Chapter Ten

Igneous makes his way through the doorway of Corma’s hut, shielding his eyes from the light. After giving his eyes sometime to adjust, he takes a look at his new body. He looks to be about three feet tall, with crimson skin with tendrils of black swirling around his thin muscular arms and legs. His feet look similar to his hands as they were large with sharp black nails. Running his hands over his head he feels short fine hair on the top of his head, thin pointed ears, short horns coming from his forehead and thick tips with sharp fangs hiding behind them. Looking up to at Giblex, who now stood little more than a foot taller than him, and Corma, that was taller than them both, he asked, “What am I?”

“We don’t know, but we can figure that out later, we need to take you to Nelly and Yasevl first.” Corma says placing a comforting on his shoulder. Giblex smiles and holds out deer skin shorts to Igneous, “But, you should probably cover up first.” Igneous looks down and realizes that he is exposed to the world, blushing he takes the shorts.

The high-priest suddenly wakes from a deep sleep, to find himself in complete darkness. Rubbing sleep from his eyes, the elderly priest chants a short incantation and produces a small ball of light in his hands. The small source of light casts shadows in the priest modest chambers. Looking around for what woke him the priest searches his chambers for anything out of place, when nothing can be found he opens his door and looks up and down an empty hallway. Going with a gut feeling the high-priest steps into the hallway, closing his door behind him. His feet smack against the cold stone floors of the temple as he makes his way to the altar. Looking around he can’t find anything here either. Ready to head back to his chambers, the priest stops when he hears a familiar strong and warm voice callout to him, “Thomas.”

“Lord Dorean?” the priest calls out inspecting the room, only to find shadows casted by the light in his hand. He feels a hand on his shoulder, and he turns quickly, and standing before him is the noble that he had met the previous night. Dropping to his knees the priest speaks softly, “Lord Dorean, how may I serve you?”

The well-aged noble smiles and says, “First, by standing.”

The priest nods and stands in front of his god. The noble places his hands on the priest’s shoulders, “In the coming days, three beings that you have never seen before will make their way to the temple, welcome them, and do all that is in your power to help them. Can you do this for me?”

The priest looks into the face of the one he serves and nods, “Of course, my lord. I’d do all I can.”

The noble smiles and tells the priest to close his eyes. When the high-priest opens them again, Dorean is gone, leaving him alone in the dark temple. The priest smiles and makes his way back to his room. While the priest returns to bed, Dorean appears across the kingdom in the chambers of the Grand-Bishop of his temple. Standing above the sleeping form of the bishop, Dorean places a hand on the sleeping man's head. After a moment Dorean smiles, and steps away, in the morning the Bishop would write a letter, and have it delivered to a certain bard. With this tasked done, Dorean turns and disappears in thin air.

Igneous takes unsteady steps, unused to physically walking, following Corma and Giblex through the village. Looking around Igneous could see goblins and wood elves working together, talking, laughing, children playing together. The three slowly make their way to the largest hut in the village, it stands two stories tall, the living tees making it up parting to create windows and a doorway with a length of fur hanging in it. Pulling the fur back Corma walks in followed by Giblex with Igneous bring up the rear. Inside a stone fire pit flickers with a small flame, fur mats piled on the floor, in a corner a table sits with chairs surrounding it, and opposite to it a staircase of interlocking branches leading up to the second floor. Sitting in the table is Nevil, and the adventurers save for Marigold. Nevil turns at the sound of their footsteps, and upon seeing Igneous jumps up with a large smile and shouts with joy, “IGNEOUS! You’re awake!”

Stepping out from behind the table Igneous notices that one of Nevil’s legs looks to be made of wood and bends stiffly, causing the elf to slightly hobble. Igneous looks at the leg in horror then back at Nevil, “Nevil! Your leg!”

Confusion spreads over Nevil’s face, the he nods and looks to his leg, looking back at Igneous with a shrug, “I’m getting used to it,” smiling continues, “But, I am happy to see you awake.”

Nevil embraces confused Igneous, and whispers, tears forming in his eyes, softly, “Thank you. You saved our village and everyone in it.”

Nevil shakes his head, “But Nelly she-,” Nevil cuts him of with, “Is alive and so are many others because of you.”

Igneous reluctantly nods and looks to Nevil with hope, “Is she here?”

Nevil shakes his head, releasing Igneous, “No, she is at the temple with Yasevl and Marigold. We should be heading that way shortly. We were just discussing some matters regarding the future of the village.”

Before Igneous can ask any questions, the adventurers step up to Igneous smacking him on the back playful. Korren takes Igneous’ hand in his hands and turns it over studying it, “How are you dealing with the new form of yours? Anything new?”

Igneous pulls his hand back and grins at the human mage, “It’s nice to see you too, and I just woke up so everything is new.”

Korren nods his head, “We’ll have to discuss it more on our way.”

Upon noticing Igneous’ confusion, Nora steps in to explain, “We assume you are coming with us along with Yasevl and Nelly. Are you not?”

Giblex speaks up, “We haven’t told him everything yet, we figured he should talk to Yasevl first.”

Mitch shrugs and says, “Then let’s go do that, all this planning is hurting my head.”

Nora and Korren grin, at Mitch’s impatience, Nora nudges Mitch, “Why don’t you walk him over there, while we finish up here. If that’s okay with you, Igneous.”

Igneous nods, “Yeah, I’d really like to see my brother and Nelly.”

“Alright then.” Mitch says pushing Igneous towards the doorway, to Igneous’ protesting that he may not be great at it, but he could walk.

After being pushed all the way toward the temple by Mitch, Igneous stands in front of the door way, a new curtain hanging blocking the view inside. Taking a deep breath Igneous pulls the curtain aside and steps inside. The once barren temple now had, a long table along the right wall cluttered with various plants, powders, and stone tools, a stone fire pit sits in the middle, and three beds line the wall opposite to the door. Standing over the table Marigold grinding something purple in a stone mortar. Sitting up in one of the beds, Nelly sat legs crossed and her arms in her lap, her eyes are closed and Igneous could feel energy moving around her. Igneous steps toward her when he heard a voice behind him call out, “Igneous you’re awake!”

Whipping around Igneous sees standing behind Mitch, a thinner Yasevl wearing a brown robe grins from ear to ear and rushes Igneous wrapping him in a hug, Igneous’ head buried in stomach, “I’m so glad you’re awake.”

At Yasevl’s words Nelly’s eyes pop open and she yells, “IGNEOUS!” jumping up to join the hug. Mitch and Marigold watch with smiles on the face as the three share a moment, till Igneous push his way out, with gasping breaths, “S-sorry, coul-dn’t bre-ath.”

Yasevl lifts a black thin hand and rubs the back of his head, “ Sorry, forgot you did that now.”

Igneous’ eyes go wide at the sight of Yasevl’s hand and then notices the change to Yasevl’s body, no longer was it tall and wide, instead he was thin and only a little taller than Mitch, once dark brown skin, now grey and black. Looking over at Nelly he notices she to looks different, the once chubby girl was now gaunt and ashen grey like Yasevl. Looking between the two he stammers out, “What happen to you two?”

Nelly and Yasevl share a look, but before they can say anything, Marigold steps forward, “I think I can explain that.” turning to Mitch she continues, “While I catch Igneous up to speed, why don’t you go get an extra pack ready?”

Mitch agrees and makes his way back into the village. Marigold has Igneous to sit. Marigold explains that even though they had one the fight and the abominations had lost their power, they had been able to infect some people with a dark energy. Most of the people that were infected only had a small amount and Marigold was able to cure them. Others were worse off and didn’t survive for long. In Nelly and Yasevl’s case they had more than most, but due to Yasevl’s increased mana source, he was able to alter the flow of his mana to slow it down. Nelly had an innate talent for mana control it would seem and was able to keep it a bay, for now. Their new appearance was do to the stress and taint of the dark energy. Marigold could help slow it down with daily blessings and healing, but it was spreading, they had to return to her temple in order to get more thorough cleansing. Igneous was surprised to learn that he had been asleep for almost a week, but it would seem that instead of being harmed by the dark energy his body had absorbed it and made it part of him. What this meant in the long run she didn’t know, but for now he was safe, even if they weren’t sure what he was. After a taken amount to digest everything he stands up and with determination says, “I’m going too.”

Yasevl grins, “We figured you would, that’s one of the reason we waited to leave, hoping you would wake in time, but we could wait any longer.”

Nelly scrunches up her face and looks at Igneous, “So can you still use fire?”

Igneous tilts his head he hadn’t thought about, could he? Focusing on his energy, he found he still had fire mana flowing through his body and his center was still red, but now they both had a fair amount of darkness to them, not quite like the abominations had, more like the magic that Giblex preformed. Deciding to test out what he could do, Igneous directs his fire mana toward his hand, and sure enough a fireball forms in his hand, but it was darker than usual, closer to the color of his skin. If he focused on the ball of fire in his hand, he could see that it was made of both fire and dark mana, to test his ability further he shaped it in his hand, from a ball to a twisting spiral, then to a long staff, before allowing it to dissipate. All the while Igneous does this, Nelly studies him watching the flow of his mana. After Igneous allows the fire to disappear, Nelly steps over to the fire pit and picks up a partially burnt log and holds it toward Igneous, “Absorb this.”

Igneous is first confused by the request but complies. Placing his hand over the fire Igneous tries pulling in the flame and heat, the flame moves from the piece of wood, but instead of being absorbed the flame simply whips around Igneous’ hand. Nelly nods then says, “Try pulling the energy in with your mouth.”

Determined to absorb the fire Igneous does so. Sucking in air through his mouth, imagining the flame being pulled in. The flame flickers for a moment before being pulled into to Igneous’ mouth with a slurping noise. Igneous feels the fire enter his body and soon becomes one with his energy, “Well, I can still eat fire, at least.”

As soon as Igneous says this he his hit in the face by a balled-up robe, knocking him to the ground. Fighting to get the cloth robe from his face, Igneous pulls the robe down and looks up at a grinning Mitch with anger, “What was that for!”

Mitch’s grin gets wider, “Can’t have you walking around in a loincloth, can we?”

Igneous looks down and sees that his fur wrap as come up, exposing him to the world. Marigold and Nelly blush and advert their eyes, Yasevl and Mitch mumble about him being a show off.

Blushing Igneous uses the robe to cover himself.

In the kingdom of Albion, the capital city, Tide Castle, sits above a rocky coast overlooking the sea. Behind the Stone walls of Tide Castle, there is a tavern in the bad part of town called the Wounded Purse. Inside the tavern the sound of laughter and yelling can be heard, along with the sound of lute being played. A young man, in yellow robes, stands in front of the entrance gripping a letter given to him by the grand-bishop over his temple. Taking a breath, the man opens the door. All eyes in the poorly lit tavern move to him as he closes the door behind him, the smell of stale ale and sweat filling his nose. Looking around he spots a bard in corner playing a lute and singing of a less than modest woman. As the young priest makes his way towards the bard, dodging scurrying bar maids and puddles of, what he hopes is split ale, some of the tavern patrons call out to him. Some say that he’s in the wrong temple and others call out saying they need healing for their coin purse. Ignoring the laughter and jeers, the young priest comes to stand before the still sing bard, who only raises an eyebrow and smirks at him. Leaning forward the young man whispers into the bard’s ear and hands him the letter, the bard instantly stops seeing, to the complaint of the tavern. Having done what was asked of him the priest rushes out of the tavern dodging a thrown drink as he goes. The bard’s grin grows wider has he reads the letter. The bard places the letter in his shirt and makes for the door, the bartender calling after him that he had been paid to play for the night. Ignoring the man’s yelling, bard rushes out the door and makes his way toward the city gates. Laughing out loud the bard yells, “This is going to be a great story!”

An hour after Igneous had woken up, he stands at the exit of the village, the only place he had ever known. Now dressed in a brown robe like Yasevl, Igneous adjusts a bag on his back and looks to Nelly who looked equally nervous as excited. The entire village stands before the group getting ready to leave, stepping forward Nevil and Corma hug Igneous and Nelly, telling them to be safe and to come back. Nevil steps in front of Yasevl and kneels, an action mirrored by the rest of the village, including Heva and her goblins. After making Nevil rise, Yasevl hugs the elf and tells him to protect the village. Yasevl speaks loudly so the entire village can hear him and tells them that he loves them and that he would return to them. And at that Nora leads the group of adventurers, Nelly, Yasevl, and Igneous, through the gateway to the sounds of cheers and goodbyes, and into the forest and towards the kingdom of Albion.

End of Act I