"Are there any more of these Portals active?" he asked me, and I shrugged again.

"You're talking to the wrong person about planar breaches, Argos. I don't have the senses or range to answer your question. According to the Bird, this was the last of the permanent ones coming off the Yellowstone magma chamber below us. Rest of the planet, I have no clue. Best guess is probably the exact same one as yours."

He sighed. "There's no way this is the only place with a breach," he muttered under his breath.

"It might be the only place for Fire, at this time." He looked up at me sharply. "Think about it. Pure opportunity, coming in on the heels of us leaving otherspace or whatnot to get here. The Elements naturally tend towards Balance. So, if there are early breaches…"

"There's probably one for each Element," he filled in easily, musing. "We just haven't found them yet."

"What? You haven't done an exhaustive elemental, dimensional, and magical confirmation survey of the entire world yet? And you call yourself a Ten Caster." I made a disparaging noise.

He grinned despite himself. "I'm trying to erect a line of Obelisks cutting across the world to precipitate the ash out of the air and save us a nuclear winter… and cut off teleport lines at the same time."

"Something popping in to annoy us? Evilborn Summoned by those Marches?" He nodded once. "Never a fucking break," I cursed to nobody in particular.

"So, what were the underbosses?" he asked, interested. Other members of his crew working nearby tilted an ear. They were in the middle of putting up the Obelisk here, because, why not? When Argos found out it was also a Major Node, 2k of free mana per day, 6k if pyromana, he was also all over starting on the Node Seal and getting the stuff together for a Summoning Stone.

"The first was an Efreet, but it was just after the Fall and he didn't really have any organized forces, the Portal was just spewing out random creatures and tribes emigrating here, and he was just watching over it. Second one had a Firenewt King as overseer, with lots of Drake-riding Knights… the 'newts you saw outside were probably levied from him, and the last of their kind. Third one was Salamanders and firesnakes… I had to kill like sixscore hundred-foot fire-spewing cobras!

“The fourth one was the Magmawight, with burning undead of all kinds, the local ones the weakest, emigrants the strongest. Fifth one was a Lilitu Queen, mixed batch of elementals, Ifrit, some fire demons, and too goddamn many succubi."

Argos blinked, cleared his throat despite himself. "Wow, did they get unlucky running into you," he mused aloud.

"Yeah, I fought most of the time with my visor up, just to piss them off. They couldn't charm me, couldn't tempt me, and y'know, they just aren't built to take on a Ten Melee. The lilitu, now, they were very good fighters, but they all liked to go with claws and tails, and there's a damn reason people use swords, you know?"

"Do tell." He was trying to picture a screaming horde of succubi being cut down by me, doubtless. He'd probably be a little alarmed if he knew I'd Mercied most of them and fed them to my Tats and Hollow Soul. I had lots of Ten Levels to pay off, cost-wise.

"Yeah. Sixth boss was a Senior Sun Brother, commanding legions of Brassmen. I had to cut down over thirty thousand of the bastards, and sooooo many damn Elementals. Seventh one was an Azer King, all gods-damned fire-dwarves, Gearguard, Golems, and war Constructs all over the place. I still hesitate to do the math on the value of all the damn machines I had to shred."

"We forgive you," Argos said piously.

"Yeah, yeah." I was moping because I hadn't been able to make them mine...

"Well, what are your plans now?" he asked, interested in hearing what I'd be doing next.

"I've got my Debt paid, so the only drive I've got is to make sure my Naming Karma isn't wasted. I'll probably stay in this area and monitor my Nodes and Claims, barring other developments." Hint-hint, tell me what’s going on, mage-boy...

"Your Nodes? Um, plural?" he asked brightly, taking the bait like a good fish.

"Every one of the underbosses was camped on top of a minor Node," I went on, totally indifferent.

His green eyes got very, very wide, and started to glow. "S-seven Minor Nodes?" he almost squeaked. "And you're Claiming-?"

"Mines, of course. Mana-contaminated mines naturally coalesce minerals of all kinds. The surroundings of the volcanoes are chock full of metals and crystals, Energized, normal, and Pyric. I've located thirty-seven different veins to be worked on, but I haven't been everywhere, yet, and there's still another four active volcanoes I need to clean up."

"Um!" His eyes were big. "Do you mind terribly if we do the mineral survey on those, since we're going to be sticking up an Obelisk on them, anyways?"

I shuffled him a sidelong glance. "And you've probably been doing it all along as compensation for helping save the world, right?"

"Helmers work. We're blowing fifty goldweight on each of these Obelisks. Be nice to get some back, you think?" he shot back.

I frowned. The maximum radius of an Obelisk was ten miles. So, an Obelisk every twenty miles, plus making sure every active volcano was covered in the area... They'd have to make a line across half the planet to intercept all the ash in the air, so a line almost ten thousand miles long. 500+ volcanoes in Obelisks. 50k goldweight per. "Mithar and his horse, how the fuck are you bankrolling that?" I had to ask.

"Um, I think Aelryinth stole all the gold in Fort Knox, or something. We are burning through it like water right now, probably a ton a day."

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"Aelryinth? The Ringlord?" Well, damn, that was one savvy, fast-acting bastard. "Well, shit. Pop up a terrain holo to the northeast." He flicked his fingers, and strands of light wove themselves into an excellent approximation of the landscape to my left. My Tail reached out and tapped two points. "Those are motherlodes of gold." Both points were promptly painted with gold X's, and he looked really excited. "This one here is platinum, not as rich, but it doesn't need to be. There's various working metals, but each volcano also seems to have a specific type of gemstone associated with it, in addition to the rote quartzes all over the place. Emerald, sapphire, ruby, topaz, tourmaline, fluorite, and garnet, some Energized, some not."

He whistled despite himself. "And… here?" he asked softly, sweeping his hand around.

"Eh. Major node. Drill six feet down from where you're standing, what do you think you're going to find?"

His eyes sparkled. "Fire diamonds?" he asked softly.

"Oi, not nearly as dumb as you seemed back then, taking up a fight with a bunch of anti-magic regenerating gargorians." He flushed despite himself. "If the Helm wants to start excavating, you can take half for yourself and half for me. Feel free to use my share to get your Obelisks up, but I want full credit in goldweight equivs in Karma for the future."

"Agreed," he said without hesitation. Karma, after all, cost precisely time, and dead bad guys. I could get anybody to do that, my terms were basically 'free'. "What kind of working metals are we talking?"

"Mount Efreet has an eldrcopper vein with the garnets. Mount Newt is confirmed atargold and sapphires, with some raw noqua. Mount Salamander is pyralumin, tourmaline, and ectoriz, hefty electrical charge off that area. Mount Wight is a huge flow of obsidian and at least some laen crystals with the aquamarine and other feldspars, and at least one morguth vein. Mount Whore was emeralds, mithral, and zyashiy." He stiffened suddenly again. Ectoriz + zyashiy meant… "Yeah, how do you think I got my hands on akastars? Mount Azer has at least half a million tons of energized hematite ore for chariron to go with their jacinth. And Mount Jotun is rubies and heavy metals… iridium, osmium, tantalum, some weird deepmetals like tantin, urumach, and one small lode of scarletite.

"And here be the diamonds, and there's at least two adamant and titanium veins, not sure how large they are."

He slowly picked up his jaw. "This place is a freaking… gold mine." He even said it with a straight face.

"Got that right. It's also full of planar instabilities with Fire owing to the fact that the superchamber of magma down low is a primary Fire Ley Line Source, so temporary Portals to Fire are popping up all the time and depositing stuff here. It's strongest within the areas of the eight-volcano formation, and near the other six, but it extends well past those on an east/west axis following the migration of the continental plate."

"You know, I'm so glad you were lost out here for five months instead of doing something as boring as killing hundreds of millions of undead with the rest of us, Sama," Argos told me brightly.

I made a disparaging sound to him. "As I have Claim on the Nodes, I have exactly one rule I'm laying down for the free Karma," I told him calmly.

"All ears," he nodded, eyes narrowed in interest.

"It can only be used to make magical items usable by Primos."

He pursed his lips, seemed about ready to say something, looked at me and thought better of it. "You know… that actually makes a whole lot of damn sense," he admitted. Which also showed that he would be honoring my Claims. That was good. There would be a lot of blood spilled if he didn't.

"Doesn't it? I slapped together some gildensteel alloy and made rods out of them for Trigger Wands. When the Summoning Stones are finished up, they'll start auto-charging off the Nodes. Caster/10 Firebursts."

He whistled, doing the math. A Trigger Wand used a physical trigger instead of will or voice, so anyone could use it, and so was a bit harder to make than a normal Wand. 1k x Spell Level x Caster Level. So, 30k raw for one at Caster/10. With a Node doing 3k a day, that was a max power fireball Wand every 10 days for no work except making the base Wand! Times seven, no, eight volcanoes, and a Major Node counted as two…

Nine of those Trigger Wands every ten days. That was impressive by any standard! And that was in addition to the triple fire mana anyone working on the Node Seal could harvest…

"Do you have any problems with me arranging people to come in and max out the hours on the Node Seals? I'll probably have to arrange multiple Allegiances to get Crafters in here working in series."

"Runesmiths, too,” I told him, and he nodded immediately. “As long as they're working with Firemetals, they get the triple benefit, too. I'd actually prefer them, and it isn't like we haven't got a crapload of firemetals to use."

"We'd have to arrange Fire Resistance for them, more than likely, but yes, not a bad idea." His mind was working. "Any other incredibly daunting surprises you have for us?"

"Well, I've got stored caches of loot and stuff I forged scattered among the volcanoes." I tilted my head toward the Titan's Maul, sitting there all forlorn. "I've been dropping higher Tier Weapons and Armor from the enemies into pre-Named stuff I've forged, building up an inventory. I know that's a lot of Truesteel, but it's also an Akt Weapon, and it's useless as it is now… and in a really stupid configuration. I'll drop it into a Greathammer I can make up and trade it off to someone, maybe."

Argos looked scandalized. "Damn, Sama, I don't think there's a lot of people who can afford a Weapon like that…"

"No skin off my nose. It'd likely be for a secondary Weapon, anyways."

I could tell he was at something of a loss. Someone might just want to pick up an Akt Slot Weapon made from a Titan's Maul as a secondary Weapon, sure. But the price on it would be at least 128k in gold… 256 goldweight! It was an abominable figure. No way someone would have enough money right now to just blow that kind of goldweight for a second Weapon they couldn't Name up. At the very least, they'd have to swap something of equal value.

I'd still been carving up the feet while talking, the tarsals were all exposed now. He watched me snip off and collect the tendons, and glanced at my hips.

"See you've got a Girdle there."

"Ash Giant Power." He rolled his eyes up at the grim skies above. Nobody else had even run across Jotuns to MAKE one of the beloved Girdles, and I had one. "It qualified for the Node bonus, too."

"And how many more of those do you have ready to roll?" he asked faintly.

"Woven up? Sixty-two, of various Jotuns." He repeated the number blankly. The tendons and the hair of over two hundred Giants, harvested, woven into Girdles, just needing the gold to burn or Karma to empower. "I want those from the Rune Giants, by the way." I could hear him swallow.

A Girdle of Fire Rune Giant Power would grant a Strength Stat of a straight 43. The Power on it would be restricted by Attack Bonus to a 'mere' +10 for most Melees at Ten, but you'd get the full Might and lifting/carrying capacity of the Giant it came from. It would also grant immunity to Fire, and magnify the duration of magic and effects that increased the wearer's size.

You couldn't build further on that Strength, but just the option of getting a massive Strength score without having major character investment could make a warrior go silly. High-Dex fighters naturally loved them more than anything, even if you couldn't boost the granted Strength from the Girdle at all. As giants hadn't been hugely common anywhere but mountain servers, they'd been a fairly rare item in the game, and one of the reasons why Heavy Melees were so common on those servers.

The one for a Fire Titan would be much the same, except go to a 47. The one crossed around my waist, made from Ash Giants, was merely a 33.

Every Melee he knew would faint if they heard I had sixty of them ready to go, just needing Infusing or Investing.