Now, of course, there remained the problem of having two kaiju with massive territorial instincts sitting there right next to one another. Dominance issues was a thing.
-It's not over.- They were a mile away, turned around, and looked at me without difficulty. Wow, that was really impressive. Eagle eyes are nothing when your eyes are taller than a human is. -The Warp Gods are going to use you as an excuse to send out something really impressive the instant you leave the bounds of the city, and I know you don't want to stay here.-
The two great kaiju huffed together, turning as one to The Map and the greatly changed world without. However, both were truly ancient, and used to changes in geography that came from the passage of time. Fuego in particular had the weight of millions of years upon him. He'd seen mountains come and go; the changed landscape was barely something of concern to him. Ages of past memories weighed down on the map with ancient lands that definitely were no longer there, and he got his own sub-Map strata to look at the changes over a huge, Huge, HUGE area.
Wow, this world was pretty big. Did the Flame Tyrant actually go swimming around? I suppose with that tail he could. Of course, now he could just walk...
But that Rift standing open there, that was new, that was unhealthy, and the Land's opinion of it was equivalent to a parasite gnawing on an open wound.
There was stuff behind that Rift that was bigger than the Land. The two kaiju growled despite themselves.
"But fear not! We're going to get you both prepared!" We were out of accelerated time, the many Marklinks were synching up in real time, and it was time to get some serious shit done. We had two really big friends here who needed some help for what was coming, and teamwork was what the Ironblood did best!
-BOO-YEAH!- /thundered in the Marktell, and the two kaiju blinked at the sensation from all those little minds drifting up to them. Those little beings were going to HELP them? Well... they were REALLY curious about what was coming next...
----------
I walked down the entire length of it from my end, two Rockborn senior clerics following me, looking at what was below with me. From the other end and side, Briggs was doing the same thing, two more Rockborn matching him.
They'd done some really good work. There was some very minor, small end stuff they'd missed because of the sheer size of what they were doing, but hey, crap happens, and our Tremblesense gave them a much better overall view then their eyeballs. It also meant they were really determined to develop the same kind of sense, and we were happy to tell them how to do it, with some allowances for using magic instead of chi...
Anyhoos, it had been a busy day.
Step one was getting its mold made, we were looking at that now. Enough Stone Shaping can move a mountain, after all.
Step Two was having the big fellows wander Over There and sort of stand around. When little gnats smelling of corruption and otherworldly powers stumbled out of that wound in Reality they couldn't do anything about right now, there was a brief moment of exertion, and the gnats formed a white carpet on the ground for the Land to munch on. After a while, the gnats stopped coming, the big fellows moved back, and Step Two now took place.
Who says killing hundreds of thousands of Warped idiots wasn't useful?
Remember all those piles of armor and weapons carted off the battlefield every day by industrious Rockborn and gnome workers, forming huge piles and hills of them?
Big paws swept those mounds into a long, deep trench in the ground. Normally, I wouldn't even think of using this kind of corrupted metal in anything resembling honest smithwork... but I just so happened to have a source of the purest and most primal Fire around, and he could even make it vivic thanks to his glinting, pretty horn.
Endless tons of metal and its accompanying leather went into the trench that was actually a very long mold. It heaped up over the edge, but that was okay, because it was about to get reduced rather drastically.
A long horn in possession of a certain Elder Arg followed it all in. So did a whole bunch of very long tentacles belong to a certain mycoid abomination, and some crushed pieces of a really hard shell a certain big ape had pounded down into much smaller parts.
Tyrant Fuego let loose a blast of fire controlled with the power and finesse only something intimately tied to the Element for countless years could have. The organic shit flared and was gone. Impurities burned away almost instantly. Roiling metal burned vivic as unwhite energies flowed through and devoured the corruption they carried from the Warp.
Massive paws shoved the rest in, and another blast of fire from the heart of primal heart of a kaiju reduced it down.
The lids were kicked over, white-hot metal bubbled out as they were sealed, one after another.
Eager eyes stared at the long mold oozing blazing metal, multiple levels of awareness swallowing it.
-Okay, Master Fuego. Take its fire.-
---
See, we'd been teaching Tyrant Fuego, the most powerful creature of Fire on the planet, someone who could make elder Pyre and Lore dragons whimper and cry, about Fire.
Or more precisely, we'd been expanding his view of fire to... heat. And motion. Fire... was merely atoms in motion. Energy in motion.
The hellpuppies had gone right up onto his muzzle, and as he watched closely, they did successive One-Two's on his horn; Shirley taking the heat, Fido taking it and adding it to his own. Taking, giving, taking, giving. Fido also happily displayed all the different types of Fire he knew eagerly, something that Fuego was definitely interested in, integrating them into an understanding of Fire that was doing nothing but growing at an amazing speed.
He had naturally seen fire spells cast before, but he had never done so at the /tellepathic level, not only able to see what they were doing with the magic, but see the structure of their thoughts, the designs of the spells at a mental level. The totally awed Casters, of every race possible, demonstrated Rituals and Ceremonies for him, and every spell of pyromancy in all its forms: Fire, heat, light, smoke, ash, sparks, and lava. He witnessed how fire could mold, shape, and weld; he saw different Elements brought together through Fire to become greater than the sum of their parts, alloys and alchemy and artifice.
His brain and soul were huge. This was just a matter of taking Levels and understanding things even more deeply than he ever had before.
At the same time Fuego was actually learning boundless new things about Fire, Mono was in meditation with the Land, and scores of Druids were working with him, including every Shaman of the Ape Tribes and among the elves.
He was big and he was simple, but he was not dumb. He was aware on many subtle levels, but he had never experienced the world through little mortal eyes and hearts, and how they wielded the breath of the Land.
He was learning now, and he was learning VERY quickly. Even a kaiju was restricted to a Level a day, but the amount of Karma he had sitting around was just ridiculous. He'd be as powerful a Druid as he wanted to be... and one of the views of Druids is the place Fire has in the world.
Druids make great advisors.
-------------
The breath that came out of Fuego's mouth was white, yet shadowed. Oxygen was freezing solid in its wake as it came out, and all the heat in its path was drawn to the Tyrant.
Precisely, all at once, exactly as how he wanted it. No cooling from outside to core, breaking and popping. No, the entire length of the molten stuff was deprived at once, crystallizing high and hard under an implacable strength of will and power.
The entire thing was rimed in ice as Fuego let up, and we stepped up to take a look.
-Oh yeah, baby.- Fuego's eyes lit up like small stars. -Master Mono, if you please.-
A paw bigger than a school bus came down, grasped the steaming mold down below. Mono lifted, and there was a creak and crinkle as the stone shattered and broke away, and the Golden Emperor Ape's Staff was lifted into the air.
Runes molded into the bone-white structure of the Staff still glowed with inner fire.
It was mostly standard, a little thicker on the ends for clubbing, but not much. The structure of it was the same hue as ivory, fire, and magic and demon bone and kaiju power combining to make something that only one of them could wield.
-The Staff of the Tyrant,- I /told him, and his golden eyes met the burning gaze of Fuego. -Promise never to use this gift against him, for you are his advisor, and he is the Tyrant.-
Mono grunted, great hands gripping the Staff, stroking it up and down, knowing it was made for him to use. He nodded his great golden head slowly, and Fuego snorted a ball of flame in proud acknowledgement.
He was the Tyrant. He would never be challenged by Mono for that position again. At the same time, Mono held his Staff, and thus the authority of the Tyrant with it!
If I was going to change the world, I might as well change the world of kaiju to go with it, right?
-I can't teach you all the things you can do with a staff right now... but I can show you all the basics, and build up from there.- Because nobody uses sticks like monkeys can use sticks. I walked right up the air to his nose as he sat there, a plain wooden stick in my hand, and his great golden eyes focused on me sharply.
Paying strict attention to both how I was thinking and how I was moving, he watched as I began some really old katas on his nose, and the staff I was using slowly began to pick up speed...
--------
Zynozure...
Errant and his Heavenbound associates materialized back in the temple of Sylune, brought there by an angelic vohr, who instantly became the subject of rapturous attention from the remaining priestesses there. Gracefully, the jet and silver angel spoke with them, while the Heavenbound skirted them and made their way out of the temple.
Had the priestesses not been instantly transfixed by a 40 Charisma high-end servant of Sylune popping in on them, they certainly would have been shocked by the transformation in the Heavenbound. Klistos, Vianna, and Moski looked nothing like the three raw youths who had been dispatched from this location only a week or so ago. Indeed, the transformations were so total to their demeanor and appearance that none of the priestesses even recognized them. They only saw in passing four adventurers, led by the young knight Errant, brought into the temple, their silver eyes proclaiming them Heavenbound, and about them the air of people who had faced down a thousand evils in endless battle, and conquered them all.
The cloaked four came down the temple steps with the smooth, balanced strides of the alert and the dangerous. Just a glimpse of their silver eyes had distant watchers pulling away behind cover, sweating and cursing as they realized what had just come out of the temple of the Moon Goddess.
They scanned in all directions, picking up on some of those watchers silently. Errant tilted his head, all four of them took a step, and Rode the Light away.
A minute later, they flowed together on a rooftop a block away, the blood flicked off their blades.
"You all know why we are here," Errant told his juniors in Orders calmly. He wasn't any older than they were, but he'd spent years more as Heavenbound, and although their reasons and motivations were different from his own. "You know how much time we have left, and I believe you all still have things you want to do. It has been two years for us, but less than a week since we left."
The two young men and young woman nodded, nostrils flaring, still scarcely believing it. They had left here confident, buoyed by the backing of Heaven, certain of eventual victory, brash and ready to fight.
All of them had died at least twice in the fighting, despite all the power Heaven could give them. Their foes were dangerous, and not fearing them was not the same as beating them. They had scars that had not healed perfectly, and the amount of injuries inflicted on them and taken willingly would have slain an army.
By the grace of Heaven, they did not have to fear. Now, by their own deeds, they were to be feared.
"You all have things you wish to do, and little time to do them in. If you need help, I am here. But, I do not think you do."
Seven real days ago, they might have smiled cockily at his words. There was no need to smile at all now. He was right, but that didn't mean they couldn't be beat.
"Go. I have a Fallen Angel to go see, and see what he is going to do about what is coming."
They all nodded, and light swirled as it whisked them away. There were some dark things in the city that would not live to see what was coming. Heaven might be delayed, but Justice was something with a long memory.
What goes around, comes around, and the Heavenbound were coming around...