Aetena’s description of the creature had been simple, but apt. It was a walking lava flow, char-cracked skin hinting at the smoldering inferno within. And it spoke.

Flint’s eyes flicked from the creature’s face to the water complaining at its feet, and then back to its face again. This was not the first time he’d been asked his name before something tried to kill him, but the question was no less confounding. Did it wish to humanize him before it tortured and killed him? Did it consider its killer instinct a burden, a mental parasite it had to feed, and itself noble in its own suffering? Would knowing his name make the killing tragic and the killer nobler?

Flint sucked on his teeth so that he made a sharp clicking sound, and then he spoke. “I am called Flint.”

He turned at the hips, and then took a cautious step off to one side. When the creature didn’t attack, he took another, curling his bare toes into the sediment beneath the water, eyeing the structures beyond the charred man's shoulder. His eyes never stopped searching the creature’s face. He abandoned the attempt to find recognizable humanity in its molten eyes. He hoped his knowledge of human physiology still applied - that he would recognize the tell-tale shift of weight that preceded attack. Did it need muscle to move, or did it operate on magical principles he could not guess at? Did it have bones? Could he break them?

And what happened to it? Magic, obviously. But did it do this to itself? Was it an Ignus; another pyromaniac with magical talent that embraced the flame too tight, heedless of self preservation?

Flint risked another glance over its body. It didn’t seem to be in the agony such a state suggested. Safest to assume, Flint decided, that its nerves were burnt away and that pain was no useful avenue to him.

At last, the underking stopped his pacing and sighed. “I find that I am difficult to kill, William Arcus,” he said. “I do not think I will dissuade you from trying, however. Let us find out, together, if you hold the means to do what many others could not.”

And then Flint rocked back on his heels, stretching his back and shoulders outward, and then flung himself forward in a thundering, breakneck charge, each footfall kicking up towers of murky water in his wake.