The sorcerer’s body sprawls on the rotten planks, dark, silent waves lapping against the slick, mossy wood. His last breaths spill scarlet from his lips, cherry with blood, into the black seawater. The sorcerer stares up, with unblinking gaze, at his murderer, at the city above and the stars beyond.

Almon studies his eyes one last time, still so full of disbelief. The sorcerer’s dead, iridescent eyes stab at his mind.

A thousand shining stars hang in the sky. A broken mountain range burns scarlet as mist fades through it. A pillar of light spears the clouds.

Iridescent eyes gaze down from the heavens.

May they all burn.

Almon squeezes his hand into a fist, feeling the heart he ripped from the sorcerer’s still moving chest pop with a wet squelch.

He nudges the body with a careful kick, gazing down at it all the while. One kick, then two. A third and the sorcerer is floating on the black sea.

The water suddenly begins to splash, waves rippling through the waters. Sharks appear, their dark fins circling. The ocean never wastes time.

A broken world. The land keens in pain. The trees grow twisted and torn, their hearts rotten and empty. The Reavers stalk the forests. The Lost wander the mortal realm.

They condemned us to this fate. They doomed us to our suffering. Then they forgot who we were.

He looks up into the sky. A sky full of stars.

Almon spits into the dark seawater, his good eye flaring a dull, cherry red, like the last embers of a dying flame.

One day, I will tear down those heavens you hide behind.

I will reveal you for the fiends you are.

He hears a sound on the deck. It is not the screaming of his people from so long ago. Not the cries of forgotten crows, picking through the mountains of dead and rivers of blood. Not the laughter of hidden gods, their cruel eyes trained on a broken door.

No, this sound is real. The dull thump of something tough striking hollow, rotten wood. He turns to see a wooden ramp trembling under heavy boots.

A thickset man, gold and jewels of a thousand colors glittering on his fingers, descends towards the docks. Blue light spills from the gilded, shaded lantern in his hands onto the dock. It’s light is unnaturally muted by the shadows of the dock--but the man doesn’t notice. Pathetic.

He seems to have a high position--denoted by the gems and gold that cover the man’s clothes. Perhaps he will have some important information tucked away behind all the folds of fat and debauchery that no doubt cloud his mind.

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The blood stained wood is blackish-brown in the light, finally catching the man’s eye. One hand disappears into his finely woven jacket, pulling a pistol--an older model, a flintlock--pointing its wavering barrel into the darkness.

Almon is revealed by the moonlight as the clouds above shift slightly. The man freezes--he looks like he’s seen a ghost. Or maybe he’s seen a demon. All the same, really.

“W-what are you?” The man stumbles over his words.

Almon smiles through shattered, bloody spires of bright enamel. His voice is a ragged, sibilant hiss of vocal cords torn and shot from millenia of screaming into the void. “What do you think?”

The man’s finger shakes, then slips.

There is a flash of light and fire. A crack like the sound of shattering glass amplified a hundred times over. The wood of a ship behind Almon erupts in splinters and fragments.

It’s a good thing Almon isn’t in the way. No, he’s in the flames. His eye glows a cherry red, and his world is fire.

For just an instant, he is transformed by long-forgotten powers into a whirling tempest of heat and energy. The man’s flintlock breaks apart into a ball of flame as Almon explodes from the firing chamber, leveraging the spark and subsequent explosion to launch himself from the material to the spiritual and back again.

The man screams aloud and drops the gun--too late. His hand is a mangled mess of burns and welts, embedded with bleeding shards of silvery steel.

The thickset man drops his lantern, and before he can hear the sound of shattering glass, he turns to run. But again, it’s too late.

Almon grasps forward with a hand of blazing fire; he grabs the man by his neck and lifts him like a kitten.

“DO YOU KNOW WHAT I AM NOW?” He whisper-roars, his voice the crackle-pop of flames, the snapping cackle of a blazing bonfire.

The man doesn’t reply--he can’t. Too busy screaming as the heat of Almon’s hand brands its print into his neck.

Almon smiles. For once, the sound of screaming is music to his ears. Like the soothing hum of insects at dusk.

Then he focuses, drawing deep from within. The heartfire of his people is mostly gone, ashes remaining where flames once roared to the heavens, but there is enough. Enough left to squeeze this mortal mind for answers, enough left to burn out what he needs from this man’s seared spirit.

There is a howl of flame, a gust of hot wind that rises to the sky, and a pillar of bright orange energies that pierce the night clouds.

A few people glance out their windows. Upon seeing the unnatural shadows that cover the dock, however, they slam them shut.

The man disappears, his mortal form vaporized into mere ash on the wind, his spirit disintegrated, its remnants drawn into Almon’s heartfire--more fuel for the flames.

A few seconds later, Almon smiles.

The man was important, after all.

He knew quite a bit. Much of the things he had heard are most likely simple rumor--but they are leads. And that is all he needs.

He stalks off the wooden dock, leaving footprints of burning ash, one step closer to freedom... one step closer to vengeance.

Although the heartfire has burned low, still the last of it remains. And if even a spark can start a wildfire, then what of an ember?

He shifts, whirls, and a pulse of heat and light rises to the sky.

What is this about... Godsparks?