The Immortals of Notoriouslandia
Chapter 21: The Mountain Trial
A New Kind of Army
As night settled over the camouflaged ridge above the cyclops kingdom, Descentedrain stood alone, eyes closed, palm over the soil. He whispered ancient words—Immortal tongue, long dormant.
And the forest around him answered.
From the trees, roots began to rise.
Branches twisted into limbs. Bark cracked into armor. Glowing emerald eyes blinked into being.
He was calling on an ancient defense—the Wooden Sentience, living weapons crafted during the Immortal Wars. Not just animated trees—conscious weapons, forged to serve one purpose:
Protect the balance.
"They serve those who speak with truth," Descentedrain murmured as the first formed weapon bowed to him,"and war with those who shatter nature's peace."
The Assault on the Kingdom
The next morning, the Unbound Team rode with their new army—sentient wooden warriors wielding jagged branch-blades, splinter bows, and thorn-fused shields.
Down the cliffs they came, charging across all four elemental zones of the cyclops kingdom.
Sapphire led the attack on the wind and ice quadrants, freezing enemies mid-blink and exploding wind cyclopes from within using adaptive crystal pulses.
Mr. Shonk took the metal zone, barreling through steel-brutes and toppling watchtowers with shockwave punches while shouting:
"This one's for breakfast! This one's for last week! This one's just for fun!"
Kukranchunlikryting unleashed gas clouds laced with static discharge and mind-slowing poison, infecting whole formations before finishing them with precision strikes.
Descentedrain flew high, channeling the power of his sword and commanding the Wooden Ones like an extension of his will. They swarmed fire cyclopes and drowned their flame under moss, dirt, and sentient vine-strangulation.
Even the Bruytereginagrating—the towering four-armed elemental king—fell.
Weakened by coordinated strikes, tripped by rooted warriors, blinded by Sapphire's crystal-flash, and finally split down the middle by Descentedrain's enhanced gravity blade.
The Message Found
The battle was over.
The valley, once deafened by war-cries and elemental chaos, now sat in quiet ruin.
The team searched the central temple, a cyclopean citadel carved into the stone.
Inside, they found no treasure, no enemy survivors, and no king's throne.
Only a note, burned into a slab of rock and written in a language only the Immortals could read.
Descentedrain read it aloud.
"You have strength. But strength does not make you heroes.Come to me at Mount Flaryintanhing, and I will see if you are worthy.— The One Who Stirs the Parasite Flame"
The team stood in silence.
"Who is that supposed to be?" Mr. Shonk asked, rubbing a burn on his arm.
"Not a cyclops," Kukranchunlikryting muttered."Something worse. Something smarter."
Sapphire's voice was quiet but focused.
"Then we climb the mountain."
Two Huts and Rest Before the Storm
That evening, they made camp at the edge of the ruined valley, away from the stench of blood and embers.
Two huts, same pairings as always:
Mr. Shonk and Kukranchunlikryting in one.(Already arguing about sleep volume and snack rules.)
Descentedrain and Sapphire in the other.(Already sitting in comfortable silence, exchanging glances across the soft flicker of the campfire.)
Sapphire leaned back on her travel mat, tossing a tiny crystal into the air, watching it spin.
"You're always one step ahead," she said quietly.
Descentedrain closed his eyes, leaning against the wooden wall.
"I just follow where the danger points. That's where the answers are."
She smiled, eyes soft.
"Then let's hope that mountain has answers."
"Because the questions are starting to scare me."
Ascent into the Cold
The wind howled as the Unbound Team stood at the foot of Mount Flaryintanhing—an ancient peak where the snow never stopped, and the ground pulsed with cold even the sun dared not touch.
They climbed slowly, cutting through gales, gripping onto frozen stone and crystal ladders grown from the earth. Along the way, they faced warped cyclopes, infected and displaced from warmer biomes.
One was armored in sandstone, now brittle and cracking in the cold.
Another was fire-born, its flames snuffed by the storm, stumbling like a smothered torch.
One was insectoid, multi-eyed and covered in moss, now frozen mid-blink.
Each one fell quickly—not to brute force, but to the environment.
"They weren't made for this," Sapphire noted, slicing through the last one with a shimmering crystal blade."Something sent them up here anyway."
Descentedrain frowned as he looked further up the ridge.
"A test. One we weren't supposed to pass."
The Bone Sage Appears
At the summit, where a spiral of bone pylons formed a makeshift throne, he waited.
Draped in a robe of black feathers and stitched sinew, the Bone Sage stood, his back to them, holding a staff carved from a titan's spine.
His eyes didn't glow. They pulled light inward—twin pits of gravitational death.
When he spoke, it echoed across the peak:
"You've climbed well. Fought better. But not everything can be solved with heat and blades."
He turned.
The battle began.
The Battle – Necromancy and Telekinesis
He raised his bone staff, and from the surrounding snow rose the dead—icy skeletons of long-dead cyclopes, fused with parasite shells.
With his telekinesis, he hurled boulders like snowballs, shattered glaciers into flying blades, and ripped weapons from their hands mid-fight.
Sapphire blinked across the battlefield, launching shards that were turned aside with his mind.
Kukranchunlikryting's toxins froze in the air, reversed by necrotic wind.
Mr. Shonk slammed the Sage into a rock—only to be hurled back with invisible force.
Descentedrain narrowed his eyes.
"He's strong with the mind and the dead… but…"
He spotted the tremble in the Sage's knees. The way his staff leaned a little more each second.
"He's not physically strong. That's the weakness."
Exposing the Weakness
Descentedrain used psychic gravity to pin the Sage's legs, forcing him to rely solely on floating.
Sapphire knocked his staff aside, breaking his defensive flow.
Shonk rushed him—hit him with a punch so thunderous the ground cracked in a circle.
The Sage fell to one knee.
"Impressive," he wheezed, as shadows retreated into the wind,"But you haven't solved everything."
Before they could strike again, he disappeared in a ripple of void.
In his place—a sealed scroll, wrapped in frost and gold thread.
Descentedrain knelt and opened it.
The ink shimmered as he read aloud:
"Well met, Flame-Bearers of the Broken Age.But true trials do not happen in snow and sword.If you would prove yourselves, find me now… at the Temple of Eternal Questions.Where mind must lead what might cannot."
Camp at the Peak – Rewards and Rizz
Night fell on the summit.
The team built two small huts in a cratered alcove of warm stone and glowing roots. The blizzard kept its distance, pushed back by Descentedrain's radiant telekinetic heatfield—a glowing aura that shielded them like a dome.
Before they slept, Descentedrain walked to each of them with gifts—enhanced rewards, custom to their tastes:
Mr. Shonk received ultra-rare mango graham bars laced with chillwave crunch and firecore jam.
"This is gourmet!" he declared, already three bars deep.
Kukranchunlikryting was handed a vial of molten-hot cocoa infused with rare blue acid marshmallows that glowed in the dark.
"Spicy, violent, delicious," he approved.
Sapphire was given star-crystal berries harvested from high-altitude plants only found on Flaryintanhing's cliffs—sweeter, rarer, glowing softly.
She bit one, closed her eyes, then looked at Descentedrain across the fire.
"You do realize every time you do this… you accidentally get more attractive?"
He blinked.
"It's just a reward—"
"No," she smirked, leaning closer. "It's charisma. Weaponized."
He flushed slightly, turning away, only to hear Shonk from the other hut shout:
"HE'S RIZZING AGAIN!"
Everyone laughed.
They slept under the stars—closer to the Temple of Eternal Questions…and to the truth.