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The Dark Peaks stretched before them like a spine of the world, mountains carved from black stone and iron, their summits lost in smoke. The land breathed heat. The air was thick with ash and the scent of charred metal. Every step of their march cracked the crust beneath their feet, releasing dull glows from the earth below.
Above them, the sky was not sky but smoke shifting sheets of ember mist that glowed red by day and violet by night. Lightning did not fork downward, but climbed from the peaks themselves, dragging thunder behind it like chains.
They moved like a single living machine. Every dragon was well armed with runic weapons, their edges alive with whispering power. The hammer of Hewegar's forge had become the heartbeat of the army, and Artorius its will.
The Peaks did not welcome them. The march was a crucible. The heat was not from the sun, but the mountain's own breath. It radiated from below, from veins of molten rock and rivers of obsidian that cut through the slopes like open wounds.
The ground cracked under every step, bleeding dull red light that pulsed in rhythm with the heartbeat of something immense beneath the world. Flame was not rare here, it was the atmosphere. It seeped from fissures, poured from cliffs, and whispered through ash-choked valleys. Even the stones glowed faintly at night, their insides trembling with buried fire.
The army learned to drink condensed vapor from enchanted crystals and chew on ember fungus, a bitter, heat-filled growth that burned the throat yet replenished mana and water. The beasts they hunted; ash drakes, ember lizards, molten leeches provided meat that smoked even raw.
Attrition set in. Dragons collapsed from the heat, others suffocated in the thinner air, their bodies rolling down the slopes to vanish into the lava fog below. Ouroboros slithered along Artorius's shoulder as they climbed a ledge slick with black soot. "This is the nature of conquest," the serpent murmured, voice a hiss of amusement and faint reverence. "To refine through suffering. Fire makes the metal strong and shatters what was never meant to bear the forge."
Artorius said nothing for a time, gaze fixed on the smoke-torn path above. "And if the fire consumes the smith as well?"
Ouroboros chuckled softly. "Then the forge was worthy of its maker."
On the third night, the ash-storms came. It began as a whisper, a shift in the wind that made the torches gutter. Then the sky fell. The air turned black as burning snow poured from the heavens, flakes of glowing soot that hissed where they touched flesh. The storm howled like a living thing, grinding against armor, scraping at scales.
"Form ranks!" Artorius bellowed, his voice nearly lost in the roar. Shields locked together as the wind screamed. Visibility dropped to nothing. Even draconic eyes struggled to see through the storm's fury.
They weathered it for hours, huddled beneath stone outcroppings while the mountain itself seemed to shake with laughter. By dawn, two had suffocated, lungs filled with molten dust. When they rose again, their armor was pitted and scarred. But they rose.
The first raid struck the next night. A smaller draconic tribe, scaled raiders who hunted by night, ambushed their column in a narrow pass where fire dripped from the cliffs like rain. They came shrieking, wings snapping, spears tipped in obsidian.
Artorius met them in silence. He raised his hand behind him, the shields locked, the spears came out, the archers nocked rune-marked arrows.
When he dropped his hand, the night turned red. Flame roared out from the slope, not wild but directed. The Word of Fire leapt from his throat, folding around the battlefield, sealing the enemy. The ambushers fell screaming into the waiting blades below.
Velkra, lean and scarred, met them with her sword and cunning. It led the countercharge, feinting, baiting the dragons into the narrowest choke point before Artorius unleashed the second strike. By dawn, the ground was black glass and the survivors were kneeling before him.
Artorius walked among them, smoke curling from his armor. The conquered draconic warriors looked up, expecting death. Instead, he spoke of either death or servitude. He focused on the leader of these raiders, a female slim newt.
Her tongue flicked, tasting the smoke, then she bowed her head. "We will serve." Looking at the others he saw defiance dimmed, replaced by the dull obedience of the defeated.
"Add them to the vanguard," he ordered. "They'll earn their food by scouting. If they fail, they feed the forge."
Ouroboros smiled with approval. "You conquer well. Not wastefully, efficiently."
They continued on their journey, they struck fast, without mercy on any packs or lone dragons they met, leaving nothing for their enemies to recover. Camps of lesser dragonkin were reduced to smoking ruins. Mountain drakes fled their dens at the sight of his army's approach. Each victory left him stronger, not only in body but in the unity of his legion, a bond forged by shared hunger and flame.
The biggest threat they faced was a great dragon colossus which appeared as they passed through a canyon so deep and narrow that the sky was only a slit of red above them. Then the tremor came, it wasn't from beneath it was from within the mountains themselves.
From the mountain's side, an arm emerged, an arm made of molten basalt, its veins glowing like rivers of magma. Then another. Then a head, horned and crowned in fire. The canyon shook as the giant dragged itself free from the mountain's womb. The air turned liquid with heat. Scales of living rock cracked and fell like boulders as the creature reared to its full height, wings unfurling in a storm of burning stone.
"Hide," Artorius hissed to his men as they could only tremble like little rats scurrying underneath giants. Then, from the opposite ridge, another mountain stirred. Two eyes opened, twin furnaces in the dark. Another Colossus, older, larger, rose from the ash its body a fusion of iron and obsidian, smoke pouring from its nostrils in long, serpentine trails.
They faced each other across the canyon like gods waking from ancient slumber. "Ancestors preserve us…" Velkra breathed, voice barely audible over the mountain's roar.
"What are those," Artorius asked Ouroboros peeking from the corner he hid in.
"Do you imagine when Great dragons die that their corpses just remain?"
The first blow colossus swung its molten arm, striking its rival across the jaw. The impact sent a wave of force rolling through the valley, knocking soldiers off their feet. The canyon walls split; rivers of magma cascaded down the slopes like waterfalls.
Artorius roared over the chaos, "Move! MOVE!" The army scrambled, hugging the cliffs, shields raised as stone and flame rained from above.
Each clash of the titans was a cataclysm; one's claws tearing mountains apart, the other's breath igniting entire slopes. Running for all they were worth, they did not even look back for a single moment as they fight reverberated behind them.
They pressed onward relentlessly. The mountains narrowed, forcing them into single-file paths where even the wind howled like knives. Around them, the cliffs glowed faintly, pocked with Black Flame Vents, fissures that spat bursts of soul-burning fire. The flames devoured not flesh, but vitality reducing living beings to husks of grey ash while leaving their armor pristine. Three soldiers perished before they learned the rhythm of the vents.
In the higher passes, the Cinder Serpents appeared, creatures of smoke and molten bone that moved like living lava. Artorius met the first of them alone as he felt close to leveling up.
Congratulations! You have leveled up. Archetype: [Leader] → Lv. 7
Stat gains: +1 INT, +1 WIL, +1 CHA
Days later, they found shelter in a cavern system carved by lava rivers. The interior glowed red and orange, light refracting off veins of crystalized flame in the walls. But as they ventured deeper, sound began to twist. It started as faint echoes, then became distinct voices, hundreds of them, whispering in rhythmic tones.
The deeper they went, the louder it grew, until the cavern sang. "What is that?" Sereneth whispered. The sound wasn't mere echo; it was harmony, rising and falling like a chant. "Its the dead singing," the Black Dread answered.
Night in the Peaks was not true darkness. The sky glowed faintly with drifting ash, and rivers of magma far below painted the world in dull, molten red. The campfires burned low; soldiers whispered to keep the mountains from listening. The raider scouts moved ghostlike among the ridges, their long necks swaying in rhythm with the wind.
By the fourteenth day, they had climbed beyond the clouds. The sky was black now, the air thin as sorrow. Ahead, the peaks curved inward, forming a vast caldera of smoldering rock. Rivers of magma crisscrossed the valley like veins of a colossal heart.
Hewegar stood beside Artorius on the ridge, his hammer slung across his back. "The mountain breathes differently here," he murmured. "We are near its lungs. Whatever lives below does not sleep easily."
Artorius said nothing. His eyes followed the distant light of the fortress, the faint glow of molten vents and the silhouettes of dragon sentries pacing the walls. The voice of the black dread joined them, "This is the heart of the dark peaks, its dungeon, the Mountain Bastion! I never had enough men to get past the final obstacle, the Mountain Tyrant."
Artorius turned. "What is it?"
Hewegar nodded. "A mountain-born drake of magma and hatred. They called him the Tyrant of Peaks. His scales are as thick as fortress gates, and his breath melts stone."
Artorius felt the mountain tremble beneath him, as if in answer. "Good, then we march," Artorius said quietly. "We've found what we came for and we will claim it."
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That night, as the army camped on a plateau overlooking the Tyrant's domain, the wind carried the scent of iron and death. The next morning Artorius stood before the great gates, his army arrayed behind him like a tide of steel and scale.
Pushing the colossal slabs of basalt and crystal open, it convulsed, molten seams bursting outward in gouts of glowing rock. Magma poured like blood from open wounds as the citadel's runes blazed to life.
When the gates split open, the roar that escaped was not of the mountain but of something living within. "Inside!" Artorius commanded.
They charged through smoke and fire, their armor reflecting the molten glow. The air burned the lungs; the heat peeled skin if they lingered too long. Inside, the Bastion's interior sprawled in unnatural geometry. The walls pulsed like muscle. Magma flowed through crystal arteries. The ground itself was blackened bone fused with ore.
The first chamber was a forge the size of a battlefield. Lava flowed in rivers, and countless forges stood along its walls, burning without fuel. In the center stood the guardians, hulking magma golems carved from fused dragon bone, their cores pulsing like embers.
They turned as one, eyes igniting with white flame. "Positions!" Artorius barked. The air trembled as the first golem charged, every step cracking the ground. Spears braced; shields locked. The impact threw men backward, but Artorius's voice thundered across the chamber.
"Hold the line!" He spoke the Word of Crystal and a translucent barrier erupted, redirecting the molten fists of the enemy. "Strike the cores!" Artorius commanded. Velkra and her swordmen surged forward, blades flashing.
The golems staggered under their relentless onslaught, their molten hearts flickering. Tzharun, the bull-headed dragon, roared and drove his lance through a golem's chest, scattering shards like burning rain.
The chamber quaked as the last guardian fell. The flames dimmed; the doors ahead split open with a hiss like escaping steam. Artorius lowered his sword, breathing slow. "Keep moving!"
The path beyond the hall spiraled downward, through tunnels that felt less carved than grown. The walls sweated molten light, runes moving like veins beneath translucent rock. They encountered the Second Trial within the Chamber of Vents.
It began with silence then heat surged upward as the vents erupted in patterns, not random but deliberate, a puzzle of death. Each vent spat black flame that devoured the soul rather than the flesh. "Mark the rhythm!" Artorius commanded.
Hewegar squinted through the haze. "Every fifth breath, the fire moves left to right. The mountain remembers a heartbeat!" They advanced slowly, step by step, soldiers timing each motion with their commander's raised hand. One misstep, one mistimed breath, and the flame would rise to claim them.
The final approach to the Tyrant's domain lay across a chasm of living magma, the Furnace Bridge, a single narrow causeway suspended by chains of molten metal. Beneath it, the lava churned with the shapes of half-formed drakes, things still dreaming in fire.
As they crossed, the bridge itself began to move. The chains groaned. Segments of the bridge twisted, trying to throw them off into the molten depths. Winged figures rose from below wraiths of molten glass that screamed wordless cries. Artorius' army pressed forward, shields braced, weapons ready.
At last, they reached the innermost gate, a pair of colossal slabs carved from obsidian, veins of magma pulsing through them like arteries. The heat was unbearable; even the stones beneath their feet began to soften. The chamber was vast enough to hold a village. The ceiling arched like the ribs of a beast; the ground was molten rock, shifting and alive. At the center stood the Mountain Tyrant.
He rose from the magma like a god of war, scales glowing with inner fire, wings of molten stone unfurling with a sound like breaking worlds. His eyes were twin suns, his breath molten glass. The mountain trembled with his first step.
[Mountain Tyrant — Level 18]
Image: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/24418022975669592/
Hewegar's hand rested on his hammer. "The first smith of the Peaks… the first fire given will."
Ouroboros hissed, coiling around Artorius. "He is no smith now. Only a weapon. And all weapons may be broken."
Artorius stood at the front, lance in hand, gaze steady despite the overwhelming heat. Behind him, the army waited, disciplined and ready. "Positions!" Artorius roared. "Strike in unison! Every move counts!"
The Tyrant unleashed the first of its unique abilities: Scorching Roar, a wave of superheated air that bent shields and scorched armor before it even reached the soldiers. Velkra's squad staggered, but Artorius' command of the Word of Crystal formed a barrier that refracted the searing blast, protecting those behind.
Artorius seized the initiative. Hewegar led a small strike team, hammer glowing, guiding soldiers to land blows that chipped the Tyrant's molten armor. Velkra's swordmen slashed at the seams, piercing scales and creating openings. The Tyrant roared, thrashing wings that shattered the ceiling, raining molten debris, but Artorius held firm.
Seeing that it couldn't shake them off, the Tyrant started stomping, causing seismic shocks that shook the chamber as each massive footfall cracked bone and ore beneath. Lava spewed from fissures, forming temporary walls, rivers, and pools, splitting the army and forcing them to adapt. Artorius barked tactical commands. "Split formation! Use the lava to funnel it!"
He called up the Word of Flame to disrupt its footing. Soldiers obeyed with synchrony, using the searing heat to their advantage, forcing the Tyrant to retreat into a central molten pool.
The black dread joined him, black flames streaking across the Tyrant's flank charring rock, cracking scales, and forcing the monster to rear back in fury. Artorius seized the opening, riding the dread's distraction, and leapt onto a ridged mound of cooling lava. From there, he drove his lance into a weakened seam, channeling the Word for flame. Sparks and molten light exploded as fire scorched through volcanic plates.
The Tyrant roared and struck with massive fists to try to squat them away. Shockwaves erupted outward, sending rivers of magma cascading over the army's flanks. Soldiers scrambled, shields barely holding against the scalding onslaught. Artorius gritted his teeth, raising his lance. "Hold the line! Steady!" His voice carried over the roar and crackle of molten stone.
The Black Dread circled above, wings sending gusts of black fire across the battlefield, striking the Tyrant's legs and forcing it to stagger. "Now, strike the heart!" Artorius shouted to Hewegar. The hammer-wielder drove his runic weapon into the seams of the Tyrant's scales, sending arcs of molten sparks flying in all directions.
The Mountain Tyrant bellowed and unleashed earthen lava shards: large spines erupted from its back, flying like missiles. The Black Dread intercepted some, claws tearing shards apart mid-flight, while soldiers ducked and dove, following his sergeants' lead. Hewegar sent a hammer strike into a fissure, causing lava to surge and redirect several shards harmlessly.
Taking this thing was impossible, it just kept going, no wonder the black dread was not able to take it down. Artorius felt the heat press in on him, his wings beating against the stifling air. He knew the Tyrant's core could not be shattered with brute force alone. Closing his eyes, he reached deep, calling upon the ancient rhythm that ran through him; the resonance of both Word of Crystal and Word of Flame.
"This is it," he whispered to himself, feeling the pulse of power surge through his bones. Crystal was structure, stillness, patience, the unyielding backbone of reality. Flame was chaos, life, destruction, and renewal. Alone, each was powerful; together, they could reshape reality itself.
Artorius focused, grounding himself atop the ridged lava mound. He drew in a breath of searing air, feeling both Words intertwine in his blood, in his soul. A single thought, clear and absolute, surged forward: "Plasma!"
The word was no longer spoken aloud, it resonated through every fiber of Artorius's being, threading through bone, muscle, and spirit. The Word of Crystal lent form and precision, weaving geometric lattices of energy around the raw, chaotic inferno of the Word of Flame. Sparks and molten light danced in impossible symmetry, each flare of fire contained within a perfect crystalline pattern, each lattice line glowing like liquid sun.
The Tyrant of Peaks bellowed, its molten wings flaring as if sensing a challenge beyond mere combat. Lava trembled beneath its feet, fissures spreading as if the mountain itself recoiled from the energy now flowing through Artorius.
Raising his lance, he let the Fusion of Words bloom outward in a spiral of radiant fire encased in translucent, diamond-hard lattice. It carved through the air with the roar of a collapsing star. Every earthen scale the Tyrant bore shattered upon contact, fragments falling into the air most exploding into scorching shards.
The lance drove deep into the Tyrant's molten core. The Word of Plasma tore through the scales, burning and crystallizing simultaneously, reaching the heart of the beast. With a cry that shook the Bastion, the tyrant fell as its core exploded in a blinding surge of molten crystal fire. Lava, flame, and diamond-like fragments cascaded outward, refracting the chamber's heat into a halo of destructive beauty. The Tyrant's massive body collapsed into the molten pool, its scales cracking, eyes dimming, leaving only a glowing husk. The mountain itself shuddered, as if acknowledging its conqueror.
Artorius dropped to one knee, shoulders quivering, sweat and soot covering him, the Fusion of Words still thrumming faintly through his veins and took a lot out of him. Around him, the army cheered, stepping over cracks in the floor, staring at the fallen titan of magma.
You have slain [Mountain Tyrant — Level 18]
Congratulations! You have leveled up. Class: [Storybook Squire] → Lv. 7
+1 Str, +1 Con, +1 Will, +1 Char, +1 Luc!
Ouroboros stared at him slap jaw while the black dread also landed nearby. "You are a monster, you know that. No one even taught you the concept of fusing words and you somehow figured it out on your own?!"
Artorius rose, lance in hand, and whispered, almost to himself, "It just called out to me."
The black dread commented with black flames licking the cooled stone behind him. "Few have ever combined the Words as you just did," it murmured, eyes reflecting the cooling lava.
From the Tyrant's final convulsion, a path opened at the base of the chamber a deep, glowing fissure that led to the Trial most likely, pulsing with unknown fire.
Artorius lowered his lance, breathing slow, wings folding around him. Hewegar clapped him on the shoulder. "The mountain still remembers," he said, eyes wary of the fissure.
Artorius stepped forward, gaze fixed on the glowing fissure. "Then let us see what waits in the heart of the mountain," he said. Behind him, the army adjusted, knowing the fight had only just begun.
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The Bastion's core still trembled. The Mountain Tyrant lay defeated, its molten carcass cooling into glassy stone, the cavern filled with the sound of settling magma. Artorius stepped forward, every sense raw from battle. The fusion of words still hummed faintly in his veins, its echo pulling him toward the chasm at the heart of the chamber.
Rivers of molten crystal ran inward, converging around a pit whose depths no mortal eye could see. From it rose not smoke, but breath slow, rhythmic, alive. He could feel the pull, the last calling of the Dark Peaks, urging him downward.
Ouroboros slithered onto Artorius's shoulder, his voice a low hiss. "You've slain its guardian, but not its soul. Below lies the Trial, the final crucible of this biome."
Artorius looked once more at his army; blackened, exhausted, victorious. "You've done enough. The rest is mine." He descended alone.
The path down was a spiral of cooling magma veins that slowly changed texture from rock to something else. The walls began to pulse faintly, slick with translucent ichor, as though the mountain itself had grown organs. Each step echoed like a heartbeat.
When Artorius reached the bottom, he found himself standing before an archway carved not from stone, but from bone. Veins of glowing red crystal threaded through it like arteries. Above the gate, in runes made of fire and sinew, were inscribed the words: "THE WORLD WAS BORN IN PAIN. WILL YOU REMAKE IT?"
As he stepped through, the world changed. He emerged into a cavern that seemed to breathe. The walls contracted and relaxed, as if the mountain had lungs. Rivers of molten blood, not magma flowed through canals that glowed with inner light. The air smelled of iron and salt, thick and humid.
At its center stood an anvil.
Image: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/oO9eKW
It was not forged, nor carved, it had grown. A titanic shape of fused bone, black iron, and crystallized dragon marrow, its edges alive with faint light. Veins of magma pulsed through its surface, and with every pulse, the whole chamber shook as though the mountain's heart were beating inside it.
A voice, low, rumbling, older than language filled the chamber. Let the Trial commence!
Before he could answer, the world struck him. A hammer blow of light and pressure slammed through his chest. Artorius gasped as every bone in his body vibrated, not breaking, but reshaping. His skin shimmered, hardening and softening in waves as light poured through the cracks.
"Is that all?" Artorius smiled, he had been through way worse and with his mutation of draconic adaptability this was nothing!
The chamber responded. Tendrils of molten vein and crystal wrapped around him, pinning him in midair like metal on an anvil. From the walls, pillars of radiant flame rose, each shaped like a hammer of pure force. One by one, they struck him — each blow thunderous, divine, reshaping what he was.
Every strike was memory. He felt the moment he had first held the lance, the pride, the fear. The heat of battle at the Tower in the Crystal Expanse. The screams of his men. The hollow silence after victory. Each hammer blow drove those fragments into him, melting and binding them into something greater.
He floated there, suspended between being and unbeing. The world had become sound and pulse. His heart was the forge. His soul, the ore. All through it though he kept on laughing as this was a breeze.
Finally the trial seemed to tire of him as it concluded. The chamber shuddered. The veins drew back. The hammers fell silent. Then, in the stillness, the runes of the gate above flared one last time.
[Trial of Flesh — Complete]
Reward: +3 Constitution
Artorius landed softly, flexing his shoulders. His body steamed faintly, crystalline scales shimmering where the blows had once struck. He rolled his neck, stretched his arms, and breathed out. "Not bad," he said. "Could've been warmer."
He ascended the same path he'd come from, each step causing the veins of the mountain to dim, the living forge returning to slumber. When he emerged from the chasm, the army and the black dread were waiting alert, wary.
Ouroboros slithered from the ridge, eyes narrow. "You look… untouched. How did it go?"
Artorius smirked, rolling his shoulders. "Not too bad. Bit of heat, bit of hammering. Nothing I couldn't handle."
The black dread huffed, a stream of smoke curling from its nostrils. "The mountain's trial broke many and you look unscathed."
Artorius gave a lazy shrug, stretching his neck until the vertebrae cracked.
The march back to the Black Keep took three days. The soldiers were silent; the mountain storms that had once howled around them now parted in slow reverence. At dawn of the fourth day, the Keep rose before them carved into the black cliffs like a scar. Its towers bled torchlight.
Their black empty banners still fluttered from the battlements, but below them waved in the air new flags: colors and sigils of foreign mercenary bands, summoned for war!
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Chapter 19 Recap!
Leveled up Archetype: [Leader] → Lv. 7
Stat gains: +1 INT, +1 WIL, +1 CHA
Leveled up Class: [Storybook Squire] → Lv. 7
+1 Str, +1 Con, +1 Will, +1 Char, +1 Luc!
New Fused Word Learned: Plasma!
[Trial of Flesh — Complete]
Gained +3 Constitution