Tia, Ag, and I were able to ignore the heat. My immunity was shared between the three of us. The Azi-fey and Balfour didn’t share that protection. They had to remain within the range of the aura of cold I was emitting. That meant that any scouting would have to wait until we reached the next zone.

It also meant that we stumbled across the local beasts occasionally. The hounds were easy enough to avoid. The horehound, despite its buried tendrils, could be all but ignored, but the salamanders presented a problem.

They could camouflage themselves well, hiding their life signatures within streams and pools of lava. Their ability to hide was strong enough that even Ag, with her heightened sense of smell and my scanning for heat signatures, occasionally failed to identify them before we trespassed upon their territory.

Once that happened, it didn’t matter how we reacted. Retreat, avoid, or escape. The salamanders would track us, following us no matter how far we tried to distance ourselves until they could attack. They were driven by a primal urge to protect their territory; the Divine augmented that urge. Each of the salamanders was a godling and fully embraced whatever Divine instinct called to them.

The changes to Ag and Tia made them not only resilient to the environment but able to fight while ignoring most of the heat-based attacks they encountered. That helped because the Azi-Fey and Balfour were limited, and their need to stay close limited me to what attacks I could use.

Using the exploding pillar attack I favored would serve no purpose, not if I was only to kill my allies in the process. We worked on solving that limitation each time we fought, using the salamanders as an opportunity to train. This latest battle had proven our developing tactics worked.

We had stumbled upon a nest of salamanders.

Dozens of them.

Once we had noticed each other, the Azi-Fey clustered around Balfour and pooled their magic into a defensive shell that would protect them from attacks. The shield they created from linking their magic had an additive effect. With an entire colony of Azi-Fey channeling that magic into defense, they were as protected as possible.

Once they were shielded, I was free to attack.

The salamanders were as immune to fire as Ag, Tia, and I was. Ag relied on claws and teeth to kill and shadow to gain a strategic position. She was a snarling frenzy of destruction, her ability to use shadow often seeing her pounce from under one of the salamanders, using the shadow they cast as the means of egress for her attacks.

That ability to attack from below had her ripping open bellies, guts, and viscera, sometimes seeming to explode as Ag rent scales apart. Her ferocity and immunity to fire made for a deadly combination that the salamanders were unable to defend against. Not as long as Ag was able to duck into and out of the shadow.

Tia was able to use teeth and claws in her feline form to attack but rarely did. She eschewed that methodology to use illusion and a small bit of [Time]. Her trickery saw that half of the salamanders from this nest attacked each other, deceived into believing they were facing enemies that weren’t there.

She occasionally used [Time] to stun one of the monsters that managed to ignore her illusions. She was especially effective when a group of salamanders acted in concert—slowing one down or diverting another with targeted [Time] pulses.

As for me, I released a blizzard of hail. A storm that doused fires that had been burning since Asgard had formed. The salamanders had no defense against the cold and were slowed, some of the weaker monsters entering torpor unable to resist the ravages of ice and cold.

Once they were slowed, I would use my speed and agility and enter melee range, using a sword of ice sharpened by my will, the edge razor sharpness spelled to increase cutting and durability.

I didn’t feel guilt over slaughtering them or collecting their bodies and storing them so they could be processed for alchemical ingredients later. They were godlings. Animals of the Divine, and they would respawn at some point. I wouldn’t be surprised to find them reborn, fully formed, and able to fulfill whatever their divine mandate demanded of them within hours.

I did go out of my way to harvest some of the horehound plants, carefully transferring them along with the soil they were growing in. It would be interesting to see what the herbalists on Talahm could make of them. If they could be cross-bred with some of the metal-producing plants, the metal harvested might have some interesting properties.

The metal we grew formed with very few impurities. With fire-aspected horehounds added to hybridize the plant, the metal might remain molten, making it easier to collect and mold—a field of plants that would be collected like honey instead of harvested like wheat. If successful, the metal from this new hybrid should also affect enchantments, especially enchantments related to fire.

“Shouldn’t they be harder to kill?” Tia asked as we watched Ag finish killing the last salamander we had aggroed. “Their status as godlings doesn’t seem to mean much.”

“Odin, when creating Asgard, chose to appropriate elements from the other eight realms,” I began to explain. “He wanted a realm that would allow his Pantheon to eat, drink, and revel, a domain that would contain the Gods from some of their baser lusts.

“Perhaps he foresaw how the Olympians would interact with the world of man and acted preemptively to keep them in check. There aren’t any tales of Asgardian Gods impregnating mortal women or allowing their jealousies of mortals or their deeds and actions to provoke their followers into war. Even Loki, with all of his scheming, never ventured across the Bifrost bridge to indulge his baser instincts.

“The Asgardians test themselves and compete in great hunts, all in preparation for Ragnarok. The godlings, those creatures formed of the Divine, are echoes of Odin’s will. They were created to give purpose to the Gods. Some of that purpose is to keep them entertained.”

“This realm and the godlings were created to entertain the Asgardians?” Tia asked in disbelief.

“Compare Asgard to Olympus,” I suggested. “Olympus has always been described as a singular building. A temple of granite columns and marble floors where the Gods can gather. A place that can be reached simply by climbing a mountain.

“Hades and Poseidon, two-thirds of the triumvirate of power, rarely visit. They live where their power is strongest. I think the other Gods spend so much time wreaking havoc on Earth because they are bored.”

“I wonder why?” Tia said.

“What?”

“Why didn’t Zeus create a realm for the Gods like Odin did.”

“We will probably never know, but if I had to guess,” I answered thoughtfully. “I believe just as Odin foresaw what the Olympians would become left to run amok, so did Zeus. And he encourages that behavior by partaking in the delights the Gods can only find with man.

“As for why, I think Zeus settled on this approach to keep the Olympian Pantheon growing. Hercules is a prime example. The tales of his adventures are told and retold, the worship of Olympus spreading as his feats spread.

“And Hercules will ascend. He will be offered ambrosia and become a God in his own right. His strengths and legend will add to the power Zeus can control. Zeus has guaranteed that his Pantheon is constantly growing and changing. I think he believes that this infusion of new Gods will keep what happened to the Titans from ever happening to him or his Pantheon.

“Each tale, each new child of man that ascends and becomes a God increases the potential he can draw on, making his Pantheon stronger. The power of faith and worship these new Gods gain expands the Divine energies the entire Pantheon of Olympus can control,” I explained.

“Asgard has stagnated by comparison. There is no growth, no new legends of any mortal man challenging the world to become Gods themselves.

“What bothers me is how closely the two disparate Pantheons have grown to work together.

“What has Odin seen that makes him willing to risk the isolation of Asgard that he has fostered to influence his mortal followers to join Rome in war?”