The first of them to see success in their endeavours that week was Remi. On the third day after they had hidden inside the village to wait out the volcanic fallout, she managed to reach a level of success with her Totems that none of the others had expected.

"Well, did you find something good in the book?" Karl asked as the overjoyed Spirit Snake came outside to show off for everyone at the same time.

Remi shook her head, and gave a smile that made her fangs drop, startling the members of the other group, except for Doug, who had been expecting it.

She focused hard, glowing with red energy for a moment, and then a small Lamia statue appeared on the ground.

It was four-armed, with brown scales and a cream underside, where Karl had been expecting it to be blue and gold like Remi herself, but the head definitely looked like Remi.

The statue just sat there, looking almost lifelike, until Remi asked Karl for some help.

[I need a target.] She explained.

"Remi needs a target for her spell." Karl informed the others, causing Dana to create her two Golems for the Spirit Snake to work with.

"There you go, Remi. Show us what you've got." The mage laughed, unsure what the statue was actually going to be able to do against a Golem. Unless it was a form of Golem itself.

The totem rotated to face the Golems, and then began spitting flaming balls at the Golems, leaving them scorched and dripping with some sort of thick burning liquid.

[Flaming Serpent Totems. They burn and poison!] Remi declared proudly.

After a dozen fireballs over the course of thirty seconds, the Golems were looking ready to crumble and the totem vanished, but that was more than enough for the group to see what they could do.

"Burning poison? That's a new one, I thought she was an Ice Element creature with a secondary lightning attack?" Doug asked.

"She's a Shaman Class creature. A natural-born Spirit Snake Shaman." Karl explained.

"So, she's basically an Elemental caster, with a full range? Those totems will be a game changer for ambushes. They can be left behind, and they will attack enemies without putting anyone in danger." Doug realized.

Remi's shock startled Karl. She had never considered using them that way.

[How were you thinking they should be used?] Karl asked the little snake, curious as to how her mind worked.

[You put them on your backpack, and they fire poison fireballs at anything trying to bother you.]

Hawk laughed in amusement. There was no doubt about it, he had been the inspiration for that totem, sitting on Dana's backpack and firing fireballs.

[Maybe stupid snake isn't as stupid as I thought.] He mused, keeping the communication as a whisper between him and Karl, so Remi couldn't hear him.

"Remi says she thought they would be good if you put them on your backpack, so they would go where you go, and protect the group. They only last thirty seconds or so right now, but I think that with some practice and time, that can be extended." Karl relayed to the group.

"Oh, that's not bad. A defensive snake totem." Ophelia agreed, then frowned.

The totems were too small to see over her head when she was in bear form. But they could at least watch her back or something, she guessed.

But just casting them on the ground to the sides of the fight would be good enough for most situations. It would allow them to attack without being in the way, and like her own totems, which expired quickly when she wasn't fighting, they could be constantly moved to be in the best position for the current situation.

Totems were easily crushed, and these ones would be targeted because they actually did damage, so you wanted to keep them some distance away from the main fight.

If the enemy had to turn their back on you to crush the attacking totems, you got free swings at them while they were defenceless.

"Once things calm down, I will work with Remi to show her all the ways that you can use Totems in a fight." The Bear Totem Berserker announced with a smile.

She didn't have any offensive totems yet, but her class was known to gain them once they reached Commander Rank.

The advancement made by Remi served as motivation for everyone else, and they all increased their training that week, as they waited for news from outside that the ash cloud was beginning to dissipate.

The fires were raging through the mountains, only stopping when they reached natural firebreaks like rocky cliffs or wide rivers. That had turned a huge chunk of the mountain range around the Volcano into an uninhabitable nightmare, and there were reports from the scouts that there were Fire Elemental creatures roaming the area when they went to inspect it.

If nothing else, that should keep the Frost Giants away, but the ash cloud was lingering much longer than it should have, and wasn't spreading out to darken the skies over as wide of an area as the radio reports suggested they were expecting.

The Dwarven Village had proven to be an incredible radio antenna after Doug had attached their antenna to a vein of metal on one wall, and they were able to receive, but not easily transmit, clear signals even the hundred kilometres from the new front line.

The rest of the front line wasn't that lucky. The spots where there was no massive ash cloud, or enraged Magma Dragon, were facing intensified assaults from the Frost Giants, who had been displaced from a few unfriendly areas along the border.

Now that they only had a few areas to launch their assault through, the Frost Giants hadn't given up. They had only focused their reinforcements on the more hospitable areas, which was giving everyone a headache.

The defenders couldn't afford to transfer too many soldiers, in case the Frost Giants moved back to the less friendly portions of the border, but they needed as many as they could get on the portions of the line where the attacks were still taking place.

From what Karl could tell, further down the border between the two nations, there had been another incident of some sort, and the Frost Giants had completely retreated, ceding the area to the Hill Giants after the snow melted.

That put their current position near the southeastern end of the battle lines, with a large Frost Giant city supplying new troops constantly, as a staging point for their invasion.

On the tenth day, the ash cloud began to dissipate, and the temperature of the falling ash dropped until it stopped sparking spontaneous wildfires. There was still a layer of blowing ash all over the region, sustained by the Dragon's magic so it would never truly fade, but what was blowing out of its territory wasn't harmful to anything but a housekeeper's sanity.

That was their sign. The worst of it was over, and the reports said that they were outside the dragon's territory, so the falling ash should have mostly ended, though they were still close enough to get some blowing at them.

"Shall we go see what is outside, and get back to work dealing with the Frost Giants? We can strike what dares to come close to these hills and return here every evening." Bob Mackenzie suggested.

Karl nodded. "That works for me. We can work our way into the Frost Giant nation and attack troop patrols as one large unit, to cut down on the number of reinforcements that the main line is getting.

They're still being drowned in numbers by the weaker Giants, so there is almost certainly at least one more of the summoning spots active. If we can trace it back, we might be able to do something about it."

Tori and Ty both gave Karl matching looks that said he was insane, but a strong desire for vengeance burned in Tessa's eyes.

"I owe them for the broken arm. Do you have any idea how much that hurt? If it wasn't for Tessa being clear of the ridge, I likely would have lost it before I could get it in place and healed." She growled.

The Ranger sighed, narrowing his black eyes as he stared at the War Cleric, trying to decipher her intentions.

"Well, if there are the ten of us, we should be alright. They normally send their reinforcements in groups of ten, so even if we hit an all Commander group, it won't be too bad." He eventually agreed, holding his objections when he saw how serious the Cleric was about her vengeance against the summoning spells.