Burning Out

[Rayse Valentino]

Closed to Karuka Tide and obviously Lasair. Takes place in the somewhat near-future.

Rayse was in denial. He came here to see what he could do with his dragon scale, but that was just a cover. He was here about the runes. It was over in Corone that he first heard about the culture of Luthmor, about the elemental runes. Ever since the war broke out in Salvar, Rayse has been unable to get information about the rune that was etched into his right shoulder in the same way as a tattoo. The truth is that he hasn't really been trying, not until now. His powers have been growing steadily more powerful, his body more like fire, but something was happening to him inside. Sometimes he would lose his grip, sometimes his body parts would pass through objects. In the worst case scenario, he was slowly turning into fire.

Not that any of that mattered right now. Oh no, he was fine! He was just here to shop around, see what he could do with his materials, maybe ask about the runes in curiosity. Even if there was something peculiar about his abilities, there would likely be a simple solution. Yes, that's it. No big deal. Rayse Valentino couldn't be done in by some tattoo ink, right?

Still, getting here wasn't exactly an easy trip. Not counting the time and money investment, he had to wonder how The Company was faring back home in his absence. Also, this place, Donnalaich, was odd in itself. As he walked around in his black long coat with his traveling bag slung over his shoulder, he noticed many fae and draconians. He half-expected Lexxum Vordic, the draconian he received his red scale from, to be here. The fae, to him, seemed like shorter elves with butterfly wings. They were almost child-like in appearance, which made their contrast with the draconians laughable. Rayse saw many strange creatures in Radasanth, but he was the minority here. The only other humans here were probably as wealthy as him, which made him feel like a target. Despite his worries, the beautiful scenery in the middle of the day and the waterfall caught his attention and all the beings around him ignored him as if he was just like everyone else.

Spotting The Synthesis Shop, he wandered inside to a vibrant display of alchemy. Behind that, many crystals leaned against the stone walls on many shelves, reflecting and refracting the light to make the whole place come alive. It was almost brighter inside than it was outside. Also, it seemed to be empty. Rayse took a few steps inside, letting his eyes wander about the room, until he noticed a shuffling sound coming from behind the main counter. He walked up to it.

"Anybody home?"

[Lasair Anubail]

The silence of the Synthesis Shop quickly broke. Not only by the words of the human and his soft footsteps along the dark wooden floor, but also by a sudden and abrupt thud as the top of Lasair’s skull impacted the top of a cupboard.

“Ow, that hurts, hurts, huuuurrtsss!”

Whimpering softly, the small Fae crawled out from the inside of the cupboard. Her left hand was rubbing the top of her head where she swore she could already feel a gigantic bump the size of Corone forming. It wasn’t fair. People shouldn’t keep sneaking up on her like that, especially when she was so lost digging for something and she barely even remembered where she was. It happened more often than she cared to admit. Last time it was a shelf in the backroom, this time it was a cupboard under her counter. All because she couldn’t find that damn chunk of Titanium she swore she’d put in here and she’d looked everywhere else.

As she backed out of the cupboard, muttering small little words that barely sounded like Dheath or Common, Lasair knocked over jars, small wooden boxes and little bags of various items she’d thrown in there for storage. Once she was out, she reached up and grabbed at the top of her counter, her arm knocking over a few more jars she’d placed up there. Hefting herself up into a kneeling position, her golden eyes noticed two things. One, there was a cute, young human in her shop. And two, the chunk of Titanium had fallen out of one of the jars.

“Yay! I found it!”

She grabbed it and jumped up into a standing position way too fast because suddenly the shop started tilting in odd directions. Stumbling and catching herself on the counter, Lasair shook her head to clear the fuzzy darkness and the cute little colours dancing before her eyes.

“Ohh, shop spinning in not good direction...”

Resting her head upon the counter, the small Fae took in a few deep breaths until she was rather certain everything in her stomach was staying put and the room was exactly the way it should be. It seemed yelling at it in her mind to stop spinning took a little while. Perhaps next time she should try out loud. Then it might actually hear her.

Remembering that there was someone in her shop, Lasair looked up towards the dark haired human. He felt a little weird to her, she didn’t entirely know why, but it was like a tingle that came off him. Not unlike the magical tingle that permeated Fae and other races like elves.

“Ohh, you feel weird...” She said absently, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

Leaning across the wide counter, the small Fae reached out to touch the arm of the stranger, as long as he didn’t move of course.

[Karuka]

Karuka had just gotten back to Dheathain after a short time away, although she didn't know why or what she was planning to do there. The place just seemed to call to her. Despite the many battles and bad memories she had of the place, it still felt more like home than anywhere else on Althanas.

Maybe I should buy a little apartment and at least spend the winter months here.

It would be good to be a little bit settled.

In any event, since she was in a land she'd been in all to often, she was going somewhere in it she'd never had the chance to see - the Synthesis shop. It seemed to already have a customer in it, but that wasn't too uncommon, and Karuka stepped in, only to see a blur flying at her chest.

Reflexively, she snatched it out of the air, only to watch the little auburn-haired, one-winged cloth man wiggle around in her grasp, hands outstretched as though he would not be deterred from burying his tiny frame in her chest.

"Hello, sexy!" He truly was an incorrigible beast.

She raised an eyebrow. "Hello, wee bit." She turned to the counter, holding up her pint-sized prisoner. "Is he yours?" she asked the fae shopkeep.

[Lasair Anubail]

Lasair’s hand stopped less than an inch away from the man’s arm, her mind momentarily distracted from her task by the appearance of another customer. And what that customer apparently held in her hand.

“Oh, yes he is mine.” Lasair said rather cheerfully. “Bad, Avery. That’s a bad, bad, Avery!”

The little plushie seemed not very deterred by Lasair’s words at all. In fact, he kept trying to wriggle free of the woman’s grasp, not that she seemed ready to let him go anytime soon. Her fingers were wrapped around him so tightly that the little guy seemed kind of squished. And she hoped he was uncomfortable after trying to pull something like that. Honestly, she would have thought he’d learned after Aileen had screamed and set him on fire the last time he’d flowed into her chest and scared the poop out of her. He was just lucky her customer was a wee bit nicer.

Turning back to the young man, Lasair gave him an apologetic smile. “Excuse me for a moment, one of my friends seems to have gotten in over his head. Not that it would take him much to get in over his head since it’s only nine inches off the ground. Unless he’s flying, then it’s higher. Oh, but now I’m rambling.”

Quickly moving out from the other side of the counter, Lasair skipped over to the tall, very, very tall young woman and grabbed the little Avery out of her hand.

“Lasair, let me go!”

He struggled and twitched and shifted about in her grip. The little bugger even managed to wriggle his way out of her small hand. But she quickly snatched him out of the air with two and when he went to talk again, she squeezed him a little harder and made him cough and spurt.

“That’s mean...” He wheezed.

“So is flying at the chest of young women.”

“Maybe if you give me what you neglected to when you first made me...” He grumbled.

Rolling her eyes, Lasair excuse herself from the young woman and then disappeared into a dark, purple curtain that separated the front of her shop, from the back private area. A few bangs and shouts could be heard from the back before all went silent. Smiling and humming softly to herself, Lasair emerged a few seconds later and once again approached the counter.

“What can I help you two with?”

[Rayse Valentino]

Rayse was distracted by the newcomer and didn't notice Lasair reaching for him. Now with two redheads in his midst, the distinctive feature of the fae wings stood out even more for him. As she rushed passed him to get the little man, he wondered about the practicality of those wings. He shook his head, since he wasn't here for that. For a moment he thought the presence of another would bother him, but his denial kicked in and he concluded that other patrons would not affect what he was here for: Casual shopping and a couple of questions.

The ridiculous of the exchanges did annoy him though. It seems the absurdity of these so-called 'magic shops' permeated all of Althanas. He would start this thing off irritated.

Putting his hand on the counter, Rayse declared, "I want to know what I could do with this."

He lifted his hand, revealing Lexxum's scale. It was red in appearance and wholly intact. He was ignoring the other shopper for now, even though she seemed familiar to him. He also had a gut feeling about her, derived from a knack for knowing whether or not someone was hiding something.

[Lasair Anubail]

“Oh!”

Lasair reached out and took the scale from the young man’s hand, her expression suddenly turning a bit more serious as she got down to work. The playfulness vanished as easily as it came and the appearance of her being a simple child went with it. Though she still looked the same, her entire disposition changed and made her seem somehow older. Synthesizing was one of the only times that Lasair treated something seriously. As a form of magic and skill blending that she had created, the small Fae took great pride in what she did for a living. No matter how child-like she seemed, she always took her synthesizing seriously.

Running her fingers across the red scale, the small Fae continued to examine it. She dipped her nails into the bumps and rivets and the small natural lines that formed across the scale. She even looked at the bright red colour of it.
“Well, it looks... but...” Her words were a bit chopped and cut off as her internal thoughts spilled out a bit too readily. “It looks like a Draconian scale, but it’s not. There are some slight differences in it though I assume I can use it in relatively the same way!”

She smiled up at him as she laid the scale down on the counter.

“Asking me what I can do with this is a question loaded...” She said thoughtfully, “I mean, I can do quite a bit with the scale, but very little by itself. You’ll need more ingredients to do anything significant. I can turn it into a Red Crystal, which heightens fire magic within the person holding it. I can use it and various other ingredients to enchant clothes for fire resistance, or add the element of fire to a weapon of yours. I can even make exploding bullets with it.”

She really liked those exploding bullets she’d made for Godhand, she just hoped that he got some use out of them too.

“For the most part, I can do almost anything fire related with the scale, but I’ll need other ingredients too.” She told him. “Is there anything in particular you are looking for? Even just an idea you need help with... ask away and don’t be shy!”

[Rayse Valentino]

Rayse slammed his fist upon the counter. Of all things, fire! The scale was just like his rune; his curse! He looked down upon the counter as his fist rested upon it, gnashing his teeth. He was beyond irritated now. He didn't even want that damn scale anymore.

He looked up, unaware that he had briefly lost his cool, "So, tell me about those fire runes of yours."

He was going to preface that sentence with speaking of fire, but his mind skipped over that thought. He wasn't in the mood to play games anymore. His voice was darker, his speech more forced.

"I heard that they can only be embedded within certain spots. What would happen if, say, one was put into a shoulder or something?"

He glared at the fae, completely forgetting about the other patron in the shop. His fist was shaking slightly, but he hid his agitated expression behind a weak grin.

[Lasair Anubail]

Lasair nearly jumped five feet into the air. The sound of his fist slamming against the counter still rung in her ears, along with the sound of her pounding heart. She could feel it trying to fly away while it thudded throughout her little chest, which wasn’t really right. It belonged to her; it needed to stay exactly where it was. No matter how badly something scared it.

“F-fire runes...” She stuttered as she looked at him. Her golden eyes wide and her mind racing. She felt a little scared of him and didn’t really know what she should be doing. He just wanted her help. But she didn’t know if she should get Godhand or Tristram to maybe come out here and keep an eye on him so he didn’t try to hit her.

Taking a deep and somewhat calming breath, the small Fae moved back towards the counter, not even entirely realizing it that she had stepped away from it.

“Well, umm... the ruins are put in specific places so that the body can easily channel the power within them. There’s a lot of raw energy carefully harnessed in one of them. If it’s not embedded in the right location, well...I’m sure there would be a lot of side effects. I’m not entirely sure of those side effects because I’ve never put one in the wrong place. That would just be silly and only an amateur would even think of doing something like that, let alone going through with it. The most likely side effect would be uncontrolled bursts of magic throughout the body leading to unusual changes maybe. If the rune isn’t removed, it may fuse with the body in an odd way, or it will just kill the person because they can’t properly focus the energy.”

She gave a small shrug as she looked at the man again, wondering why he wanted to know such a thing. Then again, he did have that odd feel to him, like something constantly thrumming through his body. Did he have a ruin in him that wasn’t properly placed?

Frowning softly, the small Fae reached out to grab his arm, knowing that if she could just touch him she’d know for sure...

[Rayse Valentino]

His grin faded. He looked down, his eyes covered by shadows and his hair gently falling before his face. He was hoping, deep down, that his rune was something else. Something different than the ones sold here. It was far too late to deny anything. The absurdity of it all was too much.

As the fae reached over to touch his arm, Rayse quickly pulled his right arm up from the table and grabbed the fae's hand, forcefully pulling her entire body forward and up to his face. He lifted his head, and his eyes were filled with rage. Wasn't she one of the ones who made these damn things? Didn't they all originate from here? He wouldn't of been in this mess if it wasn't for this stupid place!

Gripping her arm tightly, Rayse's enraged voice echoed throughout the shop, "How do I fix it?! How do I get this damn thing out of me?! If it's money you want, I got it, just tell me how to get rid of it!"

His body was surrounded by a red aura. A small flame ran up his spine and spread, lighting his entire body in a thin fire that didn't burn, but was hot. He felt like he was slipping away.

[Lasair Anubail]

Lasair whimpered loudly and braced her free hand on the edge of the counter. He’d pulled her forward so far that her feet were no longer touching the ground and the wood was digging into her stomach. She tried to pull away from him, but his grip felt like steel and he wouldn’t let her go. He just started yelling at her for reason. She’d never done anything to him before. She didn’t understand. Why was he being so mean to her? Why was he trying to hurt her? She just wanted to help him!

“Please let me go! You’re hurting me!”

Her large, golden eyes shimmered with unshed tears. Her one hand still feebly tried to pull herself back and away from him. Finally, she gave up and even though the flames on him looked scary, she grabbed onto his wrist. The fire did not burn her, it did not burn him either. It just felt warm, like the heat that came off a candle or an open flame. With her long, thin fingers wrapped around him, she tugged and pulled and tried to get him to just let her go.

The tears in her eyes spilled down across her cheeks, staining them as they rolled and fell to counter.

“I want to help, I never said I wouldn’t help, just please stop hurting me!”

As she pleaded with him again, the thick, purple curtain behind the counter shifted and moved. Two of her plushies appeared from the private area of her shop and immediately raced over to her. Tristram, modeled and made after her best friend—a Draconian—flew through the air on dark blue scaled wings. Like always, his small spear lay in his hand, never left behind. He immediately went to the human’s face, trying to distract him enough to release Lasair His small spear going for the vulnerable areas, like his eyes. The other plushie went for a different tactic. Unable to fly, Godhand Striker raced around the counter and proceeded to attack him from his feet. Even for a plushie, Godhand possessed more than the average strength of a human, more than enough to knock him on his back if need be.

[Rayse Valentino]

Is it really the same thing? Did it really come from here? Many questions assailed his mind, trying to confirm his anger. Such dangerous runes nearly cost him his life when he met a rune-user back in Knife's Edge. He knew that the runes were merely weapons, but something about being in the actual place where they were made... It was infuriating. Like being at the poison factory after eating the wrong cookie. He just wanted to destroy everything in here. As the small, toy-like creatures came out, Rayse was not amused.

"Don't fuck with me!" he yelled as the as draconian one passed right through his face, going through the flames where his face once was.

His face reformed from the dancing fire, and the other toy passed through him in a similar manner as it attached him from below and passed through his body. Both plushies flung about the floor wildly, trying to put out the flames that they were not engulfed in. Rayse was decider of who burns, and he didn't want the girl to burn just yet. He wanted answers first.

"Oh, you'll help me. I can believe that. That or this whole place goes up in flames."

Suddenly, a sharp pain came from his rune. Purple, veiny things seemed to sprout from his rune and branch out from it a couple inches. He let go and jumped back, holding down on the rune with his left hand. This was the worst attack yet. In the last couple weeks, any extended use of his fire abilities resulted in this pain, but it was never this mind-numbing. It was getting worse. He couldn't take it and dropped to his knees, gnashing his teeth as his entire body appeared to burn brightly in the store. It just made him madder.

"Damn it!"

[Lasair Anubail]

The moment he released her, Lasair scooted across the counter. She wanted to hide. She wanted to run into the back room and wish there was a door there so no mean, scary humans could follow her and hurt her more. But she didn’t. Instead she merely watched him as he practically fell to his knees in agony. Flames still burst forth from his person, surrounding him in an inferno that should have been killing him. Yet even when he had held her, he hadn’t burned her. He hadn’t truly hurt her anyway. Just her plushies. Though they may have deserved it considering they attacked him, but they were just trying to help her. She couldn’t blame them, but he could.

Hesitantly, Lasair walked around to the other side of her the counter. Her bare feet made almost no noise upon the dark, wooden floor of her shop. Her plushies were still there, surrounded in fire and writhing on the ground in agony. That made her want to start crying all over again. Just because they were handmade dolls didn’t mean they couldn’t feel pain. Though Lasair herself was rather uncertain of that fact, she was pretty sure they could and the two of them were probably in an unbearable amount of pain.

Watching him, Lasair felt her golden eyes narrow slightly. The rune on his shoulder was sprouting something purple and viney and very odd. It was reaching out across his body like veins and in all her life, the small Fae had never seen anything like it. Now that she thought about it, now that the fear was subsiding, the feel of the rune on him. It was Dheathanian at all. It felt nothing like Fae magic and certainly was not Draconian.

With small steps she moved towards him, taking it a few inches at a time until she could kneel down next to him.

“Mr. Scary-Human-Person?” She called out softly. She wasn’t sure if she could touch him now, but she reached out to do it anyway. Even if it would get her hurt, she told him she’d help him and she meant it.