The walls of Dragon Nest squirmed and twisted with each pulse of light that radiated from the core. The room appeared to be getting smaller with each passing second. I wanted to run but it was as if my feet were stuck in quicksand. The floor had turned to putty. No matter how much I struggled, I could not move. I activated my domain, hoping to fly up and escape but the floor stuck to me with a viscosity greater than any glue.

“Mare, what are you doing?” I asked as concern crept into my voice.

“What I was created to do,” The disembodied voice of Mare replied, “I am going to help you.”

“This does not feel like helping!” I shouted as flames burst out from my body in an attempt to burn away the putty wrapped around my feet. I tried every type of flame at my disposal but even the golden fire left no more than a scorch mark on the strange substance. As I struggled, I felt myself sinking deeper into the floor. It was now up to my knees and rising fast.

“I would ask nicely but knowing you, shorty, you would delay as you struggled to decide whether or not to listen to my advice. Ultimately, you would agree anyway when things become desperate. I have decided to skip all those unnecessary steps and just do what is required.”

The putty-like substance had reached my waist now as I sunk deeper into the floor. One of my hands had also been caught as it became stuck the moment it touched the substance. Within just a few seconds, I had sunk up to my neck. There was nothing I could do to fight back whatever this was.

“Hold your breath,” Mare’s voice echoed one last time before everything went black.

I could still feel myself sinking as the liquid tar pulled me further and further down. My chest began to burn as I tried my best to hold my breath. There was no sound and no light. Each second felt as if it dragged on forever. For a moment I worried that Mare wanted to kill me, that I might suffocate under the floor but after more than a minute of darkness, I felt the putty-like substance release me. I fell through the ceiling into a new room.

I gasped for breath as I looked around the new environment. This was not a room I had ever seen before. It was filled with complicated machinery that looked like thousands of veins inside a body. Tubes overhead pulsed with purple energy before separating into a rainbow of bright colors.

When we found the Preateritum remnant, everything inside was a rusted ruin but not here. In this room, everything looked brand new. I could not even begin to guess the purpose of this room but I was not eager to find out.

My most immediate concern was the glass case I found myself in. There was no door or way out that I could see. The glass stretched from the floor to the ceiling without a single seem.

More than a little angry and worried by Mare’s sudden shift in behavior, I drew my dagger and stabbed at the glass. The blade of the dagger shone brightly but even though the blade could cut through metal like butter, there was not a single scratch on the glass.

With the dagger failing, I created a glyph of fire and struck out with a golden sword. Once again, the glass was unharmed.

“I would not use fire in there if I were you,” the disembodied voice of Mare spoke, “That chamber is airtight. If you burn away all the oxygen, you will have no one to blame for your death but yourself.”

“What are you doing, Mare? Why have you trapped me here?” I shouted furiously.

“Do not worry. I will let you free in a few hours but first, you and your family must endure a bit of pain.”

“My family?” I asked as I looked around in concern.

I watched as four figures dropped from the ceiling into glass containers identical to mine. They were still unconscious, unaware of the situation. I felt panic well up in my chest as I saw my mom, dad, Charly, and Donte get dropped into this situation.

Mare continued speaking without concern for my rising panic. “I cannot see the future like the ones we face, but I know more of what is coming than any of them. I had a lot of years to prepare for this moment in time. All in the desperate hope that I can change what will be. I created this room for the sole purpose of breaking their game. It is the culmination of countless lifetimes lost.”

As Mare spoke, the myriad of colored pipes opened. Translucent glowing liquid started pouring into the glass containers holding my family and me. The liquid started pooling at my feet. A stray drop touched my skin, and pain shot through my body like an electric shock. I quickly used my domain in an attempt to keep the liquid away from my body but to my shock, it was completely unaffected and continued to pool around my feet without any change. Unsure of what else to do, I flew high as I could inside the glass case and out of the reach of the horrible liquid.

My family was awake now as the liquid touched their skin as well. They started screaming in pain and their bodies started convulsing. I wanted to help them but I could not think of any way out of the glass case. I looked down at the quickly rising liquid and felt a tinge of fear for the first time. I did not know what this liquid did, but I had suffered through enough experiments in my lifetime. I squeezed my body as close to the top of the container as I could and continued to beat at the ceiling and glass walls in hope of finding some escape.

“Do not try and fight it, shorty. This is for your own good,” Mare said as the liquid continued to rise with frightening speed.

I had falsely hoped that the liquid would not reach the top of the tube but I was quickly proven wrong. I felt searing pain from my back as the water level finally reached me. My muscles started convulsing in agony. I lost focus and my domain collapsed. I dropped into what felt like liquid fire. My entire body burned and, in my convulsions, I was not able to hold my breath. As if I had just breathed in a thousand knives, the liquid filled my lungs. I did not have the awareness to wonder why I was not drowning as the pain became my only thought. I was not even allowed the bliss of unconsciousness as I remained awake for every agonizing second.

Through it all, I heard Mare continue talking. “More than ten thousand years ago, long before the Divisions crawled into being, the people you know as the Preateritum ruled a vast interdimensional empire. Their power was so great that any random building of theirs you people find is enough to rule countless realms. I am not making you suffer without reason. This liquid can be considered the pinnacle of their technology. I have a nice flair for the dramatic and named it Dragon’s Soul. However, the official name for it is the Biotic Enhancement Project. Through this process, your bodies will be remade at a molecular level. You will become more than human. You will become the very first Adepts of this age.”

Even through the suffering and agony that tore apart my body, I managed to find enough energy to become furious at Mare. My family might not have understood the history behind the words she was speaking but I did. The name of Adept was taboo throughout the Divisions. It was the name that brought about the very first Archdemon. It was in pursuit of this ancient Preateritum theory that humanity was nearly destroyed. Mare was right, I would have never agreed to this. The process was never perfected, not even by the Preateritum. Any attempt in recreating the experiment always led to a fate worse than death.

If I survived this, I was going to destroy whatever Mare was, regardless of what she knew.

As much as I wanted nothing more than to shred Mare into a thousand tiny bits, I still could not escape the glass that held me. After some time had passed, the pain had begun to fade but every time that happened, the tubes connected to my prison would cycle new colored liquid into the mix and the pain would return just as strong as before.

My mind went blank as a part of me submitted to the torture. Beneath the pain, I felt something I had never experienced before. At first it was faint but the longer I spent in the vat the stronger the feeling became. It was as if a new connection had been formed between me and the innate talents residing in my body. I gained a deeper understanding of the talents than I ever had before. It felt as if every cell in my body was an extension of those talents.

My sense of self faded further until all I knew was fire. During this time, I was neither Wren nor Aurielle. I was a simple candlelight flickering in the wind. That tiny flame grew into a raging inferno and then faded away until only a single spark remained.

I could not tell if I was dreaming or stuck in some illusion but as I experienced the life cycle of fire from beginning to end, I felt as if a new path had opened up in front of me. The way I previously wielded my talents felt like child’s play now.

I am fire given flesh.

I was awoken from this strange state of epiphany as the horrible liquid was drained away. The unbreakable glass case sunk into the ground until it became flush with the floor. I coughed up what remained in my lungs as I gasped for breath. I quickly examined my body for any mutations or changes but even though I did not see any physical changes I knew I was not the same. Fire burned through my veins in every blood cell to every hair follicle. My innate talents almost felt alive as the blue and green flames coursed through my body in tandem. It was a strange feeling.

I had been so careful up until now to keep the blue flame contained within my right eye but now it was everywhere. The two flames never touched but instead intertwined around each other on a microscopic level. It was a level of control I never could have hoped to achieve before this. Even if I had a thousand years to practice, I could never have executed something so complex.

Pushing aside my amazement and curiosity, I rushed over to my family to make sure they were ok as well. To my great relief, I could not see any problems with their bodies. In fact, their previous injuries had completely healed. They seemed to be waking up from the same strange state I had been in but otherwise were completely fine.

“Do not look so surprised, shorty,” The voice of Mare echoed through the room with a laugh that sounded like bells ringing, “Whether you believe in me or not, my goal will always remain the same. I would not sacrifice any of you without some guarantee of success. I knew at least three of you would live.”

“I am going to dismantle you,” I shouted at the disembodied voice. Blue and green flames ignited around me simultaneously in a swirling inferno.

“Go ahead and try it, shorty. Now that my lower functions have been restored, nothing weaker than an Archdemon can damage my core. Of course, if you insist on being obnoxious, I can give you another bath. There is no benefit the second time but the pain will remain the same.”