Hello again.

There are times. Times when I just really want to punch myself in the face for being an idiot. They are rare, I mostly accept my mistakes with a sort of laughter fueled mania, and a gentle reminder to be more careful in the future. But they do exist.

Like that time I burnt down a forest, not understanding the consequences for the poor critters who called the forest home. Or when I destroyed that wonderous Everflame forest while trying to help it. Or when I managed to get my friends all trapped underground, and then lost them all. Because I tried to take a shortcut.

All my fault, all from my decisions, and all gone horribly awry.

This, is not one of those times.

Did I make a mistake? Yup. Did it lead to things going horribly awry for all involved? Yessiree! Would I do it all again? Absolutely! Because I think it was funny.

Well, maybe not. If I could go back in time and change one thing, then this wouldn't be that thing. Is what I am saying. It was painful, enlightening, and a tad embarrassing. But not life shattering. For me. Can't speak for others.

And as a man I think it is important to stand by your mistakes. What defines someone more? Their successes, trophies, and triumphs, or their failures, flaws, and flops? Personally, I hope it is the latter, because otherwise I am in desperate need of definition.

Is that the proper use of that word? I'm sure its fine. Moving on!

It all started when I woke up this morning, itchy and covered in rashes. I had fallen asleep in a patch of soft and fluffy plants. That turned out to be poisonous. This happens more often then you'd believe. In these parts its best to just assume all plants are poisonous. Anyway, I burnt all the poison off of my skin, and tried to sooth the burning itch with fire. Which didn't work very well.

Well, it did get rid of the itch. By setting every part of my body experiencing it on fire, replacing the raw red and itchy spots with fresh and healthy skin. Not sure why scars linger in the same places as always, but it doesn't bother me. The problem here wasn't healing the itch. Nope, my sudden burst into flame had set the surrounding brush on fire.

Now, like I mentioned previously. Two of my biggest regrets revolve around forest fires. Very different kinds of forest fires, but still. I didn't want to have another regret. So I tried the new trick I learned the other day, and pulled the fire off the trees and bushes.  Gathering it into my arms as an orb. Pretty good sized ball of fire that, bigger than my head at least. I think. I haven't ever really gotten a good look at my head. Because that's where my eyes are. It was bigger than how big I imagine my head is.

I spent a few minutes admiring the way the fire rolled and swayed between my hands. The colors of red, orange, white, and even faint blues dancing and twisting between my fingers. It was entrancing and beautiful.

Honestly, I have no idea how long I spent just staring into the fire. But, things changed. The fire started moving faster, burning hotter, and fighting to be free more and more insistently. Which is when I recalled that fire not of my own making wasn't very good at listening to me, and really hated sitting still.

It had to burn, it had to consume. And I had no idea where to put it. Everything was either forest or ocean around here, and putting this beautiful and lovely fire to a bitter death at sea just felt wrong to me. So I did what any intelligent and caring individual would have done in the same situation.

I ate it.

I figured It would slowly assimilate into my own fires inside of me. Eventually making me even stronger for its addition.

I was wrong. I was horribly wrong. The two did not like each other at all. They started to fight, to consume and reject one another. Expanding bursts of flame as they fought for supremacy, coiling around and rejecting one another.

It gave me a really bad stomach ache.

Of course, all this took time to develop. I had taken off into the skies shortly after devouring the stranger flame. So it wasn't until I was high above nothing but the blue ocean that it hit me.

I was experiencing a level of pain I had never known before. My flight path was all over the place, and I nearly crashed into the seas. Which in my state could well have been a death sentence. Roughly every fifteen minutes I would be unable to handle the pain anymore, and purposely send more tingles in to confront the foreign blaze.

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

And it always made it much much worse.

Literally only pouring more fuel on the fire inside me. As the longer it was contained, the fiercer it fought to be free. Paradoxically growing in its search for fuel to grow. It attacked my tingles wildly. Consuming them and eating at me, and all the violence was trapped in my poor tummy.

Eventually I stopped trying to 'fix' the problem with more fire. Hoping that the problem would solve itself in due time. That if I stopped feeding it then it would die down. That, eventually, it would work its way out of my system.

Well, in a way, my hopes were realized.

Flamethrower farts are a terrible thing. Especially indoors. Of a palace. During some kind of ball or something. Lots of ladies and gentlemen wearing lots of flammable clothes and perfumes and makeups. Really, pretty much the worst place to have noxious flamethrower farts.

So, naturally, that's where I managed to have them.

Honestly, I don't really recall all that clearly how I got into such a place and event. I was in a great deal of pain, and focusing mostly on not exploding from the forces violently fighting each other in my guts. I think, I was hailed by a ship. Landed on it. Some people talked a bit, I sweated and nodded while trying and failing to think of a way to get the unfriendly fire out of me without literally gutting myself. Self-mutilation should always be a last resort.

Then... uh, the ship sailed somewhere. Obviously. And I was led to a carriage, just as the war inside me moved down from my stomach into my, uh, those long bits. The Whatchamacallems'. Interestings. That sounds right. The fight sunk into my interestings. The burning and bloating as war was waged inside of me had me curling into a ball of sweaty misery on the soft cushions inside the carriage.

The carriage eventually rocked to a stop, and I was led outside by a very impatient and annoying man who seemed very much sure of his being better than me. He wore a black suit. Thats all I really recall of him. So he couldn't have been all that important.

Anyway, he then led me away from the carriage, into a big palace looking place. Through a whole bunch of suitably palatial looking corridors, or hallways, or whatever. I was in too much gastric distress to really give a flock. And finally into a big fancy room full of big fancy people.

I was directed to stand in front of the fanciest people, just as the war inside me headed down into the final stretch. If you follow my meaning. The fancy people formed into orderly ranks. Row upon row of fat and bejeweled silk clad men and woman with powder on their face and oils in their hair.

The fancier they were dressed the closer they stood to the fanciest couple on their fancy chairs. I was in the very front, not ten feet from the fanciest of peoples fancy chairs. Then everyone bowed to the fanciest ones. I did not. Until that unmemorable man in the strange black suit placed his hands on the back of my neck and pushed down.

I bowed, and the sudden shift in muscles and organs opened a way out for the frantic foreign flames. Then, flamethrower fart. Flamethrower fart all over everything.

It felt so good to finally release all that built up pressure!

I guess its not hard to imagine what happened to the heavily clothed and oiled people directly behind me. Nothing good, to put it mildly. Their panicked screaming and fratically sprinting forms spread the fire about. Lighting up a few amazingly detailed and no doubt extremely expensive tapestrys hanging on the sides of the hall, throne room, whatever.

I snuck out in all the confusion. Making sure to snag some of the lovely looking delicacys placed unobtrusively on a table in the corner. They were pretty tasty, but not very filling. Then it was just a simple matter of avoiding anyone who looked like they knew what they were doing as I made my escape as quietly as possible.

I may not seem like much on a stealthy fella, but I don't much care for fanfare. And I dislike escorts and guards immensely. So I avoided any trouble, and kept my flames to myself. Best not to make a scene.

Next thing I know, I'm jumping over a wall and landing on the street.

Since then I have wandered the very beautiful city built around the palace. Trying and failing to ignore the steadily increasing amounts of smoke coming from said palace. Fire does spread, doesn't it? Not my problem, if they don't want their palaces to be set on fire, then they shouldn't invite strangers inside and then force them to bow.

This was bound to happen eventually, wasn't it. They should have known better. 

Some random wandering through the dense alleyways led me into the part of town with the people who try to stab you and take your stuff. I clubbed them with a table leg I found in a pile of trash and took their stuff instead. Borrowed some clothes as well. My trousers were a bit, er, blown out if you catch my drift.

Then I wandered into a nicer part of town, had some nice filling meat on a skewer, paid for with the proceeds from my time clubbing robbers. Then I wandered around town the rest of the day. Just listening to the local chatter.

Most people couldn't shut up about the smoke coming from the palace. I heard a dozen theories in five minutes. None even close to the truth. Luckily that wasn't the only thing fueling the local gossips.

Word of a terrible and violent monster lady, who destroyed a neighboring kingdom was even more popular then talk of demon worshipping in the palace. That was one of the more favored theories behind the smoke. The descriptions of her differ. Jumping all the way from a twelve foot tall and disfigured monster woman, to a petite and dainty beauty. But in every tale one thing remains the same. A very distinctive hat. Tall, and with a red and gold feather tucked into the hat band.

The lady could be either Onica or Lena. If the lady exists at all.

But the hat sounds a lot like Fen. How many fancy hats like him can there even be? I am assuming that it is. So I will be heading towards this destroyed kingdom tomorrow. It is, or was, a vassal of the Shoto empire, much like the one I am currently in. See if I can't pick up his trail. 

I hope I don't get lost again.

I left the city proper just before dusk really set in. Finding a nice tree to sleep in for the night. It's probably poisonous, but it's all alone. So if I burn it in the morning it won't be a forest fire at least. I am definitely not eating strange fires anymore regardless. Gotta learn from my mistakes.

Goodnight.