m going to try to go up and see if I can’t get to the ore that’s beneath the stone.” Vrawn looked at me intently, tossed me an apple, and patted the ground. “All I need is a little bit of it, and then I am freed up. I’m trying to work as fast as I can. I promise.”

  “Eat that first; then I will gather the nails.” I couldn’t believe I had forgotten to actually eat. Her knowing look said it all. She knew I might. How was it that she seemed to just get me. My scatterbrained, sometimes idiotic ideas and willingness to jump to people's aid without so much of a thought for myself, and here she was reminding me to eat.

  I was going to have to make this up to her.

  “You got it.” I sat down and bit into the fruit. It was just as juicy as it would have been at home. “So, you had some family? What was your childhood like?”

  “I was taken in by an army general who found me as a child. She raised me, her own daughter, and another unfortunate youth. She was truly good to me. That’s why I mesh well with Zhavron and the recruits. I lived this life at one time, but it was too much for me. I was too soft for army life. Not harsh enough.”

  “I can understand that.” I nodded as I munched on my apple. “I was in a unit of my own for a while. Nothing big. I was trained to fight if needed. Nothing like you had to do, I’m sure. And you’re okay doing this now?”

  “I am.” She looked wistfully at the mountain in front of us. “I grew up in a place similar to here. We would train in the summers near a mountain range like this. When I moved to the city, I could only admire from a distance. Being so close now? I think I will be doing a fair bit of climbing and hiking on my days off.”

  I chuckled. “I had friends like that. I never understood the need to hike and be outside like that, but to each their own.”

  “You did not like the outdoors as a child?” Her head tilted to the left, her hair wobbling to the left as well.

  “Where I’m from, it’s not as beautiful as it is here. It’s not safe, or well, it wasn't safe for a child. Now? As strong as I am, I could easily defend myself,” I said truthfully, but I avoided the biggest truth. I finished my apple, dug into the ground, and buried the core. I patted the ground and packed it before casting Regrowth.

  I felt the magic seep into the earth, and the core took root. Ever since my last meeting with Mother Nature, I had felt closer to the earth. To nature in general. It was kind of nice.

  “A tree will grow here, and it will grow apples too,” I said lamely after I noticed her eyeing me.

  I stood and motioned to the nails laying on the ground. “I’ll be back in about five minutes.”

  I shifted before she could say in anything and flew to my perch on the side of the mountain. I was far enough from the tree line and her that I didn’t need to worry about any debris hitting her. Not unless a landslide happened, but something told me that the stone would hold.

  I assumed my earth elemental form and flexed my shoulders before I began beating my fists against the sides of the mountain. I threw myself into it, my arms pumping like I was swinging sledgehammers fired out of shotguns. It was slow progress at first, the green dots I saw growing ever so slightly. I took a second, splayed my fingers out on my left hand, and dragged it down before me then punched with my right.

  The clawed strike dug in, and the punch knocked the openings a little wider. This was going to take a while. I took the five minutes to get as far as I could, then rested for a second before I jumped down and repeated the process of making nails once more. Vrawn was quiet and observant. She looked at me with interest and got close enough to see everything I was doing in greater detail.

  I cooled these ones the same way, then hopped back up to the mountain to chip away. The green dusting turning more and more into a bush, then into a tree of green. I could see it just below the surface after this run, and when I dropped back down to Vrawn this time, she spoke.

  “I think the way you did it with the ingots last time was better. Some of the first batches of nails were a little brittle and snapped. The mold you made works well, though. It was a very clever design. May I offer a little more though?”

  I had to admit, I was intrigued. “Please?”

  She indicated a spot on the ground that I dug out, roughly the size of the shield and just deeper than the molds.

  “Now, fill it with water, and then cool both the bottom and tops,” She brought out a nail for me to inspect. The pointed portion was still hot to the touch. “This way, you will cool both evenly.”

  I melted two Winter Blades into the makeshift cooling trough before I turned my attention to the ingots and molding. It seemed to be going a lot smoother this time, and I had run out of ingots so what I had left would have to do. I cooled the top as I did the bottom with the help of the water trough and kept a hand on the shield so they would cool properly.

  “I think that will work much better, Vrawn—thank you.” She ducked her head once in acknowledgment, and I smiled. “Let me guess, you aren’t all that used to praise?”

  “I am not.” She shrugged. “‘Wh
en you know well what you are doing, in the heat of battle, the care of a weapon or a generous moment—thanks is not required. Only knowing that what you have done is just, needed, or right. That knowledge is the reward. That is what mother used to say to us. I have not known how to take a compliment or praise since then.”

  I laughed, and she seemed stung. I held a hand out and lifted her chin. “I wasn’t laughing at you, I promise. I was laughing because I had kind of the same mentality when I was growing up. The people who raised me, my aunt and uncle, were some of the coolest people. They’d give you the shirts off their backs and a boot apiece if they had it. And they’d do it with a smile. They always taught me that taking care of others, being a generous soul, wasn’t just to make others like you or to show what you had—but that it made you feel better for having done it.

  “They taught me that through actions, never words, and to be honest, I saw it in everything they did. Always there to help a friend. Always giving even when they didn’t have it, or couldn’t afford it. They helped make me into the man that I am today. I have no idea where I would be without them having supported me and taught me everything they did.”

  Her lips were parted slightly, and I noticed how close we were. I dropped my hand and looked anywhere but her expectant gaze. My cheeks burned thoroughly.

  “I… uh… I should go do the digging thing.” I glanced at her, and her eyes sparkled in the fading light of day. “I’ll be back soon.”

  “I will be here,” she replied with a knowing look that made my cheeks burn hotter.

  I all but sprinted from the spot and took to the air once more in owl form. I risked a glance down at the woman watching me and damn near collided with the spikes I had used as a foothold.

  You moon-struck fool! the owl instincts screeched at me mentally. Pay more attention to your surroundings, or you’ll kill yourself.