Dream II - Chapter 13 (Patreon)

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Race: Saurian

Bloodline Powers: Strength, Rending, Emberbreath
Greater Mysteries: Fire (Noble) 3, Wind (Noble) 2
Lesser Mysteries: Heat 4, Oxygen 4, Embers 4, Pressure 4, Current/Flow 4

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Samazzar took a deep breath.  The air had a chemical scent to it, like he was sniffing freshly treated glass or drying paint.  Still, that was infinitely better than the usual fumes that wafted up through the cracks in the basalt that surrounded the magma vents.

He turned to Dussok and Takkla, giving his siblings a giant thumbs up.  Both of them were a couple hundred paces away, safely standing in Redfern Vale and away from the characteristic toxic gasses of the rocky wastes.

“You look ridiculous Samazzar!” Dussok shouted at him.  “A cloth bag filled with alchemical reagents over your muzzle.  That was your solution to the poison problem.  Really?”

“It works,” Sam replied, his voice muffled by greyish white cloth wrapped around his mouth.  “The air tastes a little funny but I can breathe just fine.  We should be able to wander indefinitely so long as we change the filter bags once a day.”

In the distance, he watched Takkla jab an elbow into Dussok’s side, shutting the big saurian up, before she slipped the leather straps for her mask over her head and began adjusting its buckles.  A minute or so later, she upended a vial on her hands, pouring out a clear liquid.

She tossed the container aside, clapping her hands together once before rubbing down her chest and legs.  Samazzar was actually quite proud of the heat resistance potion.  The primary ingredient was a liquid he found in the stems and leaves of the plants they’d gathered near the magma vents.  Once exposed to air, the substance would remain a liquid for about five minutes before evaporating and leaving a residue that would protect the recipient from extreme heat for three or four days.

About ten seconds after Takkla finished and began walking across the dark basalt of the rocky desert, Dussok’s potion dried and he joined her on the black stone.  The big saurian looked significantly less comfortable than her in his mask.  Samazzar wasn’t sure if the straps were too tight, or if Dussok just couldn’t relax, but either way his sibling was itching at where the leather bit into the scales on the back of his neck by the time he caught up to Sam.

“This smells like a dye factory,” Dussok said, his voice muffled and surly.  “I honestly don’t know how you plan on having us wear these for multiple days while we train.  At some point, I think I’d prefer to breathe the fumes and choke to death on my own melting lungs.”

“Shush,” Takkla replied, rolling her eyes.  “The little dragon has enough on his plate without your melodrama.  Now Samazzar, what is the plan?  Do we have some goal for wandering this wasteland beyond ‘at some point our knowledge of fire will go up on its own?”

“Easy,” Sam responded with a quick wink.  “We’re going to bathe in one of the lava pools.  The energy is slightly different from the mystery of fire, but it's highly compatible.  So long as we have the flame garnets on hand, we should all be able to go through our baptisms without using up too much of the stones’ power.”

Dussok practically choked, glancing meaningfully at one of the distant lava pools and back at Samazzar.  Sam did nothing, instead directing the three of them in the general direction where he remembered the encounter with the elder salamander.

“The lava out here is too diffuse,” he said dismissively, waving a hand at the pond that Dussok had sighted.  “We need to get deeper into the magma vents, back to the sorts of places where the heat starts fostering new forms of life.”

“I mean,” Sam continued after a short pause.  “We could go through with your baptisms here.  Probably not mine.  But doing so would use up most of the energy in the flame garnets, and then we would have to find another trio of them before your next level.  It’s better to be efficient about these sorts of things.”

Dussok opened his mouth to complain once more, but Samazzar simply closed his eyes, letting his sibling’s words wash over him while he reached out with his improved wind vision.  Obviously, the mystery of heat was less than useless out amidst the magma vents.  Unless Sam wanted to blind himself by staring at the intense heat, it was hard to tell the difference between dangerously hot, intensely hot, and impossible to comprehend scorching.

The landscape also limited his sight with wind.  Heat caused the air to flow upward, creating a sort of roiling churn that prevented the sort of long distance rustling breezes he’d relied upon in the prairie.  It made the air taste stale and stagnant, but worst of all it killed any sort of wind that might transfer information or alleviate the burden of the scorching trek.

Still, there were hints here and there.  Samazzar adjusted his course slightly as the stagnant air spoke vaguely of a massive lava pool further to the North.  He couldn’t make out any specific details, but it looked like exactly the place he would need to go for the next step of his plans.

By the time they drew near the pool he had identified via the stagnant wind, Sam found a better one.  A massive magma vent that dove deep into the earth, and surrounded by an entire forest of… something.  He suspected they were more of the obsidian trees that he had come across in his first foray into the stone desert, but it was impossible to tell at this distance.

He changed their directions twice, leading to a litany of whining from Dussok as he complained about everything from the smell of the alchemical filter in his mask, to how hard the rocks were as they walked over them.  Sam tuned it out, instead focusing on a strange combination of his senses and intuition.

Somehow, deep in his gut, Samazzar knew that he needed to go to the bigger lake of lava.  He wasn’t sure what the feeling meant, or where it came from, but he didn’t question it.  After all, one pool of molten rock would work as well as the next, and extending his journey by a little bit only increased Sam’s chances of coming across something interesting that he could use later.

It took most of the day, but they made it to the lava pool without incident.  Once or twice, Samazzar had to redirect their group after using his wind magic to sight large monsters that dragged themselves casually across the landscape.  He wasn’t sure exactly what they were, but given their bulk and the fact that they didn’t seem to care about predators, Sam wasn’t terribly inclined to tangle with whatever they were.

Finally they arrived at his target.  It was impressive even from a distance.  The lake was a massive orange scar in the landscape surrounded by black rock and an entire forest of the glassy obsidian trees they had found earlier.  Once again, there was a surprising amount of life, mostly lizards that glided from trunk to trunk, but here and there, shin high hairless mammals scurried between the trees as well.

“Masks off,” Samazzar said, dropping his satchel and backpack next to one of the glossy plants.  He reached up, curling the mystery of oxygen and pressure around his face even as he undid the buckles holding the cloth bag to his head.

“I’m not complaining,” Dussok said from his side, mimicking Sam’s motions, “these things are intensely uncomfortable.  Still, I think I finally managed to get used to the muzzles.  Why now of all times?”

Sam carefully folded the cloth, stowing it atop his backpack.  Without the mask, the air was hot and stale.  Replicating oxygen kept him from choking on the stagnant wind, but it didn’t make the experience any more pleasant.  Honestly, Sam preferred the chemical smell.  It wasn’t natural, but it didn’t taste nearly as flat and dead as the magma vents.

“Because my potions of heat resistance don’t protect equipment,” Samazzar said, slipping off his pants. Behind him, Takkla squeaked in surprise.  “Anything we wear into the lava lake is going to instantly burst into flames.  Unless you want to replace your mask and clothes the second you get out, we’re going to have to wade in bare scaled.”

“What,” Takkla squealed, slapping her hands over her eyes as Sam turned around.  “No no no no this can’t be happening no no no-”

“I don’t understand,” Samazzar replied, brow furrowing as he glanced at Dussok.  The big saurian was blushing, and carefully not looking in his direction.  “The two of you have seen each other naked hundreds of times.  Almost whenever I come home I can sense you frantically throwing on clothes before I arrive.  What’s so different about seeing me without pants?”

“Sam,” Dussok said, his voice strained.  “Even if you see some things, you’re supposed to pretend you haven’t.  It’s the polite and neighborly thing to do.”

“Oh!” Samazzar blurted out, his eyes lighting up as realization hit him.  “In that case, don’t worry about it.  I’ve never seen the two of you wrestling in the living room with wind magic when you thought that I would be occupied all day with projects for Master Pothas.  There’s nothing to worry about on that front.”

Takkla made a sound.  It wouldn’t be correct to call it speaking although she was clearly trying to say something.  Instead it was much more like the high pitched squeal of a tea kettle boiling over as she slapped her arms across her chest and began rocking back and forth.

“Samazzar,” Dussok intoned sternly.  “Maybe it would be best for you to head into the lava first.  Takkla is a bit shy.  I think I’m going to need to talk to her for a bit before she’s ready.  Plus, I suspect that your baptism will take longer than either of ours.  It makes sense for you to get a bit of a head start.”

He looked back and forth at both of his siblings before giving up.  Clearly there was something going on that Sam couldn’t entirely put his finger on, but at the same time, that was almost always the case.  His mind only had so much room for memorizing alchemy, bloodlines and the mysteries.  Everything else tended to… slip through his fingers.  It simply wasn’t important enough to remember.

“Sure,” Sam replied with a shrug, digging through his satchel to pull out the three flame garnets.  He handed two to Dussok before breaking into a jog toward the molten rock.  “Just remember to use the gem to sense and convert the fire energy.  It’ll save all of us a lot of time and money in the long run.”

As he moved, Samazzar began to curve the heat around himself.  It was still incredibly hot, enough to cook a lesser being, but heat wasn’t actually the focus of this baptism.  It was part of the mystery of fire, there was no question about that, but the real goal was simply to be suffused in energies associated with fire itself.

That meant combustion and explosions.  The ravenous consumption of fuel and oxygen as it was transformed into light and heat.

The flame garnet felt slick in Sam’s grip as he paused at the edge of the lava for a half second.  He could feel it almost quivering as it responded to the abundant energy in the environment.  It was the key to his plan, a reagent capable of turning the raw power into the very essence of fire.

He took a quick breath before jumping into the lava, bringing his knees to his chest and tucking his face into the top of his legs as he sailed through the air.

His legs and butt slammed into the liquid rock, knocking the wind out of him and almost certainly bruising the saurian.  Sheepishly, Sam stood up, rubbing his lower back with his left hand.

A quick glance confirmed that mercifully,Dussok and Takkla weren’t looking his way.  He stood in a shallow crater.  Despite its liquid nature, the lava was dense.  He was sinking slowly, almost like it was quicksand, but at the moment, Sam was only ankle deep in the glowing stone.

He pulled his feet free with a sucking noise, walking carefully until he was about ten paces out in the lake.  There he pulsed wind one last time to ensure that there wasn’t anything around to threaten him before crossing his legs and sitting down.

The air was completely unbreathable this close to the lava.  There was oxygen, but it was scorching hot and mixed with so many toxic fumes that Sam refused to release the bubble of clean air surrounding his head.

He lifted the flame garnet up, looking through it at the afternoon sun before gripping it in both hands and thrusting the gemstone wrist deep into the lava.  For a second, nothing happened.  The molten rock gurgled at him, spitting flecks of liquid stone up into the air.

Flames burst into being around Sam’s arms.  Despite his heat magic, he could feel his scales hissing and beginning to blacken as they burned.  He dismissed the pain, pushing it aside and focusing his entire being on the fire as it spread over him.

Despite the agony, the flame embraced him like an old friend, caressing his scales as it washed over him, but despite the familiarity of the sensation, Samazzar’s magical vision couldn’t help but be drawn to his hands.

The flame garnet shone like a nova, white hot as it drained heat and magic from the pool.  It should have destroyed Samazzar’s hands, melting them into skeletal claws, but for some reason the energy was softer as it entered his body.  Still painful and harmful, but like a bladder or wineskin that was overfilled rather than a more forceful stab or a slash.

Sam wasn’t sure if it was an illusion created by the fumes and pain, but he felt like he was expanding, growing to accommodate the power that was flowing into him.  It peaked, and for a moment, he felt so unbelievably full, like he couldn’t take another breath without bursting and splattering the entire lava lake with his essence.

Then the sensation disappeared, replaced in an instant with waves of knowledge about the nature of fire.  How it fed and expanded, how it starved and faded.  It was like a feral beast, glowing and snapping in the back of Samazzar’s mind, but at the same time, there was a collar of iron on it, linked by a chain made of willpower to the very depths of his being.

With each breath, the beast stirred, oxygen feeding it and making it grow brighter.  With each exhale, it dimmed slightly, flickering as it cooled slightly.

One by one, the things that Samazzar had learned in the last months slotted into place.  Intellectually, he might have known the temperatures at which hay or timber would ignite, but that was a knowledge of abstractions, words that it was hard to truly comprehend.  Now?  Epiphany after epiphany rocked Sam, making that knowledge instinctual.

Simply glancing at an object was all it took for him to know how much heat and oxygen it would take to turn it into a roaring bonfire.  He even had some sense as to how it would burn, how the metals and impurities in the fuel would change the color and shape of the end product.

Then the caged beast of fire burst forth from Samazzar’s chest, and he returned to reality.  He was still seated in the lava, now almost chest deep, and the flames surrounding him had only grown.  They clawed upward toward the setting sun, at least six or seven paces in the air as they thrashed back and forth demanding their freedom.

The difference this time was that there was no pain.  Sam was in complete control of the fire.  He pulled his hands from the lava surrounding him, and turned them over as if observing them for the first time.  His body was covered in burns, but they felt more like a dull itch than anything truly painful.

Experimentally, he opened his left hand, feeling the fire expand and blossom above him.  Then he closed his fingers into a tight fist.  The flames drew back into his form, disappearing with an audible whooshing sound.

He grinned, planting both hands into the squishy lava and dragging his partially submerged body free.  A quick pulse of wind magic found Takkla and Dussok, clothed once more and seated next to one of the obsidian trees.  Inside them was the faintest flicker of the flame he felt inside himself.  Small and quiet, but undeniably marking them as practitioners of the second tier.

Samazzar walked to shore, lava sloughing off of his body and revealing shiny, freshly polished scales beneath.  Takkla finally noticed him once Sam stepped out onto the rock, averting her gaze but avoiding some of the previous theatrics.

Dussok met him halfway, handing Sam his shorts and a pouch containing a burn salve.  He nodded gratefully at his sibling, slinging the shorts over his shoulder as he began applying the viscous salve to his sensitive and stinging scales.

“Both of you succeeded,” he remarked, gritting his teeth as his scales protested against the medicine.

“As did you little dragon,” Dussok replied, grinning.  “Takkla and I watched your demonstration.  It was certainly a sight to behold.”

“Between gaining a level in the mystery of fire and coming across the battle site,” Samazzar said, “I would call this a successful excursion.  Once all three of us have recovered from our baptisms, I’m more than ready to head back to Vereton to report our findings to Adam.”

Indecision flickered across Dussok’s face for a fraction of a second before he responded.

“I feel like our roles have been reversed in the most foolish of possible ways, but I do not know if it is time for our return.  Your baptism took significantly longer than both of ours, and Takkla took that opportunity to explore.”

“Oh?” Sam asked, his interest tweaked by Dussok’s obvious reluctance.

“She came across a massive tunnel carved into the rocks,” Dussok continued, “it bored down into the magma layer before leveling out for a bit.  Against my advice, Takkla skulked around a bit.  According to her there’s no doubt about it, the eggs look exactly the same.”

“You mean,” Samazzar began excitedly, only for Dussok to finish for him.

“Yes.  She found a blasted flame wyrm nest.  If we’re careful, this is the perfect chance to evolve our bloodlines for a second time.”