MTG Salvation

"You...you wish to form a pact with me?" she asked.

She removed the crystal from her satchel and stared at it: a beautiful red color, flecked here and here with amber-hued ripples. It was definitely radiating heat, though not the sharp burn she had felt upon picking it up. It was an almost soothing sensation.

Instinctively, she drew the crystal close and held it against her heart. Through the folds of her robe, it nudged against the coin of the House of Hammerheim.

Zalara splashed across the stream and set off in a northwest direction. As the storm clouds gathered ominously, she hoped the little effigies would be all right.

She put her hand into her satchel and felt the inferno's gem, as cold and dead as coal. Desperately she tried to send it mind-messages, hoping her connection with the red mana would carry them through. Thoughts of the great House of Hammerheim, its walls of stone, its blazing hearths, rekindling the soul like a steaming-hot bowl of chicken soup. "Hang in there, just a little longer."

As she retraced her steps, she scanned the roads for a faster mode of transportation to Estark - a horse or carriage, perhaps.

Zalara spends her last hour of light constructing a crude shelter of leaves and twigs among the higher branches of a tree. When she is satisfied that it is reasonably waterproof, she says her meditations, thanking the elementals for a safe journey thus far, and soon falls asleep.

Zalara headed toward the pond at once. Although she was too weary to risk another fight, it was either the shelter of the trees or to chance being exposed on the open road. When she reached the bank, she took a drink of the still-cool water, then scooped up handfuls of water to dab the burns on her arms and face.

She started across the rocks, keeping a firm grip on their slippery surfaces with her toes.

Seeing the Elemental's work is done, Zalara quickly releases her ties to the mana. She looks around for a relatively sheltered area, perhaps a stand of unburned trees, in which to spend the night.

With heavy heart, Zalara puts the crystal into her satchel. She then takes the time to call on more red mana, summoning an Earth Elemental to beat out the remaining wildfires.

Zalara walks over to the crystal and kneels down, wincing at the pain from the fresh burns lacing her legs.

The crystal is hot to the touch, but she does not flinch as she picks it up and holds it in her outstretched palms. "How are you feeling?" she asks in barely a whisper, like a mother to her child.

As the elemental is recovering from the effort of sending forth the three sparks, Zalara walks closer to it, conjuring another mana orb as she does so.

With a flourish of her staff, two of the orbs burst into flame, while the third crackles with lightning. They begin to slowly orbit the staff's head as she sweeps her arm upward, beginning a series of complex gestures tracing the shape of a mystical seal. Finally she lowers the staff and points it directly at the elemental's heart.

"Burn no more. This will end your pain."

The orbs flare with magical energy and discharge a searing blast.

Its attacks were coming too fast, too furious. Her soul screamed in agony as the elementals hit her. Pain. Is this what pain the Inferno feels?

"I do not wish to harm you," she said, "but if it must be to ease your pain, then I shall." Staggering to her feet, she narrowed her eyes. A ball of flame formed at the tip of her staff and shot toward the Inferno Elemental, aimed at the pyre where the three sparks had just emerged.

Zalara was ready this time. She fired a thin bolt of lightning at one of the elementals attacking her, causing it to implode on itself. The other she attempted to block with her staff. She cringed as the creature passed through her weapon like it was nothing, zapping her again.

"Great spirit, what drives you to rage?" she called out. "Calm yourself!"

She conjured another orb of mana and waited, still refusing to attack, as she looked around, seeking to locate precisely the rift in the AEther that the elementals were pouring out from...and perhaps recall a way to seal it.

"Aaaah!" She braced herself for the impact as the serpent collided with her and exploded, sending a shocking jolt through her body.

Where did it come from? she wondered to herself as she called upon an orb of red mana and looked about warily.

Zalara treads lightly on the dirt path as she presses ever onward. Her eyes constantly dart from one leaping flame to the next.

Though she knows the danger, she is not seized by panic and fear. Strangely, it is almost a gift, she feels. As a child she was always fascinated by flames, dreaming life into their movements, imagining voices in their crackles. And here she is surrounded on all sides by the biggest blaze she has ever seen, brought into being by a creature that, however dangerous, has yet to show overt hostility toward her.

"I thank you, spirits," said Zalara to the three. "You may return home to your kin, if you wish. I will capture this bounty myself."

Steeling her courage, she walked forward until she reached the outermost walls of flame, and searched for a not-instantly-lethal path into the inferno's heart.