"You've been awfully quiet, Einervaene. Do you know what happened here?" Brewbrt asked as ash and soot-covered rubble crunched under my boots. But I did not want to answer him so I just looked away. Only to find more reminders of one of my worst failures. And I sighed as it all came back to me.
We didn't even need to come out here, what I wanted was the power at Anvil-Peak. Yet, I had somehow guided us around the mountain in its entirety and we had instead wandered upon Nin's homeland. And right now, we were both walking through the still-hot ruins of Tobaballe. A city I never knew but remembered well for what Nin became that day...
I have no way of knowing if this was always a part of him. But, on that day, those couple of years ago... I saw the same kind of behaviour that consumed him after Larishazza was attacked. The monster everyone talked about seemed very real for that brief moment.
"Well, I am just going to go out and say it, but, that fire wyvern's corpse certainly establishes some details." Brewbrt comments as he brings up another thing I ignored him over.
"And what is that?" I asked him quietly as I came upon some strangely marked bricks. Yet, I was quick to figure out what the marks were. So I moved away from it and instead chose to keep on walking. The ash and fire just kept carrying on, however.
There was seemingly no end to the combined destruction caused by us and that wyvern...
"Were you perchance pursued by a fire wyvern to this place? There's no magic out here beyond the residue which practically poisons this land." Brewbrt hypothesizes as we walk up a pile of mostly melted rubble. Only to find ourselves staring down at an endless horizon of dead plants and animals. What made it worse as well was how intact a lot of the bodies were.
We'd caused such damage that nothing could even come by afterwards just to eat them...
"There was a fire wyvern already here, I don't know. But, me, Nin, and my friend that you have never met... We fought it. And we failed to stop it from destroying not just Nin's home... But so much of this land." I explain to him. And although I gestured to wilted fields and lifeless bodies. I was more so pointing at the many other cities that were lost.
Nin was so desperate to stop that creature from getting to his home... It didn't matter whose home was destroyed, so long as it wasn't his. And I wasn't strong enough to help him realise that. I may have only just made things worse...
I sent us over the mountains that circle this land, yet, that was it. I didn't slay the wyvern then and there or bring it away from Nin's home. I just got in the way. Probably damning his home to a fiery demise.
"I know it is probably not what you want to hear. But, I find it intriguing how Nin came from here."
"I don't know what I want to hear. Yet, I share that same line of thought. Nin was strong, for a while, he seemed stronger than even me. Now I am not trying to say that I ever was, but, Nin's lack of familiarity with magic just gave him a lot more presence when I first met him."
"Understandable, he did just sort of let it flow. Though, I can't imagine going back here in that state did him many favours."
"He knew that, and beyond those mountains, he flushed it all out of his body. He just wanted a chance to go back home and he was willing to give up all his power to do it." I tell him, pondering at the same time if I'd be willing to do the same.
"Some people just don't want power, but that is not you." Brewbrt said as he slid down a deathly hill.
"What I seek is not this way, I just, found myself coming here, I guess." I comment ashamedly.
"There's nothing to be ashamed about, Einervaene. Sometimes we do just wonder."
"I know, but I still cannot let go of the failures from the day this all happened."
"You're alive and you beat the wyvern, Einervaene."
"But I didn't save Nin's home. The two might be unrelated but I cannot help but feel that if I actually killed the wyvern that day, before it reached Tobaballe, Nin would've turned out differently."
"People are complex creatures, Einervaene. Don't start trying to shoulder his pain as well as yours."
"All I had to do was not let that wyvern get to the site behind us. And I couldn't even manage that..."
"No, but, you did save some of his home." he then pointed out as we finally came across land that still had life in it. Long gone were any glory days, though. It was clear that our battle and our intrusion here had wreaked havoc upon them. Magic was so forcefully exerted upon this isolated land and the results were lethal.
"I feel... Magic out there." I utter as I start to carefully move out of the wastes and towards a field. A field with a strange black circle at its centre.
"Einervaene, where're you headed?" Brewbrt called out as I reached the black circle. And I gasped when I saw what lied there at its centre. Clearly undisturbed since it got there.
"My old hat..." I let out as I bent down to pick it up.
"Leave that behind?" he joked as he arrived into the black circle.
"In a way." I answer as I remembered how it flew away when the battle reached the great heights far above us. And although it was designed for a different outfit, I still put it on.
"So what now? You still want to wander for a bit more?"
"No," I start off with as I remind myself of the danger we cause to this land, "we should get going to where we actually need to be." I tell him as I start to head back towards the gap Tobaballe once occupied. And although I had no love for this land as it was not mine. I was glad that I could at least help remove the poison we had given it.
"So can I get an idea of what we're looking for, now? I was hoping when you started to head here that we had found it." Brewbrt asked as he rose an arm.
"Sorry, I just don't want to spoil the surprise. So, again, you'll know when we get there." I tell him once again, smiling gently as frustration came onto his face.
"Ah, of course, the first landmark in an endless waste." he grumbles as he launches into the air on a spire of erupting magic. And once I felt like I had moved far enough away, I did something similar.