Chapter 13 Explosive Understanding (Patreon)

Once the burrow was finally up to her standards, Khall fell to her belly and sighed happily to herself. At last, her belly was full, and though her own blood slowly leaked from the torn scab on her chest, she was mostly comfortable where she laid, and she knew that the wound would quickly heal. Around her, the glittering of her luminescent body colored the den in warm oranges and reds, and Khall let herself relax and enjoy the sight.

Then, just as she felt comfortable, she needed to move, to do something. Be volatile. After all, if she stayed here, she would be immutable, and that wasn’t what she was or could be any more!

As the thought occurred to her, Khall wondered why she had felt the need to create a more complete and “beautiful” hole for her to complete her rest in. After a difficult moment’s thought, she figured it was due to her new “occupation”, and that it would push her that way whenever it came to her digging. Though, if it simply pushed her to occasionally make her home better, while also guiding her to fight more effectively in the tunnels, then she would welcome it! But now, digging wasn’t volatile enough. Neither was sleeping. She could get a nap in, sure, but instead, she wanted to do something. But what to do?

After flopping over a couple more times, each and every movement sending a brief jolt of pain through her still recovering wounds, Khall decided to go somewhere where there was better soil. Here, it was fine, but she wanted to go somewhere where there was plenty more to hunt and dig. So, with another excited chuffing grunt, Khall began to haul herself out of the antlion’s hole. 

Getting her long, heavy body over the sandy slopes was the most singularly frustrating thing that Khall could remember ever happening to her. Well, except for fish biting her tail and burning her. Or lavalines stealing her arcanite. Or lavalines stealing her home. Or lavalines stealing her food. As a matter of fact, weren’t lavalines basically the worst part of her life? Other than big birds picking her up and dropping her onto spiky branches, at least. There were a lot of terrible things, and all of them filled Khall’s mind as she attempted for the sixth time to get her body up the slope. In her mind, it really should not have been anywhere near so difficult as it had been thus far–after all, it was only about forty feet deep, and that was less than ten lengths of her body. Even so, the attempted escape was grueling and infuriating.

Finally, the exhausted and angry Moltenscaled Drake was able to heave her forelegs over the cusp of the antlion’s ambush site. Once she was finally out of it, Khall could actually appreciate the brilliance of the creature’s design. It had needed to find a location with plenty of this loose sand and then, through consistent, focused effort, it would need to move about forty thousand cubic feet of sand. She estimated that to be about twenty thousand times the space that the antlion larva took up itself, and that wasn’t accounting for any sand that slipped back into the hole. 

Then, Khall wondered what that thought was. How had she known how to find out how much sand was in a space? After another brief moment’s thought, she shrugged her shoulders and hoisted herself forward and away from the antlion’s dwelling. It would be due to the new occupation, she was sure. More interesting than sand and how much of the slippery stuff there was, though, was new prey! New things to see, to do! 

Excited and ready to explore, Khall continued on her way. Now that she had experienced it herself, she noticed a couple other antlion larva nests. They were quite obvious, and only a fool would fall into one accidentally. Of course, she had purposefully fallen into the other one’s trap, she had simply wanted to hunt it and get her new occupation. Now that she thought about it, she felt like she understood a little more about how her levels worked, and wondered when she would gain more levels. Could she see how many levels she had? Once the thought crossed her mind, more of the magical words appeared in front of her.

[Khall: Moltenscaled Juvenile Drake.
Total Levels: 8
Racial Levels: 7 Occupational Levels: 1
Juvenile Mud Lizard: 5/5 Fell Miner: 1/10
Moltenscaled Juvenile Drake: 2/10]

As usually happened, Khall understood what all the words meant even though she didn’t know why. The first numbers meant how many levels she had in each of the races or occupations, and the second numbers meant how many levels of that race or occupation she could get. Maybe that was why she had been able to evolve after she reached level five? Eh. She didn’t care. She’d keep hunting things, and eventually, she would be able to get to the top of the Divine Summit, and there she could be happy and comfortable. Until then, it didn’t matter whatever else happened, all that she needed to do was continue on her path forward. 

Looking around, there wasn’t any new prey to hunt, and though Khall was already full, she wished there was something else to do to make her less bored. After all, she was the most beautiful, wonderful thing in the First Step, so everything else needed to help her out already! She hissed to the sky, demanding entertainment be brought to her, but to no avail. Khall nearly decided to jump into another antlion’s trap, just so she could hunt something, but she decided against it. After all, that would mean that she would need to climb out again after, and that simply wasn’t going to happen. So, she continued walking. 

Every step was so boring it was almost painful. There was nothing to do! Nothing to see! The ash and soot darkening the air didn’t let her see very far, and though she hadn’t minded that before, now that she had seen the Second Step, Khall couldn't stand the First Step’s terrible air quality. The only things that broke up the monotony were the occasional embers and sparks that filtered through the air, and they weren’t anywhere near as beautiful and majestic as the glowing scars decorating Khall’s body. The ground slowly transitioned to a higher quality soil, which Khall hoped would mean that she was going somewhere she could find something worth being near, but there still wasn’t anything that caught her eye.

Eventually, Khall found another bush and excitedly rushed towards it. Bushes and trees always had things in them! There would be prey, or something to fight, or even something to run away from, anything would be better than what had happened thus far. She chuffed out a challenge, and when that didn’t garner any reaction from the bush, she screamed louder to challenge the bush’s current master. Finally, she stepped under the branches of the bush and swung her head back and forth while breathing out smoke. As the choking black gas filtered through the feeble branches of the bush, Khall prepared herself for battle against the unknown combatants.

The smoke eventually faded into the rest of the smoke filling the air, and Khall looked all around the bush to see what she had challenged. And there was nothing. No cowardly lavalines, no brutish mud lizards, no terrible birds. No antlions or fish. Nothing. 

Heartbroken, Khall collapsed to the ground, again being reminded that she had a healing wound on her chest and she had, once again, unthinkingly smashed it against something. She whined to herself as she mourned her lot in life. She was picked on wherever she went! Nothing to hunt, nothing to kill, and when there was something there, it would steal her food or arcanite, would wound her, and try to kill her! 

As Khall adjusted herself to more comfortably lay on the ground, she felt her core essence pulsing inside of her. She hadn’t given it much thought since she’d developed it, but she remembered that it was important. Why…? The information flooded into her mind once again, though it felt slightly different from before. A core essence was what pushed her to evolve better, and it would help her better follow the Divine Path. Right? Khall could feel that, if she gave it more attention, there was a lot more that it could do for her, so, while she was comfortably laid on the ground under the bush, she thought about her core essence.

The only thing she had remembered about it since she had evolved was “volatility”. She had decided that meant that she would always do things, all the time, but was that what it was supposed to mean? After all, she needed to sleep, volatile or not. She needed to hold still to eat something, and sometimes she was tired. So was she supposed to just always move? No, that couldn’t be. So instead, volatility needed to mean something more, something different. But why would she even care about what that word meant when she could just hunt and kill more things and be guaranteed her place in the Ninth Step? After all, that was what all creatures dreamed of, herself included!

Something about that plan bothered her, and Khall found herself unconsciously flaring the scales around her head at the idea of doing what something else wanted. After all, she was herself, not other creatures. And why would she ever want to be like some other mud lizard? Or a bird? Or, Stars forbid, a lavaline! No, Khall was volatile, and a creature that is volatile doesn’t just do what others did! She would only do what she wanted to do, and what she wanted to do was to see the Stars, eat yummy things, and be strong enough to keep herself safe! And be strong enough to do whatever she wanted. And that was what volatility would mean to her!

With that declaration to herself, Khall felt her core essence change slightly, as she had shifted her perception of herself and her most important values. But of course she had decided to do what she wanted! She was always right, after all! With her pride surging, Khall lifted her head high and chuffed her victory to the skies. Her breathing let out even more smoke than ever before, and Khall loved it. With excitement, she took a deep breath and let it out. To her amazement, she let out a gout of flame that quickly set the bush she was under aflame.

Astonished, Khall watched as the bush collapsed in on itself around and on top of her. The heat didn’t bother her, and she enjoyed watching the dancing flames as they consumed the dry branches of the bush, but she could feel her still wounded chest and back beginning to sear in the heat, so Khall exited the burning bush and stood a short distance away to enjoy the disappearance of the disappointing shrub.

The flames continued to lick higher and higher, sending waves of sparks and embers spiraling into the sky while the branches of the bush slowly began to fall from the trunk of the bush. Khall had come to the bush looking for entertainment, and though she hadn’t found it in the form of a hunt or even a fight, she could enjoy the sight of the blaze. There was something innately entrancing about the flames, and she found herself getting more comfortable so that she could more completely enjoy the spectacle. As Khall laid on the ground happily watching the fire, the sound of crackling filled her mind along with the smell of the smoke. The feel of the warmth from the fire caused her to rub herself into the ground, finding a more comfortable position as the sound of the calming flames was overtaken by the echoes of wings in the air. Khall closed her eyes and enjoyed the–

Wait. Wings? As Khall whipped herself to her feet instead of her back, she was suddenly struck by feathered wings. VOID BELOW!