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Race: Saurian

Bloodline Powers: Improved Strength, Rending, Firebreath

Greater Mysteries: Fire (Noble) 4, Wind (Noble) 3, Sound (Advanced) 2

Lesser Mysteries: Heat 4, Oxygen 4, Embers 4, Pressure 4, Current/Flow 4

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Dussok was right. Swimming in magma with minimal magical protection hurt.

A lot.

It felt like his scales were charring and sloughing off of his body, pulled free by the viscous rock that he was dig-swimming through. As far as Sam could tell, that feeling wasn’t inaccurate.

The potion he’d taken earlier constantly healed him, helping him regrow the scales and flesh that he was losing to the maddening pain of the glowing magma. So long as Sam could maintain his hold over the heat and oxygen magic that was keeping him from melting and suffocating as he blindly pushed downward, he would survive.

Of course, that was a big ask. It had been a while since Samazzar let himself be harmed by heat. He wasn’t sure if his memory was hazy or if the current experience was just that much more miserable, but despite months of training to improve his willpower and concentration, Sam could barely keep his thoughts straight.

His mouth was filled with blood, a product of his sharp teeth punching into his gums from the constant pain. The magma seared, and more importantly burned his scales. It took an unusual combination of masochism and running oxygen over the outside of his body to maintain the effect, but ultimately if Samazzar wanted to receive a baptism, the action was necessary.

Magma was hot. Unbearably so. It was almost impossible for him to maintain his magic and continue digging through the white hot pain. The one thing it wasn’t, was aflame, and ultimately Samazzar’s goal was to understand the noble mystery of fire.

So he made himself burn. Flesh charred and the flashes of pain tried to steal the precious oxygen from his lungs, but Sam kept pushing. Dazed thoughts tried to wander away from the important task of maintaining the magics that kept him alive despite the hostile environment, but Samazzar didn’t let it phase him. Before long, there was only one singular thought left in his head. Fel’Annthor as she cut through the sky with ease.

She was the goal. To move like her. To be her. To be with her. Everything else was secondary to that singular overwhelming desire.

His limbs were almost mechanical as he forced them through the thick magma before spreading his fingers wide and pulling himself downward. It was more of a crawl than swimming. Stone scraped aside ash, digging into his charred and burning flesh, but Sam didn’t relent.

Sam could feel the epiphany building even as the pressure of the molten stone on his skin increased. With each pace he crawled deeper, it was like the planet itself was rejecting him. The buoyancy of the liquid rock pushed gently upward, stroke by stroke increasing the difficulty of his descent.

He was barely sensible by the time he reached the entrance to the vent that fed the lake of bubbling rock. Samazzar barely knew what he was doing as he pushed his hands through the soft magma and sunk his claws into the still solid stone that lined the bottom of the pool.

His shoulders brushed painfully against the edges of the channel. Ordinarily it would be a scrape, but given the constant destruction and regeneration of Sam’s skin, it sent a white hot jolt of agony lancing into his core.

It took every erg of Samazzar’s willpower to not gasp for breath. He hadn’t opened his mouth since diving into the lake of lava, instead using his mastery over oxygen to keep his lungs full and refreshed, but the pain was a blow to the gut.

Every instinct in his body demanded that Sam expel the stale air building up inside him, but he managed to keep his snout sealed. He could deal with the pain of his scales burning off and growing back, but he was almost at his limit. The minute molten rock touched his tongue and throat, it would overwhelm the regenerative properties of his potion and shatter the last fraying elements of his concentration.

That meant that he would lose control of the heat magic he was using to keep his muscles cool. He would overheat and be consumed by the clinging stone in a matter of seconds.

Meanwhile, the strength of his revelation was building. Sam’s body was covered in a thin layer of fire. From head to toe, his control over oxygen and the ambient temperature well above the flashpoint assured that. Still, despite the pain, of the burning and regrowth, it felt like the flames were inscribing something in his flesh, some fundamental truth about the nature of the inferno that would explain everything.

Samazzar veered right, pulling himself into the side chamber where he had sensed the intense magical energy earlier. The instant he crossed the cave’s threshold, everything changed. It wasn’t like the rest of the magma was lukewarm or cool, but Samazzar felt like his bones themselves were burning as heat of the chamber overwhelmed his magic and began to cook his body.

Frantically, he grabbed the first garnet, a fist-sized gemstone that was surprisingly chilly compared to the blazing temperature of its surroundings, and Samazzar’s mind went blank. Some isolated part of him worried that he wasn’t maintaining the magic that he needed to survive in the hostile environment, but it was quickly swallowed by a pulse of understanding as the baptism fully took hold.

He braced himself against the rock wall, losing all understanding of time and his own body as Samazzar’s understanding of fire crystallized. Separate facts about the nature of combustion that seemed disconnected clicked together like the pieces of a puzzle, and awe filled the young saurian as he found himself re-analyzing what he thought he understood in a brand new light.

Then the out of body experience ended and Sam found himself back in the magma filled cave, eyes screwed shut and his lungs screaming for oxygen as his body overheated. At the corners of his perception, darkness was beginning to creep in. Sam wasn’t sure if it was from his body beginning to shut down from lack of air or heat exhaustion, but either way, he’d need to hurry.

He refreshed the oxygen in his lungs and renewed his push to cool his cooking muscles. The magic came more efficiently, smoother somehow, but that didn’t mean that Samazzar could stay in the cave indefinitely.

Eyes still shut, Sam reached out toward the concentrations of magical energy, one by one plucking the garnets from the cavern’s wall before kicking off of the floor and making his way back to the vent.

Ascending was easier than digging his way down. Even without using his arms, the buoyancy of the liquid rock pushed Sam upward and he rose like one of the many bubbles of poisonous gas that burbled up from the depths around him.

Barely a minute later, Samazzar burst from the surface, both of his hands filled with glowing redbrown gemstones. He swallowed his urge to take a deep breath, instead magically refilling his lungs with oxygen as he hurried back to where Dussok and Takkla were waiting. The air was borderline freezing after his sojourn into the magma, and every step on the rock tore at the exposed flesh and muscle of his feet as the icy atmosphere pricked and itched at his rapidly healing scales.

Dussok blanched and Takkla turned to the side, doubling over as her body wracked and spasmed. Samazzar just blinked as he approached, slightly put off by his siblings’ violent reaction.

“How are you walking?” Dussok croaked out, Takkla whipping off her muzzle behind him so that she could vomit on lumpy basalt that covered everything. “Little dragon, you look like a steak that someone forgot in the oven.”

Samazzar glanced down at his arms. Beneath the pile of gently gleaming garnets, his flesh was ragged and charred. Scales were growing back, but in a haphazard fashion giving Sam a patchy and disheveled look.

“It isn’t as bad as it looks,” he replied, spitting the lozenge into his hand and piling the gemstones at Dussok’s feet. The big saurian watched him dubiously as Samazzar motioned for his sibling to hand his clothes back over. “Sure, it hurt a lot at first. I mean, I did literally burn all of my scales off in order to complete my baptism, but after a little while you get used to it.”

“Really?” Dussok asked, leaning down to pick up the garnets.

“No,” Sam said with a wince, running his claws over a particularly blackened chunk of his arm to cut off the burnt muscle so that his scales could regrow normally. “It was intensely painful. The good news is that diving into the magma produced enough fire to complete my baptism. Beyond that, the only real positives were that between the heat and the antiseptic lozenge I had in my mouth, I’m pretty sure I managed to avoid an infection when it cooked all of my skin off.”

He hissed in pain, leaning down to repeat the process with some of the poorly healed lumps of burnt flesh on his thighs and sides. Finally, after the worst of the injuries were handled and the white hot pain began to fade a bit, Samazzar continued the conversation.

“The next time I plan something that stupid, hit me over the head with a rock or something. Maybe if I had made a potion of pain deadening ready to go before I tried this sort of thing it wouldn’t have been quite as bad, but that was more dangerous than I thought it would be.”

“Burning yourself alive hurts,” Sam said sagely, slipping on pants over his rapidly healing scales. “I would not recommend it except in a completely controlled setting. Unfortunately, with the way events are unfolding, I didn’t think I had the luxury of waiting for a controlled setting.”

“I think I will avoid it altogether,” Takkla responded, her voice raspy from the stomach acid she had just deposited on the rocks. “At least you successfully completed your baptism. I heard that as you get to the higher levels, sometimes it just doesn’t work.”

“Unfortunately, you’re correct.” Samazzar’s voice was muffled as he tied his muzzle over his face, letting out a sigh of relief as he released the oxygen magic he had been using to fuel himself. It was secondary to the pain from his thoroughly baked body, but he already had a splitting headache from the amount of simultaneous mysteries he had been maintaining. “Even if a practitioner has all of the knowledge needed to ascend another level, the baptism still needs to be strong enough to seal that connection. When we were working with minor mysteries or lower levels, that didn’t mean as much, pretty much any genuine exposure to a mystery would be enough to push us over the edge, but as we keep going-”

He shrugged.

“I’ve read stories about truly powerful magi killing themselves, destroying their towers, and laying waste to the countryside during botched baptisms. It’s part of the reason why higher level practitioners are very reluctant to attempt an ascension unless they have every possible factor under control. The danger keeps increasing, and for many the risk doesn’t seem to be worth it once they have power and the social standing that goes with it.”

“But that risk is never going to stop you, is it?” Takkla asked dryly. “I suppose some hint of self preservation out of you is more than any of us could hope for?”

“Of course,” Sam replied, stretching his shoulders to work out the newly healed scales. The tingling from the regeneration potion was beginning to fade, its medicinal powers exhausted in the constant repair of his half-destroyed body. “I love magic, but the mysteries were never the goal. They’re only stepping stones to give us the power we will need to perfect our bloodlines. Given the danger in hunting beasts from legends like primordial wyverns and cave hydras, how could I let the risk of a little fire slow me down? The three of us have barely taken the first steps on a multi-league journey. If we stumble now, we may never get back up again.”

“I don’t know-” Takkla began, only for Samazzar to cut her off with a quick shake of his head.

“Don’t worry. I know exactly how much abuse I can take. I’m not going to risk Dussok or you on an untested baptism. The two of you are far too important for that. After all, what’s the point of becoming a dragon if there’s no one to share the skies with me.”

He punched her gently in the shoulder before stuffing the last of the flame garnets in his satchel and turning to walk toward the valley that marked the mouth of the magma vents.

“Come on,” he said cheerfully. “We were lucky. I managed to pick up everything we needed to fulfill the order in one dive. Now we just need to pick up some of the volcanic silt that’s covering everything on our way out before we head to the forest.”

“Samazzar,” Dussok began, emotion clogging his voice. “I didn’t-”

“I don’t talk about it a lot because there isn’t a need,” Sam cut him off. “My gaze is always on the horizon, but that doesn’t mean I’m not aware of the two of you by my side. Now let’s get going, it’s a bit of a hike to the forest, and the sooner we get ironwood branches the sooner we can get back to Whistling Gorge for the return trip.”