Arson found rubber gloves and stuffed his pockets full of them as no one was in the kitchens during the treasure hunt to stop him. He knew the tendency of them to break, noting it from his memories when speaking to Rob about the ups and downs of cooking.
After he felt equipped. He ran free of the orphanage's main building and rushed as quickly as he could through the hustle and bustle of everyone extra that ran through the grounds that day.
People of all ages and social ranks could be seen, as many knew who Almarine truly was, and those not in attendance, only chose not to attend out of fear .
The majority ended up being the highest ranking scions within the CityNation, but many were also from middle and low areas of life, which resulted in Arson not being the only child who thought the trash was the answer.
Arriving to see three others there, made him wonder momentarily if his choice wasn’t the correct answer, but then came to the understanding that he wasn’t the only one capable of doing the things around the orphanage, so he wouldn’t be the only one with the right answer.
Arson started to look through the trash, and only after a few moments of searching, those around him began to find things.
One girl found a full unused potion, a tossed gift to Almarine that wouldn’t help the woman at all, but the child in front of Arson, would be benefited greatly by its contents.
Another boy soon after found three mana stones, and Arson started to sigh when he saw the familiar signs of nexus stones.
Almarine must have thrown those away knowing that Graveyard was coming…
Arson smiled at the child older than him by a few season cycles and clapped softly at the boy who danced away from the area. A few breaths later Arson continued; a few incidents where he’d had his food taken sprung into his mind and made him wonder if anyone would attack him for his finds.
Many saw the young man, and eventually he made it back to a young couple that seemed to be his parents, that also began to celebrate on his arrival.
Arson sighed at the sight, and wondered if Almarine would celebrate alongside him if he found anything worthwhile to his own progress within the cultivation world he so badly wanted to join.
Arson started to search through the heaviest bags he could find for a period, nothing with real value able to be found at first, until he changed his focus.
The bag filled to the brim with paper balls had been tossed aside by nearly everyone there who had searched through the trash, until Arson picked it up for the third time, about to toss it aside once more, when Almarine’s words struck Arson again.
Where everyone would overlook…
No one saw the value of random note paper, even though paper itself and how to make it was seen as a rarified or almost completely extinct practice. Arson knew this from his once random questions at night with Almarine, who explained why he never saw the fabled items that were known as books anywhere else but within her public office.
Those that saw a young toddler, running with the bag of trash, found the sight odd, but not strange enough to stop him. So Arson was able to make it back inside the orphanage unbothered. The rules of the event prevented anyone from harming another while they participated, but Arson was unaware of this, not having had listened to the commencement ceremony.
He made his way back to the roof and found his way toward the chimney.
Arson was surprised to see it pushed out smoke, and wondered if he could still use the area as a seat; the rim of the chimney only tall enough to be just above his head if he were to sit by it.
“lets see what we find,” said Arson as he struggled to open the bag. The inevitable pop once he got into the bag, scattered a few of the papers in front of Arson at his feet. He picked up the first piece and unfolded the paper to reveal the first of many maps, this one titled, Reliquary Sanctum.
He noted where the giant X was on the map, incapable of reading the title, but memorized its entirety, before he threw the map over his head.
The second map, was titled, Godling blood fountain… Arson noted the X on the map, once again memorizing the entire layout of the orphanage drawn out in stunning detail. The attention given on the map the closer one got to the X, dazzled Arson and would stun any lover of the arts.
This continued and Arson slowly worked his way through the entire bag. The conglomeration of drawings that honed in on specific areas began to form a beautiful image within Arson’s mind. His practice building the CityNation of Maelstrom, allowed for him to easily hold the various images in his mind, and combine them all mentally.
Why find one treasure worth a lifetime when I could find many?
…
Almarine paced annoyed in her public office. The fireplace crackled as she walked back and forth.
Her eyes often drifted out of the floor to ceiling windows that lined two sides of her office. Her search for Arson’s figure running through the Orphanage grounds, all she waited for, and only thing she didn’t receive that day.
The day felt long, the longer she didn’t see him. By the time she saw the suns begin to dip in the sky Almarine had driven herself to a state of near madness with worry and questions at what Arson could be possibly doing.
Has he made it inside my study already maybe?
She hadn’t felt the mana of the area disturbed by anyone. A few had come close, and after the recognition of that fact, she dropped the possibility from her mind.
“Where are you, child?”
The room grew hotter around Almarine, and she glanced at the fireplace. She knew exactly how much wood to put within the stone container to heat her room perfectly. What she wasn’t aware of was the mana infused paper that was made to withstand the strength of cultivators being burned within the fireplace sheet after sheet.
This continued until Almarine wondered if something was wrong with the wood, or that maybe she’d added too much wood in her sufficiently rattled state.
Almarine wanted Arson to find her study without a doubt, but she also didn’t want him to bring attention to himself. Winter and a few of Graveyard’s recon members were providing what they felt to be adequate security for the event, and had been there much of the day, surveying the area.
The thought distracted her enough that she missed a map fall into the fire, its title reading as, Broken mana generator. She picked up the fire poker and attempted to tend to the flames, but the abundance of ambient mana was enough to cause the air around the flames to sizzle and pop.
She missed the next two maps as well, having had glanced away at the sound of youthful voices just outside her windows.
Some of her orphans waved at her, and she gave a small smile. It was the most she could offer them under the duress she was feeling. Yet the disturbance in the mana that had began right in front of her, pulled her attention immediately back to the fireplace, in the same breath that a map titled, Kiwi tree of longevity fell perfectly into view.
“What in the sparks…” her soft pokes of the fire changed into a quick stab through the center of the paper, which she lifted closer, her eyes going wide at the realization of what it was.
Two more maps fell one after the other and the titles on those made Almarine’s heart skip a beat. No longer caring about the flames, the woman grabbed either side of the large stone construction, and stuck her head directly inside the fireplace and looked up.
The only things that managed to burn were her clothes. Not her skin, hair or even eyes, just the wrists of the long sleeved dress she wore that caught fire when she’d touched the stone, and the neckline that was a finger length away from the flames themselves.
The sight of another map drifting down toward her froze her there to the point the map itself landed on her face and slipped off into the fire below.
“Study of the Angelic…” The words were read, and Almarine knew she was in trouble somehow, but before she could even manage to turn around and find whoever had found these maps, an explosion occurred.
The build up of mana caused a fireball to consume the room and push Almarine hurtling through the air, until she bounced off the glass across the room.
A massive impact was heard when her body smashed into the reinforced glass. An imprint of the woman’s body made out of hairline fractures and cracks was made. The only thing visible in that moment, her body and a room being consumed by multi-colored flames.
Almarine pushed herself free of the glass, and landed on her feet, forced to shake her head to clear it of a dazed sensation.
The woman looked around at the destruction caused, and roared. The sound like a building sized beast ready to trample a city. Filled with rage and ill intentions.
…
Arson felt a small shake come through the chimney, before a rush of flames was spat free from the mouth of the open stone top. He leaned back from the flames after having had risen to throw the last map in the trash bag into the fire below. His eyes went wide at the colors of the fire and the ferocity of the flames when the paper he held was sucked from his fingertips into the roaring inferno.
The gush of heat and light was followed by a roar that made Arson flee from the rooftop without a single word, or thought beyond getting away from both the fire and whatever had just made a sound that made him wonder if the orphanage was being attacked by a wild beast.
Just keep on running, Arson, just keep running!
…
Winter and the rest of the team he’d brought with him were surprised by what some of the scions all around them were able to find. So much in fact that Winter wondered if Almarine had hidden the items they often saw lifted into the air in a celebratory trophy-like fashion too well for them to be easily found, or if Almarine had added more supposed treasures to be found in the land around them.
Then an explosion went off in the distance, and many of the recon team shared a look before they were all on the move. Winter at the head of the charge, worried that his worst fear had come to fruition.
After his daughter died and Winter left Almarine, the man had a growing resentment toward his ex wife. A justifiable manufacturing of an enemy spawned from trauma and loss.
When he rushed around the corner of the orphanage to see Almarine on fire. He was more confused than anything else.
The scene made absolutely no sense to Winter. The chimney seemed to spit explosions of various colored flames. All the blasts completed with runic symbols being formed in the sporadic bursts of flames.
“Momma Almarine,” said Arson. He ran after the woman, and was fast for his age, but nowhere near fast enough to catch up. She kicked through a wall her dress catching the entire first floor of that building on fire by the time she’d sprinted to the opposing side and kicked through another wall.
“Where did I put my water tank?” The woman’s yell could be heard over the panicked onlookers who had already started to run.
Some had speculated the possibility that this was an attempt from Almarine to get a final revenge on the community that took her freedom. Once gathered, she’d strike back, and Winter thought the entire idea to be rubbish until he saw this.
With each building she bust through and set ablaze, more scions and mortal cultivator hopefuls dashed away for safety. No building safe from the wrath of the woman wearing the burning dress.
“Where is my water tank?”
The buildings caught on fire all in rich dark shades of various colors. A beautiful set of building like candles, being lit on fire surrounded the chimney that didn’t seem to have an end to its pool of energy, which winter knew was odd, as most fireworks had safety measures imbedded within them that would stop them long before what the chimney now sprayed into the sky would ever be possible.
No, this had to be a work of magic. By the time the woman found her water tank, Winter wondered if there would be anything left of the surroundings,. To his surprise though, even as the fires grew larger, none of the buildings actually burned down, the fires being fed alternatively to a normal fire.
“What do we do,” asked one of the recon members in Winter’s direction.
“I don’t know how to feel about this, some are fleeing for their lives for sure, but others seem entertained by whatever this is,” said Winter with a waved hand toward Almarine. Some of the scions had made a game of dodging the orphan mother, and simply continued their searches elsewhere, or with direct movements around her path.
“Some flame users are even still exploring those areas as if they are some sort of challenge is what it looks like,” said another recon member with a point toward a young woman who covered herself in purple fire from head to toe, and climbed into a building that burned the same color as herself.
“We could try and stop this, or allow more of what was experienced at the precinct, either way, we need to figure out just how dangerous a situation this truly is,” said Winter, before the team responded in full and all at once.
“Yes sir!”