Chaos God 5, page 6
part #5 of Chaos God Series
We hiked the rest of the way in friendly silence until we reached the edge of the spilled lava. It looked like heaps of black chocolate pudding on the ground, but it was solid rock.
My companions naturally held back as I stepped forward to test the heat of the volcanic rock. I reached out and lowered my palm slowly toward the oddly smooth surface. Some heat radiated off the black rock, but it was in fact cool enough for me to lay my hand flat on it without being burned. It was hot like asphalt in August, but it didn’t outright burn me.
“Great work, Elion,” I said to my lavender-eyed companion. “It’s still warm, but we can definitely walk on this without any issues.”
The black-haired elf tried and failed to suppress a proud smile as the others walked forward and felt the rock’s warmth for themselves.
“Oh, that is so strange,” Azariah murmured as she waved her hand slowly above the ground.
Frida walked up beside me and sniffed excitedly at the ground before she pawed gently at the lumpy rocks. Then she looked up at me as her tongue lolled out of her mouth, and she bounded right out onto the cooled lava.
“Shall we?” Finnern asked with a curious spark in his moss-green eyes.
“Let’s do it,” I said.
We all stepped out onto the black rock together and smiled at each other briefly before we walked further into the unknown territory.
Frida was having a fucking field day, and her smooth shark snout was practically glued to the ground. Every few dozen feet, she would stop and begin scraping against the rock, and it tore up easier than I would have expected.
“It is unlike anything I have seen before,” Ayen mused.
“It seems both soft and hard at the same time,” Finnern said thoughtfully as he fiddled with the tip of his middle braid.
“Yeah, it’s weird looking,” I agreed.
The volcanic rock was like a weird mixture of regular hard stone and grainy, mineral-rich mud. Parts of it pulled up in large chunks under Frida’s clawed paws, and there were also big pockets of what looked like a kid’s kinetic sand kit.
“Let’s go further this way,” I suggested as I gestured further to the west, in the direction where I knew the broken path once was.
I was wildly curious about the broken path that had once been the only way into this area from other regions, and I knew it was the way Ayen had come to the encampment. The path had been consumed by the lava fields many years ago, and now that they were cool, I wanted to know what lay further north and west of us.
“What was in this direction before Ragnarok?” I asked a few minutes later.
“The mountains were always here,” Elora answered. “And beyond them to the north were more cities.”
“Indeed,” Finnern agreed. “There were many communities in this direction. These mountains were the home of my dwarven kin.”
“Yeah?” I asked.
“Mmhmm.” Finnern nodded, and he pointed further northwest. “There was another kingdom of dwarfs in this range, here. King Adgorick and I had once planned to mine a pathway through the rock to connect our cities. Unfortunately, before we could move forward with the plans, Ragnarok came, and King Adgorick and his people were lost to the lava fields.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said in a somber voice.
I hadn’t really thought about other dwarven cities or kingdoms, but I’d only seen a rather small area of Asgard. It made sense that there had been more than what I’d seen so far. Suddenly I wondered how many other cities or villages had managed to survive the destruction of the Aesir and much of the planet.
We walked northwest a bit longer, and sweat started to trickle down my neck from the overall warmth of the area. It was definitely survivable, but it wasn’t exactly comfortable.
We came into an outcropping of boulders that looked almost familiar, and I realized we’d reached the area where Finnern, Ayen, and I had captured a few demons several months ago for Hezzig to forge with. We must have passed beyond the end of the broken path a while back, and I glanced around with a fresh perspective. The ground level of everything looked totally different, but the peaks of the now-dormant volcanoes made a familiar line across the sky.
“How about we take a break here and have something to eat?” I suggested.
“An excellent idea,” Azariah said, and she plopped down on a boulder without hesitation.
I looked at my pregnant Valkyrie and was pleased to see she looked well despite the sweat that trickled down her pale blue face. I knew Elora wouldn’t push herself too much, but the protective streak that had grown immensely during the course of Shalanna’s pregnancy wouldn’t be silenced.
“Make sure you’re drinking enough water,” I murmured to my silver-haired beauty.
“I am, love,” Elora assured me, and she took a long pull from her water pouch. “I promise you, I feel very well.”
“I know,” I said with a loving smile, and then I arched my eyebrows playfully at her. “I also know that if you need to, you can just fly back home because you wore your wings.”
“Yes, it was a wise decision,” Elora giggled. “But I do not believe I will have to abandon the excursion.”
We settled down on the grouping of boulders as Frida continued to romp around us and dig for fun. My companions and I pulled out salted strips of rabbit jerky and dried fish, and we enjoyed a peaceful picnic-style lunch.
“Do you think we should select an area among these fields for another camp?” Ayen wondered after a while.
“Having a lookout position here could be very useful,” Finnern agreed.
“Yeah, and it would be nice to mark the territory as mine,” I added. “Stick a flag in here and claim it.”
“What flag?” Azariah wondered.
“Oh, nothing,” I chuckled. “It’s sort of a Midgard thing. Leaders there like to put their flag places to claim them as theirs.”
“I think a small fortress would be very beneficial,” Elora said as she sipped her water. “Both as a lookout for activity beyond our previous lands, and as a resting place for excursions such as this one. I expect this will not be the last time we venture out this direction.”
“What do you think, Finnern?” I asked. “Is there enough proper stone around here to make a build like that possible?”
“Oh, yes, your majesty.” The triple-braided dwarf nodded. “These boulders we sit on at this very moment are ideal for such construction, and I can see several groupings right now of the same kind of stone. In fact, this very spot may be exactly where you would desire to place a fortress.”
“Great,” I said. “I’ll keep that in mind, and we can discuss it with Hezzig and Seymour later.”
I thought about the carpenter from Freesia’s home village as I pulled one of Nestryn’s little glass bottles from my pouch. The man had been absolutely vital in our battle against the climber demons in the chasm, and his venomous fireballs were just one of his many contributions. The man had been working for months now to install the indoor plumbing system that was part of the house I shared with my ladies when we were in the village. As far as I was concerned, Seymour would be involved in any major construction projects alongside my blacksmith.
I made sure to get a nice little variety of pebbles and the rocky black soil into the glass bottle for Nestryn, and then I capped the bottle tightly and placed it securely back into my bag.
Ayen was busy asking Finnern about the dwarven city that had once existed in the caverns under this area, and the others were listening with interest.
“Is it possible they survived down there?” Azariah wondered as she gazed down at the ground.
“No,” Finnern said sadly. “Their caverns and tunnels were filled with lava many decades ago. I sent one of my scouts out through the natural tunnels soon after Ragnarok. He was nearly lost, and he confirmed that nothing remained of King Adgorick or his people.”
I only half-listened as Finnern’s voice began to tell about his long-lost friend and the wonders of the other dwarven cities. My eyes wandered far toward the southeast toward the unknown swamps where the gorgeous Völva lived.
Sylmarie had come to visit us at Castle Levi a handful of times since my quest into the chasm. The first time was only about a week and a half after Njord’s death, and Sylmarie claimed she had been in the area on other business. Of course, I’d invited her into the castle for a meal, and I’d been ecstatic when she’d stayed for the night. I still hadn’t given up trying to get her to come and live among us full-time instead of just visiting, but Sylmarie stubbornly insisted on returning to her swamp cave every time.
She’d visited again about a month ago and said she was curious about the lava fields, but I knew there was more to it than that. Sylmarie could see anything she needed or wanted to, and she definitely didn’t have to come to see me in order to check on the lava fields. I was starting to think she was actively making up excuses to come and see me.
Not that I had a single problem with that.
The seeress had been a powerful ally and source of useful, if annoyingly vague, information since my arrival on Asgard, and I had to admit to myself that I was really fond of her. I cared about Sylmarie, and she’d been present in more than one of my dreams over the last several weeks which made me want to pursue whatever kind of future I had with her.
“Shall we carry on?” Finnern suggested a bit later.
“Yeah, good idea,” I agreed.
We packed up our things and began to hike again, and we angled ourselves between the dead volcanoes.
“I had no idea how large the lava fields were,” Azariah commented.
“They have consumed the land like a hungry beast ever since Ragnarok,” Elora sighed. “But they are gone now, thanks to Njord’s gift to us.”
“Why do you think he did it?” Elion wondered.
“What do you mean?” Ayen asked.
“Well, I did not see the Vanir for myself,” Elion said. “But perhaps he could have survived and lived among us in peace. Why do you think he gave the last of himself for us?”
“It was said that Njord was among the most caring of the Vanir,” Finnern said as if that was all the explanation he needed or wanted.
“It matters not,” Ayen said. “The only thing that matters is that we do not waste the gift.”
I nodded in agreement with Ayen, but I was just as curious about the god’s actions as the lavender-eyed elf was.
Njord’s final words echoed in my head, and I wondered for the hundredth time what he’d meant.
“Take care of them this time… do not return to your…”
The words had nagged at me ever since, and the best explanation I’d been able to come up with was that Njord had been confused and mistaken me for someone else.
I was determined to heed his advice as best I could, though, and I would do everything in my power to take care of my people. I wondered if he would have told me not to return to Earth. It was the only thing that made sense to me, but I had no way to get back to Earth even if I’d wanted to.
And any lingering desires to return to Earth had disappeared long ago. Asgard was my home now, and I’d built a loving family around myself here. I had at least two children on the way, and I wasn’t about to give up on my destiny to become God King to go back to a life of mediocre contentment.
“Ayen’s right,” I said. “Njord’s reasons don’t matter. We are very grateful for what he did for us, and the best way we can thank him is by living full and happy lives with what he gave us.”
My companions nodded peacefully in agreement, and we continued on for a bit longer.
After a while, Frida’s nose was glued to the ground once more, and her shark tail twitched with excitement as she sniffed around. Every twenty feet or so, my wolf-shark would stop and scrounge in the black rock for a moment or two. She never came up with anything interesting, but she seemed to be having a very good time nonetheless.
I watched Frida for a moment as she zeroed in on a specific spot, and she started to dig harder than before. A few seconds later, Frida crouched back and then pounced hard at the spot with a ferocious growl.
“What are you doing, girl?” I wondered as I walked over to see what she was doing.
Finnern walked a step behind me, and as we approached, he gasped audibly and rushed forward three paces.
“What is it?” I asked as my guards immediately went into high gear.
I looked around as my other companions followed my lead and took slightly more defensive positions. Ayen, Azariah, and Elion pivoted on their heels so we had a pair of eyes looking in every direction, but my focus was glued to Finnern’s look of shock and excitement.
“Easy, everyone,” I said, and my companions relaxed their stances a little bit. “Finnern, what is it?”
“Come and see for yourself.” The triple-braided dwarf grinned at me before he pointed down.
Then I saw a patch of shiny blue-gray at the bottom of Frida’s foot-deep hole.
“What is that?” I asked as I stared at the surprisingly pretty new mineral.
Chapter 5
“That is tustrium, your majesty,” Finnern breathed as his moss-green eyes went wide on his bearded face.
“That doesn’t help, Finnern.” I smirked at the dwarf.
“It cannot be,” Elora gasped as she peered down at the shiny blue mineral. “Truly?”
“Yes, your highness,” Finnern confirmed, and he looked me dead in the eyes. “King Levi, tustrium is the mineral of the gods. It is the most valuable metal on all of Asgard, perhaps even all of the nine realms.”
“And Frida found some?” I asked.
“It appears so.” Finnern nodded as he knelt down to inspect the hole.
“What’s so valuable about it?” I asked.
“Tustrium is incredibly strong, King Levi,” Finnern explained. “And it is very light, but the best part is it can be smelted down and reforged more times than all other metals before it breaks down too far and becomes brittle.”
“It can be reused?” I asked in an impressed tone. “That’s cool.”
“Aye, your majesty,” Finnern confirmed. “There is of course a limit to tustrium just as anything else, but it is far more durable than any other material.”
“This is exciting,” Elora said with a bright smile.
“Oh, yes,” Finnern chuckled. “Hezzig will soil himself with excitement when we tell him of this discovery.”
“Do you think there’s a lot here?” I asked.
“We will not know for sure until we bring back the proper tools and begin to dig,” Finnern said as he brushed away the volcanic soil with his hands. “But this appears to be a fine vein of tustrium that Frida has found.”
“That’s awesome.” I grinned.
I’d never expected to have myself a pet like Frida, and here she was, accidentally finding a huge mine of the most valuable metal on the planet. Frida sat back on her shark tail and tilted her head as she looked over at me like she had no idea what the big deal was. She held a long white bone between her teeth, and I could tell by the length and weird shape of the end that it was a demon’s bone. It amazed me how much of her personality was based on her wolf side, and I patted her affectionately as she chomped on the bone.
“And in my experience,” Finnern continued as he looked around the spot where he squatted. “A vein of this bright shade of blue will often be in the heart of a much larger patch.”
“You think there’s enough here to make it worth mining?” I asked.
“Oh, yes, your majesty.” Finnern nodded as he stood back up. “Even the smallest source of tustrium is worth the effort it takes to remove it from the ground, but I expect we have quite a mine here to discover.”
“Wonderful,” Elora said with excitement, and her Valkyrie wings twitched happily behind her as if they agreed.
“The armor Hezzig will be able to forge with this material will be the finest you have ever seen, your majesty,” Finnern promised me. “It will astound you.”
“I look forward to it,” I said.
“Do you think this is why that bastard wanted the barren wastelands?” Ayen wondered. My blond friend knelt down and touched the tips of his fingers to the blue-gray metal before he raised them close to his face. “It is quite beautiful.”
“Who? Ryfon?” Azariah asked.
“Yes,” Ayen confirmed. “If he knew about this, or even had suspicions of it, it would explain why he desired the camp and the lands beyond in his deal with the Demon Lord.”
“It’s possible.” I nodded. “And I could totally see that asshole doing whatever he had to in order to get his grimy hands on even the possibility of a gold mine like this.”
“Even if there had been only a rumor of tustrium in the area,” Elora said. “Ryfon would have bartered with the life of his own mother to acquire the lands.”
Elora was right, and I knew that one-eared bastard would’ve done whatever it took to get his hands on something as valuable as Finnern said this was. Not that it mattered either way, the fucker was long dead, and the tustrium was mine now.
“I never expected he had much sense in his head,” Elion spoke up. “But this would explain why he would request the barren wastelands.”
I nodded as I thought back to the conversation I’d overheard between the white-haired elf Gaelyra and her manservant about their deal with the Demon Lord. Gaelyra had retained jurisdiction over Freesia’s village, which had made perfect sense to me. The village was loaded with assets, crops, livestock, and people. Even under the horrific influence of Gaelyra’s confusion magic, the people had survived enough to continue growing vast quantities of produce. The only reason the people had been suffering was because of Gaelyra’s interference.
Ryfon, on the other hand, had chosen to keep the encampment where Elora, Ayen, and Wyn had been living until my arrival. They’d been forced to actively sacrifice three people every full moon to the Demon Lord’s appetites. Even without that horror, the land wasn’t exactly welcoming, and the people had been scraping survival out of the rocks. It had never made sense to me why Ryfon would desire such a place or situation to be his, but if he’d known or suspected the tustrium here, it all made more sense.
