It was a strange and deep irony that the first magical node I discovered on Terra was one of Fire, a location that poured out a constant, though not terribly potent, stream of Fire Astral Power. Why couldn’t it have been anything but Fire, I’d have much preferred Ice, Darkness, Water or Air, almost anything but Fire, really. The only thing worse would have been light, though the strongest and purest light would cast some deep shadows, giving me a fascinating contrast to investigate.

But no, as we started to venture deeper into the Charland, the industrial park of impossibly expanded size, I realised that the power to create the Charland, to fuel its numerous monsters, all that had to come from somewhere. Power, even magical power, didn’t spontaneously come into existence, it was flowing through the world and sometimes it came pouring forth from nodes, the most powerful of which were called a Nexus. So, given that I was still quite convinced that it would take more time for any Nexus to fully develop, the Charland had to contain nodes of elemental Fire, though there should also be some of Earth, maybe Metal or Crystal, and undoubtedly Poison. All those elements had some influence on the area and that influence had to have a source.

This got me started on searching for those nodes, partially because I wanted to study them, partially because I had hopes of harnessing them and, maybe most important of all, I had no doubts that there would be some sort of guardian, a powerful being siphoning power from the node to strengthen itself. A boss, as some would call it, and as such the perfect target to hunt and devour so we’d grow stronger.

Given the prevalence of Fire in the area, finding the Fire node shouldn’t have been a surprise. Once we started looking, finding it was surprisingly easy. My high intuition, though I’d have to start investing some of my unassigned points into the attribute soon, was enough to let me sense the ratio of elements in our surroundings with some precision and with that information, I could start looking for areas where the ratio shifted and follow those. The greater the ratio favoured a particular element, especially if there was no drop in overall power density, the greater the likelihood of coming across a node for that element. Once I started to pay attention, I couldn’t help but notice that the ratio began to favour Fire more and more when we moved in a particular direction and given that Alex wanted to find a way to melt the materials we had acquired, we began to search for the source.

Actually finding the source turned out to be surprisingly easy, while there were some creatures capable of giving us pause, our group had enough power to overcome all challengers, especially if we weren’t stubborn about it. All of us had a modicum of stealth, especially when I began to add my Darkness and Wind Magic into the mix, allowing the others to move about like shadows in the night. I doubted we’d be able to move about as easily if we tried it during daytime but I had no desire to try staying for too long in the Charlands, not with its unknown dimensional properties. No, we moved around during the night, scouting, finding paths and hunting enemies but before the Sun could show itself we made like shadows and disappeared before the coming dawn.

It took extra time, but it wasn’t as if there was a deadline to be met, the only one we had waiting for us was Sigmir and, well, I doubted that the dead were subject to mortal ideas of time.

And so, we slowly crept closer to the source, avoiding battles when it suited us, crushing our enemies when we could and happily using our collective Agility to move across obstacles we’d have to circumvent otherwise. Maybe I’d even learn how to fly across them, a project I occasionally worked on outside, as I had no desire to fly around the Charlands. Who knew if they had some sort of strange, distorted spatial ceiling, booting me outside of their boundaries if I crossed it? Or worse, what would happen if I got attacked by a swarm of burning Sparrows, while the critters were unpleasant to face while on even ground, I had no desire to get strafed by them while I had to focus on flying. While the Raven’s Shadow could give me wings, it didn’t come with a convenient Lenore who actually knew how to use them. It would take some time to learn, maybe a lot of it, as I slowly learned and accumulated experience. Sadly, there was no Flying-skill, at least I hadn’t gotten one just yet.

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Once we found the node, things started to get a little strange. Or, given that we had been in an area that should rightfully be called strange without any modifier, maybe things got a lot strange. While looking for the node, I had imagined a few scenarios, trying to prepare and make plans for different eventualities, but none of those ideas and scenarios came even close to the actual thing.

I had imagined broken metal, burned rubble and destruction, maybe a small crater similar to a volcano or maybe a meteorite impact. Something that spoke of destruction and the violent potential of Fire but instead, we came across one of the few buildings that wasn’t a ruin, instead it was a fairly intact warehouse, though it had suffered some damage. A place that looked like it was in need of renovation and not in need of a large bulldozer to tear it down so people could rebuild.

Getting inside was a little more difficult, as I could feel the temperature rising as we closed in, going from unpleasant to actual discomfort though it didn’t rise to become actually painful. At least not while we were outside of the building with a closed door.

The door we found was a large sliding door, a place to receive deliveries or something along those lines and, no matter how we checked, it seemed that it was the only entrance to the building. I even conjured a ladder to check the roof, an idea that took far more Astral Power than I’d have liked thanks to the magical imbalance in the area making Ice Magic take a lot more effort than usual. Still, knowing there was no other way into the area than the door was useful, if annoying.

Remaining cautious, we used Lia’s chain hook to pull the door open from the side and it was a good thing we did. The moment a crack opened, a gout of heat blasted out, scorching the ground and making me sweat despite the distance. Anything opening the door normally would have been in serious pain, if not incinerated outright.

At my insistence, Lia pulled the door completely open, preventing whatever was in there from using a narrow opening to build pressure. Instead, a lot of heat came billowing out, raising the temperature even further but that only meant there was less heat concentrated inside. An exchange, of sorts, and by conjuring cold water and allowing it to evaporate from the heat coming out of the building, I was hoping to reduce that heat even further.

Though, maybe I should have realised I was engaging in a fool’s errand. All data pointed to the presence of a Fire Node within the building and there was no way I’d be able to overcome the constant pressure such a node could emit, not in the long run. Especially not in an area already biased towards Fire, reducing my efficiency even further.

So, ultimately, the only thing my attempt to lower the temperature did was increase the humidity, as steam started to billow out and up, though even my prodigious power couldn’t form an actual layer of clouds. A large bank of mist, sure, but it drifted upwards and diffused in the area. Maybe if I had kept at it, I’d eventually have generated a cloud and even rain at some point, but no matter what, the Charlands wouldn’t have cooled. I couldn’t fight the natural processes of the world, not without a great deal more power. Maybe more power than the gods had, I wasn’t sure but it was so far beyond me that I couldn’t even begin to fathom the differences.

No, trying to overpower the node wasn’t the way to go, if we wanted to claim it, we’d have to be cautious and defeat the Guardian, if there was one. Otherwise, we’d have to somehow channel the heat into a workable form and use that to our advantage. Sadly, with circumstances as they were, I wasn’t sure where to begin such an undertaking. Well, other than to take the obvious measure of gathering more data. Additional information would always be useful, as long as it didn’t cause information overload. So, back to investigating we went.