The next Emperor I was going to see was Old Mountain Emperor, the True Emperor of Europe. His lair was deep in the Urals, in a Black Zone that Humans didn’t enter if they didn’t want to be eaten, home to more Earth Drakes of various irascible sorts than any other zone on Earth.
He was a Linnorm, one of the ancient Wyrm species, and was actually one of the more well-known Emperors, having appeared several times in European history when disturbed by idiots of one sort or another. He got along with pretty much nobody at all, and was left in His territory and not disturbed without very good reason.
Despite that, He was the acknowledged Emperor of all Europe. There were other, younger Emperors there, but all of them acknowledged Old Mountain Emperor.
I flew into the area slowly and openly, letting the Wills of the Emperors lead the way. There were plenty of eyes on me immediately, as the creatures here didn’t like things that flew in the slightest, but their instinctive reactions to pummel me with gravity waves and bring me down for quick munchies hit pause when they felt what I carried with me.
Titans and Drakes watched me pass with great curiosity and some resentment.
The Titans were a towering race of Earth Giants of massive strength and power, hereditary allies and compatriots of the Dragons, ruling over most of Europe with them in the ancient past. The Acropolis had arisen with its storied, legendary pantheon of champions to break the Titans’ hold first on Greece, and then slowly around the rest of the Mediterranean. The Synod and Church of Light’s rise in Rome was also directly tied to their own efforts to throw off the yoke of the Titans and stand on their own against the world.
The Titans were legendary for their stealthiness and ability to blend into the terrain on demand. A motionless Titan was supposedly nearly impossible to see, making it very hard to hunt them down if they didn’t want to be found, and so they still inhabited the mountains and remoter areas of Europe!
I’m sure they would have been miffed to learn that See the Invisible at V had no problems penetrating their camouflaging illusions at all, and I could look back and meet the gazes of every single Titan and Drake paying attention to me.
Thunderbird naturally knew where Old Mountain’s lair was, camouflaged and covered or not, a literal bird’s-eye of the terrain that even spatial warping and earth-stretching wasn’t going to mistake, supplemented as it was with the way the winds flowed over the ground and the natural patterns of electrical flow here.
Commune with Nature would have done quite the same, but would not have been taken as politely if He sensed me ‘spying’ on Him.
So, open approach, just a messenger here, no need to shoot me...
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The valley didn’t seem like anything special, with nary a cave or crevasse to see, just another expanse of stone with icy water winding through it, and maybe some pure Earth Mana moving through the ground if you were sensitive to it.
The very big Titans blended into the stone three steps away from me were acting like a pair of honor guards. That was not a normal job for Golden Crown Titans!
I came down before the end of the valley, folded my wings down and knelt properly. “Envoy Healer Fae comes to seek audience with Old Mountain Emperor!” I Said, Magevoice carrying for a full mile in all directions without fail, even through the stone. The Wills of the Emperors dangling from Noble glittered, and even the Golden Crown Titans, half-Emperors in physical prowess themselves, did not test the powers behind them.
I knelt calmly, as always having many things to work at while I was doing nothing.
The Earth around us shifted, and a hidden presence seemed to open an eye and sweep it over me, battering at my Aura with unrestrained spiritual power. I hardened my Will and let it sweep over and atop me, not drawing on the Imperial Wills right at hand to forestall the simple spiritual power of the Emperor beyond.
If I couldn’t withstand His Presence alone, what the heck was I doing here as an Envoy?
The mountain of spiritual pressure weighed down on me, and I both cut through it and withstood it, fracturing it and splitting the pressure to easily managed levels, even as the stones about me began to rattle and shiver a bit on the ground here.
He is trying to make me resort to their Wills, I thought to myself, hardening my own Will repeatedly as the pressure continued to build.
The Titans broke out of their camouflage, unable to maintain it as the spiritual pressure washed over them. Their great stony forms, surmounted with scalps that looked like bright golden helms, towered over a hundred feet into the air as they were jerked into visibility. Unlike me, they didn’t truly defy His power, instead kneeling before it with a resounding crunch of great might and then bowing their heads to their liege.
I was already kneeling, but I wasn’t flat on my face.
It increased again, and I released a Moment of Perfect Clarity into it.
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My Will became a diamond with all razor edges, piercing up into that descending spiritual pressure like a thousand slicing blades. It bled in astonishment as it slid past me, and then abruptly withdrew, so quickly the entire valley rippled as the pressure was removed.
The Titans turned their heads to look at me in astonishment.
I waited on one knee, head bowed, and did not react visibly at all.
“YOU MAY ENTER.” The entire valley vibrated with the words, and I tapped the ground with Noble’s foot to acknowledge it.
“This one thanks Old Mountain Emperor for His mercy!” I rose to my feet, and the stone beneath me Rippled and carried me forward.
This was also a test. Could I get through His door? And what would I use to do so?
A Contested Shaping Stone at +55 or so was more than enough to overcome the power strengthening the Door, turning the reinforcement magicks and the granite beneath to jelly and sliding them out of my way.
Their stony figures didn’t show much emotion, but I could feel the Titans’ utter astonishment as I overcame the magic on the doors without resorting to Sage-level magical expenditures. Indeed, I hadn’t Cast a new spell at all! To them, it looked like I was just passively commanding the Earth to get out of my way... and it was!
The ‘door’ was only a hundred feet deep, and making a pathway for myself the length of it took only seconds. I even politely sealed it up behind me and restored it to its prior integrity in doing so, not even weakening the Stone.
The Earth about me hummed at the display of control and strength, even as the air was filled with the smell of something old, faintly decaying, and definitely not friendly.
Undeterred, displaying none of the effects the mounting dragonfear was supposed to be heaping upon me, I swept down along a massive tunnel tall enough for the greatest of Titans to stride it without bowing their heads.
It was a good three-quarters of a mile into the mountain before the massive winding hallway with branches sized for smaller Titans splitting off from it opened up into a greater cavern extending impossibly deep into the mountain. I could feel the spatial pressure of Earth Magic bent to open space that wasn’t there, touching on Void Magic while being something completely else.
I didn’t know if a Human had made it in here and lived, but there were only rumors of Old Mountain’s throne room, perhaps spoken of by boasting Titans. The Linnorms were a dying Tribe, with no children being born of them for at least ten thousand years, with few allies and many enemies willing to kill them off for their malicious and cunning ways.
I was not surprised to see the gold there at all. Linnorms were known to covet it beyond all other things, and particularly loved to see it rendered down into coins, to pile up and clink and clatter as they heaped it up, rolled and slithered through it, and slept upon its mass contentedly.
I Hummed, and the nuggets, coins, bars, and many, many items wrought of gold Sang back to me in the Chord of Earth, specifically the Dirge of Ancient and Frozen Loss. The sadness of the Song rang out, and the metal about me picked it up and chimed in uncounted myriad notes, yet all of them blending into the wordless Song that was filled with loss and grief, and also an unending endurance, strength, and will that would persist on despite anything, taking everything that could be thrown at it and living on.
By the chiming, I knew I was surrounded by more gold than likely existed anywhere else in the world, more than had likely been pulled out of the ground by Humanity by a factor of ten.
It was literally mountains of gold, and the chimes and tones of it responding to the Song, magnified by it, were joined by the clinking and clattering of the hills of sliding and slipping gold as the great body they covered shifted and twitched, adding new and unique notes to the Song of their own.
By the mental track I was keeping of Him, Old Mountain Emperor was well over two thousand feet long. Linnorms were more serpentine, more like Oriental Dragons, but possessed only forelimbs, no feet, and no wings. They called themselves the First Dragons, and while other Dragons might dispute it, they didn’t do it to a Linnorm’s face.
The weight of ages was upon this chamber as I moved towards the hill at the center of it... which wasn’t a hill at all, of course.
His eyes lit up with a lambent fire, a greenish flame that was certainly not natural burning within them. They illuminated the whole arc in front of him, spreading out to reflect off the massive ungodly fortune in gold all around me... although what Humanity could do with such wealth was limited.
Except for us. Coralost could certainly have started Burning through all of this with great enthusiasm. It was all Earth-aspected after being in Old Mountain’s hoard for countless years, which made it all even more valuable for Investing Weapons and Armor.
Ah, well. Sure, it was a planet’s worth of wealth, but really, it was this sinister old fellow’s foam mattress, as it were. I didn’t actually have the slightest plans for any of it.
I couldn’t speak for Sama, of course, but even she wasn’t going to rob an Emperor Dragon who knew every single coin of His hoard and would likely go apeshit if even a nugget went missing.
His head was somewhere between elongated snake and crocodile, with jagged horns and a solid frill, a spike-like horn on his nose and a beard that strongly resembled stalactites hanging down. In Human view, He looked old, sinister, sly, and cunning, and his head was the size of a semi-trailer or two.
The sinister green light shifted, playing over the Wills on my Staff, reading who and what. I felt Auric Tyrant’s responding the most to the attention as I rode the Earth in along the approach lane.
If the ground rose up behind me as massive coils smoothly blocked my way out, I did not acknowledge them as, Humming still, I glided to a halt politely, just within His striking range without him needing to exert His coils.
Again, I went down to one knee and bowed, Wings and all, and waited for permission to speak.
The sinister green played over me, and a great breath, holding the smell of things that had rotted for a thousand years, exhaled past me, was sifted past my nostrils, and did not touch any of my clothing to send them into decay.
“A HUMAN ENVOY OF SIX EMPERORS.” The dry amusement in His Voice rose from all the gold and stone around, blending into the Dirge effortlessly. “SPEAK, LITTLE MONKEY. WHY HAVE YOU BEEN SENT HERE?”
“To His Imperial Majesty! This one has been sent here to invite Old Mountain Emperor to a Council of True Emperors!”
The Wills on Noble gleamed, and He considered them thoughtfully, even as heaps of metal clinked and rolled, shifting under His Will along the great lengths of His body.
“FOR WHAT PURPOSE, HUMAN?” He demanded acidly. “THE DEEDS OF OTHER EMPERORS ARE OF NO INTEREST TO ME...”
“To His Imperial Majesty! The Humans of the world have a method to break The Great Flood of Ice High Emperor, but cannot do so without the approval of the Land Emperors!”