Oh how wrong he had been. It had taken him much longer than he had thought to get to the mountain. To Jessie's great irritation it had taken him three days as the crow flew just to reach the base of the dead peaks. The only issue is that he only had time to play between 10pm and 7:30am, between dealing with his roommate and Uni it had taken him a full week to get to the base of the mountain. Of Course there was also the major banking update that had occurred on the wednesday, which had delayed him as he had fallen asleep and forgotten to log in. Overall it had been a boring week in which he attended university during the day, and wandered towards a giant mountain during the night. It wasn't all that bad if he thought about it, at least he wasn’t attacked by anything, which did kind of confuse him, but he chalked it down to either the soldiers of this region being very thorough in their patrols, or the work of some meddling god who kept trying to test how much he could interfere in mortal affairs before he was scolded like a child.

The base of the mountain rose in a gentle slope for several kilometres before gradually rising to a point that seemed to slice through the clouds and stretched for as far as Jessie could see. It truly was a shame the game didn't come with a blasted mini map, but the only thing he could rely on was common sense. The main two places Jessie intended to look were the plains of sorrow and the highest peak he could find, which just so happened to be the peak up ahead of him. Deciding that taking a route to the highest peak of the dead peaks would be the best bet, Jessie began his arduous climb, the first part wasn't that hard, just climb till you reach the first peak and hope that the mountainous terrain held a gentle slope to the start of the next one instead of a sharp descent. It wasn't to be sadly, as jessie soon figured out after cresting the first peak, it was also the first time it dawned on him why it might be called the dead peaks, there were no nice flat plains, well maybe apart from the fabled plains of sorrow, only jagged ups and downs that it seemed stretched from the human controlled star dragons grave to the orc controlled plains of the northern tribes. Jessie's main thought at that moment was not reading into the distance measurements more.

*****

“Are you going to get your robe back at anypoint?” Death asked of Fate. They were currently sitting at one end of a table that spanned a ballroom larger than most planets were wide. The roof of the ballroom seemed to disappear into the darkness above, almost as though a very fluffy cloud had passed over and removed it exposing the room to the open sky of space, even the massive stained glass windows at the end of the hall seemed to have been sliced off at the top.

“While a mortal having this many divine items on him without being the head of a grand clergy or powerful empire, nothing bad should come of it if he can keep his mouth shut about where he got his clothes, although I may change the colours of the robes. The multicoloured look is definitely too distinctive.”

“Why not let him choose the colour of the stars and threads?”

“That's actually a great idea, I wonder what colour he will end up choosing?”

“Black clearly.”

“But that would look terrible with the silver base.”

“Then change the base.”

“True, the silver doesn't suit him well. But I still don't see him choo…”

Fate broke off what he was going to say when a fist slammed down onto the table between the two gods. The person withdrew their scaled hand once they had the gods' attention.

“Ah, Magnus, it’s good to see you again.” Death said with a slight cheer in his voice.

“Is there a reason you look like this today?” Fates asked as he gestured at Magnus. scales of shimmering purple and gold covered his body and horns of pure gold sprouting from his head, magnus stood at about 12 feet tall, towering over the gods who were seated at the table, dwarfing them in both height and width as wings of black 12 feet from each shoulder blade sat partially extended behind his back. In this partially transformed state Magnus would have been one of the most handsome men at any event, apart from his eyes which radiated such intense malice that it made even the two ancient gods in front of him shiver in fear.

“I gave to the young ghost an item.” Magnus said, his voice low and dangerous. “An item I am sure you wouldn’t have let fall into the hands of a bitch who tried to forcefully steal something that belongs to you.”

“It was just some dragon egg.” Death said

“Fulor, watch what you say.” Fate said as the look in Magnus’s eyes went from intense malice to a look that was colder than an asteroid in deep space.

“I don’t see what the big issue is, it’s just a dragon egg. Granted one given by you to a mortal, one i personally like, but i don't think that's why you gave…” he didn’t get the chance to finish as he was sent flying through the air to crash into the wall at the far end of the table, a rather impressive punch considering the width of the ballroom.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

“How is it.” Magnus said as death appeared in the seat he had just vacated, massaging his jaw where he had been hit. “That you can be as caring as a grandfather one moment, and as arrogant as some of these human emperors of the allied imperium?”

“I, uh.”

“I don’t care right now. What I want to know is whether or not that bitch has the egg, or if I need to wipe out a Fae clan in its entirely to retrieve it?” The anger and volume of Magnus’ voice was enough to practically kill any mortal unlucky enough to be within several miles of him, though thankfully the two gods and dragon were currently alone.

“The egg is not with the Matriarch.” Fate said in a calm voice.

“SO THEN WHY IS IT NOT IN THE YOUNG GHOSTS POSSESSION!?”

“Because we figured it was best he not be blundering around the wild with a dragon egg on him. NO Fulor, you do not get to speak." The last part was snapped at Death when he tried to say something.

“That doesn’t tell me WHERE IT IS!”

“We gave it to an acquaintance till he got back from his journey. What's so important about the egg anyways?”

“And you call yourselves ancient gods, if you can't tell what's so important about that egg, you don’t deserve to know till the same time as everyone else.” and with those words Magnus turned and strode out of the ballroom, well, he turned and walked a few steps before teleporting away leaving the two gods sitting at the table in a sort of stunned silence.

***

The view from the tallest summit of the dead peaks was breathtaking, both literally and figuratively. The walk up the final slopes had all but exhausted Jessie to the point he could barely raise his head from the snow of the small plain that lay there. But the view of the surrounding landscape was beautiful and terrifying. It had taken him another two weeks to climb to this point, and he was glad he didn’t have to worry about a decline in the oxygen levels, that or the oxygen thinned out much, much higher than the summit. To the north of him Jessie could see all the way out into the plains of the northern tribes, almost completely flat with very few forests, they were there and Jessie was sure they were massive, but from where he was they looked only as small as a small copse you might find in a city park.to the east was nothing but more mountain ranges with jagged peaks and precarious ledges and drops, while to the west, along with all the peaks and drops, Jessie could make out where the mountains actually dropped down to form the mountain pass that was one of the few know safe passage ways through the dead peaks as a whole. He himself was more than a little surprised he hadn’t slipped and fallen to his death yet, and he wasn’t planning on doing so at any point. To the south where he had just climbed from was the more interesting side. Hundreds of kilometres of forests, rivers, lakes and, in the very far distance, oceans. What Jessie liked most about the view towards the more civilised and homely lands of the south was that he could actually see some of the cities, granted only the few that were close by, but he could still see cities. From the sizes he guessed that some of them were newly established, partially due to the insane amount of trees being felled that he could see even from as high up as the tallest summit. The largest city he could see, in which he could just barely make out the vague outline of a couple of tall buildings peaking above the trees in the far distance, he guessed belonged to either the count of this region, because the Star Dragons Grave was supposed to cover a very large territory, so large that maps of the region tended to only have the major cities inked in as small, labelled dots surrounded by vast stretches of forested region. That or it was all a myth and what he was actually seeing was the capital of this empire.

After finally regaining his breath Jessie went to look around the plateau that he found himself on. It wasn't that large, only big enough to fit about 10 large dragons comfortably. All around the plateau Jessie could see thousands of flowers of either a fiery crimson or an electric blue. Jessie bent down and picked one of the crimson red flowers, bringing it up to his face and using identify on it.

"Crimson dragon blood rose, Rare. potent

Crimson dragon blood roses have a high affinity with strength, vitality and fire. They can be used in all sorts of potions and meals to help increase strength, resist fire and heat as well as creating health potions.’

Aside from the description which was basically the same as what was written in the book he had read, Jessie learnt that they were actually called crimson dragon blood roses instead of red dragon blood roses, also they also had an affinity for vitality, which he guessed was accurate considering the main theory being that these flowers grew where dragon blood had been spilt. Jessie glanced at his quest again and realised he didnt know which roses the client wanted him to pick up. Jessie simply decided that he would pick a few of each colour before heading off in search of the final two plants he needed to finish the quest. When Jessie reached the centre of the plateau after picking 100 dragon blood roses of each colour he noticed a group of flowers that seemed to radiate a feeling like his body was being restored. The blossoms of the flower were such a pure white that they not only blended in almost perfectly to the snow covered mountain, but when Jessie noticed them they hurt his eyes just looking. He did manage to get an identify off before he had to avert his eyes for the third time.

‘Tulip of life, epic, potent’

The tulip of life grows where great sources of vitality gather, they are commonly found where dragons have rested for long periods of time.’

The part about them being found where great sources of vitality gather led Jessie to wonder if the dragon blood roses on this mountain naturally had an affinity with vitality or if they were influenced by the tulips of life that were growing in the centre of the plateau. But he wasn't here for research and after picking the necessary amount of tulips he walked the the edge of the plateau and began circling it, looking for any hint as to where he might find the plains of sorrow that were said to reside within these mountains. However before he could even get halfway around he froze as something heavy hit the ground behind him.