What Dezen paid attention to, was a giant cloud of ash, which he started seeing after the first day of travelling.
At first, that sight was surprising, but after looking at a few times with Better Sight, he got used to it.
Dezen couldn't be sure, what is the source of that ash, but had assumptions.
All of them were magical disasters, because there is no magical being, able to constantly produce so much ash, or cause a volcano to be created. That means, his travel should be safer.
He excluded forest or grassland fire, because it wouldn't stop a church representative, who is surely a mage, from coming to Dezen's village.
Finally, at the end of the second day of travelling, he arrived to its source.
The first thing he saw, was ash floating in the air. Then, he spotted rivers of lava, some of it already started turning into stone.
Luckily, they weren't wide, so his undead wolf could jump over them.
For an hour, he was looking for some people, but he could find anyone, so he turned back and set up camp around 8 kilometres from the closest river of lava.
He quickly ate, and went to sleep, using the body of the ndead wolf as a pillow.
Before he actually fell asleep, he started to think about his current situation, and possibilities connected with it.
"No spell I have can help me. And I can't- well, I can create a new one, specially for this, but it will take too much time. There is nothing I can use to cross those rivers, but I can go down, or up them, to see if there is something what can help me. If there are mages send to make this route crossable again, they may help me. Wait..."
He remembered some information, he heard in the past, and images appeared in his mind.
"When Sudden Rivers appear, mages create artificial lakes, to speed up forming of magical resources. Maybe in this situation, they will create artificial lakes for lava too? But they won't stop lava rivers. Unless they somehow use lava to speed up that process. Nah, I lack knowledge, so I can't tell whether they do it or not. Let's hope they do. "
Dezen tuned out for a moment, staring into the void.
"If I find some magical resource, I will probably not be able to gather them. But..."
In his mind appeared a series of thoughts. They weren't only words, images also appeared, so it is hard to describe.
What is important, is the result of that stream of thoughts.
"I can modify Gray-Black Spike to gather resources from lava. First I will have to change its shape, then make it more durable. Or just more resistant towards heat. Then, gathering things which float in lava, or are submerged in it, will become possible."
Then, with little disbelief and distance, he thought about it again.
"But should I really hope for success? Better not... Is there something else, to think of?"
Dezen stopped focusing on anything. He slowly started to become more and more sleepy.
Then, studded realization hit him, and he even rose a little.
"I forgot about creating undead from decomposed bodies. I cannot use humans, nor do I have animals, since I give their bones to Raphael and Tim (His and Alex's dogs), and use meat myself. However, here I should be able to find some corpses. Well, maybe not in the shape I would want them to be, but still they will be good to see necromancy's limits. And I won't have to look for, nor create, fired corpses. Hmm, limits of necromancy... Well, maybe limits depend on my strength. Or I can create a special version of spell Revival, for specific corpses. That's possible too."
Dezen was thinking whether he forgot about something else, if there is something else important to think about.
Shortly, before he fell asleep, he forgot about that "task".
Next day, Dezen started exploring the area with lava rivers.
He started with going down them.
While exploring, he was also thinking, what is the cause of it exactly. That means, which magical disaster did it.
"Broken Cave or Volcano Earthquake, what could it be. I don't know much about Broken Cave, almost nothing. Only that lava flows from caves, and from the begging mages come to the area touched by it. Probably Broken Cave means, that magical resources already exists. About Volcano Earthquake, it is said they start with a powerful earthquake, which creates a crack in the earth's crust. It then causes a volcano to be created. Wait, shouldn't a volcano be created too, when Broken Cave happens. What makes volcano a volcano?" - Dezen sighed. - "I really lack knowledge."
Exploration didn't go as Dezen would like to.
He hoped, and even expected, to find places where these rivers end, but he couldn't even spot them. They also began to merge, making it even harder to jump over them.
Unluckily, he didn't find any corpses. Not even dead trees, because they don't grow at that area.
He was exploring, for around 7 hours, before he decided to go back. It's not like Dezen was tired, or couldn't stand the heat. He had several breaks, and found out, that spell False Warmth can also work as protection from high temperatures.
He just could no longer stand riding his undead wolf. Not only his muscles, but also his bones hurt, and he missed fresh air.
Dezen came back to place, where slept last night.
There, he started examining the undead wolf, wanting to find the reason why his bites are so strong.
He did by carefully skinning most his head, and closely watching as his muscles move. At first, he was only moving his jaw. Then, Dezen placed in it few objects, to see which muscles are most involved.
Next part of examination, was cutting through first layer of muscles, to see if he has second, and if he has, examine it too.
While doing it, Dezen realized 2 things.
First, was that he should examine normal wolf too. Seeing differences in their bodies, will help him find out, what makes that undead wolf special.
It is also the first step, to make bites of other undead wolves so strong.
Luckily, it looked like his pulse stopped, because there was miniscule amount of blood, as for skinning and cutting muscles.
Besides this, wolf wasn't even reacting to Dezen's action. He was just following orders, showing no pain, discomfort, nor any other emotion.
The next day, he went up the lava rivers.
The further he travelled, the thinner and thinner they became.
At one point, he wasn't sure if he should call them rivers, because they were thinner than 1 metre.
Besides this, in this area Dezen barely could stand the heat, and ash there was so thick, he couldn't see beyond few metres.
He was wandering there for around half an hour, before he decided to turn back, due to the conditions there.
Since rivers of lava were flowing in only one direction, he went into that, where they don't.
While coming back to his "camo", he had nothing important to thinks about. Because of it, he started observing surroundings and plants untouched by lava, ash, nor fire.
" It's strange that they're not burnt... And that lava flows only in one direction. And that this place has no ash. What the..... Something is wrong here..."
With his thought, Dezen ordered his undead wolf to stop, and started wondering.
"Maybe one if organizations, like some lodge, knew that Volcano Earthquake or Broken Cave will happen here, so they prepared spells, or array to limit the damages it will cause. In the best case. Another possibility is that someone artificially made it happen, but didn't want lava to spread too much. Or... Anyway it's not that important. What is important is what I should do now. And the first thing to do, is analyse the situation, to decide if further exploration is worth effort, and if it's safe."
Dezen got off undead wolf, and started walking near him.
"There no wind, at the area where lava rivers are. Nor do at the surroundings. Probably they use spell or array. Assuming it's caused by agroup of people. Fire touched only the nearest area, so do ash. So there should be also something stopping them. Also, the fact that ash can float in air for days is strange. There is no use of it. It just makes seeing difficult, and that giant cloud lets everyone know that there is volcano, or fire. Depending on what someone thinks. It's like giant warning. Or invitation... Is it safe to be here? I've been for 2 days and nothing happened, but what if it thanks to my luck?... No, if it was like trap, the one, or group who made it, wouldn't interfere in flow of lava, wind, fires and ash. Maybe it's just warning. Anyway, I probably have nothing to look for here. I should just try to find safe route to the city. Burnt corpses I can find somewhere else, or create myself, and I have magical resources in the form of Royal ants.