The way back to the village was filled with enjoyable conversation between Luna, Lia and me. The rest of their groups obviously listened in, and a few even added a few words, at least when we didn’t focus on complex magic and the storm I had conjured the night before. Just the confirmation that I had kicked the storm off made more than one of the locals look at me with an amusing combination of awe, fear and even a bit of disbelief, though hearing that it hadn’t been in a direct, or rather, not in a repeatable, fashion tempered their fear a little likely because the levels of power involved were a little too extreme for anyone to be comfortable with it, at least when compared to their own powers.

Sure, the locals had a fairly high level of physical abilites and tactical training, especially when it came to cooperation, matching, or even exceeding in some cases, the teamwork countless hours of travelling and fighting had forged between the members of my group but when it came to arcane, or divine, abilities the locals remained lacking. Only now, with Luna and me giving them some pointers, those interested in these arts could get beyond some fairly simple mythical applications. Things like conjuring small amounts of water or lighting fires, mostly developed by experimentation, but it was quite obvious that nobody had successfully developed combat applications.

When I had asked the Chief about it shortly after we first made contact with the village, he had been somewhat annoyed that some fool had decided to experiment in combat and promptly got himself and his battle buddy killed, leading to a severe drop in interest in anything magical. A few people experimented; there’d always be those enamoured with magic, but it was incredibly hard to advance without the pressure of combat. Without a certain level of confidence or outside instruction, taking the first step from using magic in safe and secure situations to applying it offensively was impossible. I believe that said step stemmed from an evolutionary survival instinct rooted in humanity’s development before the change, where countless generations had to overcome danger using physical means and tools, instead of arcane ones.

It would be fascinating to observe the arcane development of humanity over a longer period of time, how different ways of magic usage were discovered or taught to them by outside agents, namely the legacies. Or some sort of deity, or maybe even a spirit similar to the one I had bound, only a lot more advanced. I could imagine countless different methods beyond the somewhat simplistic way of brute-force discovery. Granted, said way was also the path to advance the overall state of magic, but that was another topic.

Another topic we all heartily discussed was dungeons. What they were in the context of the change, as the locals hadn’t encountered any, and why they mattered in the first place. It was pretty interesting to observe their reactions to my recollection of the outdoor dungeon near the dwarven fortress I had encountered on Mundus, especially when I explained why I considered the burned area a problem of a similar nature. The Charland we had discovered near my home, and what I had learned about it and its incredibly odd nature was another topic they quickly became interested in and started to compare it to the burned land, wondering if the Charland would eventually break through its spatial confines and start to spread, like the burned land here had.

It was an idea I couldn’t help but consider seriously, as it was an interesting hypothesis. So far, we only knew that the burned land had started to spread recently, but with an insane speed. It took less than a month to reach a diameter of over a hundred kilometres. If the situation were similar to the one in the Charland, just with a spatial expansion focused underground, it might explain how that happened.

The burned land had smouldered, so to speak, and kept its heat contained within the spatial pocket the Change had formed for it, until it broke free, spreading rapidly like a wildfire. It made some sense and would explain a few things if true. But, given that I had no interest in delving into an absurdly hot furnace like the dungeon likely was, I wouldn’t be able to find that part out directly.

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A part of me was considering possible ways to explore the dungeon regardless of the temperatures involved but so far, I doubted anything would come of it. Sure, my increased elemental affinities improved my ability to withstand heat but that was only a relative thing. My inherent racial constitution was incredibly vulnerable to heat, as I had learned during the summer months on Mundus, and my affinities only pushed that up to about the level of resistance a human would have, maybe a little better thanks to the high physical attributes I gained thanks to my draconic heritage. So, going on with my body might be possible but I would be significantly weaker than normal, leaving me vulnerable. Not a position I wanted to place myself in if I could help it in any way.

On the other hand, I might be able to use my usual scrying constructs, possibly by attaching one of them to a group of locals, allowing me to observe and maybe even support the group delving into the dungeon. The idea had some risks, mainly regarding the system and its obscure rules, but I had no idea how that might play out. Would the system punish me for trying to support the people inside, as it broke the usual rule of no more than five people within a singular instance of a dungeon simultaneously? Or was that even a rule the local system enforced? We had never actually tried to figure out what would happen with a bigger group.

On Mundus, only five people ran dungeons together, resulting in the cultural expectation that groups of five worked and travelled together. That is, five ‘cultured’ people, or people holding classes, with beings like Ylva and Lenore not counting into that calculus. However, here, on Terra, beings like Silva or Alex could hold classes and learn skills, making me wonder how this would play into the system’s rules.

Hopefully, the system would simply prevent such interference if it were against its rules and not penalise too harshly if they could be broken with such ease. Or maybe there could be a warning, some sort of blue box telling us that continuing forward would result in penalties or something along those lines.

Regardless of the obscure rules of the system, if I wanted to use a scrying construct, I might have to make one of better quality than my usual ravens. Sure, those were useful for exploration, but they were designed and conjured to be simple and use a relatively small amount of Astral Power, allowing me to use them as much as I wanted without exhausting myself. The limit to them was my ability to process information, which was why the bound spirit was so useful, allowing me to partially automate them and only process what they saw when I desired to.

To explore the dungeon, something better was needed. Maybe something similar to the construct I had made in the frozen valley, where I had created a statue out of Ice and linked said statue to my mind using my blood, allowing me to control it directly. While within the valley, I had been able to use the Nexus to restore the statue at will, as it was made from Ice and there was an effectively infinite amount of Ice Astral Power to channel in the area.

A direct copy wouldn’t work. I didn’t have access to the Nexus to fuel my creation and using Ice to explore what looked like a dungeon filled with Fire and burning things sounded like an incredibly stupid idea, but that only meant I had to adapt and adjust what I used.

Humming to myself, I began to consider which materials would be most suitable, how I might be able to tie them together and, maybe more importantly, how I could get a group of locals into the dungeon to explore it. Sure, some of them looked to be quite intrigued by the prospect and the rewards my daughters told them about, but mere intrigue wouldn’t be enough to get them into what might be the closest thing to Hell any of them would ever experience.

No, if I wanted to send people into that place, I would have to convince the Chief, meaning I would have to lay out my reasoning why I thought the strange hole was the centre and source of the burned land. That way, I could argue that it needed to be destroyed, or at least challenged, or the burned land would continue to spread, even after I had managed to buy some time by unleashing the storm the night before.

Maybe I should also consider ways to keep his people safe. Redundancy and security measures would appeal to his military mindset. After all, no plan survives contact with the enemy, or something like that.