To be fair, guiding himself and his friends down the rushing underground river wasn’t actually very hard for Adam to do. Doing so while keeping their packs dry above the water was a lot harder, though, and doing so gently was outright impossible. By the time they were swept onto the shore of an underground lake, they were all freezing cold, soaking wet and badly bruised. They’d managed too keep their packs mostly dry, but that seemed a small blessing as they lay groaning and shivering in the darkness. “Amber…” Adam groaned. “Little help…” With a tired gesture, Amber summoned up a floating ball of flame, illuminating the damp stone walls and fine silvery sand with a flickering orange light. The four companions huddled together around the fire for warmth. “We should get out of these wet clothes.” Sven pointed out. “We’ll warm up faster without them.” Adam and Lily were both quite awkward about undressing around the others, but right now they were too cold and too tired to argue. Amber, predictably, didn’t seem to care about her state of dress one way or the other, and while Adam and Lily were doing their best to cover themselves with their hands as they dried out by the fire, amber lay sprawled across the sand, sighing happily as licking flames harmlessly caressed her skin. Once they were reasonably dry they got dressed as quickly as possible, though none of them were sure how to broach the topic to Amber, who seemed perfectly comfortable lying around covered by nothing but the magical flames surrounding her. Deciding not to worry about it for now, Adam cleared his throat and spoke. “Well, that might have been a bit harder than I remembered, but at least we got through safely.” “For a given value of ‘safely’.” Lily retorted, wincing slightly at the bruises covering her body. “The bruises will heal in no time.” Sven replied calmly. “It would have been a lot worse if our packs got soaked. Both the rations and the gunpowder charges would be ruined.” “Either way, we need to decide where to go next.” Adam said. “If I remember right, this cave should let out right on the edge of the mountains, and from there we could either head north and take the land route to Rain’s Cradle or we could head south towards the shore to try to find passage to the Brimstone Isles. I’m not sure…” The hovering orb of flame abruptly went out. “What happened? Is Amber all right?” Lily looked at the girl carefully. “I think she’s asleep?” “But there’s still fire all over her body…” “I guess she’s using magic in her sleep, then. I mean, it is Amber.” Adam grew silent for a moment before speaking his thoughts. “I think we should go south to Flame’s Cradle. I want to pass the trial of fire as soon as possible, just in case Amber gets any more unstable.” Lily sighed deeply. “That’s probably wise. I just… I hate not knowing how to help her.” “Well, either way worrying about it right now won’t help.” Sven said with slightly forced cheer. “Let’s get some sleep. Everything will look brighter in the morning.” And so the three of them lay down to sleep, lying as close as they dared to the still-burning Amber to chase away the deep chill of the caves. The next day, the group made their way up from the caves, the damp chill surrounding them gradually giving way to the dry warmth of summer. From there, they set out across the southern plains, camping every night in sinkholes or small copses of trees as they made their way towards the shore. However, they’d only been travelling for a few days when Lily got the feeling something wasn’t quite right. She looked out across the bit of scrubland they were currently walking across, but couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. “Guys, there’s something off about this…” “What do you mean?” Adam asked, tensing slightly. “I don’t know. There’s something wrong with the wind. It’s not obeying me as well as it should, and the sound isn’t carrying quite like it… GET DOWN!” Adam and Amber fell to the ground the moment she said it, while Sven brought his bracers together, a pair of bullets bouncing harmlessly off his rocky skin as the crack of gunshots rang out around them. A young man with a cocky smirk stepped out from behind a shrub, his hair charcoal gray and his skin gleaming like bronze. The armour he wore was well fitted and of good quality, but it was clearly machine-made rather than hand-smithed, as were the revolvers he held in his hands. When he spoke, his voice was brash and confident. “Good reflexes, but they won’t save…” He cried out in dismay as his guns erupted in flames, the intense heat warping them in seconds. The heat of the fire didn’t seem to harm him, however. “You dare to turn fire against me? I’ll show you FIRE!” But before he could do anything, he had to leap out of the way of a barrage of stones flying towards him like cannonballs. Sven swore quietly under his breath as he tried to hit the agile interloper, but before he could, a massive gust of wind tore through the area, knocking everyone off their feet. A middle-aged female voice rang out. “Sun damn it all, Dahn! This is what happens when you jump the gun. If your father was still alive he’d put you over his knee!” “If my father was still alive he’d be hunting these monsters down himself.” The young man replied with a huff. “Yala, Dahn, calm yourselves!” Three people emerged from the brush. A blonde-haired, dark-skinned woman in her late forties, a brown-haired, pale-skinned girl probably no older than fifteen and a man in his late twenties with black hair, medium brown skin and an intense air of authority. They all wore the same type of armour, but while Dahn’s armour had red detailing, Yala’s details were yellow, the young girl’s were green and the imposing man’s were blue. Adam looked them over with a scowl. “The kings and queens, I presume?” “The very same. I am Aro, King of Water. This is Dahn, King of Fire, Yala, Queen of Wind and Maya, Queen of Earth. And you certainly don’t need any introduction, monsters of legend!” “How did you find us so quickly?” Sven asked warily. Aro smirked in response. “When the Sunlit Goddess started to break free of her prison, she warned us that you would return. She wouldn’t say how you had survived for all this time, but I wasn’t going to face you unprepared. I read every report, every ancient history that mentioned your campaign, and I learned much from it. In the ancient war, after you had taken Stone’s Cradle you seemed to vanish, and the next time you were spotted by patrols was on the southern plains, heading towards the sea. The very moment I heard you were spotted near Stone’s Cradle, I headed south.” As Aro gloated about his own preparedness, Lily looked at Maya with a raised eyebrow. The girl shrank back slightly under her gaze. “Aren’t you a little young to be a queen?” She asked curiously. “My… My father died last year. The consumption took him.” “Oh, I’m sorry.” The girl bristled. “I need no pity from you, you beast!” Adam scoffed. “Is that really how your history depicts us? As monsters and beasts?” “With good reason! Adam, the Ruthless Prince. Lily, the Tireless Hunter, Sven, the Unbreakable Wall… and Amber the Mad. You four were responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands! The battle of Glinthorpe. The siege of Garrok Keep. The sacking of the border garrisons! The Massacre at Molo Kor!” “Molo Kor was a battle, not a massacre. The final battle in a war you started.” “Your mad fire princess burned the base camp to the ground! Five thousand men and women. Soldiers, healers, injured and camp workers, all burned to death by her hand! And now history repeats itself. Already she has reduced an entire camp to ashes! I received word of the fate of the Stone’s Cradle camp just this morning. And you dare claim we are wrong to call you monsters?” Amber laughed darkly, sheer contempt practically dripping from her features. “Killing is killing. Either it is all right, or it is all wrong. Whining like children about how the killing happens is ridiculous. You’re just afraid of me. Your own fire king would do the same thing in a heartbeat if he had the strength and the passion for it.” “I’LL SHOW YOU PASSION!” Dahn roared, attempting to hurl a ball of flame at the girl. But amber simply wrenched the erupting fire free from his hand, easily turning it on his companions. With a scowl, Aro summoned up a wall of water to quench the flame, and with that, battle was joined. It was a confusing mess of a fight. Amber made short work of the enemy’s handguns, and it was much too close quarters for rifles. In addition, as Aro had to quench more and more of Amber’s fire, the area filled with smoke, fog and steam, reducing visibility to near zero. Adam tried to keep an eye on it all and direct his companions, but soon he could do no more than react to what was around him. Before long, and perhaps inevitably, he found himself standing face to face with Aro. The muted sunlight glinted off the edge of Eternal Rain, the twin blade of First River. Steeling himself, Adam focused on the need to fight to protect himself and his friends, pushing away all his worries and doubts. With a practiced motion, he drew his own sword. “I can’t afford to lose here.” He said. “Then let us fight.” Aro lunged towards him, unleashing a shockingly quick flurry of blows, but Adam found he had no trouble deflecting them. The water king’s style was fast and aggressive, clearly meant to overwhelm the opponent and secure victory with maximum efficiency, but Adam’s fluid, defensive style let him counter every blow and thrust with relative ease. Feeling more confident, Adam moved to block a powerful overhead blow… And watched in shock as the edge of Eternal Rain cut almost half an inch into the metal of First River, cutting into the sword with a horrible screeching noise. Staring up at the two blades, Adam realized what was happening. His opponent’s conviction and surety, his purity of heart, was greater than Adam’s. These blades could cut through anything less pure than their wielder’s heart, after all, and so… “I can’t fight you…” Adam said in a small voice. Aro grinned, his blade cutting deeper still into First River as Adam’s resolve weakened. “But I can’t let you win.” Before Aro could respond, Adam kicked him in the chest with all his might, sending him flying to the ground. “Amber! Break!” Suddenly, fire was everywhere. Every shrub, every blade of grass, even the air itself seemed to catch aflame. Aro swore loudly, summoning up all the water he could get his hands on to save himself and his companions, and in the resulting mess of screaming and confusion and thick, scalding steam, Adam and his friends ran as fast as their legs would carry them. Lily’s wind slammed into their backs, forcing them run at speeds that almost bowled them over, far faster than they could ever run unassisted. Pushing ahead with all the strength they could muster, they fled into the distance. They were singed, bruised, scratched and defeated, but they were alive.