Hello again. You know that those moments when everything seems so bad? Those are the times when even a small thing going right can turn the tide.

And when tides of fortune turn, they can cause a flood.

When I woke up today it was in misery. The sun had not yet risen, and I was not willing to wait for it.

You see, the rain had ceased. My tingles were once again mine to command. I really need to find a way to combat the rain in the future, or cease relying on my flames so much. This was a teachable moment. If you only have one trick, when that one fails you are left scrambling.

Lucky I have two tricks. Fire and bludgeoning. They're good tricks, and have served me well. But I feel it might be good to expand upon them. A weapon would have been useful yesterday. And some form of mobile and camoflaged shelter would have kept me safe and dry.

Something to work towards.

Back to my tale. I welcomed the cessation of the rains will a brilliant attempt at molding a giant flower out of flame. It looked like a stick of fire with a misshapen blob of fire on top. I was going for more of a delicate thorned stem with a gorgeous array of firey petals in varying shades of red.

Something else to work on for the future.

My morning fireworks completed I moved on to first aid. Buzzes banished the rashes and chafing from my skin. Licks of flame devoured the mud and muck from my person and clothes. Bruises and aches were washed away amongst a gentle flow of tingles across my back and ribs. The spike through my foot was consumed in fire, and the resulting hole packed and sealed with more of the same.

It was only when I focused on my bug stung arm that I came across any real trouble. Something inside my arm was fighting my tingles. Something alive. It would seem that what I previously took to be swelling was actually some critter growing inside my arm. No doubt deposited there by the blasted insect that stung me.

Taking a small shard of rock I carried in my satchel for cleaning game and the like i cut open the swollen area.

Flames gushed out on my command, but whatever was in there was proving resilient to them. So I had to remove it by hand. Digging into an open wound for a mystery parasite is absolutely no fun at all. Especially when its your own wound.

I flexed my left arm muscles to hold whatever it was in place and cut deeper. Once I hit something besides muscle and blood I ran the stones edge across it three times. To make sure i could get my fingers around it. Dropping the stone tool to the ground I worked my fingers down into my arm and around the writhing whape therein. After way to much wriggling and pain I managed to get a grip on the thing.

Yanking it out of my arm I saw a fat pale worm. With a sturdy outer shell and some black mandibles snapping madly at the air. I crushed it into the earth and stomped it into mush, burning the remains for good measure. Then I sealed the wound I had made, and passed out.

When I woke up again it was to sunshine and blue skies overhead.

I just lay there for a while. Staring at the benevolent sky and enjoying being whole again. Cleaning off the blood and collecting my trusty little slicer I stood up and stretched.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

A glance around showed me more of the same tall grass with the rare tree in three directions. However, to the fourth lay something else entirely. A tower. Lumpy looking, even from a distance but a clearly unnatural construct amongst these plains.

Making the tower my heading I set off towards it. Yesterday the curtains of rain must have hidden it from my eyes.

Along the way I took great pleasure in roasting a whole grunter for lunch and burning down a whole great patch of the itch grass. I made sure to avoid the smoke. Who knows if that would carry the poison as well. Breathing in possibly poisonous smoke was not something I was keen to do.

Side note, flame roasted grunter goes really well with the tart juice of a small green berry growing on a low bush around the base of the odd tree that dotted the plain. Its a nice combo of savory and sour.

Some time and burnt antagonistic critters later I could make out the lumpy tower more clearly. Small holes scattered seemingly at random all over it. I could see movement at the base of the tower and around a few of the bigger holes but couldn't make out what was moving just yet.

I got closer and saw bugs. Giant bugs.

Ugh.

Why do I keep running into freaking giant bugs!? Is there something wrong with me that just makes bugs come to me and leads me into their nests? Cause if so, I hate it.

These ones are even freakier than most. They come up to about my thigh and have a pale tan brown exoskeleton. The darkest part of them are their black shiny sharp looking mandibles placed o the front of a bulging and almost comically oversized head. No eyes break up the smooth sickly brown shell of their head and smallish antennae wave wildly about in the air.

I figured with their lack of eyes I could just walk around the colossal construct which I now knew to be a bug nest. How'd they even build that anyway? Regardless I was sneaking away when a wayward tower bug came barreling out of the grass right at me. So I burned it. And it popped.

I was soaked in this nasty, stinking, grey green goo. And every single tower bug I could see lifted its head, and pointed its eyeless face at me.

I ran.

Hordes of these horrid insects were dogging my every step.The more I killed the more came bursting from the tower practically frothing in rage. Eventually I was surrounded and in my desperation I had an idea. The tower is riddled with holes right, and these bugs are coming out of those holes. Meaning those must lead somewhere. Making them tunnels. Tunnels are very good at limiting approach options. So I made the possibly smart decision to flee from the bugs, directly into their own home.

Genius.

Well, the good news was that I was right. There were tunnels running through the tower, and they did limit the number of bugs that could come at me at once. The bad news however, was twofold. One, these bugs could dig. It didnt take long before they started to come fromabove and below my defensive position in the tunnels. And two, the tower was flammable. After I got re-surrounded I panicked and shot fire wildly in all directions. Some of those flames stuck to, and took of on the walls and tunnels around me spreading fast.

Now, normally I wouldn't really be bothered by being surrounded by flames. I would just kick back, relax, and listen to the hisses and screechs of my burning enemies. However, I still need to breathe. In this enclosed space the fire sucked all the air from the tunnels to fuel its rise and I was left with gasping lungs. 

In my desperation for fresh air I made a new move that I have decided to call the "Super awesome flaming wing drill of screaming wind" basically I just fly straight up while covered in flames and spinning as fast as I can. Doing so I drilled through the tower floor by floor spreading fire and fun as I went. By the time I burst out of the top half the tower was in flames and they were spreading rapidly.

All the insects were inside. I regret nothing.

I walked off a ways and just watched the fire for a while. Munching on an unwise critter that thought I was dinner. 

The hissing and popping of the tower insects was just starting to die off when the tower crumbled, no longer having the internal structures to hold its own weight. I headed off, putting the plume of dust and ash behind me.

Now I sit, under a clear night sky. Looking back, today was a good day.

Goodnight.