“What are they?” Abby whispered back, her voice muffled by her hood and my shoulder.
“Chained Varidus,” I told her. “They protect the peak and hunt birds, I think. A natural defense against any winged invaders. Even if Entropy sweeps down here on the wings of angels, they’d have a hell of a fight before they could even reach the entrance to Zagorath.”
Should I capture one, for my new champion slot? The thought occurred to me, and I considered it for a long moment. Even if I did, they didn’t have the same sentience as Puck or Bertha. I hadn’t yet touched their consciousness, but a giant winged creature in the depths of my dungeon would be restricted, at least with its current size. At present, I was better off finding something smaller and more mobile. I let the thought slip to the back of my mind to reconsider later.
We walked away from the shadows of Zagorath’s entrance, and I appraised the mountain’s peak, realizing I’d never seen it before from the perspective of my elf’s eyes. The landscape had a savage beauty about it, and as we stepped closer to an edge, the corner of the Infernal Realm became visible. Storm clouds flooded the sky in the far north, while swathes of emerald-green forests lay just beneath the horizon to the south. Did the former mark the Storm Realm while the latter marked the Nature Realm?
I hadn’t been outside in what felt like months, and I inhaled the fresh air. As it filled my lungs, I considered my plans. I didn’t want to stay buried beneath Shadow Crag forever. All the Sinarius Realms were unchartered territories to be discovered.
Abby’s touch on my arm brought me back to the present, and I smiled as I led her to the very edge of a flattened plateau. I sat down, letting my feet curl beneath me. Abby sat beside me after a moment.
“Your core is safe with mine,” I said after reading her nervousness. “Besides, even if we were to fall, we could simply dissolve our avatars and have them return to our cores. Trust me—I’ve tried it.”
“You—You’ve fallen from the mountain?” she asked.
“Not exactly. I’ve jumped from it. With a giant leap.” I presented her with a smile, and she settled a little closer to me. Her light cloak brushed against my bare shoulder as she peered at the ocean in the east, bathed in the orange-red glow of the setting sun.
“It’s beautiful,” she murmured.
“Yes, it is,” I whispered as I looked over her face, half hidden by golden curls and the white curve of her hood.
Feeling just a little reckless, I pulled at her mantle, slipping it free of her hair. She didn’t flinch at the contact; instead, she simply nestled her head on my shoulder. Her scent was like the first drops of rain on freshly-mown grass, her body radiating a gentle and constant warmth that seemed to touch my bones. Almost of its own accord, my arm slipped around her shoulder and pulled her close. My elf avatar barely felt the wind rippling across us both with the scent of brimstone and ash.
We sat in silence for a few minutes, drinking in the beauty and the light of the Infernal Realm as the sun bathed the panoramic landscaped in a pleasing blood red.
“This land you’re from – what is it like?” Abby asked.
I’d barely thought about Earth since I’d arrived and chuckled at how alien it seemed to me now. “It’s… different. We don’t have anything like dungeon cores there, or goddesses, or guilds. We have carriages that power themselves, streets of concrete, buildings of steel and glass. With just a small trinket, we can talk to anyone on the other side of the world instantly. It doesn’t use magic.”
“Telepathy?” Abby probed.
“No. It’s just the work of human ingenuity.”
Abby looked up at me, shocked. “How is that possible?”
I shrugged and smiled ruefully. “We adapted to our surroundings. All of this – cores, adventurers, essence—we’d call all this impossible. But we use machines to dig out the earth, purely so we can burn minerals to power our other machines.”
“I can’t imagine anything like that,” she muttered, turning her eyes back to the ocean. “You must miss that kind of power. Do you want to go back?”
“No,” I answered easily. “The Sinarius Realms—they’re my home now. I don’t ever want to go back to being another minion of an invisible core that hates me, who sees me as just another number, another tool.”
“And you don’t think Lilith is using you in the same way?”
“She leaves me to my own devices,” I told her. “Can’t say the same for my old life.”
“She left you to figure it all out alone. No pixie, no soul forge, nothing.” Abby shook her head. “And still you’re already this strong. Lilith is lucky to have you.”
I didn’t say anything to that but heard a stupid sentence emerging from my mouth.
“What are pixies like?” I regretted saying it as soon as it blurted its way into the air. I looked at Abby and just hoped she hadn’t been hurt, but she gave my hand a reassuring touch.
“It’s not a problem,” she said, picking up on my unease. “I miss Gadrili so very much, but I have made peace with her death.” Abby sighed. “I don’t mind explaining the things Lilith should have taught you… if it helps.”
“I’d appreciate that.”
Abby swallowed a lump in her throat and continued. “Pixies are servants of the pantheon. They guide dungeons through their growth, teaching them their first constructs, how to excavate, and how to drain essence. In other words, teaching them everything you seem to do via instinct.” She shook her head. “It took me years just to get strong enough to build a basic trap or to channel my essence into creating a minion. And you did it in a week.”
“Exactly how long did it take you?” I asked. She was still gazing at me wide-eyed like I was
