Given the gale-force winds I had accidentally caused the night before, I wasn’t quite certain what I should expect outside of my deeply buried bunker. Some devastation, sure, but when I conjured up a scrying construct outside, I was still surprised by what I saw.

The entire landscape had changed, literally. Sure, the major features were still there, the storm hadn’t been strong enough to erode away entire mountains, but I was fairly certain that a few of the hills in the area used to be higher and, in some cases, had different shapes than they had now. And that was ignoring the fact that the area had largely been forested, at least outside the burned land, and now, the trees, the grass and everything else were just gone. Gone, as if some angry deity had swiped across the land, upturning the soil and leaving a landscape more suited to a desert or some other desolate place.

Even the burned land hadn’t escaped unscathed, and that was nowhere as obvious as on the mountain I had buried my bunker under. The waves of goop the burned land’s creatures had flung at me to stop the ritual from taking effect had completely hardened; the sandy goop turned into jagged black rocks, raising the mountain’s height a little and changing its shape, thanks to the black rock covering its slope.

A part of me couldn’t help but look forward to testing the stuff; it looked quite interesting. Almost like the blacktop of roads before the change, though I would have to see how it stood up to wear, whether I could make use of it in some way and if it had any special, magical qualities or if it would just lie there, acting as an additional shield to the bunker I had made.

Flapping the wings of my scrying construct a few times, I changed its course, making it rise higher so I could get a better look at the overall situation, beyond what I could see at first glance. Thankfully, the storm had wiped away most of the smoke and ashes, though some clouds remained in the sky, a grey reminder of the primal forces I had leveraged to have my way. Even now, despite knowing that I was about as safe from the weather as one could be, I was a little frightened by the devastation, knowing that I may have been the cause of it, but I certainly hadn’t controlled it. In this situation, I was merely a pebble starting an avalanche, and now, I could see the devastation while knowing that there had been no control. Another might be able to leverage their power in a similar way, causing similar devastation, and there was nothing I’d be able to stop it from coming into effect unless I managed to catch it early enough.

From my new vantage point, I had a better view of the burned land than I had ever before and now, I could see just how far it stretched. Knowing that the area was at least a hundred kilometres across was one thing, but to see the seemingly endless desolation, stretching as far as I could see even from above, was something else. Just a little disheartening, especially when I realised that, despite the power and violence of the storm I had accidentally conjured, its effect was limited.

Sure, the storm and the rain had managed to put out a wide area, large enough that I needed the added height from my scrying construct to see its edges, but beyond that area, the Bitumen were hard at work lighting things up again. The burned area had been pushed back in this area, but it was obviously far from defeated, though I might have done some damage to its creatures; the storm had to have devastating consequences for anything caught above ground.

It was a good thing that I had set up shop on the other side of the burned area, multiple days of normal march and over a hundred kilometres from the valley holding the village and the local population, meaning they should have been spared the destruction I had caused. They likely got some rain, but the storm looked as if it had been concentrated here, above the burned land, where the rising hot air met the freezing air of the clouds above, causing rapid changes in pressure.

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Feeling somewhat satisfied with the damage I had done to the burned land, I stepped into the shadows and let them carry me to the exit I had prepared, though some might call what I called an exit another cave, dug into a different mountain. It held nothing but a few runes hidden behind a thin wall of rock, thus allowing me to travel here through the shadows with ease and little effort. The wall could be shifted aside with a bit of magic, allowing me to exit the cave and return to the open air, fairly secure and hidden in the shadow of a mountain. Granted, the storm had devastated this area just as it had the burned land, reminding me just how destructive and chaotic it had been, but I couldn’t worry about that right now.

Instead, I spread my wings out and leapt into the air, a few quick beats of my wings catching the air and some lingering wind and letting me rise, away from the devastation and destruction and into the clear sky.

The sky, as always, helped to centre me, some might say it grounded me, as counterintuitive as that sounded. In the open sky, I could see the devastation I had wrought once again, this time with my own eyes. Not that using my own senses made things better, if anything, it looked even worse to my better eyesight, though there also were some amusing things I could now see.

One of them was just how stark the contrast was in some places, as if somebody had used a straight-edge or a knife to slice things away on one side of an invisible line while leaving the rest relatively untouched. One side was overturned ground, bare earth and devastation, the other looked somewhat ruffled, but the trees remained upright, a few branches broken, and the earth remained intact. Somehow, the contrast reminded me that I might have used my power to leverage the weather into kicking things off, but nature and its devastating forces had already been there, just as its curative and enduring forces were out there and now on full display. Humans, elves or any other race might have powers to influence the world on a small scale, but when it came to the grand scheme of things, we were all so very, very small.

A part of me relished that realisation while another part couldn’t help but be outraged, yearning for the power to be relevant, even in the grand scheme of things, to have more control and power.

As I started on my flight back to the small village in the valley, I continued to survey the destruction I had caused, and a part of me revelled in said destruction. Some might claim it to be wrong to see such devastation and feel elated to know that you were the one to kick it all off, and a part of me actually felt that way, but others, and another part of me, just couldn’t help but feel giddy at my prowess.

Sure, I was aware that this hadn’t truly been my power, which was likely why I had only received a token amount of EXP, but regardless of whether it was purely my power or not, I had been the cause. The pebble to start this avalanche.

Another positive part about the devastation was that I could fly freely, and the wind had carried away the smoke and ash, allowing me to see what had been hidden in the gloom before.

Like the strange structure I could see in the distance, deep within the burned land, made of black rock, similar in apperance to what the sandy goop had formed once cooled, but even from the distance I could see the air shimmer above the rocky structure and how molten stone was moving through, or maybe across, the rocky surface, showing just how burning hot these stones must be.

While a part of me wanted to immediately turn and investigate, I knew better. Something that deep within the burned land, maybe even close to its centre, had to be important and important structures were, as a rule, defended. Risking my own hide to investigate would be utterly foolish, especially as I had no idea what dangers were hiding there and what defences they had.

Instead, I quickly formed a few scrying constructs, letting them take the risk to investigate while I continued my flight, a part of my mind, supported by the bound spirit wrapped around my arm, keeping track of my scrying constructs as they moved deeper into the burned land, trying to sate the bubbling curiosity within me.