As they ran, the radio communications made it clear that the erupting volcano was neither the only, nor the worst, disaster that the border region had undergone that afternoon.
Along the border, seven other locations had either exploded, collapsed, or undergone dramatic events involving Dragons. It was nearly impossible to piece it all together, but from what Karl could decipher, the location where the Frost Stone had exploded when they looted the statue had exploded again, only this time it had released a massive Frost Dragon, every bit as angry as the Magma Dragon at the volcano was.
It had rampaged through the front lines, uncaring of whether the target was a Giant or a Human, and then flown off into the Frost Giant nation surrounded by a storm that hid everything within fifty kilometres from observation.
Karl couldn’t see any logic in the Frost Giants setting those dragons free, and from the number of incidents, it did seem likely that it was their intention to set the Dragons free. Either that, or they had been trying to steal the powers of sealed Dragons, and that was even more insane, as the other Dragons would see that as an insult to their entire species.
The humans might have successfully hid through such blunders, but the Frost Giants wouldn’t be capable of finding a safe spot to hide and wait for the Dragons to calm down.
They didn’t quite have to travel past the spot they had gotten the first statue from, but it was still nearly dark when they made it to the Dwarven Village on their “Fastest Travel” route.
The entrance was heavily snowed in, and they had to have the Spider Golems dig to uncover the entrance of its layer of hardened ash and snow before they could enter. Then, they piled it back over the entrance, and let Remi’s Blizzard layer more snow on top to hide the fact that they were ever there.
They could hear the other team inside, the Mackenzie brothers laughing and joking, while the three other voices were much more nervously making remarks about the radio messages.
“Good evening lady and gentlemen. We have returned.” Karl announced as they walked down the tunnel and into the village, forcing him to return his beasts to their space, as they could not cross the threshold between the tunnel and the cavern.
“Good to see you all intact. We thought for certain you were going to be blasted to the moon when that mountain erupted. How did you make it out in time?” Bob asked, curiosity clear in his pale eyes.
“We never made it to the top at all. The Magma Dragon broke free while we were climbing the slope, so we turned around and ran.” Karl replied with a shrug.
“Good call. Doug here has been doing some research as a Nature Priest, and he has found an interesting fact about the dragons that were spotted today.” Bob agreed, then gestured for his brother to explain.
“Not all the spots that we heard of incidents from were known to have a Dragon present, but the ones that did were the prisons of Dragons who had gone against the Gods or the Elders. They are the Rebels, who would kill without reason or mercy.
Now, it doesn’t take a genius to realize that there aren’t enough Frost Giants to take this border in any sort of reasonable timeframe. Their allies are the real threats here, and they might be the driving force behind the invasion.
All that Command can tell us is that the Frost Giants attacked first, and that the Giant Clans are working together, so I’ve made a few conjectures of my own.
First, The Frost Giants are idiots, but strong with Shamanistic Magic. They’re using that to expand their borders. Second, they set up a bunch of locations of power on top of buried rebel Dragons, and the general assumption would be that they intended to set them loose against the human armies.
But that’s not what I think. I think that they were set up. That they were told that these were places of power, and not that they contained insane ancient Dragons, who would kill their soldiers as readily as ours.”
Doug paused to catch his breath, while everyone else absorbed the ideas that he had shared.
Dana looked confused. “You think the other Giant Clans set them up to fail, and just wanted the Dragons to make this entire area uninhabitable?”
Doug shook his head. “No, I think that they intended to make this area the territory of the Rogue Dragons, and wipe out the Frost Giants, while also giving the humans nowhere to retreat to when the other Clans moved in to crush us.
It’s not a secret that the Giant Clans never got along all that well, and they only ever cooperated because they viewed themselves as better than everyone else.
This could very well be the Giant Clan version of politics, and we’re caught in the middle of it.”
Karl frowned. “Then what do we do?”
“Do? We try not to die. The main lines are gone, dispersed, in hiding. If the Frost Giants arranged this, they will be marching through here in a matter of days with an entire city full of Giants. But from the direction that those two dragons were going, and the amount of fire off in the distance, I don’t think that is the case.
If their plan was to gain allies in the Dragons, they picked the wrong ones. That Frost Dragon might be on their side, but the Magma Dragon? They’re essentially mortal enemies. Their elements are completely opposed to the point that one cannot survive where the other one lives.” Doug explained with a deep frown as he tried to make sense of the situation.
“Well, if the amount of ash that is dropping on the area is any indication, the snow won’t last for long. The fires were already starting as the snow melted, and the volcano is still going off. How long do those eruptions even last, anyhow?” Karl asked.
Doug and Lotus both shrugged, before Doug answered. “Usually, it’s just one big blast, and then there will be lava flows for a few more weeks, but with a blast this massive it will take days or weeks for the sky to clear. Perhaps that’s why the Frost Dragon flew away, it wouldn’t have wanted to be in that ash cloud any more than we do.
But if that eruption is being fuelled by an angry Magma Dragon, the ash won’t cool, it will get hotter, and the cloud will continue to spread. Soon, we won’t have to worry about being cold.”
Bob looked toward the direction where the eruption was still taking place, as if he could see it through the stone of the mountain. “That’s all well and good, but it doesn’t answer the question that both of our teams were sent her to learn the answer to. Where did the Frost Giants get the power to expand the borders, and how do we undo it?”
Karl smiled. “I should have guessed that you got reassigned here for the same reason that I was here. We thought that it was the Frost Stones, and that if we could reverse whatever we were doing, or steal enough of the focal points, it would reverse the effect, and let the snow begin to recede.”
Bob smiled. “Of course, our missions weren’t quite the same. We were strictly here to find a way to reverse the effects, while I am under the impression that you were here to find the underlying cause. That wasn’t what they asked of us.”
Lotus giggled. “I wonder if [Huge pissed off dragon melted everything with a volcano] is enough to get the bonus for reversing the cold effect?”
That made Bob’s whole group laugh. “I suspect that they won’t let us claim credit for this one without explaining how we set the dragons loose, and then we would have to take responsibility for that as well.”
Lotus waved her hands. The word ‘responsibility’ was anathema to the Green Dragon’s followers and other Nature Priestesses.
Harry, the warrior with the ice blue eyes that came with the Mackenzie Brothers, looked toward the entrance, which was now ominously silent as the door had been buried by ash and snow.
“Hey, how long do you think that we will be stuck in here? I mean, we have radio signal still, but I get the feeling that going outside in the next few days will not be easy or wise.” He asked.
Doug just shrugged. “It’s a volcanic eruption, they can’t give us crap for being buried inside. But fortunately, we have a spot far inside the mountain because that hot ash would make it distinctly uncomfortable in a smaller cave, even if you escaped the fires.”