Chapter Seven: Restoring the Forge - The Mountain's Voice!
After seeing that the bald Maker needs help...
"So there's the same small constructs and constructs with full Corruption Crystals growing around their charred bodies, then again, it would not be much of a problem." Chris frowned as she charged into the fray with her Lifebane.
Chris, Alito, Death, and the bald Maker managed to destroy the construct swarms.
After the last of the constructs crumbled on the floor and vanished into thin air...
"Ah, the tears be true! A Rider and two humans from the other dimension have come to our realm!" the Bald Maker chuckled.
Chris and Alito bowed lightly as Death crossed his arms and grumbled.
"Hmmm...Not another one." the Pale Rider frowned.
"You must be a Nephillim, the one they call Death. You both women must be Chris and Alito. Elder Eidard contacted me about the arrival of the three of you through the wind. How did you three get here?" the bald Maker wondered.
"Took a wrong turn; it seems we're stranded here with the rest of you." Death replied calmly.
"If you seek the Cauldron, you should know that it fell to Corruption fair long ago. I can still feel the fire itself rumbling deep in the earth." the bald maker warned.
"We will take our chances." Death dismissed, while Chris and Alito nodded.
"Who are you? You look different from the other Makers on our eyes for one." Chris wondered.
"Heh! I could say no less for all of you, especially it's the first time I see humans in the Forge Lands, even if you're from other dimension. Folks around town call me pup or lad, but I prefer my own name...Karn." the bald Maker simpered.
"Pup, it is then." Death replied in amusement.
"It's okay, matters not to me." Karn shrugged.
Chris nodded. "Karn, right? That's a nice name. Just wondering, you're restoring the Fire of the Mountain, right?"
"Yeah, I came here to pop the cork so to speak. Be a hero, ya? You three look capable enough; I will guard the entrance for you if you want." Karn chuckled.
"Are you sure you can handle it on your own? The Corruptions are themselves very dangerous despite your size." Chris asked worryingly.
"Sure thing, those golems ain't got anything on me!" Karn grinned.
Chris mused for a moment and summoned an ice clone in the same height as her.
"This is for insurance; safety. She will be able to help you in countering the corrupted golems in the event they charge on over." Chris replied calmly.
"Thanks, lass! I would appreciate some help every occasionally, though. Heh..." Karn grinned.
"Be careful..." Chris patted Karn's right leather gauntlet softly, prompting a raised right eyebrow from the Pale Rider once more.
Once inside the Cauldron...
The dungeon was filled with molten lava flowing from giant pipes, sewers, and destroyed floors. Ruined, chipped floors decorated around the floor, with dead crawlers creeping around the floors, walls, and even wooden stumps. Conveyor belts transported big cauldrons, pouring gallons of hot liquid down onto the river of lavas.
"So...this is the home of the Fire of the Mountains. Time is a wastin', so let's get it done ASAP." Chris frowned.
"Well, at least we all have a common goal, for now. Keep up with me or you're toast." Death frowned.
Chris and Alito nodded.
Chris, Alito, and Death encountered tall spikes of green and black crystals with the same black gooey substance found on the Corrupted Golems earlier.
"It is crystals hardened in the form of Corruption." Death grunted.
Chris used her Project Tundra to scan the area and detected a pod with a small spiky ball made of Corruption. It was flickering with sparks and smokes emitted from the pod as if it was about to explode.
"Bad things and bad things cancel each other out; those volatile Corruption bomb pod should prove useful." Chris noted.
"I will get it." Alito nodded without hesitation as her eyes glowed pale green and summoned a strong but sustainable wind to pick up the spiky bomb over to her side.
"I never said I need your help." Death crossed his arms.
"Face it, Death. My Lady is right; like it or not, we will die if we do not help one another out, Corruption is growing and we have to work fast." Alito spoke calmly, just as the explosions cleared off the crystals and revealed a lever.
Groups of Corrupted mini golem constructs spawned right of the grounds like squirrels, ready to pounce on them.
"Ready?" Chris frowned.
"Always up for a fight." Death frowned.
In the short fight that ensued for one minute, the team managed to tear through the constructs' solid defenses with no problems at all. Their blades hit their foes' critical points, dishing out sever damage as the metal blade body sliced through their body like hot butter.
After a minute of short, but intense fighting, the golems' armor scattered across the floor.
"You seemed to enjoy killing from the way you swing your scythes smoothly like an acrobat; the way you tore through their hard bodies and even unleash your flipsaw and boomerang scythe attack." Chris complimented.
"Unlike my brother, I view killing as an art, a way in describing myself as an executioner without regret." Death replied calmly.
As Death pushed the lever and opened up the metal door guard upon Chris's right...
"An executioner...Why do people call you an executioner, or even Death? It must be more than killing everyone, right?" Chris asked.
Death slowly, but methodically crossed the distance between him and both the icy maiden and the wind maiden. Each footstep seemed deadly clear, crisp, and solid, despite the ruffling leaves made by the swishing winds.
"I thought you promised to respect my privacy?" Death frowned.
"You heard my past. Wouldn't you do the same by disclosing some of your origins?" Chris frowned.
Silence screamed in return.
"Do you think I'm alive? I'm dead, as far as I am concerned..."
Chris's earlier claim that her humanity had died caused her to be fearless of death, which elicited respect from him, for never in his lifetime had he seen anyone going against him. Except for his brother, War.
Death's eyes drooped as he turned away and sighed.
Death knew that he had the same past as the women, what did he have to lose?
"Do you really want to know my past?" Death asked.
"Yes." Chris and Alito replied firmly.
Death looked at the embedded crystal fragments on his left chest, sighed once more and start to walk towards the door.
"I'll tell you when the time comes. Until then...stay alive." Death frowned.
As Chris, Alito, and Death climbed the wooden pillars, and hop from plank to plank over the river of lava in the next room...
"Alito, hold my hand!" Chris shot out in worry when her best friend accidentally slipped up upon the last wooden plank and nearly fell to her death.
Alito mustered her strength and managed to wall-climb her way into the wooden boards, sweat breaking out of her foreheads.
After everyone barely got onto the other sides, Chris embraced Alito tightly and both women never uttered a word; relieved that the latter managed to brush off an escape with death.
The Pale Rider looked on, looked down on the floor, and looked upon the amulet's fragments upon his left chest once more.
"Humanity...Chris is willing to protect her only confidante...Just like mine protecting the Four Horsemen when they are all that I have left..." Death looked on forlornly.
As they travelled halfway through the dungeon, the trio felt tremors as a big Construct Warrior Golem with two brown cylinders and a metallic circle on its back. It held a large wooden stake as it charged upon the fray with two more Corrupted Warriors.
The trio managed to dodge the linear attack as the Pale Rider summoned three ghouls to attack the Corrupted.
Falling completely for the ghouls' luring spell, the Corrupted warriors attacked the ghouls instead, giving Death the chance to unleash a powerful shockwave from his possessed armblades - the Slice of Death.
With the techniques she learnt from Thane, Chris merged her dual Lifebane together to form a large Lifebane and threw a flipsaw boomerang straight towards the unfortunate golems, tearing their bodies apart.
"It seems you picked up skills very well, Chris and Alito." Death mused.
"Our mechanical, biological, and magical augmentations, Death. But tht is for a later time..." Chris frowned.
Along the way, Chris managed to retrieve a strange-looking platter with the same carving as all the other Makers had on their waist, but not on Karn's waist.
"Karn must be worried about his precious platter." Chris kept it, deciding to return to Karn after defeating the perpetrator of the Cauldron's fiasco.
Mobs after mobs, golems after golems, and platform after platform they scaled through without any problem, until they reached the last door leading to the Cauldron's big lever.
"This is it...the big one." Chris exhaled deeply.
Death, Chris, and Alito was just about to head towards the last door when a metal guard shut the door.
The trio felt a vibration coming towards their left and they turned towards the impending direction. Large stomps vibrated the ground from miles away and a grinding sound soon followed. A large roar soon echoed the entire cauldron as without warning, the wall burst open, revealing a big corrupted golem with brown wheel-like object behind its back. Its right hand has a large grinding spike ball and its left hand glowed with Corruption. Its face was a twisted cocktail of insanity, suffering, hate, and fear as the beast roared once more and charged into the fray.
Chris, Alito, and Death ducked the linear attack easily, leaving the golem to charged straight into a thick wall on the other side and disintegrated it.
"Golem's name goes by the name of Gharn. A corrupted Golem Sentry that used to guard the Cauldron, but now seemed to prevent the Fire of the Mountains from flowing into the Stonefather's blood." Alito used her Project Tundra's scanning to detect it.
"We had better..." Chris frowned, just in time for Death to make a second leap behind the Corrupted Golem, launched a flipsaw that caused the golem to flinch and another flipsaw, which knocked the golem once more.
Sensing that it was enough to finish it, Death surrounded himself with purple smoke as he transformed instantly into his Grim Reaper form and clashed his main weapon, Harvestor, upon the Big Golem's spiky hammer.
Chris managed to deliver an uppercut slash that was enough for the big golem to keel once more. Death hammered his Harvestor down four times before cleaving down the Corrupted for the last time, destroying it for good as it burst into smithereens.
Chris and Alito, who powered down from her Lifebane transformation, looked at the Pale Rider, calm, but slightly surprised.
"You both need some rest after going through such arduous task of scaling through the Cauldron. Besides, don't you say time's a wastin?" Death replied in amusement.
Chris sighed, and shook Death's hands.
"Job well done, Pale Rider; I might benefit learning certain scythes skills from you later down the road." Chris complimented.
"Well, let's get moving then. Karn's waiting for the good news." Death grunted, rarely was he praised.
"The snippets of your past, Death...You promise?" Chris wondered.
Death turned his back as he approached the door leading to the big lever.
"You know one interesting fact...I could have killed you for being the same as me and attempting to know my origins. But, no matter how much you are going to deny it, I think you are quite interesting for a being living on Earth by technical standards. Besides, you have earned my respect; then again, I suggest you keep it away from others." Death grunted once more as he pushed the door open.
"Same as me...what was it?" Chris wondered.
"What is so familiar about us?" Alito wondered along.
Cauldron's Entrance
Karn's eyes lit up as he saw three figures waking towards them; Chris, Alito, and Death restored the Fire of the Mountain.
"The mountain has a voice! How did you all..." Karn shot out in surprise and awe. "No, never mind. You have done what we, what I...failed do. You all must take the good news to Alya as soon as you can!"
"Oh yeah, Karn, we found this platter during our dungeon crawling. I suppose it is yours, since all the Makers but you donned those on their waists." Chris replied as she handled the long platter to the bald Maker.
"That's my Platter! I might have lost it during my last attempt at popping the cork in the Cauldron and I was wondering which part of the cauldron it might have been. Thanks a lot!" Karn gave a coy smile.
Chris sighed, her eyes softened once more, and she crossed her arms.
"You have to be careful of your precious items, okay? They are like your family; they are part of you." she replied.
Karn nodded and grunted with approval. Death looked on, surprised at Chris's soft expression.
"Then again...she will refuse to admit her humanity; she thought her humanity is lost the moment the Fuschias passed away in one day just when peace is on the horizon. Who can blame her?" Death thought.
Forge Lands
The lava poured down the pipes from the Cauldron into the Forge Land's pipes. Valus grunted happily, as he hammered down a crafted blade from the Fire of the Mountains itself. Chris and Alito stood beside Valus, helping the mute Maker with the weapons.
"Hahaha! Horseman, Chris, Alito! The Fire of the Mountain flows again!" Alya praised.
"Yes, freed by our hands, and Karn's." Death replied.
"Karn, that pup? He hasn't a clue!" Alya exclaimed. "And yet the Fire burns once more. You know what you three must do. Restore the Tears of the Mountain, so the Makers' Key is forgable."
"I'm not your errand boy, Maker." Death grunted in discontent behind his mask as he frowned.
"Aye, but our fates are now yoked. Help us, and we'll help you. As of now, take this." Alya took a single-barrel silver pistol with engravings upon its body and gave it to the Pale Rider.
Death's eyes widened in recognition a seeing the pistol. "I know this pistol, it belongs to Strife. How came it here?"
"I cannot say. But there are other goods you may barter for as well. Restore the tears, then return to me." Alya replied.
"You said there were two things that powered your forge, fire and tears." Death wondered.
"Yes, fire to wake the earth and imbued our weapons with magical properties. The tears calm the earth. Both the Fires and Tears are gifts of the Stonefather."
"Shouldn't fire be enough?" Death wondered.
"Nay, we required both." Alya replied.
"Where might we find the Tears of the Mountain?"
"To the West, past the Fjord and into the Drenchfort, you will find the tears within."
"Alright then...we will set off first thing tomorrow morning; it's getting late." Death nodded.
Meanwhile, Chris and Alito could feel soft smiles creeping upon their face as Valus waved his hand upon being able to create a small dagger with the Fire of the Mountain.
"Been a long time coming, eh, Valus?" Chris smiled softly.
"Mmmm!" Valus nodded excitedly.
After Valus constructed the small dagger, Chris's eyes widened slightly.
The dagger had a sharp, emerald blade body. Its hilt has a blue sapphire embedded upon it, along with protruding teeth-like spikes. Arcane lines spread on the blade's body, giving a warm glow.
On the dagger's side was another dagger with a sharp sapphire blade body. Embedded upon its hilt was an emerald, with four ring-like extensions on its side.
Both Chris and Alito blushed; they had never seen such simple, yet beautiful art in their lives.
"That...was beautiful, Valus." Chris spoke softly.
The quiet Maker nodded and waved his crafting hammer, grunting in approval.
"A sapphire upon the green blade's hilt...It's just like how I am the only one who understands my Lady's pain..." Alito blushed.
"Enjoying your time with Valus, are we?" a soft, but sagely chuckle travelled through the two women's ears.
"Elder Eidard..." Chris and Alito responded upon setting their sights on the slowly approaching thick beard Elder.