Nalrond refused to believe that Mogar could be playing such a cruel joke on him and took flight to reach the distant source of those painful signs of life. He didn't care about leaving the others behind nor about them yelling for an explanation.
He crossed the few kilometers separating him from the ruins of his village in a few minutes, but not even all the spells he had woven in the case Dawn had returned to take the Fringe as her own could prepare him for what he found.
Houses instead of ruins and people instead of undead. The exhaustion from the long travel and one shock too many made him faint, plunging to the ground with the grace of a boulder.
***
Jiera continent, Fenagar's lair, outside the city of Reghia.
Fenagar the Leviathan, Zagran the Garuda, and Roghar the Fenrir sat together at a round table for the first time in a long while. All pieces of furniture were made from a single dead branch of the World Tree.
Veins of the seven colors of the elements streaked the wood, making it able to withstand the weight of the Guardians and, if necessary, their fury.
Baba Yaga in her mother form attended that meeting as an honored guest, along with another woman of equal beauty. Her silver-colored hair bore streaks of all elements, marking her as one of the few humans blessed with talent in all forms of magic.
Yet what made her worthy of the assembly was her eyes that carried the seven colors of the elements as well. Last, but not least, the holograms of the three Guardians of the Garlen continent appeared one after another.
All of the Guardians had assumed their respective humanoid appearance to better contain their powers and keep natural disasters from happening. There was a reason why the six original Guardians rarely met.
Words would easily turn into insults and if things got physical, many maps would need to be rewritten. That's why they had asked the two white-cored women to act as peacemakers.
With their powers, they could contain the anger of a Guardian long enough to calm them down or at least to prevent the ensuing destruction from spreading.
"Since I doubt that anyone here enjoys each other company, let's move straight to business." Fenagar said, obtaining only nods of approval in response.
He looked like a humanoid reptile covered in white scales, about two meters (6'7") tall, wearing a lab coat and gold-rimmed round glasses. Fenagar didn't like taking human form because people kept telling him how much he resembled Leegaain.
'The six original Guardians agreeing on something is a rare event, child.' Baba Yaga chuckled through the mind link while being careful that no one else but her companion could hear her thoughts.
'It's my first time seeing all of them together, so I'll take your word for it.' The woman couldn't stop sweating bullets just by looking at the table.
Even the holograms emitted so much mana that the air around them crackled with power, making it hard to even breathe.
'Build yourself a mage tower, child. Those like us who can't draw endless power from Mogar need all the edges they can get.' Baba Yaga shook her flaming red hair in disapproval while staring at her peer with her emerald eyes.
"The reason why I requested this meeting is simple. I want to discuss both the situation of Jiera and the anomaly. I don't like to admit it, but I think that Jiera might need help to contain the current crisis." Fenagar glared at Zagran who was already yawning.
She looked like a bulky woman in her mid-twenties, over 1.8 meters (6') tall, with shoulder-length blue hair, deep purple skin and eyes. Zagran wore a sleeveless shirt that left exposed her muscular arms covered in battle scars that she refused to heal.
"Contain what? The anomaly has yet to reach a power that might be considered threatening and he has never shown any sign of malevolence." Tyris asked.
"The anomaly is just a curiosity. Fenagar is talking about the lost cities." Roghar the Fenrir replied.
He looked like a handsome man in his early thirties about 1.65 meters (5'5") tall, with ashen grey skin, short silver hair, and grey eyes. He had the lean built of a scholar and wore an ample golden mage robe.
"The beasts are doing their best to keep all the living legacies contained, but some arrays are more easily destroyed than opened without the correct password. The disappearance of the human race on Jiera brought much trouble upon us.
"On the one hand, we don't want to fix the mess they made. Destroying a living legacy is never easy, especially after they had centuries to build their strength. On the other hand, however, the survivors have no way to stop them and no fault in their creations.
"If we leave them as they are now, life on Jiera will disappear."
"Then you would have failed your role as Guardians and everyone will migrate to our continent." Salaark's voice oozed ill-concealed wrath. "I hope you're not going to ask our permission to come along because I don't like having guests.
"I worked hard to destroy all the cursed objects in the Blood Desert and to make sure that the only fruits the research of forbidden magic would bear were those of the trees growing on the graves of those foolish enough to break my law."
"I worked hard, you mean." Leegaain said with a grunt. "I'm the one who had to research the proper way to dispose of them without turning entire regions into wastelands for centuries."
Even though the most dangerous living legacies drew their power from mana geysers, Guardians could easily dispose of them with sheer might. Alas, the deadly offspring of Forbidden Magic would usually spread their plague even in death.
The sudden release of wild energies after their destruction would taint the lands, making them inhabitable for prolonged periods of time unless someone knew how to do it properly as Lith did with the Black Star.
"No, I worked hard. You just keep your scaly ass glued to a chair all day long whereas I run an entire country and take care of dozens of millions of lives. Doing some research for me isn't that big of a deal." Salaark replied.
"Your judgment is as hasty and unfair as usual, Salaark." Zagran the Garuda said.
"We didn't fail as Guardians because our role is to keep the balance, not to babysit a bunch of noisy brats that like to spend most of their brief lives devising new ways to kill each other. It's not our fault if they don't survive their own success.
"I kept my turf in check and I even know all the passwords to the arrays. Living legacies are among the few opponents that don't die as soon as I glare at them. If someone else didn't do the same it's their fault. I don't see why I should bother with it."
"Because once one of them goes on a rampage, no one on either side of the ocean will be safe." Fenagar said. "Destroying them is easy, but if too many of them escape their confinement at the same time, the consequences might be dire."
The Guardians had no love for their respective counterparts, but refusing to help Fenagar would only endanger Garlen as well.
