Path of Dragons - A LitRPG Apocalypse (BOOK TWO STUBBING AUGUST 15)-11-28. Distant Grief

Path of Dragons - A LitRPG Apocalypse (BOOK TWO STUBBING AUGUST 15)-11-28. Distant Grief

Eventually, Elijah internalized his own reprimand. Nearly dying had a tendency to prompt self-growth. And even if Elijah was so hardheaded that it took multiple such instances to hammer it home, he could learn lessons. So, as he moved forward, he did so carefully.
The area past the mountain range – and the Ring of Fire – was a desert. From a geographical standpoint, it made perfect sense, and Shane had already described it well enough that Elijah knew what to expect. However, seeing it with his own two eyes left him with the impression that, if anything, his former colleague had understated things.
The sea of dunes stretched as far as Elijah could see. It wasn’t like the desert around Seattle, which more closely resembled the now-gone American southwest. This was more like the Sahara, with dunes towering hundreds of feet high. The sun stood high overhead, its light barely piercing the cloud of ash. But even then, it sent the temperature skyrocketing well past the scope of mortal endurance.
Even Elijah felt it, though it was nothing compared to what he’d experienced close to the Ring of Fire.
Thankfully, his extreme attributes made climbing the dunes easy enough. He couldn’t move as quickly as he would have liked, but as it turned out, Shape of the Master was perfectly suited for such traversal. Its slightly webbed feet and light weight gave it a distinct advantage over his other forms.
With that in mind, he chose to use it rather than adhere to his normal preference for Shape of the Scourge. He considered flying, but every time he looked up, he saw familiar shadows that suggested the presence of those same wasps.
Elijah had no interest in a fight, so he stuck to the ground where they seemed content to ignore him. For what he’d felt from them – which was just a brief impression – they were all ascended, though he’d had some difficulty pinpointing their exact strength. So, there was every chance that they were all level two-hundred-plus.
He wouldn’t survive an encounter with so many of them – especially not in Shape of the Sky.
With that in mind, he stuck to the ground. Going up and down those dunes was an interesting experience. The ascent was like climbing a mountain as the ground constantly shifted under him. Or like climbing an escalator in reverse. He could manage it easily enough, but the constant extra effort required to do so was both frustrating and mentally tiring.
However, each time he reached the summits of those enormous sand dunes, he was struck by a distinct sense of awe. Seeing hundreds of miles’ worth of desert felt a lot like being at sea.
He was also well aware that he might look at things a little differently if he’d lacked thousands of gallons of fresh water in his Arcane Loop. He had multiple versions of the Endless Canteen he’d looted off of Thor, so there was almost no chance he’d go thirsty.
Refugees like Shane wouldn’t have had that benefit.
At night, the temperature plummeted well below freezing, but Elijah wasn’t that troubled by that development. In fact, it was expected. What wasn’t expected was how the distant light of the Ring of Fire, combined with the ever-present cloud of ash and smoke changed the look of the dune sea.
Shifting shadows threw the entire landscape into stark relief, casting the sand in shades of orange that made it look like everything was on fire. Nightfall also brought with it a host of nocturnal predators, many of which were quite large and dangerous. Ranging from huge lizards that practically swam through the dunes to small spiders that hunted by leaping at their prey from dozens of feet away – Elijah found them all incredibly interesting.
He was a marine biologist by education, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have a soft spot for many other types of animals. It was a nice reminder that no matter how hostile the environment, nature generally found a way to not only survive, but to thrive as well.
Elijah found that comforting.
It also helped that they didn’t look at him like he was prey. Others wouldn’t have been afforded that assumption of safety.
For three days, Elijah steadily made his way inland and toward the ed location of the dragon Primal Realm. He didn’t need rumors to steer him, though. The rising ethera density was enough to guide his path. At present, it wasn’t nearly as thick as somewhere like Chimera Island, so he knew he had a long way to go before he reached his eventual destination.
If he’d encountered it even a year or two before, he couldn’t have even felt the difference so far away. But now, it seemed obvious.
On the third day, Elijah left the ash cloud behind. Given his pace – as well as the fact that he’d made it a point to stop and rest for at least six hours each day – he estimated he’d traveled somewhere between two- and three-hundred miles. Maybe more, but only slightly. In any case, the fact that the ash cloud extended that far was, in a word, astounding.
Only a few hours after leaving the last vestiges of cloud cover behind, Elijah missed it greatly. Certainly, it was nice to not smell sulfur with every breath he took, but with the constant sun beating down on the dunes, the air temperature had risen precipitously. If it was less than a hundred-and-fifty degrees, he would have been very surprised.
No normal human could have survived it. That much was obvious.
Elijah could only speculate how Shane had made it to Rubibi. Perhaps the heat hadn’t been quite so overbearing back then. Or maybe he’d gained enough constitution to survive. Either way, it was an impressive feat, and the man – as well as any other survivors – deserved to be commended.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, the violation.
On the fifth day, Elijah came across the first fallen city, half buried in the dunes.
He didn’t know the name of the city itself, but from the few signs that had survived, he expected that it had once been Polynesian. Or Melanesian, perhaps. Elijah had visited Somoa once, and he thought he recognized some of the non-English signs. However, he wasn’t familiar enough with the differences to make a determination.
What was obvious was that the city had once played host to a significant population. Maybe twenty or thirty thousand people, spread across a dozen miles or so. The main center of the dead city was only half a mile wide.
It was also entirely deserted.
When Elijah focused on Soul of the Wild, he sensed quite a few dead bodies. Most had been picked clean by opportunistic scavengers, but a few had been mummified by the dry air. He stumbled across a few places where people had obviously huddled together in an effort to escape the intense heat. Doubtless, they’d died from dehydration.
One group in particular was located in a small schoolhouse, identifiable by the green chalkboard lining one wall and the desks that had been pushed to the edges of the room. In the center were a few adult skeletons and two dozen smaller sets of remains.
When Elijah turned away, his cheeks were wet.
The only other landmark was the remains of a large cathedral. The building was bleached white, with a pair of faded blue domes. Normally, Elijah would have investigated it thoroughly, if only because the architecture was interesting. After everything he’d seen, he just didn’t have it in him, though.
As he left the haunting city behind, he saw a host of boats scattered across the dunes. Most were half-buried in the sand, but a few had been sent tumbling away by harsh winds. Almost every single one of them featured a few skeletons.
Elijah couldn’t help but be reminded of Seattle. Was this the fate they faced if he hadn’t intervened? Water wasn’t nearly as scarce in that desert, but the population was much higher. If he hadn’t introduced them to the elves, they might have all died to dehydration.
The ships around Seattle were different, though. There were plenty of smaller craft, but the truly noticeable ones were massive container ships. Around this unnamed Pacific island city, the vast majority of the boats were small fishing vessels. Somehow, that seemed more tragic, and not just because of the deaths themselves. These were people whose culture was built around the sea. To suddenly find themselves in a desert was a blow that extended far past the physical and into spiritual destruction.
And it was no wonder they had no idea how to survive such a calamity.
Over the next week, Elijah encountered a couple of other such towns. They were all deserted. The desert was entirely inhospitable to human life, so it shouldn’t have been surprising to find that no one had survived. Still, the sight of each dead body was like a hammerblow that he felt in his very soul.
None of those people deserved what had happened to them.
They should have been living happy lives, secure on their islands. Instead, they’d been displaced by an event completely out of their control. Picked up and thrown into a desert for which they were entirely unprepared.
Then, Elijah found the remains of an expedition. A few dozen people had taken shelter inside a lonely gas station. Since then, all but a few feet had been buried beneath the sands. It wasn’t difficult to work out what had happened to them. They might’ve been part of Shane’s procession, or they could’ve been from somewhere else entirely.
It didn’t matter.
They’d clearly chosen to rest inside the building, probably telling themselves that they would set out sometime in the future. But a combination of dehydration and hunger had killed them before they’d had a chance to make good on that plan. They were probably accompanied by others, because Elijah didn’t find anything useful on the corpses.
Not that he expected to, but it contributed to the story he’d concocted in his mind. Their companions had taken what they could and moved on. That was how it worked in survival situations. No time for nostalgia. Nor for grief. Move or die had to be the prevailing creed.
Elijah moved, but he couldn’t forget what he’d seen.
A day later, he stumbled upon something different. At first, Elijah barely registered it. But then, he was sprinting toward what appeared to be a group of living people. After so many corpses, seeing anyone was more than surprising.
And they were under attack.
The sound of ethereal rifle fire filled the air as more than a hundred people fired at a group of massive wasps. Even the smallest of those insects was as large as a human, and the biggest among them were closer in size to horses. Just as Elijah closed to within a couple hundred feet, he saw a particularly massive wasp swoop down and impale a black-clad soldier.
The man started to scream, but that was cut off only a second later when the wasp ripped its stinger free. A cascade of gunfire slammed into it, destroying one of its wings. It spun around in a tilted flight before crashing into the sand.
Elijah was on it a second later, his Verdant Fang descending with all the strength he could muster. It sliced into the wasp with a satisfying crunch followed by a wet squelch that sent ichor spraying into the air. The creature twitched as it tried to leverage its stinger in his direction, but the movement tore it apart.
Vaulting over the thing, Elijah shifted back into his human form. As his feet hit the ichor-soaked sands, he was already casting Blessing of the Grove as he simultaneously threw out Wild Resurgence. The man who’d been stung was all but dead, but there were plenty of others who would make it so long as Elijah focused.
Meanwhile, the gunfire never stopped, and for once, it wasn’t aimed at him. Whatever danger he might have represented, the soldiers were far more worried about the wasps.
Elijah leaped, kicked off of Cloud Step, and when he was even with the swarm, let loose with Lightning Domain. Electricity arced out in every direction, slamming into the wasps. A few died instantly, but most simply seized and fell from the sky. One managed to resist entirely, though, and Elijah leaped off another cushion of air and slammed his blade into its face.
Against that, it had no resistance.
Elijah sliced through its head, down its body, and finished by completely bisecting the creature. It showered him with ichor as it came apart, its two halves spiraling toward the sand as its wings neglected to realize that it was already dead.
He turned a flip, then hit the ground about forty feet away from the battle. The soldiers had descended upon the fallen wasps, using bayonets attached to their rifles, machetes, and field axes to hack them apart.
The battle was won.
But now, Elijah faced another problem. Clearly, these people were from Seattle, and he had no idea how they might react to his presence. He might’ve saved them, but he was a well-established enemy of the city.
Still, he didn’t let that deter him from stepping into the fray and continuing to heal them. If they attacked him, he might have to undo all the good he’d managed to accomplish, but until then, he’d help how he could.
After that, the ball was in their court.

11-28. Distant Grief