“So,” said Rell, “Should we snipe them all from the forest or bust in guns a-blazing?”

“Swords a-blazing.” Seg and Brie said in unison.

Rell looked at them with a face that seemed to doubt their sanity.

They had traveled, and the army was in front of them, although they haven’t been seen as of yet.

Aesh looked at Paella, and she nodded.

’We won’t be upstaged by those two.”

“Fire a-blazing.” they said together, in the same way that Seg and Brie had.

Aesh made a pushing motion behind Paella, and a blast of fire shot out of his hand, slamming into her back.

She went flying towards the army, her flesh burning.

She landed prone in front of the army, still on fire, and the people closest to her turned and muttered in shock.

“What happened to her?”

“Who was she?”

“A Priestess.” she said softly.

“She’s still alive.”

“She might still have some coin.”

“It’s not like she can do anything to us.”

“Yeah. Hey Priestess! We’re going to watch you die, and then take your things!”

They laughed at the prospect.

“You…” she said, slowly struggling to her feet.

“What are you going to do? Heal us?” the soldiers goaded.

“All…” she stood up, and they were surprised to see that the fire was still going strong.

“Die!” she yelled, and the fires roared with her voice, reaching up to twice her height.

Seg and Brie watched the scene as Aesh muttered under his breath.

“Ventum Pedaurus! Choreasalt!”

He jumped over Paella, passing through the fire as he did.

He span, and the fire surrounded him.

He landed on one foot, the other swinging the fire in an arc at the soldiers.

Paella charged past him.

“Pyroforte!” he yelled.

The remaining fire grew in size and brightness until it was blinding to look at.

“Pyrocella!”

The fire poured into her, and condensed around her to a brilliant white aura.

“Charge!” yelled one soldier, and a small group ran at her with swords drawn.

She did not even turn to look at them.

They swung their swords at her, only to watch in horror as their swords bent and melted before they even touched her fiery aura

They dropped their swords in shock, all except the commander.

He had held back when she didn’t turn to face him, but now he was smiling.

He raised his longsword and thrust it at her neck.

It did not melt.

It did not even soften.

His was no ordinary sword.

The tip pierced her aura of flame, moving straight for her throat.

“Die b-!”

His cry was cut short by a scream as fire flew out of the place his sword had hit her aura towards him.

The fire enveloped him and his blade, burning away at him.

She turned, and looked at him.

Her eyes held only disappointment.

“It will have to do for now.” she muttered.

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

“Burn channel.”

It was a test of an ability she was working on.

Ideally it would internalise the fire and-

The fire surrounding the man became stronger, consuming both him and his sword.

She was glad she hadn’t tested it on herself.

The man didn’t fall down.

Rather, even as he burned away, he raised his sword and looked at Paella.

She suddenly felt a strange connection between them.

She had never felt it before, but she recognised it from descriptions.

He was a spawned creature.

They were similar to summons, only they had no minds of their owns, only able to follow the orders of their creator.

Depending on those creators, these could vary in how complicated they needed to be.

Or how complicated they could be.

She had heard of some who couldn’t understand anything more complicated than “fight”, “swim” or “lift”

But there were also those who if you told them “Hit him with your sword.” would need to know where to hit him, and with which part of the sword.

The thing which made up for these disadvantages was that unlike the normal summons, spawned creatures did not require verbal commands.

Instead, they could be controlled by the thoughts of their creators.

Of course this meant that if you had one that required complicated commands, you would not be able to control more than one.

Which meant that she needed to figure out what its ability was.

’Hit that soldier in the left temple with the flat of your sword.’

It made a valiant effort, knocking the soldier’s sword out of his hand.

’Too complicated.’

’Fight.’ she tried.

It did its best again, but just like before it seemed to just flail its arms around wildly.

She was fairly certain that it was missing more than it was hitting.

’Too complicated again?’

She racked her brain trying to think of a way to dumb it down even further, but she couldn’t.

This was the biggest problem, and the biggest fear with spawned creatures.

Sometimes they were just useless.

She sighed.

It looked like she would have to fight normally.

To her left, Aesh softened the ground, caused the armored warriors to sink.

To her right, Rell flung the knights into each other, often hurling them over ten feet.

And she was wreathed in brilliant white fire, melting metal as it neared her.

’And I was hoping to have an interesting ability.’

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