Eating raw fish was a thing I never thought I would enjoy, but here I am eating this bastard of a fish like it’s a delicacy. For about an hour we wasted this fish into bones and the pile is just sat in between all of us. The tribespeople are all chatting amongst themselves and having a good time. It’s time now that I think about it. I motion over Zarhan and whisper into his ear. “Should we hold the memorial now or should I find out what everyone does?”

Zahran ponders for a bit and says “Do the memorial when we can build a shrine for the heroes, should I call them together?”

“Please do so.”

Zarhan gets up and calls out to everyone. “Everyone I need you to get into your working groups and present yourselves to me and Gherman, form a line in order of honor.”

Interestingly everyone gets into a queue in record time but the queue is not a straight line, more like groups of horizontal lines in one short vertical line. The children are last, duh, they have gained no honor. Next goes the younger men who fled on my arrival, then it’s a mixed bag, men and women intertwined.

Many greetings and pleasantries after and I have a good idea of everyone’s capabilities.

The children can be ignored, not useful right now.

The 10 men are divided into 5 Warriors/Hunters and the other five into laborers. They called themselves that but when I asked for the specifics they answered with “We can do anything Chief!” If they can’t build any houses they are going to get some Sergeant Pain.

The 13 women have different roles. Since we are carnivorous and don’t need to farm at all, three of the women are laborer's like the previous five muscle-heads and the rest are housewives/scientists with the exception of one woman who is a warrior.

Out of them, all only two people are relatively old and its two of the women. They said that their husbands went on to sacrifice themselves during their escape.

Now I have to distribute them to tasks around the place.

“Zarhan, I’m thinking we can split up into groups to investigate these oddities found around us, they may be useful in helping us build our home. I suggest I go and investigate the blazing heat, Stalra takes some warriors with him to the Steery Woods and creates a more detailed report about the wood and its creatures and finally, Meena should take some people to catch some of these glowing rocks.”

Zarhan ponders for a moment. “Then let's send 2 warriors with Stalra, Meena can take some people with her as well. Meena won't be needing protection but I shall be on the safe side and send a warrior with her group. As for you, you can pick a few people yourself but I suggest you take Panara with you.”

Panara is the female warrior, an ugly duckling compared to the rest of her compatriots. When she was introducing herself, she had a tough time controlling her power when we shook hands on her initiative and we got into a hand squeezing competition. Naturally, since I'm a champion of a goddess she was put in her place but that seemed to not deter her at all. Rather she enjoyed it. Also, her voice sounded familiar. Bloody masochist muscle-head.

“Fine, I'll let her know.”

“What about me kin Gherman? What should I do?”

“You Zarhan protect the rest of the tribespeople, also try to form the foundations of our home and tell me what you came up with when I come back.”

“Yes, my kin! I will be waiting for your arrival.”

“See ya.”

I look around the clearing and notice Panara around her parents well it’s pretty easy to notice her when she is almost my height. Only Zarhan is my height and that’s saying something. Nice people by the way, although they were way too nice to me. They almost revered me when they were introduced themselves.

“Panara, I got a mission for you!” I call out.

She quickly turns to face me and smiles. “YesChieftanwhatisit?” She rapidly fires out.

Her mom facepalms here and says. “Calm down Panara, nobody will understand you if you do that. Silly girl.”

Scratching her head, she replies. “Sorry Chieftain, I got carried away. Hehe,”

“No biggie, alright listen up, first of all, you are going to follow me...” She lightly gasps. “to the blazing heat that Zarhan found.”

She acts like a dunce around me but Zarhan says she is pretty strong and intelligent because of her parents. I do recall they lined up far up in the line.

Panara grabs her spear and skips over to my side. “Lead the way Chieftain!”

Such a cute little dunce. I turn around and start gliding towards the bigger river Meena found. Panara quickly follows.

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“Say Chieftain.” She says while grabbing my shoulder. “Where are you actually from?” As she asks me she puts some strength onto me.

I don’t falter and calmly answer. “That is something I cannot say right now for simply I don’t know if I can trust you. I similarly won't tell that to anyone else.”

She pouts. “Chieftain that’s mean, you are now one of our leaders and you are backed by a goddess, we are all naturally loyal to you!”

“I don’t mean that it’s a secret I don’t know if I should even divulge.”

“Eeeeh, then how about this Chieftain. I beat you in a duel and you tell me!”

Why is she so interested? “What if I win then?”

She blushes slightly thinking about something. What with her teenager syndrome? Wait, she’s into me, isn’t she?

“Then... umm... youcanmarryme!” She says quickly and quietly.

What? I need to confirm this. “Why would I want to do that?”

She stops dead in her tracks looking down. Yep, she has a crush on me or maybe even more.

Women are volatile things, I need to diffuse this bomb. “Fine, but not now we have a job to do and try to think of a way to sample the blazing heat.”

She visibly brightens up and my acceptance of the duel.

Wait, I just got duped. I either reveal my secret of being an alien or get caught in her clutches.

Clever girl.

At least it’s not all lost, she is pretty cute just like Helga.

I miss you, Helga.

As I'm deep in thought about my wife I didn’t notice how Panara swims in front of me to try and stop me. I crash into her and we both tumble a bit.

We stopped tumbling and I seemed to have got a strong grip on her shoulders, she is beaming with happiness. I retract my hands and cough. “Sorry Panara, I was deep in thought. Why did you try to stop me?”

“We have arrived!” She points down to the blazing inferno of white fire. Majestic. Enchanting, tranquil and free-flowing fire.

I slowly descend to it, 30m, 20m, at 10m I start feeling the heat. It’s warm from here. Looking closer at the fire I can see that it seems to be less f a unified inferno and more like small groups or chunks are ablaze. What is feeding the fire though?

Panara drifts down and tries to understand this conundrum with me, her face frowns in confusion.

Drifting lower, 5m I start feeling much hotter like it’s a hot summers day, bearable but there is an oddity. The heat is constant, I don’t feel getting any warmer. Panara slowly drifts by as well.

“Panara do you feel getting any hotter by the heat?” I inquire.

“No Chieftan, it feels like it is coming in waves, pulsating like a heart.”

“Panara grabs a sheet of rock for me, I want to test something.”

She swims over to some jagged rock out of the way and pulls a thin sheet out with her spear. She tosses it over to me.

Putting the sheet of rock in front of me I lose all feeling of the hot summers day. Rather it goes back to being just warm. If the heat is acting like a wave then I should be feeling more heat near the edges but I don’t.

Meanwhile, Panara gets her own sheet which is slightly thicker and swims closer to the inferno.

She calls out. “Chieftan, swim over, the heat is almost fully gone here!”

Gliding over and going behind the sheet she is holding I do feel a lack of any heat.

“You know Chieftan, it feels like it’s an aura of sorts.”

She is right however it is probably not fire then if the heat acts like an aura. Some sort of unique chemical reaction? Radiation then? Radiation is highly possible as the sheet of rock protected us from the heat and small particles of it got through. However, that is not a fire but it looks like one.

“Panara I have an idea, let’s try to capture some of it. I suggest we make a bowl of sorts and stuff some of it in.”

She nods. We swim over to some rock and start carving out some of the rock. Come to think of it these spearheads are incredibly sharp if they pierce rock like it’s no problem.

“Panara, what are these spearheads made of?”

“Chieftan remember what Stalra mentioned before, Steery wood is abundant all over the ocean and its wood is incredibly durable, we sharpen it and tie it to its left-over bark to form our spears!” She happily lectures me about creating spears.

Eventually, we get a deep enough bowl that is thick enough to hold the thing without radiating the heat.

Panara picks up the sheet of rock and leads the way and I follow with the long and thick container. The oddity piece we are going for is on the outskirts. A smaller of its kind, no taller than 30 cm. We slowly get closer and closer.

“Ready Chieftan?”

“Ready!”

She pushes the sheet forward, isolating the small piece from the rest of the fire thing. The small piece of thing being isolated from its brethren glows dimmer and colder but doesn’t change its shape. Not wasting any time, I position the bowl over the thing and cover it fully, the heat dissipates.

“I have it.” I say “Mission accomplished!”

She looks at me and smiles.

Ignoring her smile, I try to figure out if it’s properly in the bowl. Lifting the container up shows that the thing is still attached to the surface. I take a risk and grab the bottom of the thing and pull. This thing is a plant. Roots, shoots and a stem all present.

My hand starts sizzling. Quickly shoving it into the bowl and covering it with a rudimentary lid we swim away from the heat. Damn, this hurts! However, we have this plant now. I put my hand over my other hand instinctively to try and quell the pain.

Panara notices me do this and says. “Chieftan let the water flow onto your hand, it will heal quicker!” Her concerning tone teaches me a valuable thing about us. Water is our life. When I read that we can’t really go on land and be effective made me think that it’s just a necessary limitation of the Mrentoni but now it makes more sense. We live, breath and consume this water. Our cells need water in order to function. My hand quickly heals and the pain dissipates, only an uncomfortable, numb feeling is left.

Turning around to Panara I say. “Let’s bring back the Inferno Stalk to our people, I have an idea for what we can do with it.”

Visible confusion appears on her face. “Ingfhernow?”

“In-fer-no,” I repeat.

“Inferno,” she repeats.

“Good, you said it right.”

She beams at my praise and asks. “What does that mean my Chieftain?”

“It means never-ending heat, a spark of infinite energy that burns like life itself.”

She looks amazed at my explanation of what is essentially fire. We begin swimming back to our new home. I notice Panara stare at me from my peripheral vision, seemingly wanting to say something.

She finds the courage shortly after and says. “Can I be the spark that burns for you, producing never-ending heat?” Never took her for a romantic but she makes me smile like a teenager receiving a confession. Acting this cute makes me want to take this budding relationship further.

I reply. “Only if you beat me in a duel!”