Heat

[Cirath]

The smoke swirled around him as he stood in the doorway, watching the flames grow with frightening speed. There were shrieks of horror coming from the second floor, the children and their mother trapped on that floor, the rest of the building a swiftly growing inferno. The flames reached toward him, almost inviting him to step in and return to the void, but he wasn’t finished, had barely started.

Turning, the one that was Cirath crossed the threshold and stepped into the street. There was a great deal of commotion, people dashing through the streets carrying buckets of water and trying franticly to douse the half dozen fires that were spreading with terrible speed through the district. Then there was a shout, and several armed men began marching towards him. The new self pulsed inside him, grew, changed in some way, but he couldn’t say how.

“You there!” the lead man said, the crest of the Waterdeep militia displayed prominently on his chest. “Stop right there! Who are you? What are you doing… wait, I know you. You are supposed to be dead!”

The on that had been Cirath had pulled back his hood as the guardsman spoke, revealing his face. Eyes widening, the armored man took a step back, his hand shooting to his sword hilt. “He is the one that set the fires! Kill him! Quickly!” the officer barked, drawing his sword and lunging at the shrouded man.

The blade was met by a hand, wrapping around the sharp steel and twisting suddenly. The sword snapped like a rotten board, shards of steel showering the street. The counter attack came, as what had been the assassin thrust the ruined weapon back at its owner, piercing the breastplate and burying it deep in the man’s gut. However, the other guardsmen were already in motion. Swords cut and slashed, chopped and pierced, and wounds opened all over the vessel to send blood streaming into the street.

The new presence pulsed once more, and with that pulse came a strange heat. The guardsmen crowded around their prey, desperate to put him down before he could display his monstrous strength again. The vessel began to sink to the ground, energy fleeing on the tide of blood as the attacks rained down on him. Then his vision darkened, and he could hear the horribly beautiful music of the void.

The pulse came once more, and the heat that had come before was now a raging inferno that made the blazing house behind him seem dim and cool. With an unearthly snarl, and a few words not meant for a human tongue, he released the heat, erased the walls that held in those pulses, and flung the men from him with impossible force.

Raising once more to his full height, he stared down at his tattered vessel, certain that he should not still be alive, much less standing. Waves of heat radiated from each of the wounds, but strangely they did not pain him. He reached down to touch one, more curious than anything, and saw that the blood flow had already slowed.

Then the pain finally came. The blessed, familiar, decadent pain. It roared through his body, tearing him apart and remaking him where he stood. With an inhuman scream, he sank to his knees and began convulsing. A few of the guardsmen had started to recover their feet, but froze and stared, transfixed by this strange display.

“Gods, no!” one of them breathed, his expression shifting from confusion to terror as he saw the wounds close. He scrambled to his feet, and directed those that were able to gather their comrades and take them to safety before the creature before them came to its senses once more.

He couldn’t say how long he had kneeled there, screaming, healing. The blaze behind him had grown, and screams no longer drifted out from inside. The body of the guardsman he had killed still pay on the ground before him, but other than that, the street around him was empty of life.

He felt weak, tired, and ravenous, all feelings he had not had since his rebirth. Glancing down at his vessel once more, he could see that all his wounds were gone, leaving only a few bruises. He wasn’t sure, but it seemed that his clothes hung a bit more loosely, as if he had lost some weight. The new self had receded, having expended a great deal of strength. He knew that time and more lives would bring him back to his full strength.

He stood, and got his bearings, orienting himself south, he started out for the city gates, but before he could take a second step, light flared in his vision. Rage, frustration, fear, determination all flooded his mind, but the emotions weren’t his own. The hammered at his psyche, once, twice, much in the same way that the new self had pulsed before. This was different somehow, though. Aggressive, urgent. Then, as the new self stretched forth into his mind once more, the emotions faded and were gone.

Something strange was happening. He must be careful, until he understood it. But first, he had to leave the city.

He started south once more. The cleansing must continue.

[Lilira]

I had poked around looking for more information as to the identity of the creature responsible for the slaughter. No one had seen anyone or anything enter, no one had seen anything leave.

I asked some of the clerics I was acquainted with if they knew anything.

Nothing.

Mages.

Nothing.

I was being stonewalled. None of the officials I spoke with wanted to give me any answers.

Alarm bells sounded. I looked to the south where large black clouds billowed upwards.
I sprinted for the highest place I could think of, the city walls. I ran up the stairs to the top, ignoring the guards who were gawking at the sight. I rushed south along the top of the wall and stopped in shock.

Fires. From the very street where I had grown up.

A growing family had purchased my childhood home when I sold it after mother’s death. I remember the glowing face of the heavily pregnant woman as she and her husband put the house to rights after I handed the deed over.

From my vantage point, it was only a ball of fire. Figures silhouetted against the flames engulfing several homes looked like dolls as they battled the fire. A few robed individuals shoved me out of the way as they took over my perch. They started murmuring incantations I did not understand, and as I watched the fury of the flames began to die down. I wandered, my mind numb, to the south gates and down into the plaza. Images of my childhood flashed before my eyes as I worked to comprehend the destruction of my former home.

A soot covered soldier dashed past me to the detachment at the south gates. I saw him gesticulating wildly and I eased closer in an effort to listen.

“,,, was the man who set the fire. But he wasn’t a man. No human could withstand those injuries and live. Besides, he’s supposed to be dead,” the soldier babbled. The elite guard watchman for the gates glared at me as he noticed me eavesdropping. I nodded at him and backed away my brain working furiously.

I sat at the edge of the fountain in the plaza. They knew the identity of the man responsible. But who was it? I pulled out my lyre and absently strummed the strings in an effort to get my mind to relax. There was something missing. A piece of the puzzle.