Two days of travelling saw the Vukanovi travel past the Triforge mountains. Unfortunately, past the great range of three mountains that once housed the might of an entire civilization, there was nothing but further decay. In fact, the lack of life on the triforge mountains paled in comparison to the wastes beyond it.

At the least, the Triforge mountains had signs of civilization upon them. Some life returning to them now that Li had lifted the undead haze and sowed the seeds of life with his presence. But here, down the mountain, there truly was nothing.

Complete and utter barren stretches of cracked earth smothered over by a tar black burnt layer. Atop it, a layer of ash had built up, and each step of the Vukanovi's vine legs puffed out little clouds of ash that floated high in the air before ever so slowly falling down, as if gravity itself had cloyed into a choking heaviness in the area.

Visibility was nearly entirely shot, with thick ash fog clouding everything, and atop the burnt earth, nothing grew and nothing tread. Even if Li focused his life senses to their maximum limit, he could sense no life nearby, with the nearest beating hearts belonging to underground dwelling creatures far, far below the broken surface. 

And that was to be expected. For the better part of a day, Li had ordered everyone to stay inside the Vukanovi after Mason and Mercer almost died inhaling the ashen fog. The ash was toxic, imbued with an accursed magic that scorched the brothers' throats as if a raging blaze had been lit in their innards. 

Thankfully, Li had managed to cure them, and now they sat around the center of the Vukanovi, still warily holding their throats as they looked pensively at a crackling fire that emitted images of the outside world. 

"I have never seen anything like this," said Li as he sat beside Old Thane. Tia snored in his lap lightly, but he could tell from the slight twitches of her tail as it curled around his knee that soon she would wake. "This kind of environment. This kind of fog. It does not correspond to any status effect that I am familiar with."

Zagan opened a red eye beside Li, but the demon did not do more than that, instead simply looking at the fire with a surprising amount of interest, images of the desolate landscape reflecting upon his beady crimson eye.

Everyone else looked towards Asala, knowing her as the resident scholar and know-it-all when Li was stumped. 

However, Asala could only shake her head as she scribbled in her tablet. "Tis all new to me as well. The nature of this fog confounds me, and the parched earth doth appear razed by flame, and yet, no blaze do I know of that may blacken earth for two cycles." 

"You can at least tell when the earth was torched?" said Li, nothing that two cycles meant two centuries.

Asala nodded. "In the brief glimpse I have had of the earth, mine familiarity with earthen magics allowed me to glean when it was warped under fire."

"I see." Li nodded to himself. "Then I doubt we are in an immediate threat. Unless whatever caused his fire two hundred years ago is still alive."

"I've an idea, lad," said Old Thane as he looked down, keeping his ears open and alert to the flow of the conversation.

Li perked up. He knew that in matters of history, he was not well versed. He knew only the history of the world in so far as what he could read from official Soleilan texts, and he knew they were heavily biased, not to mention that past a hundred years ago, whatever they recorded seemed more like heavily romanticized myth than anything resembling reality. "Oh?"

Old Thane probably knew a lot more genuine history than Li by having lived through it and meeting others who had done the same. 

"Oh?" said Li. Asala also cocked her head, her ear twitching eagerly. 

"The Third Darkening saw the end of the Triforge, that is known well, aye," said Old Thane. "And I must say that it was well before mine time, so I know little of it. But adventurers as old as I know well of those that have tried their luck to traverse past the forbidding Triforge.

We know of Lira the Seeker, the greatest among all adventurers who embodied the spirit of wanderlust that so possesses us strongly."

"Lira the Dragon Slayer," said Vilga in whispering remembrance. 

"Lira the Demon Feller," said Sheela. 

"Lira the Seeker, to be more precise, and the title that she would hath most preferred in life," nodded Asala with understanding. "Platinum ranked adventurer and the only one who hath managed to reach such a hallowed rank solely through her own might. I have heard much of her exploits, tis true, across north and south and even east.

Hence, her titles known amongst us. Giant slayer. Dragon slayer. Spirit slayer. And in the third darkening, slayer even of a mighty demon sin."

"…Lira?" asked Mason, and Mercer looked equally as confused.

"You two have no idea of an adventurer of this caliber?" asked Li. He remembered the name Lira. It had come up when Tyr was asking his wife about potential reinforcements to help them. From the emotions the king was feeling, Li could figure that he had put a sizable amount of hope in Lira's arrival, indicating immense belief in her abilities even to ward off an entire invasion of demons.

"She seems like no joke. If she was powerful enough to best even a demon sin, then I have doubts as to whether she was even truly human."

"Some said she had the blood of gods within her, aye," said Old Thane. He pointed his blank stare towards the two younger adventurers. "The blood of gods that belonged not to the light that Soleil reveres so. Her name and exploits have faded from the histories of this land. Only adventurers mighty enough to travel far and wide know of her truly."

"A shame," said Asala. "I consider it a privilege to hath been graced with the chance to fully imbibe my mind in her exploits within the archives of my sands." She put a hand to her elbow in questioning posture. "But what of her? What be it her ties to this barren land?"

Old Thane thought for a second, gathering far flung reaches of his memory. No doubt, he was trying to piece together something from the many tales he had heard across so very many lands and years of adventuring, not to mention his own experiences.

"Records of her death," said Old Thane. "Tales of the death of an adventurer so mighty always become tales of myth and legend. Many know not where she went, only that she chose an adventure knowing it would be her last. Many believe she headed East, some to the far South where whispers speak of another land never before touched by man, and some-,"

"Believe she wandered here, beyond the Triforge, in the space between the mountains and the Shibboleth," said Asala. "A place that none hath ever before trodden since the Third Darkening." 

"Oh? And why is she important to this place?" said Li, trying to find out how this adventurer related to everything. "Did she cause this anomaly? Did her death come from the hands of something that caused this?"

Old Thane shrugged casually. "I know not, lad."

"Well then, we only got to hear a story that may or may not even be true," said Li.

Old Thane shook his head. "Not so. Lira carved history where she went. Where her feats flowered, wars ended, great beings fell or rose, kingdoms grew or faltered. Anything about her is worthy of noteworth."