Dear diary, fire is hot.

“So, how are you dealing with your rope burns,” Lucy asks sarcastically.

“Just be happy they did not tie you up upside down,” I complain back at her.

“Well, I am. How could we be so stupid? You never trust strangers,” She says, her voice sounding really sad.

“Ooh, don’t be sad. It’s not like they got their hands on the plates or anything.”

“I guess you're right. Wait, plate, as in multiple? How many do you have?”

“Just the two, really and technically, I don’t have them.”

“Okay, and where did you hide them genius?”

“Somewhere nobody would look?”

“And where is that?”

“Not telling it to be a lot more satisfying if I reveal that to you later,” I say with a bright smile.

“Okay, and how are we going to get out of here in the meantime?”

“Oh, that is simple. I can either burn us loose, or Kuro can cut us loose. Right?” I ask

“How did you even know I was here?” Kuro asks while walking out of the shadows.

“I didn’t, but I thought It would be cool if you were. That is why I said it.” I say with a smile on my face.

“Good job, I guess. So, want me to cut you loose?” Kuro asks.

“Yes, please. also, did you find anything interesting while looking around?”

“Kind of. They called some people to collect a bounty on you two from the black market.” The cat says as he jumps out of sight.

“Ooh, that is nice,” I say with a smile.

“How is that in any way a good thing?” Lucy asks in a stressed voice.

“Means that I was right and that they won’t send the entire warship to hunt us. I personally count that as a win.” I say

“I also found a map with the most likely location of the Traveller,” Kuro says with more than a little hint of satisfaction in his voice.

“That is my little favoured little cat,” I say in cheer

“You are not going to enjoy how far it is from here.” He says in a concerned tone.

“What is it on another planet?” I ask, a bit concerned.

“No, just the other side of this one,” Kuro says.

“I don’t see how that is a problem we still have the spaceship,” I say.

“Yeah, and how are we going to get to the spaceship genius?” Lucy asks, “It is probably crawling with those assholes.”

“Give them a bigger problem to worry about,” I say as I set my body on fire, burning away the rope and falling to the ground.

Once I rubbed the sore spot on my head for a bit, I stood back up, throwing a ball of fire at a collection of canvases in the corner.

“Kuro, did you collect my stuff?” I ask the cat as I pick him up.”

“I did there safe in my shadow space”, he answers.

“Cool, let's burn this place down then,” I say with a smile as Kuro turns darker and disappears back into my shadow.

I started the process of creating one of the magic circles out of the spells book called Scorch. It somehow is rather complicated, making it one of my personal favourites. Instead of it having a flat two-dimensional disk, it is more like a ball. At the end of the spell, the structure collapses into the size of a marble that I pick up and throw at the door.

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“White-blue fire burst forward, superheating the door and anything beyond. As the initial burst of heat dies down, there are holes from our cells all the way to the other side of the buildings, and then some, I think, parts of the forest are on fire. A lot closer, we have the metal of the walls rapidly cooling again while anything flammable in a 2-meter range catches fire and starts to burn.

“And where have you been hiding that all this time?” Lucy asks.

“I think I got one of the power conversions wrong. That is way more powerful than I expected it to be.” I say, a bit surprised myself.

“Are you two just going to stand there and gawk? Just throw some more fire around and get out of here?” Kuro says in an annoyed tone.

I snap out of it and start to move at a slight jog, throwing fire at anything that looks flammable or important or both. As we make it up the stairs, there is a huge explosion, making the building shake violently. Once we recovered, we redoubled our efforts to get out of there and actually started sprinting no one. Seems to want to stop us.

“Remote!” I shout as our ship comes into view.

My hand turns black as shadows come out of my sleeve to cover my hand. Once they leave, the remote is in my hand, and I use it to open the ship's door. We rush inside quickly, closing the door behind us. Kuro jumps out of my shadow and on the dashboard, pressing some buttons and starting up the engine.

I jump in the pilot's seat, taking the weal and tearing it up, trying to leave this area before people start to see what is happening and start to shoot. We do make it into the air, and I start to fly in a random direction just to be sure before slowing down.

“Kuro, can you navigate?” I ask the cat.

He nods and starts to mess with the panel. I look back to see that Lucy is still out of breath and staring at me.

“That was magic,” she finally says.

“Uhm yeah, it was,” I say with a smile.

“That is impossible. There is no such thing as magic. The only people capable of it are the Travellers,” she says.

“Really, I am pretty sure I've seen others do it like Kuro’s shadow things.”

“Yeah, but that is different. You used actual circles. You are a traveller. How could I have missed that? Your name is even Tav.”

“If it makes you feel any better, the captain also did not realise.”

“Yeah, and there has never been talk about a human traveller before.”

“Wait, really, that is quite exciting to think about, so I am the first,” I say with a smile.

“Well, you ladies, buckle up. It is still going to take an hour or so before we reach the location of the other traveller,” Kuro says.

We get to our seats and strap in for the ride. Luckily, it is not as long as our space travel. Sadly, this one includes a lot more gravity, somehow making the flight a lot less pleasant than before. While we fly, Kuro gives me back my stuff, including both of the plates.

But that is not the most important part right now. No, that is the book. I don’t know who Pyra is, but they and I need to have a word about appropriate force. Like, scorch is not even the most powerful spell here. Sure, it is not the weakest, but come on, that is nowhere near where I would put it.

“Kuro, where did my life go wrong?” I ask the cat.

“You do realise that I don’t really know you. But since you are human, I would hazard a guess about your birth.” Kuro answers.

“Okay, what is your problem with humans again?” I ask.

“They’re greedy, manipulative, and downright predatory at times.”

“Can’t really argue with that.”

“Then let me ask you a question. How did you become a Traveller?” Kuro asks

“A dying man running from what I now think are aliens gave it to me.”

“Think?”

“Well, I teleported away before they could make themself clear on the subject.”

“What did they look like?”

“Blue skin, bony hand, extra finger that is all I saw, really”

“That is not much to go on. There are lots of races like that out there if you don’t include the hybrids.”

“Problem for another day,” I say dismissively.

“I see. Do you want to tell me what is wrong then?”

“It’s this book. The spell I used today was on the weaker side. If I used the strongest spell, I am pretty sure I could burn the whole planet.”

“Why would you want that?”

“I don’t know, but someone thought it was important enough to write down, so that has me a bit concerned.”

“Well, you are a Traveller. The good thing about that is that you usually get to find out. Talking about finding out we are here.”

I look outside to see an area where all the trees are cleared, and a small camp has been set up. We slowly come down to the edge of it, making sure not to squash any of the equipment and open the door of the ship.

“So what is the plan?” Lucy asks.

“Same as last time?” I suggest

“We got captured in the middle of the night.”

“We got out of there, though.” I counter

Lucy lets out a sigh. “Fine, but let it be known that I was against this”

We get out of the ship and are greeted by gun barrels again. How nice. As I stand there trying to come up with a good thing to say, a red-skinned woman pushes herself through the crowd. She spots me and smiles, sending a chill down my spine. That smile looks downright predator. Then she starts to sprint at me, and before I can react, she is next to me, picking me up.

“Ooh, you’re so small and cute,” she says. “I don’t think I have ever seen you this small before.”

“Right, uhm, could you please put me down?” I ask, a bit taken aback

“Ah, sorry, got a bit excited there” So what brought you to my humble campground?” Traveller asks while putting me down

“I came to return this,” I say as I get out of the plate.

“Is that mine?” she asks.

“I just nod and give it to her” Yeah, it is “so can you tell me what you are doing here?”

“Sure, let me give you the tour of my little campsite.