Chapter Eight Hundred And Thirty Two – 832
It was only four blocks before the streets began to deteriorate. Buildings showed inexplicable cracks, as if they’d been raked by claws, and they leaned drunkenly into one another, their windows shattered and dark. Where the cobblestones weren’t missing entirely, they were half-covered by stretches of sandy topsoil that shifted with every errant breeze. There were no people, especially as their small procession stepped out onto the blasted expanse of naked stone that marred the city’s center.
The Vent wasn’t particularly far from there.
It was a vast chasm, splitting the center of the caldera in a jagged slash. Once it had been much smaller, but Felix and Siva had put an end to that. Well, and the Beast.
Atar wiped sweat from his brow. “Kind of a hike to get out here.”
“The exertion is good for your Body,” Darius said. He wore layers of heavy armor and several weapons aside from his door-sized sword. “I’m sure Harn has told you the value of Endurance training, yes?”
“The man wouldn’t shut up about it.” Atar straightened his robes. “I’m a mage. I should not need to exert myself.”
“We could have taken my skiff but it has gone missing,” Tern grumbled, before he pointed to his left and muttered, completely unsurprised. “Ah, there it is.”
Not more than a hundred yards away, the shattered remnants of the mage’s small Manaship were spread across a stretch of the broken earth. Tattered sails and smashed wood were all that remained of a once tidy little ship.
Elowen patted the old Elf on the shoulder. Her right hand was bandaged. “We’ll build a new one.”