“This is incredible.” Sighed Rosie as she relaxed in the mud bath. Brand had to agree. He had been so pleased to get properly clean after travelling on the road, so initially a mud bath didn’t sound so appealing. But now that he was in it he felt very relaxed and rejuvenated. The fire energy going through his body seemed to respond well to the heat of the bath and he felt more comfortable than he had in a long time. He imagined Rosie felt even better, due to her earth element stone.

“Maybe we don’t need to go back to Quartz Creek.” Said Tommen, neck deep and mud and with his eyes closed. “Maybe we could just stay in here all day, relaxing. Who even needs a Databeast?”

“Well I’ve already got one, so not me. I guess we’re staying.” Joked Ravena.

Tommen cracked open an eye to look at her. “Damn, you’re right. We don’t have time to be wasting sitting around in mud. We’ve gotta get going.” Clearly her words had set off his competitive spirit. He didn’t get up though.

Brand wasn’t so conflicted. Recovery was a necessary part of getting stronger. Spending half a day in this spa would probably be worth several days of recovery just sitting around. “Glad you pushed us into getting the full package Ravena. We didn’t know what we were missing out on.” He said. They had already been in the sauna - something else that agreed with the fire element flowing through him - and massages, which did wonders for his injuries.

“And the best is still yet to come.” She told him.

Ah yes. The floatation tanks. He was looking forward to those, that was for sure. Supposedly they were the favourite of adventurers, and for good reason. They allowed the adventurer to relax in a different way - and get deep into meditation. They made you feel like you were just floating in the aether, just you alone in the void.

And at those moments you could really feel your element in a different way. The lack of other senses heightened the ability to sense the element stone that had been attuned by the adventurer. For Tamers this was doubly true, as they could feel the energy flow between themselves, the element stone within them, and the Databeast.

Ravena had been very excited to try it now that she had Clerk, but she encouraged the others to get one themselves. None of them had ever been in a floatation tank anyway, but she promised that the experience was unlike anything it would have been had they done it before attuning their element stones. Then it would have been relaxing, now it was an experience.

So Brand was looking forward to it.

But he put thoughts of that to the side while he soaked in the bubbling mud bath and relaxed. Soon his thoughts turned to Harlow. He wondered what the other boy was doing. Was he training while Brand soaked here? Part of Brand hoped he was relaxing too in a mud bath somewhere else, not gaining EXP. But part of him hoped the boy was training like a madman, slowly breaking himself down and destroying himself, until one day the fatigue sets in at the wrong time and a Databeast he should be beating easily catches him off guard and does some serious damage.

It was a dark thought, but Brand sat there and marinated in it for a while before shrugging it off. His mind turned to Cabletown and his parents. Was his dad getting by? Were his siblings working, studying, having fun? Could they have fun in Cabletown? Would they find the little oases of freedom scattered within those walls where there was nobody judging, evaluating, punishing?

He wishes he could have shown them all of them, but he had been busy working. That was life and all, but he came to realise he didn’t know his siblings anywhere near as much as he’d liked - or as much as he’d thought he did.

There was a pain there, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to see them now. He knew he would at some point. He could feel it within him, clear as the power flowing from his element stone, was a certainty that he would see his family once more.

As for right now, he couldn’t even beat the captain of the guard. In fact, Brand and Tommen were delivering Databeast eggs right into his hands, so they were making the forces of Cabletown arrayed against them stronger. Brand knew the Mayor had some serious backers too - he was under no illusion that the guard captain was the strongest person in Cabletown. He would have to get stronger.

“Brand! You alright there?” Asked Tommen.

Brand shook himself out of his thoughts to see Tommen, Rosie and Ravena standing up in the mud and looking at him. “Yeah I’m alright. Just thinking. You should try it sometime.” He quipped.

“We thought you’d gone into another one of those trances mate. Rosie was going to dump mud on your head to see if it woke you up. Now I wish I’d let her.” Tommen joked back.

“Next time I’ll just go for it.” Said Rosie innocently.

“We’re hitting the floatation tanks.” Said Ravena. “You coming?”

“Definitely.” Said Brand, pushing himself up and out of the mud. A woman with a Stonisse asked them if they were done. When they confirmed that they were the Stonisse used a Tech to literally pull off the mud from their bodies and form into a ball, which it promptly deposited to a storage container on the side. They made their way to the showers and rinsed off before heading to the floatation tanks.

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They were strange pods, oblong and pure white. Each one had four poles around it, creating an enclosed space. When they got into the tanks those poles would turn on and create a temporary void. This meant element could not enter or leave, allowing the adventurer to more fully sense the element around and within them.

A similar technology was used in void capsules that could contain a Databeast egg and prevent it from hatching.

“We have half an hour, but that should be more than enough.” Said Ravena as an assistant opened up their pods. “Make sure to make the most of it!”

Brand climbed into his pod, relaxing back into the liquid. It had a strange consistency. It was a viscous liquid, yet it supported him in some way. As he got comfortable he found himself becoming more and more weightless, until he felt like he was floating through nothingness.

“Ready?” The assistant asked him.

“I am.” Said Brand.

The assistant closed the pod door and all that was left was Brand in darkness. No sound penetrated the tank’s walls and no light entered. It was just him with his thoughts. He relaxed into utmost comfort as no part of his body required something else to hold it up. He was of a perfectly similar consistency to the liquid he was floating in, so it kept him there.

And then, all of a sudden, the void poles around the pod went on. Brand physically flinched, as if he’d been startled by a loud noise. Yet that was a strange reaction, as he felt something of the opposite. Rather than something being produced that made him jump, it was something being taken away that shocked him. He hadn’t known that he’d felt connected to the element of the world before this, but now that it was gone he felt cut off in a way he hadn’t known he could.

Ravena hadn’t prepared him for that.

But then, she didn’t have a mid-rank element stone. The difference in stone ranking supposedly presented itself in hundreds of little ways. Ever since he’d attuned he’d felt slightly different, and wondered whether this had anything to do with it. He lay there taking in the feeling, examining the energy around him. Now that he couldn’t feel the rest of the world, the fire within him felt even hotter. He took a deep breath and felt himself absorb some of the energy from around him, fuelling the furnace within.

“Whoa.” Thought Brand, amazed at how visceral that experience felt. He knew from a theoretical perspective that he slowly absorbed the energy of the world whilst living and going about his daily life. Feeling the sensation in practice was like something else entirely.

He closed his eyes and felt that feeling for a few minutes, focussing entirely on that, not particularly conscious of anything else. His breathing was like a small bellows, every breath he took made the fire element within him shine in a burst as it absorbed the element. He focussed further on his breathing, taking deep and long dragon breaths. He blew out hard and sucked in with intention. He could feel the heat increasing as the jumbled energy of the world around was slowly purified into fire within him.

He was fire. He burnt and destroyed and consumed and nothing could hold him back. He was energy personified. A glorious blaze was building within him.

He focussed on it, circulating the energy around his body again and again. And again and again. And again and again. He felt it in the tips of his fingers, in the tips of his ears, moving across his scalp, down on the soles of his feet and the ends of his toes. And it permeated throughout his whole body and filled his muscles with relentless, purifying energy. His bones were soaked in the scalding heat. His skin was alive with

He was a combusting flame floating in the middle of the void. It was just him and nothing else. And he was burning, ever supplied by the endless source inside him. But ever hungry, ever wanting more fuel to consume. He could release the flame and bring it back to him. He separated several small balls of fire from the main source and made them orbit him, his control over them immaculate. He was circulating the fire energy in a different way now.

And then suddenly he was no longer in the void. Immediately he was a raging wildfire scorching through the world and destroying everything in his path, taking every element and using them to fuel his glorious flame, a patchwork of everything reoriented towards one purpose…

“Brand!” A big hand grabbed his shoulder and shook it. His eyes snapped open and the fire rose to a crescendo. A small ball of fire the size of a thumbnail appeared between him and… Tommen?

Immediately the fire extinguished as Tommen jerked back, eyes wide. Brand lay there, dumbstruck. Tommen looked around but the two girls were talking to the assistant. Only Brand and Tommen had seen what had happened. Tommen looked back at Brand.

“What on Excoria was that!?” He whisper-yelled. “I didn’t know you could do that!”

“I can’t… I couldn’t…” Stammered Brand. He couldn’t do it right now, he could feel it. Before it had just happened and had felt so right. Not so now. Now it felt wrong. It was difficult to explain.

“We’ll talk about it later. And I thought I’d made breakthroughs. You were having another trance-thing, so I volunteered to wake you. Wasn’t sure if it was a medical emergency or something. But we’ve already overstayed by more than a few minutes so we ought to go. Are you feeling alright?” Tommen asked, holding out a hand to help pull Brand up.

“Never better.” Grinned Brand as Tommen pulled him up. He’d actually manifested his element! That was the first step towards a human learning a Tech independent of their Databeast! It was rarely done of course, and often redundant if one actually had a Databeast, but still a mark of great skill and ability.

They joined the girls and said thank you to the assistant.

Rosie noticed there was something up with the two of them, as Brand was still overjoyed and Tommen was side-eyeing him with something between amazement and envy. “What are you so pleased about?” She asked, genuinely interested. “Good session?”

“I’ll tell you later when we’re on the road.” Said Brand.

“Off to Quartz Creek again then!” Rosie declared.

“To get us some Databeasts!” Declared Tommen in response.

“And explore some mysterious ruins for my research.” Added in Ravena, reminding the trio what they would actually be doing.

Brand laughed. He couldn’t wait to find out how the others had felt during their floatation tank experience. Luckily the road to Quartz Creek was fairly long and they wouldn’t have much else to talk about.