Kaele had slept through this all. I eventually told her during our evening meal back at the inn. Quu'za was a curious sight during that time. On one hand she seemed lost in thought. On the other hand she was restless, almost as if she just wanted to run off and get started already. We parted ways early next morning after paying our bill. I was back in armor but she gave me a long hug anyway before being off like the wind. If everything went according to plan we would see her again soon on our way back home.

After that the last leg of our trip to the capital was rather uneventful. Which didn't mean that I got bored. Quite to the contrary. At first I had to recount parts of our trip across the hills to Zul'gar and a few others as we trudged along the road. Especially our encounter with the harpies and the following fight with the ogres apparently never got old. Well, considering that their own trip had been rather uneventful I could understand that the men and women of the caravan were open to a good story or two. And to be honest, I didn't mind telling the story either.

A few hours onto the road Kaele asked me to join her in no uncertain words. She had a small writing board and a few empty pieces of paper and parchment out. How could she write while riding like that? Wasn't that uncomfortable? Just looking at her sitting on her ride like that upset my stomach. The cat wasn't entirely happy with the arrangement either. It probably wanted to play some more with the ribbons in my sisters hair. In the end it had retreated onto the ibex's head though. The two creatures seemed to get along reasonably well.

In the end I didn't get much time to think about things like those though. My sister started to pick my brain about that lightning spell with detailed questions the moment I arrived at her side. There was nothing she didn't want to know. No detail was to small. Nothing, no matter how trivial it seemed to me, escaped her notice. She was rather throughout in her questioning. She was noting it all down as well. Or at least she noted down the parts she deemed important. It didn't take long before much of the empty scrolls was covered in scrawls and diagrams.

I took a lull in her questioning to look over her notes. It wasn't easy, especially as I had to essentially read them upside down. In the end it was the spell diagram that she had drawn that captured my attention. I plucked that page from her pile of notes to look at it a little closer and nodded after a while. “Mhm. That looks about right.” I delved into my memories to recall the moment I had cast the lightning spell. “Yes. That is how I visualized the spell matrix.”

She plucked the page from my hands again and put it back into he notes where it belonged, shooting me a measured stare. “That means you boiled down a lightning bolt spell to its bare essentials on the fly.” She shook her head and sighed. “It only worked because there was already a thunderstorm raging all around us. In addition the spell's strength was utterly dependent on the power of the storm. And you were crazy lucky that the lightning didn't strike you instead of the ogre. It could have struck one of the trees or huts around you as well.”

I winced. She was right of course. If things had been slightly different the fight might have ended badly for me. Kaele's tone changed from lecturing to excited in the blink of an eye though as she kept going. “I can work with this though. I'll probably integrate a proper targeting layer into the spell matrix first. That is the most important change. The spell's utility will remain very dependent upon the situation but at least you won't accidentally kill yourself using it!” Even as she was still talking she got a new piece of paper and started to draft up an improved spell matrix.

I couldn't disagree with her reasoning. I didn't want to disturb her either as she scribbled as if she were in a frenzy. I looked up ahead instead. We had been able to see Bleak Peak ever since we left Caer'zha in the morning. The volcano was enormous after all. It dominated the entire western horizon. The city built around the edge of its main crater couldn't be missed either. Not now that we were closer anyway. The walls, yes plural, there was more than one ring wall, were gigantic. Numerous towers and bastions lined the newest, outermost one.

Beyond that outer wall I could barely make out the other ones and the tops of the buildings in between them. The walls went all the way around the mountaintop. So did the capital city. They went around the top of the mountain that took up most of the horizon from the point along the road from where I was looking. It boggled the mind! And that was only the part that was visible. Supposedly there were even greater marvels below ground. How many people lived here? I couldn't even begin to imagine the answer to that question.

The ground shook under our feet. It wasn't much of a quake but it was enough to get me thinking. My vision got blurry and once again memories of a different life rose from the depths of my brain. For the briefest of moments I wasn't on the road to the capital anymore. Instead I was hiking up the flank of another volcano, much higher but otherwise not as large as Bleak Peak, with a group of students in tow. Before I could really focus on the memory it faded again and I almost stumbled as I missed a step. One of the animal handlers caught me before I could actually fall.

I nodded my thanks and focused on the road ahead once more. The slight tremor had faded again but it probably wouldn't be the last we would experience before reaching the gates of the capital. Especially as I could already see the long lines that formed outside of said gates. I grimaced. We might just spend an hour or two standing in one of those unless they dispersed some time soon. Damn! That most certainly wasn't my definition of fun.

I still had trouble wrapping my mind around the idea of building the largest city of the kingdom, if not the continent, around the caldera of a volcano that was at best in a rather uneasy sleep. What if it ever erupted for real? A single pyroclastic stream could wipe out most of it. A powerful earthquake alone might wreak havoc on the city, both above and below ground! Sure the city was obviously built with earthquakes in mind, the lack of rubble alone was testament to that, but still. This was crazy! Totally and utterly crazy!

Zul'gar must have noticed the look on my face. And apparently he was able to guess at what was going through my mind. I probably wasn't the first to have these doubts about the capital. He slowed down a little until he was walking alongside me and flashed me a smile “Don't worry too much. Sure, the mountain is very much alive but the court wizards have it well under control.” He paused as another slight tremor hit. “In fact what we feel here is probably them rerouting some of the mountains blood and breath.”

I looked at him in disbelief. He just shrugged it off. “They heat the city that way, including some of the underground greenhouses.” He paused and pointed at a number of cavernous cave entrances well below the foot of the capital's walls. “Supposedly they can even redirect the mountain's anger to defend the city should it ever be necessary. You can find these openings all around the city and the mountaintop. They can flood the whole area around the city or just parts of it with scalding ash or molten rock should an enemy army ever come this close.”

That actually sounded like a pretty well thought out defensive measure. If it worked. I had no idea if it had ever been used. Either way I pitied any fool dumb enough to walk an army into this deathtrap. With the underground greenhouses the city probably could withstand a full fledged siege as well. There probably were plenty of wells within the city too. I had to admit it actually was quite impressive. Still crazy but impressive. Finally I decided to voice the most prominent question I had. “Has this system ever been used?”

It was Kaele who answered. “Supposedly not long after the founding of our kingdom. Back then, during the wars of the ancients. Not once since then though.” My brows furrowed in doubt again and my sister continued to ease my mind. “Not in earnest at least. The court wizards test it regularly though. They have to make sure none of the passages and lava tubes get clogged up after all. They have to blow off some pressure every once in a while as well. That's in fact the source of our regular ash storms.” Zul'gar nodded in agreement. I blushed a little. Of course! I felt so silly as she mentioned that. Why had I never thought of it! I couldn't suppress a slight shudder either. The whole idea was still as crazy as it was impressive. The slightest slip of the mages responsible and it could end in a disaster like none anyone had ever seen or heard of. It was only slightly reassuring that nothing of the likes had happened in thousands of years.