“Do you think the fire mana is gone?” I asked Raina as we followed the rest of the party towards the nearby farmhouse. The family who dwelled there had taken shelter rather than fight the fire sprites themselves.
She shook her head. “No, but it’ll dissipate on its own. With no fire sprites or other monsters to reignite the flames, the mana that drew them there will go away.”
“It’s a good thing the farmer contacted the guild when they did,” Terrowin continued. “Had we arrived any later, those blazes may have destroyed their fields.”
“Do you think the guild knew how many there were?”
“Doubt it.” The green-haired man returned his glaive to its strap as we stepped from the fields and onto the path. “If they had, they’d have sent full guild members rather than just us.”
“That should just make our work even more impressive to them!” Aelisra exclaimed. “I’ll bet the bard back at the Laughing Lute will be telling tales of our heroism for years!”
“I’d rather have a few warm meals than a song in my honor.” Raina stepped forward and knocked on the door of the quaint little farmhouse. A moment later, a man I presumed was the farmer poked his head out.
“Are they gone?”
“Yes, sir,” Raina said. “All the fires have been put out and the sprites have been eliminated.”
The farmer stepped out from the building and looked each of us up and down, narrowing his eye in suspicion. I didn’t blame him. We made for a rather motley crew. Aelisra’s mismatched armor was streaked with soot to match her face. Raina’s hair had been darkened with the ash from the fires we’d put out, and the hem of her cream-colored dress may well have been beyond repair. Terrowin fared little better, as sweat from the heat caused his minty hair to stick at strange angles. Only Cithrael seemed moderately well put together, having remained far from the battle. Even then, he was clearly low on arrows.
“You lot don’t look like adventurers,” the farmer finally said. “More like a bunch o’ strays.” A low growl grew deep in the back of my throat at the clear contempt in the farmer’s words. We were a ragged bunch, sure, but that was because we’d just proved our mettle against a threat he couldn’t be bothered to deal with himself! If he was so much better, then I dared him to take down a greater fire sprite!
“Malzy,” Raina warned, “behave yourself.”
“Should have just left the ungrateful grain rat for dead,” I answered.
“Raina, show him the contract,” Aelisra said. “All he needs to do is verify that we completed the job and sign it and the guild will take care of the rest.”
My witch pulled a piece of paper from her bag and handed it to the farmer. It bore the seal of the Adventurer’s Guild at the bottom, a crossed sword and staff. He took it and studied it.
“Well, guess I better check your work, then,” he muttered. “Better not have left a mess behind.”
He trudged out to the fields where the fire sprites had burned the fields and looked around. His fields were far from devastated, even with the three burned patches, but he looked grumpy as ever.
“Why didn’t you regrow the crops?” he asked.
The four would be adventurers exchanged looks of confusion. If I had to guess, growth magic would be Energetic in nature. None of us had the required aptitude in Energetics to cast more than the most basic of fire spells, let alone advanced energetic spells.
Raina read through the contract one more time. I peered at the page from her shoulder. The job had been to deal with a few fire sprites that had been in the area due to an influx of fire mana. At the time the job was posted, I suspected there had been only a few of the nasty sprites, and the number had rapidly grown into an infestation, hence our difficulty with the task. However, nowhere in the contract did it say anything about growing crops or doing anything more than killing the monsters in question. Raina and I both read through the description twice, just to make sure.
“Sir, that kind of magic would be well beyond even the strongest adventurers at this branch of the guild,” Terrowin finally said. “Maybe if you’d tried it in Crystal Bay or Terallia-”
“Adventurers always have excuses! I’ll not sign anything of yours with the fields in this state,” he said, trudging back to his home.
“But sir, wait!” Raina called, but he was already gone. She hung her head. “What do we do now?”
“Aside from letting the ambient fire mana burn down his house?” I asked. Raina ignored me.
The others sat in solemn silence for a long time. The wind rustled the crops. Finally, Aelisra broke the silence with a deep sigh before smiling.
“We go back, and we explain things to Lizzie. She’s a reasonable one. I bet she’ll see things our way,” she said.
The adventurers hung their heads as they began to walk back down the long road to Aldar. The sun was low in the sky, and none of us wanted to be on the rotten farmer’s land anymore.
* * *
Cithrael was the one to make the campfire and spark it to light with a spell not too different from Heat II. However, instead of simply heating the air around him, he was able to focus the heat onto the waiting kindling until it lit. Flames crept up the gathered wood.
“For what it’s worth, I had fun,” Aelisra said, desperately trying to turn the somber mood around. “Did you see the size of that last one! It was huge!”
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No one said anything. We had been there, after all. However, after several long minutes, Terrowin cracked a smile and raised his arm to hers.
“At least twice as tall as my glaive,” he agreed. Aelisra smiled even more widely, tapping her armored forearm against his. I didn’t understand that gesture. It made a needlessly loud clanging sound that I found pointless, but they seemed amused by it.
The Paladin raised a waterskin. “And here’s to Raina and Malzy for braving the flames and putting them out!”
“Not to mention our feline friend running through the fire to gather the sprites for us to fight.” Terrowin raised his waterskin and tapped it to Aelisra’s. They both then looked expectantly at Raina. My summoner had been silent almost the entire journey back from the farm so far.
Aelisra reached out and put a hand on Raina’s shoulder. “This is just a small setback. We’ll figure it out!”
The warmth shown by her new companion brought a smile to Raina’s face. She didn’t answer in words, but raised her own waterskin to the others and took a drink.
Terrowin reached out and scratched my ears. I tilted my head back, pressing into the feeling. He might not have been as great as Raina, but I supposed the green-haired man had his purpose, so long as navigation was not required.
“I think he likes me,” he said to Raina.
“You might be the only one,” she answered. “I’m not entirely sure he even likes me.”
“Oh, I’m sure he does.” Terrowin frowned. “Have his eyes always glowed like that? Or is just me?”
Raina lifted me up and looked into my eyes. There was a sad recognition there that confirmed that my eyes were, indeed, glowing. I closed them and began purring. It was only a fitting symbol of my incredible power. What better way to strike fear into the hearts of my lessers than to give them a perfect display of that which made me so much superior?
“Corruption, Malzy,” she whispered only to me. “You need to be more careful with your mana.”
“What’s that?” Terrowin asked. “Didn’t catch what you said.” Raina smiled and laughed nervously.
“I don’t see anything,” she lied. “Just a trick of the firelight, I think. Orange eyes will do that.” She put me down. I nestled myself on her bag and tucked my paws underneath me. I supposed there was wisdom in keeping my awe-inspiring power a secret for now. It wouldn’t do to scare away the other hench-humans just yet. Better they become dependent on me first.
If that was now the plan, then I suppose now was as good a time as any to start increasing that very dependency which would keep them coming back for more. I began to purr, bestowing my Feline Favor upon the three humans and the elf to cure their burns and soothe their aching bodies.
Terrowin yawned shortly after and raised his arms in a stretch. “Well, I think that’s it for me. Wake me up for my watch.”
Raina and Aelisra agreed, and the group began to lay out their bedrolls. Raina’s was practically threadbare, but it was good enough for the weather of late spring. As she laid down, I rushed over, tucking myself in my new favorite spot, nestled right against her chest. There, I continued purring as I slowly fell asleep.
* * *
A snapping twig woke me from dreams of living flames. The night was cold, and the fire had long since gone out. I nestled myself deeper into Raina’s embrace, trying to stave off the chill of the night without a warm fire to warm my fur. I told myself I should relight the fire. That would be the only way to truly combat the cool night. But…it was cold…and Raina’s arms were warm.
Why should I be the one to relight it anyway? Raina and I hadn’t been woken for our watch, yet, meaning it was still the dead middle of the night. Whomever was on watch at this time should relight it! That was their job, not mine. I just wanted to snuggle deeper and go back to sleep…
I paused. Why hadn’t the watchman relit the fire? I raised my head and looked around at the campsite. Though I was perfectly fine seeing in the dark, the humans would be completely blind. They couldn’t do their job watching for danger without any light.
Pulling myself wearily from Raina’s arms, I began to quietly lament the uselessness of my hench-humans. Why must I do everything myself? I gathered the fire sprites, I put out the fires, now I was the one relighting the stupid fire because someone had fallen asleep on their watch.
I focused on the fire, calling upon the mana pool in my stomach that was slowly restoring after our encounter with the fire sprites. Cithrael had used similar magics to light the fire before…if I could just do what he’d done…
Heat surged around me, battling away the cold mist of the forest night, but not producing much in the way of light. For that, I needed an actual fire rather than just heat.
A yawn escaped my jaws. Heat flickered but did not spark the fire. The coals remained cold, despite my fervent desire to make it otherwise. I pictured the fire, burning bright. Nothing. I pictured just a tiny spark lighting the kindling. Nothing. I pictured the exact image of Cithrael creating the fire a few hours ago. Not so much as a candle flame.
I was going about this wrong. I must have been. Heat II was born of energetics, but was energetics on its own enough to create an actual fire? What would happen if I began mixing the different types of mana together? Could I add just a bit of environmental mana to Heat II to create a real fire beyond my body?
Testing the theory, I called upon the same mana that normally would control Telekinesis III. It leapt to my command, feeling warm and comfortable. It was my most used magic, after all, and the one in which I had allocated the most aptitude.
It took several tries to properly mix the two forms of mana together inside me, but I wasn’t worried. I didn’t need the fire to see enemies lurking in the underbrush, and I’d hear any approaching threats well before they arrived. I was certain that, in that moment, there was only me, the cold campfire, and the mist that circled the camp. Of course, the hench-humans still breathed softly in their sleep, but that was all I heard.
Finally, I forced the mana of Heat to combine with the environmental magic I was specialized in. The two mixed and morphed inside me before surging forward as a tiny spark of orange fire that fell upon the coals.
Spell discovered: Fire I
I did it again, giving the tiny fire a friend to join with. Then another, and another, and another. Soon, the campfire was crackling with magic flames that ate the wood and banished the darkness.
Purring my excitement, I padded in a circle around the firepit. I couldn’t be too mad at whomever had fallen asleep on their watch. After all, it was their carelessness that had allowed me to learn a new spell!
That said, I couldn’t just let them get off without any sort of punishment. I might have learned a spell, but it had required waking me up and making me get up from my cozy spot to do so. That I could not abide from the hench-humans who were supposed to cater to my every whim.
Raina still slept softly in her bedroll. She had not yet been woken for her watch. Above my head, Cithrael had chosen to forgo his bedroll, as he did every night. Instead, he rested on a thick tree branch, leaning back against the trunk. His watch was likely finished.
That left two other options. Terrowin rested softly in his bedroll, still tucked under the blanket. Considering it unlikely that he had gotten lost during his watch and ended up in his bedroll, I figured he must not have been the active watcher. After him, though, had been Aelisra.
I padded over to the paladin’s bedroll. It was empty. So, she hadn’t shirked her watch all together, but then where had she gone? She wasn’t leaning against any of the trees, as the others did on watch…in fact, she wasn’t anywhere in the campsite.
A twig snapped behind me and I jumped. My ears snapped towards the sound, trying to pick up anything in the darkness beyond the campfire.
From the mist came a terrible growl…