"You can't be serious!"
Gritting my teeth, I leaped into action at once, producing a magnetic field to rip me into the skies. Yet it was far stronger than I anticipated. My first officers unwittingly came along for the ride, and so too did a portion of the highly ferrous ground, along with a stream of molten steel peeling off of the rising falls. Unbeknownst to me, for I was concentrating on grabbing hold of the immense volumes of lava ejecting into the sky.
Alfer Umis, my mage, reported it approaching at a maddening pace, even as I raced to the eruption's apex. Having no time to request assistance from me, the half-elf reached out to grasp hold of the oncoming stream and found she had utter control of it.
As if she were manipulating the lava itself, she drew it into the shape of a plate and cooled it with a spell of mana made to mimic water, then pulled it to our feet.
While grabbing hold of the lava was easier than it had ever been before, I had never handled this much at once. Thus it required all of my focus to draw the column into a roiling heart suspended above me; and it required even more focus not to lose myself in despair as my body rotated, bringing my eyes across the burning columns ascending from the Peninsula.
Volcanoes erupted all along the mountains, splintering ancient stone and sending untold volumes of ash and dust into the skies along with the crimson pillars. They stretched from the highest peak on which we sat, overlooking Redagh, to the end of the mountain range at the border of the Rharian and Ligin Kingdoms to the far west. The Tri-Point was hit as well. As was the sole mountain range to the north, within Vruria, near the borders of Mazi and Nevstan.
Feeling as if my mana output had at least quintupled, I guided my officers in grasping hold of the roiling heart above using their newfound abilities while I sustained it with my breath, infused with mana. With my hands, I reached out to those distant columns to the north and south and guided my mana down into those twin streams until I found their hearts, and began pumping them furiously.
The columns bloomed, rising in heat and radiance until they threatened to out-compete the sun itself. Winter was pushed back, along with the fault lines along the Kasian-Chaulort border, South-Central Rhar, and the heart of Vrur. Not only with lava but with extreme mana zones of varying natures.
Almost at a loss for what to do, I turned my eyes upward, wherein I recoiled in the face of something familiar. My world, Edinda retreated into the sky after it… winked at me, shedding a final tear that seemed to race at me with great speed.
A tear, it seemed like, until it grew into a shard, then into a train, and on to a hill that steadily increased in size. A hill with… legs. Legs of blazing fire and a stony body of… matted fur.
As what could only have been the rough 'flesh' of a severed neck came into view, the lights persisting at the edge of my vision went wild. Boxes and circles fell over every point of the strange object's surface, forcing images, schematics, and details into my senses before they congealed into a single message.
{Vessel Connected: Zeta-Class Uma, Model: Vulcanox Crawler-Transport.}
Almost instinctually, I began guiding a small stream of lava into the open wound of the Vulcanox I slayed, now made into an undead machine that had dimensions in the kilometers.
Just before it made contact, however, a tiny something detached from it and radiated with a light intense enough to outshine reality itself.
When it faded, reality seemed to have been shocked to a stillness. The columns of lava remained suspended in the distance, leaving a smattering of red and black spots against the ashen backdrop. Below me, my subordinates were focused on guiding them to me. Scattered elsewhere among cities and people, I could see silver and golden auras protecting the lands from significant damage.
Before me, though, was an expectedly unexpected face, holding something peculiar.
"I should have asked first."
Though he said it in a teasing manner, I knew Amun well enough to understand the many hidden meanings of his words. He should have asked before allowing Ed to make a crawling castle out of the Vulcanox I killed. He should have asked before tinkering with armor. He should have asked before bestowing my subordinates with my abilities.
Those things were true. I could hardly ponder them, however.
So it was, he pressed on. "Although I don't know why you dislike all things divine, it's not my place to ask. I figure you'll tell me if and when you want to, and that's fine with me. However, I will offer it to you still because I believe you would prefer this over wicked mana."
"Well…" 'That's not entirely true.' I sighed, looking down at his hands, spread and filled with wickedness and divine mana.
Deep down, I was aware that my father used my mother's horrid death to convince me to be angry with the Gods. I knew that was simply a scapegoat to awaken my rage; in turn, I knew that realizing that truth was supposed to be enough to make me go berserk. But, wrong though he may have been, I could not hate my father for that. Nor could I hate Amun for being a God.
On one hand, I wanted to become wicked- undying and fiendish so as to complete the paths forged by my father and the Necro King, and to show the Gods my wrath as my father so taught me.
On the other hand, I desired to bring great change to Maru; and, I supposed, the Mortal Plane. If that meant becoming a Goddess, then I decided I would become everything I hoped the Gods to be; and nothing what they were in reality.
Therein gave me my answer.
"That much is true." I began, grasping first his left, wicked hand. Much to his surprise. "I thank you for showing me this, the evolution of my family's culture. And for looking out for my subordinates, though I suppose they are yours as well."
"You suppose?" Amun snickered, though he looked at his left hand with an eye of curiosity.
"I had no desire to be holy. However." I continued, grasping his right hand, fueled with his divine essence. "It's as you told us last year. We need to be strong enough to protect ourselves from anyone. Even the Gods. We will become the Eternal Gods and Goddesses of your pantheon- of these realms.
"So I will take these," I said resolutely as I guided his hands to clasp together and merge the wicked with the divine as he had done with Toril. "With this wickedness, I will become a plague to the sources of my rage, burning away the cruelties of the Gods and burying those who hold their heels over women beneath a mountain of steel. With this, the power of the divine, I will become your Goddess of Fertility and see to it that no mother meets the same fate as mine.
"Finally, with the power of my ancestors, I will spread the Cult of the Vulcanox across the Mortal Plane and work to protect the noble creatures of my heritage."
I felt an unbelievable surge of energy flow into me the moment I clasped my hands around his. It flowed into me like lava falls, condensing while descending into my spirit to take the form of a chained dagger that wrapped around the Vulcan Heart and pierced it through to inject a venom of sorts into my spirit.
That wickedly divine toxin saw the namesake of my class be corrupted with the blessed powers of life, death, fertility, and nature. It seeded an intense warmth and a dreaded cold into my flesh, granting a breath of life to any and every noble thing the beating Vulcan Heart pointed me to; and damning everything else.
Within a second, the rush and in turn, Amun was gone, replaced by the indomitable roar of the volcanic catastrophe around me.
A single thrust of the hand solved the seemingly overbearing problem I was facing just moments ago. As if they were guided by their own will, the uncountable crimson spires churned into and onto my Uma.
The column of Vruria landed gently atop its back, forming a mountainous cairn of basalt atop its shoulder blades that dripped down to thicken the matted rows of fur along its ribs.
The Tri-Point column flowed into the open face of its chest, infusing its heat into the chamber I created by ripping the beast's heart out. As the new heart formed and began to beat, the Uma hummed to life with a roar that saw the volcanoes built atop its shoulders begin to smolder.
The columns from the mountain range beneath me flowed over that open neck to form a skull of molten steel, encased in a castle of crystalline flesh sealed beneath a skin of igneous rock.
The end of the flows saw it enter the rising cloud of volcanic ash, where only the hateful amber glare of its eyes and the massive spires for horns stared down on the mountains below.
The gaze born from those burning eyes saw the many magmatic creatures around us begin to relocate to the floating mountain. My subordinates were the only exceptions, including Elurial and the other founders. They looked at me and each other with unbridled awe, and this time, it was deserved.
I, however, could not take my eyes off the item before me. My armor, once an elegantly dominating suit of Valkyrie armor, was now much smaller in stature, and yet more solid. Not to mention familiar.
It was now reduced to just a helm with a long, fiery cape that flowed from the semi-braided ponytail atop the crown. The light produced from it joined the volcanic glow of the crystalline horns it sat between, swept forward like that of the Vulcanox. Yet its cheeks were frilled, ending in long whiskers like the salamander I slayed last year.
"I should add," Amun said from both everywhere and nowhere. "This is still Valkyrie armor, only remade to meld with your barbaric path. I also made it into a training tool, however. Seeing as how you just made an oath, you are officially a paladin now. One day you will reach the end of your barbaric path and fulfill your oath. This will help you merge them when that time comes."
"M- merge them?" I stammered, taking the helm to stow it under my arm, where it felt so at ease. Yet, it was those lingering lights that answered the question for me.
{Training Protocol Initiated: Barbaric Paladin, Agent of the Vulcanox.}