[Ouroboros' End]
As they followed the ogre scouts, the forest around Darganth and the others soon caught the first glimpses of the mountain before them. Though not even remotely comparable to the towering behemoth that the dragon peaks back on Ikrus are, the peaks that were visible through the only slowly lightening cover of treetops still reached over one thousand meters in height.
Shortly after this first sighting, the ground around them became more uneven. Scattered stones started appearing amid the increasingly thinning number of trees, the bushes of the forest's undergrowth became a less common sight, while the hills they came across grew ever larger. Soon, they outgrew the definition of the word entirely as the protruding stones mixed with them to form jagged mountain cliffs. By that point, the forest had also given way to a loose collection of scattered trees, fully unveiling the steep mountains that the group had then found themselves before.
But while they looked imposing, under the guidance of the ogres, they proved to be all but, at least to a traveler familiar with them. Amid insurmountable-looking cliffs, clearly artificial pathways were cleverly hidden in various shadows and behind debris. Ranging form holes that looked to have been cut into the mountainside by blunt impacts based on the jagged edges to entire stairways that were either cut into the mountain or made from placed stones, these pathways allowed their group to reach the highest point of their crossing barely over a day after they departed from the clearing, with most of this time having been spend reaching the mountains in the first place.
Once there, the rocky plain on the other side unveiled itself to them. For dozens, if not hundreds of kilometers, an orange stone desert stretched across the plains. Gray and orange rocks lay scattered on the dry and oftentimes cracked stone ground, with a thin layer of sand filling any crevices and forming a continuous thin film on the stone.
Towering above this desolate waste were numerous crystalline structures. Varying greatly in size, these glowing blue pillars seemed to be growing out of the ground, with a small hill of loose stone encasing their base, likely brought forth when they had burst from the ground. Above this, a smooth but wavy and askew body stretched skyward. In some cases, this bend reached as much as forty-five degrees, leaving the pointed tip that all of them ended in pointing toward the horizon.
At the foot of one of the closest of these pillars, Darganth then spotted the ogre camp. Drawn toward that particular area by the thick plumes of smoke that rose into the sky, his gaze fell onto the collection of likely over a thousand loosely packed tents that stood there, each one half a dozen meters or more tall to accommodate their ogre inhabitants.
Built with no uniformity, each of these tents looked to have been thrown together from whatever its creator could get their hands on. Pieces of leather and fur harvested from both monsters and beasts made up the majority of the tents' covers, with a mixture of cut-down tree trunks and bones forming a majority of the structure that held them in place. In between, a rare few wooden houses were found, along with metal cages as large as the tents, the odd wagon or sled, and multiple large pits in the stone ground that were all strewn around in the camp.
Though while these tents existed, even with the ogres only being tiny specks in his sight, Darganth could tell that they cared as little for private space as the ogre tribes he had encountered in the past. Individual ogres were doing everything from eating to sleeping wherever they pleased, with fights regularly breaking out whenever two ogres clashed over food, a particular spot in the camp, or just because they were bored.
In general, life in an ogre camp mainly happened in the open, with personal space and privacy only existing when enforced through martial might, as large crowds filled the wide paths between the tents. And even then, an ogre has to first care for these things, something that few ever do. Even their clothing when outside of battle reflects this carefree attitude toward what others see of them, with male and female ogres alike covering their bodies only from the hips downward, and even then only by, and for the purpose of, displaying various trophies.
From experience, he also knew that the tents, with very few exceptions, likely didn't even belong to a specific ogre. Instead, each of them entered and left whichever tent they wanted, limited only by the whims of stronger ogres and the results of any fights over tents and other property.
The interplay of all of this created a scene of chaos that few things can match. At the sight of this, a few of the ogres in the group with Darganth and the others started to laugh and talk excitedly.
"A feast. Means a good hunt." One of them commented at the sight.
"It's a good welcome." Another said, his words ambiguous as to whether he means a welcome for their return or a greeting for Darganth and his group's arrival.
When Darganth followed their gaze toward one of the more crowded edges of the camp, he saw the results of the earlier confrontation between the ogres and the smugglers that the latter had spoken about. There, amid the columns of over forty ogres from the hunting party, loot of every kind was visible, though not all of it from the smugglers.
Near the helm, four ogres carried two massive wooden beams on their shoulders, with a wooden platform filled with looted magic items and other treasures hanging suspended between them. Behind them, another group lifted two metal cages with still living captives from the group of smugglers inside. A few meters further back there then came an assembly of trophies and miscellaneous loot the hunters had taken, with various capes and banners being displayed on poles and carried along with them, while various boxes, possibly taken out of the spatial mage's personal pocket dimension, and smaller items that Darganth couldn't identify from the distance he was at.
This was then followed by four massive corpses, one monster, and three beasts. Dragged along by two or three ogres each, the sight of these creatures imposing finale of the procession caused the surrounding ogres to erupt into cheers that were still audible atop the mountains.
While Darganth was perfectly content to watch from their position atop the mountain until the celebrations moved further into the camp, the ogre's accompanying them weren't as keen on missing the feast, "Get moving, food awaits."
Nodding dryly in response to the leader's words, Darganth too turned toward the pathway where the ogres were already following the trail back down the mountain. Pausing briefly, he took a moment to wait for the women of his group to also turn their attention to the upcoming descent before joining in on it at Jennia's side.
"It would be easier to just fly." His wife said as they took the first step down the narrow path that had been cut into the stone.
"Certainly. But I don't want to be spotted by the camp before our guides can inform them that we're here on the invitation of their leader or whatever the chosen one is. Easier to avoid accidents this way."
"Who says I meant flying closer toward the camp?"
Raising an eyebrow, Darganth glanced toward her with a questioning look.
"Well, look at it, this place is completely inhospitable. The only worthwhile thing down there is a possible alliance with the ogres, and that can also be struck if we invite the chosen to meet us up here or on the other side of the mountains. How they looked at this place and chose that side to settle doesn't make sense to me anyway." Jennia complained.
Her words held only faint traces of her usual playful attitude, instead being filled with annoyance. In her transformed state, her physical strength was no different than that of a human. Even with her training in aura enhancing it to the level of an equally trained human, a day of marching still took its toll when she didn't supplement her physique with magic. And to her regret, the ogre's description of the distance they had to travel hadn't made her take it seriously enough for that, something that she now was too prideful to change and admit being wrong after having boasted to their potential allies that it would be no problem.
"Probably these pillars. Even I've never seen anything like them before. They seem to be drawing water in and depositing it into the ocean that's under here, though I'm not sure whether that is their main effect or a side effect. Because the truly fascinating part is that they seem to draw in mana from below ground in return. And while some of it crystallizes and causes these pillars to grow, they emit the rest as if they were miniature mana springs. Honestly, I've seen many ways to draw mana from a planet, but rarely are they this ingenious."
"That would explain why they made their camp around one. Despite my misgivings with their choice, I do admit it's admirable to endure the harshness of this place for a chance to grasp more power. Though I wonder why they didn't choose one of the closely packed clusters, the mana there should be denser."
Having overheard her words, the ogres' leader answered before Darganth could, "Because we stay close to the mountains. Once they protected us. In their shadow we've grown. Now we honor them with loyalty."
"So tradition." Darganth summarized the ogre's explanation.
"Ancient purpose. We know what treads these plains. Great game comes with great danger. The mountains are a shield for those inside. We're ready, should we need them again." The ogre responded.
"This place gets better with every word I hear of it." Jennia commented sarcastically.
"Well, we still have an entire stay before us to learn more about it." Darganth answered with a laugh.
As Jennia rolled her eyes in response, the camp came back into view to their right. Having been hidden by the walls of the path when it had made a turn to the left, they now found themselves about a hundred meters closer than before. Though they couldn't see it with any significant new clarity, the cliff at the top of which they found themselves gave them a brief glimpse at their destination before they started the second of many sections of their descent.