Chapter 8-221: The Bottom of the World? (1/2)

It took us four days to reach our destination, riding over a thousand miles every day over snow and ice and wind-blasted rock, back and forth, tracing a Lived-Line over these time-lost ruins, and whole mountains carved into cyclopean monuments to who knew what.

I was pretty sure that the tips of the last few mountains were reaching up to thirty-five thousand feet, but it was impossible to tell.

We did find a city, trapped for the ages beneath the weight of ice and snow, only the edges of it visible in the windswept barriers. Naturally there were ways down into it, plunging down from inside the mountain, or tunnels bored through the periphery by probably-not unknown parties, leading to whatever ancient wonders and secrets were down below.

The theme to Raiders of the Lost Ark started running through my head despite myself. Sama started humming along, Briggs was very careful not to, and everyone who could hear it was wondering just what it was about.

-That is the theme song for action archeologists!- I /told them firmly, and the eyes of a whole slew of researchers lit up at the very idea. Promptly, a whole lot of them wanted to know if there were theme songs for action physicists, action historians, action chemists...

I pawned that off on Sama, who took it with a “Hell, yes!” and to their immense delight began to grab some really cool theme music from Terra-Luna her Minstrel Levels entitled her to, and it thundered through Markspace and the Allegiance network.

The A-Team theme made for a great Action Mechanics theme, and The Transformers was made for Action Engineers, after all...

If nothing else, we were leaving behind thousands of miles of corridors to explore, map out, and clear. Clearly a job for action guys of all professions!

The opportunity to clear an alien and ancient city and learn its secrets rippled through the Allegiance and beyond, and people gaffing off Levels suddenly had an inspiration to gain something so they could survive doing this sort of thing...

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Six sheer peaks, the tallest and most unnatural yet, gathered in a rough hexagon around a central valley the Mountains of Madness led right to... and which seemed to be centered around the South Pole. On the far side, the continuing Mountains slowly receded into the horizon. A circuit about the South Pole seemed to confirm there was another subductive current being channeled up this way, maybe all the way from the opposite coast.

Someone would have to go see after this, I reckoned, someone who also had business on the far side of the Pacific Ocean...

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It was the day before Halloween.

My Melee/4, Archer/4, and Noble/4 Levels had ticked past, each with their own focuses and ‘gifts’. Finishing out the Sudden Metas Mastery was an interesting one, and now I was much more dangerous with a staff in hand, if I did choose to fight...

Noble/4 gave me just enough skill points to get my Duty to 10. Generous of it.

I eyed the spinning white Frostshroud that had overridden the grey Haze about the mountains ahead of us. The number of spirits diving and wailing about those peaks was much higher, but the area of the Shroudzone itself was barely big enough to encompass the peaks.

That generally was a sign that there weren’t very many undead within, but that seemed... strange, despite the fact that reasonably there shouldn’t be any carcasses up here at all, except things that were fossilized.

After all, we literally hadn’t seen any undead at all. I was under the impression that any humans that had died hereabouts had been eaten by oozes, so there was nothing to Animate.

We also hadn’t come across traces of any explorers, which was fine. Last thing I wanted to deal with was a race-for-the-prize rivalry here.

But, I needed the South Pole for the Ceremony of the Frozen Soul. Sure, it was up in rarefied air where it shouldn’t be. Sure, it was ringed by gigantic monolith-mountains that had appeared out of nowhere. Sure, there was no damn reason it was located in the middle of them, as that formation of mountains had to have been there way, way longer than the South Pole.

Whatever the matter, we were still going forward.

Unlike before, we now had a wide-open road... because there was a wide multi-arch bridge extending from the slopes of the last outer mountain, and into the facing mountain of the hexagon, unlike every other mountain along the way.

We didn’t go along it that fast, but we did notice that the spirits above weren’t getting close to the pathway, which was... unexpected, yet not all that surprising?

Sleipner trundled along boldly, but not overly fast, as there didn’t seem to be anything in front of us to be that wary of. Regardless, no need to go crashing into abrupt traps or energy fields or something, although such things seemed to have faded long ago.

Actually, if the spirits came on down, I wouldn’t be too off-put. There were plenty of ways and means to kill them, and I was paying a lot of attention to them if they decided to abruptly come down and investigate in force. This place was cold, the air was thin as heck, and it was strange to need Endure Elements just to be able to breathe smoothly. Acclimatizing to high altitudes was not a casual thing, after all, even with post-30 Con scores.

Also, base air temperature was sixty degrees below zero, before wind chill. This place was cold!

The winds wanted to buffet us and chill us, but were sadly diverted around us by Master Fred’s Stormbound Pact, unable to do so much as make Sleipner sway an inch.

It was a surreal experience, and if either of us had been subject to fear, it doubtless would have been harrowing and humbling, moving over the miles of ancient bridge, those ancient carved mountains and all their rooms and windows looking out over us.