It seemed, some things weren’t meant to go together. Fire spirits and boredom, my children and caution. My life and any resemblance of peace.
‘[Mom.] [Do I absolutely have to keep] [water all around me all the time?]’ Nibble asked, looking a bit glum.
‘[Yes, the air here is bad for your health. Remember when you tried eating the rhinosnail?]’ I asked her. Of course, I never told anyone that I did exactly the same once, so I could lord that particular stupidity over her without sounding like a hypocrite. Being a parent did have its perks sometimes.
‘[But like this I can’t taste all the new things around here.] [Only what enters the water.]’, she continued to complain.
‘[Don’t worry, everything here smells and tastes disgusting anyways. I don’t know how often I told you that you don’t have to take a lick of everything just to be sure that you shouldn’t eat it.]’
‘[But it looked so juicy!]’, Nibble protested weakly. She did not, however, retract her water bubble and start sampling the yellow rocks we passed. She still eyed them hungrily, of course, but eventually moved along with her head lowered.
I was about to continue my conversation with Junior when Pyra jostled passed him, nearly breaking his focus in the process.
‘[Mom, Iris went ahead with Trigger!] Her water bubble wavered when she started to write. ‘[Why are you all so slow?] [Hurry up!]’
Her spell was about to collapse, so I just levelled my gaze on her and replied: ‘[Focus!]’
Pyra’s eyes widened for a moment before she clamped them shut in concentration. The ripples in her water bubble smoothed out soon after.
‘[And that is why we take our time.]’ I told her when she looked at me again. ‘[Focus on your spell and keep the water cool. You won’t get more up here until it rains again.]’
She just nodded and continued onwards.
‘[Are we nearly there?]’ Junior asked from beside me.
I groaned inwardly.
‘[Yes, we are close. We would be there already if a certain sister of yours wouldn’t stop at every other rock we pass to consider if it could be tasty.]’ I shot a look at Nibble who was starting to fall behind again.
Why did I have to take the three of them with me? Because I said they could go up if they were able to hold the water bubble spell around themselves. Those three managed. Iris’ little adventure must have awoken a competitive spirit. Or maybe they were just eager to see something new.
I still would have preferred to do this on a day with rain and no storms. But I couldn’t exactly wait after what had happened earlier today.
Trigger was back, had brought an angry forest monster elemental to our doorsteps and didn’t even have the patience to try and explain what was going on before it wanted to go up the volcano to greet its siblings.
Well, maybe it was for the best. I could have Vigil interrogate it and give me the highlights. I didn’t want to know about every singly forest fire Trigger had caused over the last four moons after all.
So I told my kids that I was going to visit the caldera. Most of them wanted to come with us. Either to see what would happen, meet Dancer or simply to not be alone down here with the scary thing still somewhere in the woods.
Only three managed to keep up the bubble spell while doing something else. I say ‘only’ but their progress in magic was astonishing as it was.
Pyra had been awed by Triggers smouldering appearance. I wasn’t sure how much Vigil had told my kids about its sibling, but Pyra seemed to have a bad case of idol worship there.
Siria kept a careful distance, having seen the lava scalamander fight against the ‘forest’. Rose joined her sister. Most of the boys tried to get closer but reconsidered after the first light burns because Trigger didn’t care for turning down the heat one bit.
Junior still had clung to my side and Spruce didn’t really care and just left when the excitement was suddenly over. Probably to look for more snacks.
Nibble looked like she considered if the elemental would be tasty. But she stared at everything new in that unsettling way, so… yeah.
Trigger didn’t know what to do with all the attention and was quite disappointed that it couldn’t have a little bout with a single one of the ‘small Sweeties’ while it impatiently waited for us to select who would visit the mountaintop.
And now it turned out that in the end, the volcano spirit went ahead with Iris anyways.
As I said, it seemed like I couldn’t have a moment of peace in my life.
When we finally reached the crater, the sunset up here had already passed as well. My three kids were eyeing the alien landscape with googly eyes. Nibble might have drooled a bit at the sight of all the red moss. I wasn’t sure. Could also have been a temporary lax in focus to maintain her water bubble.
‘[Don’t try to eat those either.]’ I wrote in front of her face. She gulped and nodded dejectedly.
Trigger was already battling it out with Vigil and Iris was… making rock sculptures with Dancer? At least it looked like that was what they were doing from up here.
Dancer had changed again since I had seen it last. It didn’t stay an amorphous blob anymore but every time I came to visit it had taken a new form. One time it had looked like a weird cross between a spider and a water strider. Another time it was something between an octopus and a crab. I often had wondered where it took the inspiration from. This time it had a surprisingly simple form though. A long glowing red and basalt-grey serpent.
In the heat, my water sphere began to slowly evaporate at the surface. I couldn’t have that if it didn’t rain. So I turned to my son. ‘[Junior, I need your help to keep my water cool.]’
He looked at the huge amount of water I had carried up here and hesitated. ‘[I’ll try, mom, but…]
I chuckled, which sounded more like a gluggle, honestly. ‘[You can stay in my bubble.]’
He visibly relaxed and merged his own water with mine as he entered my sphere and swam upwards to hover over my back. Shortly after, it noticeably cooled down.
Meanwhile, Pyra was watching with excitement as Vigil and Trigger collided again, throwing shards of half molten rock everywhere around them.
She wiggled with her whole body, flinching with every crash or hitting projectile.
Nibble had wandered off to inspect the moss carpet from up close, staying far away from any of the lava pools or the elementals.
I just shook my head and moved, Junior in tow, down towards the happy little reunion, to break it up.
Yeah, I knew that they hadn’t seen each other in a while. But I was happy to play the bad guy at the moment.
I wanted answers. Now.
Four bubble beams and three whirlpool shields later, two now steaming and sizzling elementals had calmed down enough to tell me the adventurous tale of one volcano spirit wandering alone through the swamp, causing havoc everywhere it went.
Well, Vigil was the one translating. I couldn’t make any more sense of Triggers recollection as I could at home half a day earlier. Junior was following the exchange between the spirits with apt attention though, I noticed.
During this heroic retelling of a violent odyssey, Pyra went to bug Iris and Dancer to teach her ‘cool lava stuff’ - her words, not mine - once it was clear that the fighting was over for now. Nibble stumbled around the caldera, doing… well, Nibble-things.
‘[one day] [Trigger] [wander] [into] [grove] - [far away]’ Vigil was explaining after we made it through a disturbing amount of undoubtedly exciting infernos an hour or so later. ‘[Trigger] [met] [many] [tiny lizards] - [with] [many] [tiny] [eggs]’
The yummy ones? It finally got a bit interesting. I had to ask ‘[With a soft white shell? Outside of the water? I haven’t eaten some of those in ages!]’
Junior perked up at that. I had told him and his siblings a lot about the delicious food on my travels.
‘[yes] - [amusement]’, Vigil answered.
I was very interested where I could find them, but that still didn’t answer any of my questions. So I had to repeat for the… I-didn’t-keep-count-of-how-many-th time. ‘[Ok, but when do we get to why Trigger was chased back to our home by a colossal elemental? Siria and Nibble said the whole forest was fighting it.]’
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Did I mention how nice it was that Vigil had to learn to understand my more complex language version when it started to teach the kids? It still used the simplified version when writing, but I didn’t have to talk like an idiot anymore!
‘[now]’ Vigil wrote to my pleasant surprise. ‘[Trigger] [find] [grove] [with] [many] [tiny lizards] [and] [babies] [and] [eggs]’ It hesitated a moment. ‘[Trigger] [investigate]’
Junior interrupted ‘[Pretty sure, Trigger just said he was starting to burn things.]’ Oho? My little scholar already understood a bit of the spirits’ language? Call me impressed. Perhaps Vigil taught him before? Anyways. I expected as much alone from the combination of the words ‘Trigger’ and ‘investigate’.
‘[proto-spirits] [attack] [Trigger] [then] - [stop] [hurting] [tiny lizards]’ Vigil continued. It seemed to think for a bit and asked its brother a few more questions… for clarification, I assumed. ‘[no] [earth] - [no] [water] - [earth] [and] [little] [water] [and] [tiny] [light] [and] [much] [don’t know word]’
So… elementals that were made of four affinities. Water, earth and light sounded a bit like plants. That would also fit the description that the forest itself was fighting Trigger.
I wondered briefly why I hadn’t come across such an elemental at least once during our two years of travelling through the swamp. Then I eyed Trigger and Vigil, singeing the moss beneath them. Probably because I had those two hot-heads with me the whole time.
‘[Trigger] [fought] [back]’
Of course, it did.
‘[Trigger] [hurt] [many] [proto-spirits]’
Well, duh! It is a volcano and they were trees.
‘[Then] [big] [angry] [proto-spirit] [attack] - [much] [water]’, Vigil looked a little bit wary now. At least as wary as it could look.
‘[So, Trigger fought a bunch of plant elementals that were protecting a grove of nesting tiny lizards and then a swamp elemental came to defend them and drove Trigger away?]’, I concluded.
Vigil consulted Trigger again for confirmation, then answered ‘[yes] - [plant elemental] - [swamp elemental] - [good] [words]’
‘[And then this swamp spirit chased Trigger all the way back here and returned home?]’, I probed further.
‘[yes] - [no] - [swamp elemental] [still] [close] - [swamp elemental] [waiting] - [guarding] [in] [valley]’
That wasn’t good news at all. Two-thirds of my children were wandering around those woods and probably half of them could play with fire. If not more by now. They all should have been at least aware of the basics of ambient energy manipulation. And now there was a pissed-off swamp monster with a vendetta against little arsonists.
No, that was the opposite of good. Couldn’t I catch a break for once? I had a cult to found!
I eyed Trigger accusingly. It really was always trouble!
What should I do now?
Our conversation pretty much broke off after that. It started to rain at some point and I told Junior that I was fine now. He enthusiastically scampered away to meet Dancer and participate in the sculpting contest that was still going on. Now with ice sculptures, it seemed.
Vigil and Trigger were going at each other again and Pyra returned to watch. She even tried to join for a bit but thought twice about it after barely deflecting the first fire jet.
Nibble… I had to suppress a laugh to not choke on the water. She was still slowly strolling around the caldera and now had at least a dozen different samples of rocks and plants floating around in her water bubble. I had to praise her for her focus later. Keeping so many different vortexes active at the same time without them disrupting each other wasn’t an easy feat.
A little while later, the rain got thicker and heavier. The elementals stopped playing around and started to build crooked domes over the lava ponds. Dancer didn’t like the structures its siblings made at all and tore them down again to replace them with its own creations.
I guess that had to be expected since it had been alone up here for so long and was used to having things its way. And since it didn’t have to share it got quite discriminating in what ‘art’ was acceptable.
But eventually, everyone else met together in the middle of the caldera and settled down a bit. The kids were slowly falling asleep or sleeping already. Digesting all the excitement of the day
I absorbed away at the water energy and eyed Trigger again. It seemed to have an argument with Vigil.
‘[I think, Trigger wants to leave again.]’, Junior, who was lying next to me in the water sphere I was maintaining for all of us, answered my unasked question. ‘[Vigil doesn’t agree, but I’m not sure why.]’
I stroked his back as thanks. It wasn’t all that difficult to guess, really. If Trigger was leaving towards the forest again, it would inevitably run into the angry swamp elemental. It got injured badly enough last time. If Trigger was my kid, I’d tell it to rest in its lava pool for a few weeks to recover, but it wasn’t and it would never agree to so much boredom anyways.
Finally, the argument got a bit heated - literally - and Vigil turned to me. ‘[Sweetie] [help] [?] - [Trigger] [stupid]’
I principally agreed with that statement but I doubted that would convince its reckless and chronically bored sibling to see the error of its ways.
‘[How about travelling in a different direction?]’ I asked instead. ‘[Into the mountains, maybe looking what lies behind?]’
Vigil seemed to like that idea and immediately began to translate it into Elemental. But it was a sleepy Iris who threw in a comment first.
‘[That sounds awesome! Going where no-one ever was. Discovering new places. I want to do that too!]’
I regarded her thoughtfully. ‘[Why didn’t you leave with Ruby’s group then? I’m sure they’d have loved to have you with them.]’
‘[I can’t yet.]’, she looked down disappointedly. It seemed like I’d ruined her mood.
‘[Why? Something to do with your Quest?]’, I wanted to know.
‘[Secret]’, she simply wrote back and closed her eyes, effectively ending our conversation.
That’s a yes then…, I thought to myself. Well, at least she wouldn’t run into a giant swamp monster that swallowed her whole if she stayed around for a while longer.
A couple days later, back in our glade again, I was lounging around in another light thunderstorm.
I had been thinking a lot about Trigger’s story during my increased number of energy absorption sessions. It had stumbled upon a huge nesting site of those little lizards that was protected by a whole bunch of forest spirits. That sounded nothing at all like all the run-ins I had so far with this species. Usually, they were together in little groups of two to five and if I found a nest it had always been isolated, a clutch of eggs buried in loose ground and not supervised at all.
This abrupt change in behaviour… did they also have a champion soul? Or maybe several? There had to be quite a lot of gods who shared a very limited pool of valid and viable targets at the moment. Maybe my own species wasn’t the only one that was deemed to have potential?
Who knew how many critters were running around in these woods with an above-average intellect and a Quest, desperately trying to figure out how to complete it. If only I could find one that could remember as well.
I sigh-huffed.
Sure, what would we even talk about? ‘Hey dude, do you also have strange memories of a previous you that witnessed how everything slowly went to shit?’ ‘Yeah, I sure have. Do you remember that one depressing thing, that was really depressing?’ ‘Of course I do, that was so depressing, I was depressed for the rest of my life.’ ‘Yeah, depressing.’
That surely would be very fun conversations.
A rustle in the nearby underbrush drew my attention. I couldn’t make out much over the constant noise of the rain. But after a while, Ruby, Fir and a very battered-looking Cinder, supported by his siblings, broke through the greenery.
I instantly leapt up and ran to meet them. None of them looked like they got away completely scot-free from whatever mangled Cinder to that degree.
‘[What happened?]’ I asked as I started to channel more water energy into him. Ruby and Fir should be fine with their own efforts.
‘[We were attacked by… I don’t know.]’, Fir started as he slumped down.
‘[Everything around us! The trees, the ferns, the ground, even the rain!]’, Ruby continued. She lay down as well. If a little bit more gracefully than her brother.
That was what I had been afraid of. ‘[Did you burn anything before you were attacked?]’ I asked them.
‘[Yes]’ ‘[We were going to roast a scorpion for dinner]’ ‘[Cinder was just setting up the campfire.]’ Ruby shot Fir a ‘look’, he shrunk back and she continued to answer alone afterwards. ‘[Cinder was making the fire and suddenly a brush tree slammed into him.]’ She glanced at her brother’s injuries.
His whole left side was crushed. I hoped energy absorption was even able to heal that. But I mean, we could regrow basically everything as long as we stayed alive. So I decided to stay optimistic for now. It still irked me that I didn’t feel the panic a mother should in a situation like this. But I had to console myself with at least not being indifferent.
‘[We made shields and tried to protect him.]’, Ruby continued. ‘[But the attacks came from everywhere and we didn’t know how to fight back.] [So we just grabbed Cinder and ran.] [They chased us until we crossed the creek.]’
‘[Yeah, Dancer and Vigil’s sibling returned a few days ago. He pissed off something big and dangerous…]’ While I continued to channel energy into my son, I slowly filled them in.
‘[... and that is why you can’t use fire when you are out in the forest anymore.]’ I finished.
Ruby considered that for a bit. Fir didn’t and just asked. ‘[So we can go out again if we just don’t burn anything?]’
I was speechless.
‘[It was really fun, mom.]’ Ruby chimed in before I knew how to answer that. ‘[If it is safe as long as we don’t play with fire, I’d like to go out again too.]’
Well, it was their funeral, wasn’t it?
‘[You’re adults now. If you want to leave here I would never stop you. You can always come back, … as long as you are able to come back.]’ All three of them swallowed at that. It seemed like I had told them enough horror stories and now that they had their own to add…
‘[Just stay at least a few days to recover, please?]’ Fir and Ruby nodded. Cinder only croaked quietly when he tried to do the same. ‘[You’ll be fine]’ I told him. ‘[I’ll patch you right up, you’ll see.]’
‘[Thanks, Mom]’, he managed to write after concentrating through the pain.
‘[And be very careful when you go out again, ok? Have each other’s back like you did this time.]’
Of course, I received unanimous agreement to that. What else were they supposed to say?
The next half dozen days I spent helping Cinder heal and absorbing more water energy myself. In the nightly shower of day seven, it finally happened.
My affinity for water hit moderate.
I actually was able to increase my affinities. I doubted I would be able to gain entirely new ones, but if I could sense the energy type I could absorb it.
That was good news because I would need more power if I wanted to talk with the enraged swamp elemental.
It could throw Trigger around like it was nothing. If I made one mistake when I eventually tried to negotiate with it, I’d be only so much meat to smear off the closest tree.
And I did have to negotiate with it if I was supposed to found a fire cult for Memory, didn’t I?
I looked over our little glade, feeling a bit pensive.
I’d have to travel again if I wanted to get as much power as quickly as I could get it. I had planned to go there once before when I first decided to abandon my quest.
I had met Sanguine on that journey.
After, I never went near there because I always had Trigger and Vigil with me. And I wasn’t eager to find out how an ocean spirit reacted to two little bored volcanos.
Maybe I could find and ask Ripple to make introductions?
I was pretty sure that the little river elemental would like the idea of visiting the sea with me.