Dealing with the poisoned ground was a chore and a half but it was also fairly interesting. It gave me some fairly interesting insights into the behaviour of mixed Astral Power, something I hadn’t really dealt with in the physical plane, only within the Astral River where I wasn’t bound by my physical body and senses. In addition, spending multiple hours during the day, trying to deal with the power seeping out of the earth and through the benediction Luna and Silva had set up let me observe divine magic a little more, though I wasn’t able to understand what I could see. Not that it really mattered, my efforts gave me two points in Crystal Magic, bringing the skill to twenty-three and a point in Fire and Earth Magic each, bringing them to fourteen and twenty-six respectively.

What made the situation even better was that nothing disturbed us during the day. I had made sure to close the opening to our temporary shelter, with multiple thin openings to facilitate gas exchange but even so, I had been worried that something might try burying in. But maybe thanks to the benediction or simply out of luck, nothing had tried to attack, nothing had even detected us as far as I could tell.

As the saying goes, sometimes, being lucky is more important than being good. In this case, we might have been both, or either and I didn’t really care which, we had managed to get through the night and recovered as much as possible in an area that was elementally biased against us, something even the benediction couldn’t really help with.

Now, with a new night falling, I carefully opened up a small hole in the shelter, just enough to let me see out to make sure it was dark out there. Once I could see, I could step through the shadows, move through an opening that was far too narrow for anything larger than an emaciated rat, and manifest in the darkness outside, concealed by my wonderful cloak. Invisible and largely undetectable, I could then look around, making sure that nothing was waiting for us to crawl out of the hole I had dug for us, ready to turn us into a late-night snack. When no such threat manifested, I finished opening up the hole, so the rest could join me. Still cautious, just in case I had missed something watching from an extreme range that might attack once the watcher detected my companions but again, nothing happened.

Nothing, but the continuation of our journey, hopefully without running into any additional Scorchipedes, giant burning lizards or other fiery menaces. Hel, by now I wouldn’t be too surprised if there was some sort of giant lizard with draconic pretentious in residence but if there was, I would have words with it. Pretending to be a dragon was a no-go, so unless the being could defend its claim, those words I was having would be returned with screams of pain and ultimately gurgles of blood followed by the sweet release of death for the pretender.

Alas, if there was such a draconic pretender, it would most likely reside in one of the other Astral Nodes within the area, of which we had only investigated one, as the others were deeper within the Charland. As in, roughly as deep as we were now, meaning I would have had to go alone, without any support or cover while looking for potentially serious trouble. Given how foolish that would have been, I had never even considered investigating those nodes, only the one with the fire elemental on the outskirts and I already knew how that had gone. Not well.

Maybe I should consider looking into the other nodes, at least those I could detect, at some point after we finished the investigation into the central crater. Which curiously wasn’t a node nor had there been a draconic pretender in evidence but given how… mishappen the creatures in the area had been, maybe that was for the best. A true dragon would hopefully have been able to overcome the troublesome power in the air but if not, they’d be smart enough to leave before getting mutated and mutilated. If not, they most certainly weren’t a true dragon, for no true dragon would be that stupid. Just like no true Scotsman would put sugar on their porridge.

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But first, we had to get to the central crater, so Luna could investigate and perform that ritual. Which would take some time itself, though we should be there within an hour, maybe two if the combat was heavy. For a moment, the image of a navigation system flashed through my mind, giving directions and estimated time of arrival based on the number of enemies one had to fight through to get to your target and a soft chuckle escaped me. ‘Turn right at the next corner and destroy the fifteen Embugs before going straight for two hundred metres. Your destination is on the left and covered in Fireflies.’ Or something like that.

Granted, such a system would be quite useful, though it obviously needed some way to detect foes. Which, with stealth and concealment what they were, meant that only a minority of enemies would be detected, making the whole idea sadly moot. As amusing as it would be.

For now, we had to continue with nothing but my memories to direct us, alongside the sensation I got from the central area and its unpleasant radiation. As long as that sensation remained, I’d be able to find the central crater with ease and according to Lady Hecate, the sensation would remain with us for quite some time. Decades, maybe even centuries.

Sadly, I didn’t have the time to study the effect of the Charlands fading and blending into the normal world would have. Well, I might be able to take the time but I had other priorities than to stick around here for that long, priorities calling me north. Maybe I should return at some point in the future, though there were some troublesome possibilities I’d have to take into account. One of which was that I had no idea just how the fading of the Charland would happen, would the Charland push aside the real space all around, essentially enlarging the continent beneath? If so, what about faultlines, tectonic activities and all that? I didn’t even want to consider the amount of energy that involved, to say nothing of all the matter that was essentially energy frozen into a physical form. Or would the Charland replace normal space all around, slowly overwrite was what there, or maybe simply burn it to ash and cover it with the detritus of broken industrial buildings, as the interior of the Charland was?

There were so many questions and if it wouldn’t mean I’d have to remain for a long, long time, I would happily try to find out.

Luckily, there were other things that could keep my attention on our way towards the central crater. Namely, a fairly large amount of enemies, mostly fiery insects but also a couple of reptiles thrown in for good measure. To make these enemies even more interesting, they started to show evidence of the strange mutations I had seen deeper, the replacement of normal, organic-looking parts with these strange, crystalline growths or even just crystals or other normally non-organic parts growing from their bodies.

What was even more interesting was that these crystalline growths seemed to have fairly profound applications, allowing these critters to use exotic attacks and abilities that made no sense. Beams of poisonous, purple light, rays of fire and even blasts of slow, acidic-green lightning that dissolved the areas it hit were the least of the attacks I saw though luckily, they weren’t as powerful as their appearance indicated. Sure, they were strong enough that you didn’t want to get hit by them but at the same time, if you actually were hit, it only hurt like hell and affected the flesh around the impact, it wasn’t immediately fatal. In addition, the tricks Alex had used to prevent a wide variety of fiery attacks worked against about half of these exotic attacks and my conjured Ice worked fairly well, too.

Still, it was fascinating to watch the effects and wonder just how they were accomplished. I was fairly certain that I was seeing some sort of eldritch projection of the elements I already knew, not modelled after naturally occurring evocations of them but after something else. What, I had no idea but I would investigate in the future, maybe I could manage something similar with my own elements.

Ultimately, while the attacks looked impressive, the monsters couldn’t stop us and, maybe three hours after we originally set out at the shelter, we reached the central area and the large, glowing crystal in the middle, the last stretch travelled in a cloud of cool, conjured mist.

Now, it was up to Luna to do her thing.