Imperator Roheisa Deapou.
4th Legion, the Vulcans.
25th of Trescia, 1492.
Mount Hertham. Kasian Empire, Southern Kasian Mountains. Altitude: 3,605 m.
08:00.
***
I thought I knew the power of the Vulcanox. There was no way I could not, after all. The Vulcanox was my heritage just like the darkness was Amun's. My father's fathers lived as nomads, following the herds around the metallic volcanoes of Phaegrath. All of our tribes did, remaining to our volcanoes of copper, tin, electrum, and… Iron.
When the Vulcanox left their volcanoes, the tribes warred and raided. When the Vulcanox returned, they knew peace. Then my father met the Necro King. Everandus Cole. Or rather, the Necro King showed himself to my father after observing him for days.
Their friendship saw the Necro King leave his home as my father was exiled. Thus they taught each other their ways. My father taught the Necro King how to live rough as a nomad; how to raid, and how to rage. The Necro King made my father literate and then taught him etiquette and chivalry. From there, our fates were sealed; mine and Amun's.
I was a Barbaric Princess, raised with the teachings of a royal dame whilst living in the Iron Mountain. The blood of the Vulcanox flowed through me, thus I knew the power that would awaken in me. Or… I thought I knew.
After all, I'd never seen my father erupt.
So it was, when I erupted, I knew not the extent of the damage I had caused. In truth, I knew nothing at all. All I knew was the field of red that consumed me after eating the Vulcanox heart. It poured down my throat with the first bite, turning into something like alchemical fire as it went down and consolidated within my spirit as something that beat against the inside of my body, demanding release.
Only in hindsight did I see myself in vivid detail.
I dashed. I thrashed. I bashed. Into Elurial, I charged, ramming her through the caldera wall with enough force to send her tumbling down the mountain to her apparent death. Having no other target, I began swinging at the sloshing magma and falling stone I perceived as threats, in turn causing the Vulcan Heart to beat harder and hotter. I sank to the bottom of the hot spot I created and bashed my fists against everything around me, cracking the very summit apart so as to let my fury pour down the face like molten tears of steel.
However, the steel volcano was not allowed to cry.
On the contrary, the stroke of divinity within me took hold of the latent energies of my woven world and saw the mass lift into the skies, adding new lands to my world. Unbeknownst to me. All I knew was the red field until the lack of stimulation saw the Vulcan Heart freeze over.
Two days later, the pain of a thousand needles woke me from the red field turned black. I found myself in the middle of a boiling caldera, staring up at the night sky from the highest volcano on the Peninsula. I stared at the worlds woven by my friends, and by me. There, those worlds spoke to me, telling the tale of Amun's rage days after everyone else.
It was pain, that tale. Pain incarnate. A story of trauma that made my rage seem like a petty tantrum of a child.
It took some time, but I pushed through it, rising to my feet to turn my eyes about and harden the lava field around me. Only to find I was not alone. My Doppelganger had returned from Mazi, and she came with friends. Allies. Subordinates for my headquarters. Civilians for my world above. So too did she come with familiar faces. Slate, Amethyst, Corundum, and Darekhil Mountainpike, along with their subordinates.
Moreover, Elurial climbed the mountain once again, this time with a convoy of Kasian natives trailing behind her bolstered strides. I thought her to be angry but… she wasn't. On the contrary, she was infatuated. Both with my power and the grace she received from Amun. Thus she birthed the same infatuation in her followers, refining and polishing it as the weeks went on.
I knew not how I felt about it. Being worshiped was… strange. Embarrassing, at first. And then… burdensome. If the work of a princess was diminutive when compared to that of an empress, being an empress was diminutive when compared to… this.
Those gathered by my Doppelganger aside, their eyes gleamed as if I were as legendary as my father when we were first introduced. Every action I took was regarded with reverence, no matter how mundane it was. I knew not how to react to any of it. I only knew it would increase alongside our numbers. Thus I felt as if everything I did had to be perfect.
That, however, was the problem. I was building not just my own subguild but my own empire, thus I had to decide what perfect was, and I wasn't the planning type like Amun. So, I did what felt perfect to me.
Like I knew back home, I filled the caldera with irrigation channels and drainage pipes before spreading seeds and saplings throughout the space with my girls. Elurial joined shortly thereafter, freeing me to descend into the magma chamber. With her girls, she forested the caldera complex and went on to inhabit it by living in their vehicles full time, treating them like mobile tents in the sense that she'd drive someplace new every few days. A trait everyone seemed to adopt as time went on. Even me.
I did not pick up such a practice until much later, however. It was the Goliaths who fully adopted the culture first. Naturally, Corundum was the first of them. Having occupied the snow-capped peak overlooking the caldera, her people forever remained on the move. Following after the massive goats native to the region like my ancestors did the Vulcanox.
So it was they took a liking to Ed's inventions. Particularly the Meep. They fully integrated them into their lives, first by learning to build and maintain them, then by upgrading them to hold their arms and armor, their beds, fireboxes, and all other things needed to survive in the Outlands.
Like wolves, they roamed the summit in packs of their Meeps until they found a suitable 'den' to park around. Then the workings of Corundum's subculture would fall into play, wherein she would create daily, weekly, and monthly challenges for her subordinates and invite the entirety of the Legions to compete and compare their scores.
Being the strongest and thus being the leader of the four Goliaths, those practices slowly but surely bled down the mountain. Amethyst, being the second strongest, took up residence just beneath the frost line, where she first surprised me by carving a Vulcanox Totem for her Barbaric Path and dedicating herself to it wholly. On top of that, she did as Corundum did and created a long list of games with which to test and train her subordinates.
As fighters, Kaolinite and Slate took different routes entirely. Further developing our culture. They learned to create and operate Meeps like the others. Albeit highly armored ones. However, they made them in such a way that they could be linked together and detached seamlessly, enabling their so-called modular castle Meeps to roam the volcano's base and the surrounding dales.
Whereas the former set up an elaborate Dueling Ring, however, the latter established a Champion's Arena and filled it with annexes and dungeons dedicated to every skill he could think of. Both were graced by Twilight, allowing the competitors to fight and face challenges to the grisly end and walk away stronger and with more 'V Points.' Whatever those even were.
As for Darekhil Mountainpike, he and his subordinates carved their home into the caldera's inner wall, then constructed a network of spacious tunnels and caverns that extended down to the mountain's base. There, a fair bit above the magma chamber, they established our industry, if only so they could construct those armored 'tanks,' as Amun called them. But the ones they built had articulating legs and round bodies that made them look like large beetles capable of wading through magma.
In the interim, I was below, in the castle town I made from my lesser wise rock and the magma chamber. In truth, I knew not the outcome of doing so. But my tower could have been retrieved without much effort and so I tried. The yield was unlike anything I could have imagined.
The wise rock absorbed the material in the upper portions of the chamber, clearing out a heart-shaped space that was then sealed by what appeared to be a crystalline wall, double-layered so as to sandwich a lake of magma between them. The interior walls of the crystal bubble were then filled with layered steel to create halls, staircases, wings, and rooms; all riddled with mana-filled pipes and conduits that kept the temperature at a comfortable level.
Therein I worked for the next few months, teaching the girls my Doppelganger recruited about the ways of a regal barbarian just as the others were doing above. Just like the others were doing on the surrounding peaks, my Doppelganger used her free time to recruit many more outlanders. Especially women, as they were often disenfranchised by their native tribes and relegated to cooking and the more homely duties.
So it was, things proceeded without issue until today, the 25th of Trescia.
It began like any other. My Executive Officer, Aruna Alfarr, gathered the rest of my headquarters staff on the practice field to begin our morning exercises. Only for an announcement from on high cut any practice short. Thus we ascended to the caldera to see the woven worlds of Eotrom stacked on top of Mani, pouring its essence over the realms.
Within seconds of that silver field sweeping over the land, the ambient mana rose to a density of ice, and then on to diamond while simultaneously, the mana wells of my many subordinates swelled to the same point. One by one, the mana cycling through them began to slow before their spiritual organs cracked like mine, causing the once-still energy to roil and churn with a vibrancy it never had before.
Arcana made me feel as if what I had before was but a trickle of mana. I felt like I was positively bursting with energy- like I could do anything. Which, I supposed was true. However, I could not ponder it, for the influx of energy saw the other worlds repeat Mani's actions, bringing great change to the peninsula.
Knowing not was coming, I sent the order to reform our towers at once while the rest of us watched the native goats, bears, lynxes, and other surrounding creatures begin to evolve into magical or even arcane beasts, taking on earthen, metallic, fire, and molten attributes.
That served as the catalyst of destruction we all seemed to be waiting for. Like elsewhere in the distance, mana had begun to coalesce and condense into Extreme Mana Zones. This caldera wound up being no different in that regard. However, my magic being spread throughout the realm coupled with the arcane energies of these creatures saw an evolution in the Zone as well.
Just as our Mana Wells cracked, so too did the volcano, explosively erupting with no warning. All but the strongest of us were thrown off the face and thus left to stare up at a sheer pillar of lava and molten steel, rising higher than I could believe.
{WARNING: Arcane Anomaly detected. Designation given: Calamitous Arcane Territory.}