BECMI Chapter 328 – The Dungeon of Fire and Roses
The volcano rose from the bottom of where the Thisbean Inn had been, magma bleeding through from deep in the earth, rising with, well, unnatural speed towards the surface, pulled by the force of Time looking to restore a certain magical building.
It still took years, but as it was building, the wounds rippled and replicated, and a second volcano began to build around the first one.
This was an interesting enough phenomenon that Immortals looking to do some opportunistic terraforming held off, wondering what was going on.
What was happening was a nice cover for a base of operations for me. The Immortals on the Far Shore had literally buried the existence of the Thisbean Inn in the middle of nowhere in the Bleaklands. I intended to keep it buried from them, simply by building over it with a very distracting fortification.
They knew I existed, they knew where I came from. Making a base of operations over the ruins they’d made of Darkmoor fit very well into what I wanted to do, and if they wanted to dig me out of it, well, I was perfectly happy to let them try.
It took a year for the volcano to breach the surface, swelling and belching dark smoke and lava in constant streams, pushing and pressing outwards, until the crater had literally boiled away the sea inside it. A shield volcano over a hundred miles across thrust itself above the surface of the sea, reclaiming what the waters had taken in hot, unmarked magma.
Then, in series and rings, the erupting volcano cooled off, the vein of magma below the surface slowly squeezed shut, but more focused.
Each layer, thrusting higher than the one before it, miles between the jagged slopes, then cooled, draining down, and the magma moving ever inward, inward.
The final caldera was only two miles across, precisely centered on where the Thisbean Inn was being rebuilt, and where Darkmoor City had once stood.
It took twenty years to go through the cycle, even with the accelerated heating/cooling cycle of elemental energy moving around speeding up all of this.
Before five years were up, my tower was rising in the very heart of it all, a towering edifice of black stone wrought in thorned stalks and petaled roses, each flower dripping a white-and-scarlet firefall back into the molten lava around it.
A couple hundred feet above sea level, and over six thousand feet below the surface of the lava lake, far below my tower, in a great cavern in the molten heart of the volcano, the Thisbean Inn finally gathered itself together after a mere ten years.
A thousand paces away, at the other end of the cavern, the Darkmoor Pyramid glowed there in grim silver, somber gold, and lambent flames, converting all the heat assailing the walls of the cavern into the firefall streams pouring from the tower over a mile above. The perfect dome of the cavern was supported by a score of great pillars reaching up to the dungeons coming down from the tower above.
Because I was going to be building the Biggest Damn Dungeon evah here.
Indeed, I was sitting on top of nearly all the darkstone of the north, melted down and reformed by being turned into lava, concentrated here as Immortal-disruptive fields of stone that were going to mess with their perceptions and awareness.
And I knew something that was really good at creating a Dungeon, and here I was going to make its ideal home.
Because Castle Darkmoor had risen here, too, and would be very happy to return home.
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At the highest tower of Castle Doomrose, Cirruluxul entered her Dragonsleep. Lightning cracked and crashed around her, thunder played around the clock as static charges built up and discharged from the immense volumes of hot and cold air roiling the atmosphere here with volcanic fury scorching the skies, and the cold and distant heavens answering the challenge.
This would take her to age Six, an Old dragon. The limitations on her power would basically only allow a single Hit Die increase, barely any Stat improvements at all… but that didn’t mean she couldn’t practice One a Day, gain a Feat and Masteries normal dragons had no clue of, and work on magical abilities that were supposedly the province only of older and more powerful dragon breeds.
I was here, I was watching over her again, and Thunder rolled in her soul, testing and straining against the Edicts binding her, binding all dragons...
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That also included those dragons circling warily around my extremely conspicuous, very attention-getting, massively impractical, exceptionally artistic, and thoroughly intimidating choice of an abode.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
The level of Wards and magical fields around this place were harrowing for any mortal creature to behold. It was specifically set ‘at the limit of mortal ability’ to any Immortal looking upon it, something that would get them respect from said Immortals, but not really impress them.
Immortals started at a Caster Level of 40, after all.
Mortals perceiving it, or other Eternals, since Eternals were just a continuation of mortality, not an Ascendance to a new station of life linked to a higher plane, got to see it at its true Caster Level.
A Caster Level of base 77, before even my base +8 Fire/Snowcasting modifiers and +3 Holy modifiers.
Nobody mortal ever saw a Caster Level of 88. I was still restricted to IX’s+1 and couldn’t really make use of it, still building my Stats towards the required levels in Constitution and Charisma, and my Ur Level sitting at about 32 in terms of Spell Slot completion.
The dragons could see it, and it was making them very leery, indeed.
That included even the colossal red dragon that clearly dominated the other dragons, and was quietly testing the limits of my tolerance, shaving some distance off his swooping and circling, waiting to see if and when a reaction was provoked from me.
Well, time to get this over with.
I snapped my fingers, and a Portal popped up in front of the massive dragon, a thousand times my weight and such, and before he could possibly dodge, delivered him to the landing platform outside the main tower.
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Ignaxilliumvythiux, would-be Dragon King without a kingdom, settled gently to the ground under a Featherweight, all of his momentum stolen. His burning eyes turned back to the dragons watching in the distance, all of them seeing him stolen away, transported into position, snatched as easily from the air as an eagle grasps a sparrow.
He beat his wings, hard, generating mighty gusts of wind, and barely lifted his body from the ground at all.
It was as the tales had spoken about the defenses of the City of Steel and the deadly defenders of Darkmoor. Dragons could not fly in such places, much like most magical creatures, even human spellcasters.
But where was he to…
With quiet clinks and clicks, a wide stone bridge of black stone, carved with hundreds of ornate roses and extremely sharp thorns, was assembled from sections weighing dozens of tons each, linking to one another one by one and extending out towards one of the large rising spires of the castle, a tower large enough to do justice to a titan… or a dragon.
It covered the hundred yards to the spire in seconds, shifting waves of magic at work that, even only looking upon them, made the great red dragon’s heart quiver at seeing them.
Such magic was far, far beyond the limits of mortals! Was this place ruled over by an Immortal?! Such things were forbidden-!
Well, he also knew enough of Immortal perfidy to know they got around such limitations all the time. Avatars, Immortal identities, manipulating catspaws through magic and faith, mortal incarnations… Immortals were hardly going to limit themselves to not-interfering when creative interpretation of those Rules, or simply ignoring them and taking the penalties if they were found out, allowed them to get things accomplished.
Still, this was quite flagrant, even for Immortals.
He had clearly been invited, however, and it would not be wise to turn such things down.
Ignax started forward, holding his head up in a proud and arrogant curve. He was a little disquieted when he noticed his talons, able to rend steel and score the hardest of stones, were not leaving the slightest mark on the matchlessly crafted, geometrically-precise stone beneath him.
The doors gaped open, forty feet of clearance above his head, and enough room to walk with his wings raised, if not spread, were he so disrespectful. The stone doors opened silently on hinges carved so beautifully it was painful to look at them, and he stepped warily within.
The room was over a hundred paces across, high and domed. Burning eyes swept across the chamber, and swallowed as he saw every inch of the walls and ceiling were done in brilliant frescoes and murals, the workmanship crying out to him of a skill that he was sure mortal hands weren’t meant to embrace. They immortalized the deeds and accomplishments, friends and foes, victories and glories of the land called Darkmoor and that which had made it great, the City of Steel fallen from the sky, which even dragons had been wary and respectful of.
He could have lost himself in study of those tales in stone for days, if not months, possibly even years. But the far side of the chamber riveted his attention, as two tiny points of ruby light harder than diamonds speared his eyes across the room, and drove his head toward the floor in obeisance.
The Lady Edge did indeed live!
He had never seen her, but the tales and images of her shown to him were spot on. Skin the hue of milk. Unnatural, supernatural beauty that could stir even the heart of an ancient dragon. Hair as black as night, ending in tips as crimson as fresh blood. Black eyes with scarlet pupils like ruby daggers. Attire of crimson silks, sable leather, and black lace, long obsidian-nailed fingers grasping a Staff wrought of dragonbone black as ink, tipped by a black sapphire with a seven-pointed star the hue of elven blood. A single crimson rose glimmered in her silken hair like it was made of ruby.
Lounging next to the elevated throne was a massive Bat, many, many times the size of the elfin, rivaling the size of a great roc and the mightiest of dragons. Its fur was black as night, patched with sudden whiteness on his chest. One of his crimson eyes was covered by a diamond monocle, while a very humanoidish top hat perched jauntily on his head, held up by very elongated ears. Scarlet claws glittered with malevolent power on the stone, crimson imprints radiating around them like stains of blood were dripping from them.
The elven Witch of Darkmoor had indeed managed to survive an explosion so terrible not even the land of the nation she had championed existed anymore!
She had also killed over three dozen dragons that he was aware of, and seen the killing of hundreds more at the hands of forces of Darkmoor. Mostly younger dragons, true, but he knew at least three powerful wyrms had fallen to her, and all the stories had agreed that it hadn’t been a contest of power at all.
She had butchered them, and that had been decades ago. The stories had all agreed that she had grown more powerful with time, and here she was again…