“Arthur, what are you doing?” Annabeth asked, confusion filling her voice.
“I want Stygian Iron, and I want it now. Give me what you have, or I’ll take it. You won’t like it if I do.” I sheathed my sword and ambled over to the table. Voices continued to cackle in my skull like a flock of crows, but at least we were in agreement. We wanted something, and they’d give it to us or else. My gauntlet-covered hand closed around a mug of ale, and as I raised it to my lips, I glanced back at the princess.
“Why are you still here? Go get my metal before I get really angry.” I made a shooing motion toward the princess, but her eyes were still tracking my movements, still following me to the chair. As she completed the motion, the wind displaced from my motion hit her full on, throwing her back through the door and into the hall. As she hit the far wall outside, I turned to the empty seat next to me. “Come, Annabeth. Have a seat.”
19
“What do you mean that’s all you have?” I asked, glaring at the small handful of black ingots Mina had offered me. I wasn’t quite sure where the princess was, but I hadn’t seen her since she’d left to get the metal a couple hours ago. Since then, Annabeth and I had been waiting here trying to make the best of things. It hadn’t been so bad because the dwarves had finally given us food and drink, though I wasn’t sure what Annabeth had said to the two guards outside to get them to do it.
“Stygian Iron is nearly impossible to extract from the ground, and even harder to purify into ore.” Mina pointed at what had to be less than a hundred grams of the stuff. “This is all we’ve got.”
“What about armor, weapons, cookie sheets?” I growled, slamming one fist onto the table. I got to my feet and came around the long table. Clearly, she wasn’t taking me seriously. I wanted something from her, something I deserved, and they weren’t giving it to me after I’d been nice enough to let them live. “This can’t be all you have. This is a mountain full of dwarves. Go bring me all the metal. Now.” I glared at her as my hand inched toward my sword. “Or next time I won’t be so nice.”
“We figured you’d ask for stuff like that,” Mina said, placing a handful of pictures on the table in front of me. “We have nothing made of Stygian iron. The items you see pictured have some designs painted with it, but there are scant amounts of it. Even if we took it all, it wouldn’t even be a third of what’s on the table.” She gestured at the dark pieces of metal. “There really isn’t any. We’re not hiding it from you. The absolute last thing we want is for Wrath to come back more pissed off.”
“So, this whole trip has been worthless,” I said, gripping the table so hard, the wood started to creak. I needed the metal to reforge Clarent, and while I wasn’t a blacksmith, I could tell what we had wouldn’t do the job. We’d need a lot more than this. “Why didn’t you tell me before I spent the last few hours sitting here? My time is fucking valuable.”
“Your time hasn’t been wasted,” Mina said, hands going up defensively, and as I looked at her, I wondered if she expected me to attack her. “I can help you get more iron.” She showed me a copy of the contract I’d brought with me. The one that showed the node for Stygian Iron. It was where I’d planned to go once I’d learned how to pull the stuff out of the ground.
“How can you help me get it?” I gestured at the paper in her hands. “That metal is at the bottom of a goddamned volcano, and I don’t know how to get it out.”
“That’s why I’m here. I know more about Stygian Iron mining than anywhere on the planet.” She pointed at those ingots. “Who do you think got those?”
“Arthur, before you get angry, I think you should consider her offer. If she comes with us, maybe it will work out,” Annabeth said, putting a hand on my shoulder. Her touch had a calming effect on me, which was weird because I hadn’t realized how angry I’d become.
“Fine,” I said, holding out my hands to the two of them. “Let’s go.”
Mina stared at me dumbly but made no motion to come to me.
“Just do it,” Annabeth said, pocketing the few ingots of Stygian Iron before taking my hand. “Arthur can teleport.”
“How?” Mina asked, taking a tentative step forward. “How could he possibly do that?”
“I used the Armament I got from the Archangel of Envy to borrow the ability from Sathanus,” I said, tapping my ouroboros belt buckle with one finger before reaching out to her again. “I can teleport until I decide to replace it with a new power.”
“Seems handy,” Mina said, but I got the impression she still didn’t believe me. Either way, she took my hand.
“It is,” I whispered, concentrating on the coordinates for the Stygian Iron deposit. I had a vague idea where it was, and as I felt Wrath’s power come over me and mix with that of Envy’s belt, I could clearly see the mountain in my mind’s eye. It was huge and covered in snow, but from the look of things, it didn’t appear dangerous or active. Now the cone of the volcano was solid rock. “When was the last time this volcano erupted?”
“Mount Asmosuvius hasn’t erupted in a long time. We shouldn’t have to worry about that,” Mina said, nodding once. “Though that is one of the reasons we haven’t managed to extract the material.”
“Because it could trigger an eruption?” I asked, concerned. “Should we try elsewhere?”
“There’s nowhere else to try. There is Stygian Iron spread throughout the whole of Hell, but each deposit will only yield an ingot similar to the ones you have. We could spend weeks mining them and barely increase what you have by a third. This is our best bet, assuming you’re strong enough to get it.” Mina took a deep breath, and for some reason, the way she had said it bugged me.
“I guess we’ll see,” I grumbled, reaching out to the spell stored within my belt and triggering it. There was a flash of lightning in my mind, and then we were standing atop the peak.
Cold cut through me like an arctic blast, and as I stood there, trying to acclimate myself to it, Annabeth cried out.
“It’s so cold!” Annabeth screeched, wrapping her arms around her body. “I think I’m going to die.” Her teeth chattered as she spoke. Beside me, Mina was also shivering, her knees knocking together so hard, I began to wonder what was going on.
Sure, it was cold, but not to the degree they seemed to be experiencing. No, it was more like when I went outside in my boxers on an October morning. Cold, sure, but not unbearable.
That’s when I realized the ice beneath my feet was starting to melt. Steam curled upward from it, and I could feel something deep below calling to me, something familiar that made my heart hammer. It was weird because I could have sworn I felt Gwen with me, felt her wrapping her arms around me and keeping me warm. Only, how could that be possible?
I wasn’t sure, but now wasn’t the time to find out. No. Right now I needed to figure out how to help my friends. “This won’t work,” I said, glancing at Mina and Annabeth before grabbing their hands.
In an instant, we were back inside the dwarven stronghold. The sudden change in temperature was unnerving, but nice in a weird way. It was sort of like stepping into a warm lodge after an afternoon skiing.
“Mina, get us proper supplies for the trip,” I said, kneeling beside Annabeth and running my hands up and down her arms in an effort to warm her up. “Are you okay?”
“I will be,” she said, nuzzling toward me for warmth. “Oh, you’re so warm.” Her breath was hot on my neck as she spoke, and then she wrapped her arms around me, pulling my body against hers.
“Don’t mind me,” Mina said, getting to her feet and stumbling toward the door. Her beard was covered with frost, and she was breathing hard, but at the same time, she seemed way better off than Annabeth. “I’ll get the gear and meet you back here in a few minutes.”
It wasn’t a few minutes. It was more like an hour, but when Mina returned, she had a lot more than warm clothes. While Annabeth changed into her new duds, I opted only to take a warm cloak because they didn’t have anything that’d fit me. Besides, I
’d felt warm enough thanks to the heat surge in my chest, whatever that was.
“What is all this?” I asked, glancing at the three backpacks the dwarf had brought. They were laden with gear.
“Food, water, tent, sleeping bags, few pairs of socks.” She nodded to me. “Mine also has some miscellaneous mining tools, and I’ll be bringing my lucky pick.” She tapped the weapon as it hung from a loop on her belt. “Admittedly, since you can run us back and forth, we don’t need to stay out there, but at the same time, I wanted to be prepared.” She offered me a stoppered black bottle. “Drink this.”
“What is it?” I asked, eyeing it carefully as I took it from her.
“A warming potion. Should help keep away the worst of the cold. You’ll need it especially if all you’re taking is a cloak.” She shrugged. “Or don’t and freeze to death. It isn’t like I care. If you die, I’ll just slit you from throat to crotch and crawl inside you for warmth.”
“Fair enough,” I said, popping the top but before I could take a drink, Annabeth snatched it from my hands.
“Let me try it first, that way if something happens to me, you’ll know.” Then before I could tell her I didn’t want her to risk herself for me, she took a long gulp of the liquid. Her skin began to glow faintly red before the effect faded. “Ugh, it tastes like cod liver oil.”
“I’ve never actually had that before,” I said, watching her. “Do you feel okay otherwise?”
“Yeah,” she stuck her tongue out like she was trying to look at it. “I think you’re safe.”
“Of course, he’s safe. If we did something to him, Wrath would smite us. As a rule, I don’t want to get smote.” Mina shook her head. “Now let’s go, daylight is burning, and it will be colder at night. Much colder.”
“Got it,” I said, taking my own drink. The vile liquid seemed to touch every part of my soul as the taste of fish, liver, and the all-consuming anger of Hades itself slid down my throat. Then I was suddenly warm. So warm, it was actually uncomfortable.
“Good, let’s go. It’s starting to get a might hot in here, and I absolutely don’t want to take off my clothes in front of you.” Mina gave me a sour look and held out her hand to me.
“That’s where you’re supposed to say ‘no offense,’” I replied, taking her hand while offering my other one to Annabeth who took it.
“That so,” Mina said, looking me over. “Interesting.”
With that, I stepped back through the void and onto the frozen mountain.
20
The ice crunched beneath my feet as I cinched my cloak tighter and made my way around the volcano. The top wasn’t actually that big, maybe a hundred feet or so in diameter, but it made up for that in wind. Because we were a bit lower than the lip, the wind sort of funneled down into the crater, making it so most of the snow was over a foot deep.
We’d spent some time clearing away a small patch, and now Annabeth and Mina were busy setting up camp, giving me time to try to locate the Stygian Iron deposit. There was just one problem. Even with the Relentless Grips of Greed, I couldn’t tell where the big nodes were. All around me, tooltips popped up indicating Stygian Iron, but since I had no way of knowing which one was the biggest, I was worried I’d have to pull them all up.
Before, I could sort of go by the difficulty and depth to ascertain how large the source might be, but all of them were at max difficulty. What’s more, there were a lot of other high difficulty ores sprinkled about. I wasn’t sure what any of them were, nor what they were used for, but something told me they’d be valuable too. Still, that was something I could discuss with Mina.
As the marker for the next Stygian Iron node appeared in my vision, I moved toward it, taking a quick glance at the tooltip.
Stygian Iron
Material Type: metal
Grade: S (Average)
Depth: 6,000 meters
Difficulty: 10
Proficiency: 0/100
Overall Proficiency: 10/100
A type of hellion iron typically used in the construction of powerful weapons and armor.
It was just like the others, giving me no indication as to how much of it there actually was. Still, I marked it anyway by planting one of the stakes in the snow over the top. Mina had asked me to do that, and I was hoping that, by the time I was done, we’d be able to come up with a game plan.
It took the better part of an hour to mark all thirty-six nodes. As I headed back toward the small camp the girls had made, I could see smoke rising into the air from a fire. I glanced up at the peaks rising above our small crater, worried the rising heat might melt the snow and cause an avalanche, but they were situated out away from the peak, making it likely that if the snow did come crashing down, it’d miss us and roll on down the mountain.
“Want something to drink?” Annabeth asked, offering me a cup of steaming liquid as I approached. “It’s dwarven tea.”
“Sure,” I said, taking the cup and blowing on the steam. Truth be told, I didn’t need it because I didn’t really feel cold. I knew part of it was due to the potion and the cloak, but a lot more of it came from the pulsing heat in my chest. That had been part of the reason I’d walked around the crater. I’d hoped I could find what was making it go crazy, but unfortunately, the pulse seemed strong and steady no matter where I stood on the mountain.
The tea itself was good, if a bit strong, reminding me of the horrible stuff my boss had always liked at the Seven Eleven. Way too many spices and a bit too sweet. Still, it was something, and since I didn’t know when my next break would be, I was inclined to stand by the fire and take a minute.
“That log should burn for about four hours,” Mina said, tapping her covered wrist. “I have a timer set to alert me about a half hour before so I can put the next one on.” She glanced at the sky and stared at the swirling mass of colors overhead for a minute. “We should plan on vacating before the second log burns.”
“Why?” I asked, watching her carefully. “That’s the second time you’ve brought it up, and I find it hard to believe it is a temperature thing.” I gestured to where she had a few more bottles of the warming potion. There was even another bottle with a yellow label and the words XD on them. “You have lots of potions.”
“I’m worried about the guardian, not the cold.” She wrapped her arms around her chest. “Not that the cold is a picnic.”
“What guardian?” I asked, my interest piqued. It was a little weird because instead of being scared or worried, I felt a rush of adrenaline at the thought of a fight. Only that wasn’t like me. Normally, I was a bit more cautious, a bit more careful. That wasn’t me anymore, or at least now. Now I wanted the guardian to come so I could show it who was the boss.
“There’s an old legend about a guardian who comes in the dead of night.” Mina gave me a sheepish shrug. “Not sure if it’s real or not, but I don’t really want to find out.”
“You’re scared of an old wives tale?” Annabeth asked, looking up from her spot a little ways from the fire. She looked like she was sculpting something out of a giant block of ice, though I couldn’t quite tell the shape.
“Those stories come from somewhere,” the dwarf said, trudging over to me. “You wanna stay and check it out, be my guest, but I’d rather sleep the night in my warm bed.” She moved like she was going to smack me on the back, but then thought better of it. “Anyway, let’s go look at the nodes you marked.”
“Alright,” I said, walking off toward the closest one. It was only a few meters away, but I quickly found the dwarf had a lot harder time moving through the snow than I did thanks to her short legs. “Want me to carry you?”
“I certainly do not!” she hollered, already red-faced as she kicked a path through the snow.
“Fine,” I said, shrugging as I turned from the spot I’d marked and glanced at the tooltip the gauntlets conjured up.
Stygian Iron
Material Type: metal
Grade: S (Average)
Depth: 5,768 m
eters
Difficulty: 10
Proficiency: 0/100
Overall Proficiency: 10/100
A type of hellion iron typically used in the construction of powerful weapons and armor.
The node was still there, and while I hadn’t expected it to move, I had to be sure.
“Say, how do you mine Stygian Iron?” I asked, watching her try to use my footsteps as a way to get to me. Only her legs weren’t long enough for that either, and she fell face first into a snow drift. When she came up, her beard was a sheet of sleet and ice, and her wool cap was frosty and white.
“Normally, you don’t,” Mina said, finally reaching me and staring at the stake. “You get trace amounts of it with other ore. The best way to think about it is like a giant claw that grips other kinds of metal.” She tapped the stake. “I’m guessing there’s a deposit of some other kind of metal here too, right?”
“Yeah,” I said, glancing at the tooltip to be sure.
Red Steel
Material Type: metal
Grade: A (Average)
Depth: 5,768 meters
Difficulty: 8
Proficiency: 0/100
Overall Proficiency: 10/100
A type of hellion metal typically used in the construction of projectile weapons.
“Something called Red Steel,” I said, scrunching up my face. “Although I’m fairly certain steel is an alloy.”
“Red Steel is quite valuable. It’s normally used to make arrowheads and the like because while being incredibly light, it’s incredibly durable and can be sharpened to a razor’s edge. It almost never dulls afterward.” She looked at the marker for a moment. “My guess is that the Stygian Iron is wrapped around the Red steel, or at least a lot of it is.”
“So, what would you suggest?” I asked, wondering if it would be possible to untangle the two metals underground. I didn’t have high hopes for that though. Something told me they’d only become separated in the refining process.
“I suggest you pull the Red Steel up if you can. Most of the Stygian Iron will come up with it. Then maybe you can pull up what’s left with your magic or we can move to the next node.” Mina shrugged. “Red Steel isn’t hard to mine usually, so you ought to be able to get it with your nifty gloves.” She gestured at my gauntlets.
The Builder's Pride (The Legendary Builder Book 3) Page 13
