I alighted on the dock smoothly, letting my Wings dissipate as I did so, which naturally tamped down the flames from my eyes and de-reddened my skin. The Mick smoothly hopped onto the slats as the Disk faded behind him, staying at my elbow as I took the lead this time.

Fire wasn’t my favorite element, but it was pretty plain it was important to the natives here. Flame motifs were everywhere, and more importantly, Fiery pets were visible in the arms or on the shoulders of at least twenty of the people here.

“Familiars?” the Mick asked quietly as we strode ahead, eyeing a burning cat wound around a young woman’s neck.

“Four. Most of them are Eidolons.” A too-cute burning-red ursuin with vestigial wings was tumbling over and biting at a crimson fluffball of a too-hairy shreth in mock battle.

“Eidolons,” he repeated, going back through some of the things we’d taught him. “Summoners? Actual Summoning Magic again?” he blurted out, his face a caricature of fear and horror. He’d loathed Summoners and Summoning magic, and it was one of the things he least missed about the Fall… although more than a few Casters had exactly the opposite reaction.

“Not the stuff you remember, closer to Wizardry, but… Summoners have extra ability to talk to Entities, and Summon in random things to aid them in battle or in peace, as well as Buff up said Summons. However, they can’t bring in things that are as excessively powerful as you reported.”

“Whew!” he smiled in relief. “I were worried for me livelihood again.”

A woman had stepped forward to receive us, dressed in fine mail beneath a flame-red surcoat.

“If it not be the famous Lady Tallial herself, alive an’ still breathing!” the Mick called out to her before she could speak. “How is Yer Waspishness? Still working on that proper Phyntos collection?” he grinned at her as we stopped in front of her.

The look she gave him was droll and only marginally amused. “Oswald said we’d be getting guests from the south sooner or later. If I had known Mikal McMikal was among them, I would have referred you to your uncle first!” she sniffed.

“Me Uncle MacDugal would fair glow t’ hear his name passing yer sweet lips still, I do imagine,” the Mick replied without beating an eye, making her glower at him further. Her people and the bandits had never gotten along well. “Still, it be looking like ye did well enough fer yer people here without his blandishments,” he complimented her with a look around. “The locals seem a mite hot-headed, but fair enough if ye not be poking sticks into ‘em, I be thinkin’?”

Lady Tallial exhaled with a roll of her eyes. “Oswald said you might be coming. This must be the Lady Magos, who he had little but hard praise for, something rare to see from the man.” She gave me that assessing once-over look up and down women do so well, her eyes thoughtful. “I trust you are not in a relationship with this brat who never grew up?”

“The Lord Warden of the Royal Scouts of Freehold is known to accompany the Queen Mother at times, and is no paramour or amour of mine in past or present, Lady Tallial,” I replied in a clipped tone.

“Lord Warden? With Elysa?!” The dark-haired gracefully aging Aluvian gave the Mick an incredulous look.

“Some o’ us moved on from the past,” he replied with cool humor at her stare. “Ye still seem t’ be clingin’ to things what matter not, woman, so much so ye couldn’t even embrace some o’ the new teachings?” His look up and down her also had very experienced cool assessment in it. “Letting yerself get old, ye think ye can protect yer people? Well, to the lazy an’ the spiteful go the spoiled, I guess?”

She bridled instantly at him, then really looked at him. “You… you’re just like Master Oswald,” she said, realizing he looked scarcely older than she’d last seen him all those years ago.

“Aye. Master Oswald didn’t spill the word about the lore o’ Commander Briggs and the Princess Rantha?” The Mick rolled his eyes at the sky. “Color me green an’ call me a sellsword, that be surprising me so damn much.”

Her gaze was complicated as she looked between the two of us, knowing she was on the back foot even with basically her whole community behind her. “We’ve found our own methods of defending ourselves here!” she managed proudly, raising her chin.

“Ye’ve found nothing but a means o’ caging yerself here, not letting ye leave an’ return t’ the outside world an’ walk free. Once the undead decided they didn’t need the Crater forges, they’ve not bugged ye, aye, nor the olthoi come wandering through. But ye’re still too afraid to leave this place behind?” he asked archly.

The Lady Tallia took a deep breath, looking behind her. “There was no place to retreat to. I understand that the King has finally led his forces off of the Vesayans there?” she asked urgently, the interested crowd keenly listening in.

“Aye,” the Mick nodded, his voice carrying clearly. “Tou-Tou’s Shadow Corruption has been Burned away. The Hea are broken, betrayed by the virindi, an’ have lost all their power in the east. The Gotrok have retreated full from the east, although they cost their kin all of Linvak Tukal when the virindi blew it t’ smithereens. The undead still walk about the Gharu’n lands, but only because we haven’t found ‘em all an’ put ‘em to the torch.”

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“The resettlement of Isparian lands in Osteth continues, but we hold only the south,” I continued as the Mick paused. “We do not have the strength or the speed to reinforce all the holdings that we had before the Fall, as you might imagine, but there is plenty of room for any who wish to emigrate back to the South and dwell in safer lands once again.”

There was visible excitement among the people at the very idea of not having to live below the ground and in fear of the Fire Elementals clearly visible in all directions here.

“And for those who do not wish to go?” Lady Tallia asked, reaching out her hand.

There was a blurring of flame, a slight pop, and a butterfly four feet across, its wings a gorgeous play of iridescent crimsons, golds, and oranges, materialized upon her palm there, eyes like multi-faceted rubies staring at us alertly and with clear intelligence. Bushy flaming feelers pointed first at Mick, then at me, and the woman looked at me sharply.

“Your Eidolon is weak. I note your Summoning skills have not advanced well, because of your lack of teachers.” She hadn’t even reached Four yet, nor determined a Primary Class, and without it not overrode her Isparian Levels and so received a reduction in years.

“You, you know the new Summoning magic?!” Suddenly I had a whole lot of eyes staring my way with clear hunger in their eyes.

I held out my hand to the side, and snapped my fingers. Mana vented down into the lake there.

The Seal flared atop the surface of the water to the sides, the people crying out and shouting when an immense non-human form composed of lakewater erupted out of the warm waters, a living wave that rose over twenty feet into the air and gazed down at me protectively.

Lady Tallia’s magnificent Butterfly fled instantly from the presence of the Elder Water Elemental, as did all the smaller Fire creatures in the town, hissing and barking and snarling and whatnot as they did so.

I made no other movement than a respectful gesture. The Elder Elemental just bowed slightly to me, and receded back down into the waves with barely a ripple to indicate that it had ever been there.

“Yes, I know Summoning Magic,” I added, most unnecessarily.

“But… we saw you with an Aspect of Fire!” Lady Tallia protested. “The Fire Elementals let you by without violence!”

“Do you believe you are restricted to creatures of Fire because your Eidolons are of Fire?” My incredulous tone caught her wrong-footed. “Your Eidolons are extensions of YOUR power, your power is not an extension of theirs!” I rebuked her, and she flushed like a chided student.

I put a hand to my head, looking about. “Lord Mick?” I asked him.

“Nae a single strong hand I’d want at me back in war. They’ve forgotten how t’ fight, what with the Elementals doing all of it fer ‘em.” The men bearing old armor and unrefined weapons flushed, but said nothing under his grim dark eyes. “Did ye not even keep sharp in the Caves, or the Tower Dungeon?” he asked, then waved his hand when they hesitated to ask. “N’ermind, it matters not at all now. Ye want t’ protect yer folk, ye need t’ start fightin’ again, old an’ feeble as ye are, an’ we’ll get ye back in shape soon enough.”

“I recommend all of you vacate this place, save those who truly feel comfortable here,” I addressed them all. “To the south is safety, open skies, more food and drink, more people, and, for those of you walking the Summoner’s Path you found, the knowledge and the lore to make use of it. There are Dungeons to delve and use to both reclaim your strength, perhaps your very youth, and to grow again, as once you might have in the past, in the company of men and women you can trust to have your back, if you have theirs.”

The young woman with the burning cat wrapped around her shoulders stepped forward. “Can you bring us all out of here?” she asked urgently. “While the Fire-folk do not harm us unless we threaten them, they have not allowed us to leave or to wander!”

“I can either Teleport you all out in small lots over time, or I can take everyone in one big Disk Train and fly you all out of here immediately, if you wish,” I informed her, instantly raising a tizzy of eager conversation.

“Will we be able to return?” a young wide-eyed boy shouted out, his fluffy scarlet and orange shreth pup held protectively in his arms. “I, I don’t want to leave the Fire-folk alone…”

“When your lessons are complete, you will be able to Teleport back here as easily as walking across the street,” I assured him smoothly, smiling at him. “They will be waiting for you to return.”

Lady Tallia was a little wide-eyed at how swiftly things were moving, but she looked at me and then Lord Mick, and saw no reason to doubt our words. “How many of our belongs can we bring with us?” she asked urgently.

I just tilted my head, and swept my hand off ahead.

A row of forty slightly concave Disks of force, cool and silvery, materialized silently, waiting for them.

“However much you feel you need and do not wish to lose,” I answered smoothly. “If you were adept Summoners, you could do this yourself.”

The light in all their eyes all grew hungrier. The matron of the settlement turned around and looked at her people, and they stared back, waiting for her to speak.

“Two of these Disks per person, maximum. Leave what don’t fit for those who might come after us to use. They’ll still be seeking to use the forges here and in the Caves, so leave what is hard to bring in, as well as what is hard to bring out.

“Go!” She waved her hand, and people lunged for the Mass Disks, which I obligingly began to evoke more of steadily so they could take them and push them along, delighted with the power and convenience of them. Naturally the children were quick to scoot around while sitting on them and kicking off of them.

“Go and oversee the armory, and get a group of strong men helping people quickly stack up, one by one, and send those who get done to help others out, so it all happens the quicker.” The Mick nodded and hurried over to the small group of armored men, all of whom looked two decades older than he did, although they were probably the same age.

“Food? The armory?” Lady Tallia asked me quickly, as her hovering Butterfly glided back to her shoulder.

“Bring the food or use it up, no need to waste it. Have you anything in the armory that might be relevant and special to use?” I inquired of her.