Chapter 544 - The Phoenix Peaks (Patreon)

*Sorry this one’s short! Things got a little wonky, and this was a natural break point. Next part is almost literally twice as long to make up for it.*

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I spent an endless moment taking it all in. The mountains, rising high into the sky before crashing down into the ocean. The harsh line between the storms and the peaks, a clear demarcation of territories. An indicator that even the dragons were respecting the phoenix’s home territory. The vast and sprawling forests on most of the mountains - with one I could see burned down to ashes. A volcano burbled in the distance, a roc was nesting on one of the mountains, and a penguin phoenix, of all things, had gone for a swim.

Old me’s brain would’ve broken over a creature of fire going swimming. To the me here and now? Nothing was more natural. Of course a penguin-phoenix could swim in the water, it would be weird if it couldn’t. The System made all things possible.

Then again, I think I might’ve been more than a little disappointed if Auri had come out of her egg as a penguin. They didn’t exactly inspire the happiest emotions in me. 

“We’re here! We made it!” I cheered, squinting my eyes and scanning all the mountains I could, confident I’d see a bright flash of color any moment. A hummingbird made out of fire dancing between flowers, sipping on their sweet nectar.

I spotted a few phoenixes, one a dinosaur, but the rest mostly of the hawk and eagle varieties. 

“Hmm.” My exuberance was starting to flag. Iona spoke up.

“You know, phoenixes are all intelligent. I can speak to them. Why don’t we just go up to one of them and ask about Auri?”

I wanted to smack myself in the face.

Yes. Yes, that was a somewhat obvious solution to the problem. The phoenixes might care slightly about the agreement the Wardens were enforcing, but then again, we were just popping in and popping out. Words and diplomacy could get us fairly far, if applied properly.

“We did have a few at our wedding. That’s got to count for something.” I agreed. “Should we go find the owl and talk with him, or… your call, you know this stuff better than I do.”

Iona was pleased as punch from my compliment.

“Let’s see if one of the locals will guide us. There’s nothing better for getting through layers of society than to be escorted by a known individual.”

Huh. Made sense to me, I wrote the rule down in [Astral Archive’s] big book of social rules. I’d kind of already known it, with guards escorting me and the like, but hearing it boiled down so succinctly and clearly was nice.

“Right. Got an idea which one we should approach?” Iona’s cheat to see skills was a never-ending font of value, as was her ability to speak any language. 

“Yeah. Let’s go for the phoenix over there. Nobody’s got a language skill, but he’s lower-level, and his skills are less destructive.” The phoenix in question might’ve been a red-tailed hawk style phoenix, but I wasn’t quite sure. My birdwatching was mediocre on the best of days - mostly trying to match birds to what I’d seen idly browsing through bird books - and the whole ‘made entirely out of fire’ threw me for a loop.

[Mage - 384]. A fairly young phoenix, and Iona told me he was ‘only’ 90 years old. I wasn’t sure what phoenixes did all day, and if that level rate was good or not. Compared to a mortal living their life, it was decent, although I’d seen how unfairly the System lavished classes and skills on the living flames.

“Walk or fly over?” I asked.

“Let’s walk.”

The three of us headed over to the mountain in question at a brisk pace, not so slowly that it’d take forever, but not so quickly that it looked like an attack. We were halfway up the mountain when the phoenix appeared in the trees above us, screeching a protest.

Iona’s face twisted and contorted in weird ways, looking pinched. She screeched back, speaking fluent phoenix.

I couldn’t catch a word of what they were saying, but it was entertaining to see the phoenix almost fall out of the tree. He screeched a clear question back at Iona, and the two ended up in an animated conversation.

Then Iona screeched a question back, and the phoenix got pissed. A ring of burning sound launched from his mouth at us.

Being able to move at twice the speed of sound necessitated that I could think and react far faster than that. I elected to use [Event Horizon] to utterly swallow the attack. When it got within range, I flickered the skill up for a fraction of a moment, overlapping the skill with the attack. It vanished into the void, never to be seen again, and I dropped it promptly after. If the phoenix’s eyesight wasn’t too good, he would’ve just seen a flicker before it vanished. My attempt at de-escalating the situation. 

Iona screeched at the phoenix, but he wasn’t having any of it. Wave after wave of Fire impotently crashed down on us. A fiery flare shot up into the sky. Iona turned to me with an utterly unamused look.

“I really, really just want to grab this overcooked chicken by the neck and wring answers out of him.” She said.

“Do you think it’ll help?” I asked.

“Well, he clearly knows something, and got pissed when I asked about Auri.”

Violence felt like a poor answer, at the same time, Iona was the master at navigating these sorts of situations.

“Don’t choke the chicken too hard.” I smirked at Iona. I knew exactly what I was saying.

I flicked an eye to my mana. I was regenerating more mana than it took to keep all three - two, given I was immune - of us alive, happy, and cool. It was possible to punch up, but there came a point where stats, skills, and biomancy were just too much. We were probably some good experience for the bird, and my tunic was starting to smoke.

Iona took a running jump, landing sideways on a tree trunk. Faster than a monkey, she jumped from trunk to trunk, rapidly ‘climbing’ the trees up to the phoenix’s level, who screeched and tried to turn tail. Iona nimbly nabbed him, falling down with a choked protest from the bird. She brought him up to her face and started screeching questions.

The bird turned his head to the side and huffed up. Iona flipped him upside down, grabbed his legs, and shook him a few times. He continued to stubbornly say nothing.

“Bring out… THE BUCKET!” Iona dramatically commanded. I gave her a Look. That was going too far in my opinion. It was too close to harm, and I folded my arms. Iona swung the bird over one shoulder, rolled her eyes at me, then gave me three exaggerated winks.

AH! Okay, yes. I could bring out… THE BUCKET! I’d prepared quite a few spells, and a quick trip to my [Tower] - spending more mana than I’d taken to heal all the attacks - and a careful spell away from the phoenix - didn’t want my spellbook burned, duplicates or not - and we had a bucket of water.

Iona’s face twisted up again, all pinchy and mean, and she screeched more words at the phoenix, who started talking, and talking fast. Iona looked disappointed.

“Lies, damn lies, and really bad lies. Has nobody taught him that lying requires some effort or believability?” She said.

I thought about Auri, and her sure confidence that she was the best at everything when she’d been young. “Maybe he’s never really needed to lie before? Or phoenixes are gullible as heck?”

“Or he’s just scared and dumb?” Iona suggested.

A careful [Event Horizon] absorbed all the Water in the bucket. Casually left around conjured Water could play hell with the local flora and fauna, as it got integrated into their bodies, then it vanished.

A black calamity of flames descended upon us. Iona and Fenrir were clearly blinded by the all-consuming, all-encompassing flames, as the side of the mountain we were standing on got turned into ashes and smoke. Three beams of thick Pyronox snapped down, coring Fenrir chest-to-tail once again, and letting me see straight through Iona’s chest. The flames splashed harmlessly off my skin, but my heart was leaping into my throat at seeing my lover’s innards, healing or not. There was just something primal and visceral about the sight. My head snapped up and I scanned the skies, seeing a familiar Pyronox phoenix flying in the sky. I shot a beam of Radiance in front of his beak, and waved.

“Oi! Come on down and talk!” I shouted.

Immunity or not, amazing healing bonuses, biomancy, tough scales, and all the other advantages we had, my mana was still dropping at a modest clip, keeping Iona and Fenrir alive. And the phoenix. I’d feel guilty if they died under our questionable ‘protection’, and it was arguable that I was obligated to them, interrogation or not. I suspected the owl had the proper control to exclude him from the attack, so it wasn’t like I was sacrificing much. It was a direct, full-powered assault from a phoenix just a few steps from divinity, and I was pretty sure my mana was going to give out before his.

The flames stopped. The air was wavering like a drunken sailor, but the only fires were way, way over there. There was no smoke, ash, or really anything on this half of the mountain. The owl’s flames had burned ‘cleanly’.

Iona hooted at the owl. We’d kept her ability to understand them mostly under wraps until they’d left when they were visiting, but there was no reason to keep it a secret now. She switched back to High Elvish for my convenience.

“Where’s Auri?” She demanded. I stepped in.

“She was supposed to be back weeks ago, and didn’t return.”

The phoenix flew off at impossible speeds, then returned a moment later with an amulet around his neck. The owl landed on a non-existent branch, wrapping a talon around the amulet.

“Release,” He then gave out a series of chirps, squawks, and screeches - I assumed that was the phoenix’s name. “... and then we’ll discuss things.”

Iona tossed the hawk phoenix up to the Pyronox phoenix, the former comedically spinning beak-over-tail with how my lover flicked her wrist. A quick exchange between the two phoenixes had the hawk flapping away to another mountain at top speed, Fenrir eyeing him up like he was lunch. To be fair, Fenrir could probably get a lot out of eating a phoenix. I debated casting an area cooling skill, just to show I had a solid command of Ice and was ready to use it, but some rough math suggested I’d either burn an unwise amount of mana, or the display would be too impotent, and demonstrate an easily exploitable weakness. 

Ah well, we could literally sweat a bit, just as long as we could make the phoenix metaphorically sweat.

Iona crossed her arms and stared at the owl.

“Alright, he’s released. Now, where's Auri?” She demanded.

“Is it my problem if she’s chosen not to return?” He sniffed at us. “Have you considered that she likes it more here? We haven’t stopped her at all, you know. ”

I wanted to rage and protest, but with how Iona had crossed her arms and was steely-eyed staring at the owl, I decided to hold my tongue and let her handle it. 

“Maybe you should let us meet her, and directly confirm for ourselves.” She retorted, saying nothing else.

The silence grew uncomfortable, and he continued talking.

“You have done well for… humans, I believe it was… to come this far. Crossing the ocean is no mean feat, nor is arriving at the Phoenix Peaks. Auri is currently taking on the Dungeon challenge. You can find her there. Now. I will insist that you leave the Phoenix Peaks, and do not return. You are not welcome.”

“Give us a proper map and directions to the Dungeon, and we will.” Iona shot back. “Give us poor directions, and we know where someone is who can recorrect our course.”

I was a hair confused. We were sure the owl wasn’t lying?

The owl narrowed his eyes and tilted his head at us.

“Fine.” He said. “I will direct you myself. I will not step in, should you perish on the way to the Dungeon.”

The three of us traded a knowing look.

He was absolutely going to lead us through every single monster nest and apex predator between here and where the Dungeon was.

Jackass.