Spark of War (Progression Fantasy)

"Uh, hi." El raised a hand casually in greeting, which caused the people looking up at her to flinch back or, in some cases, dive for cover. "I'm not here to fight!"

Crude spears stayed leveled in her direction, a few bows even joining the collection, though none of them looked like they'd pose any threat to her frost armor. In fact, they had to be for hunting the small animals she'd spotted scattered through the large valley.

Makes sense. These people fled to the In-Between because they wouldn't have been able to stand up to the Firestorm. Even though it's just me here, if that's all the have… I could wipe them out. Literally with one hand.

"Really! I'm not here to fight," El shouted, keeping her hand in the air and resisting the temptation to float closer to the town. "I need your help. The world needs your help."

"Overly dramatic statement from a would-be conqueror," a woman spoke from the closest edge of the village. Dressed in leathers clearly made to blend into the underbrush, she had a spear leveled straight at El's chest – even though El was hundreds of feet away.

"Maybe don't provoke the conqueror?" the man beside her hissed, his voice somehow still loud enough to be heard by the entire town.

"Not my fault she's being cheesy," the woman responded. "Next, she'll tell us how only we can turn the tide of some conflict between gods. Or, maybe, how Pycrin has given up its conquering ways, returned the stolen Embers to their original resting places, and is now banding together with other nations to fight in some global war."

"Umm…" El pointed at the woman. "Yes."

"Yes?" the woman asked. "Yes to what?"

"All of that."

"What?"

"All of that – what you just said – is exactly why I'm here."

"You're kidding."

"Wish I was."

"This sounds like the rushed plot in a bad story," the woman said, her spear actually lowering in shock before she realized what she was doing. Almost immediately, the weapon snapped back up, and anger crossed the woman's face. "Enough with your lies! Tell us why you're really here."

"Really, all that you just said," El said, unable to stop the small smirk from quirking her lips. "There's been… a revolution in Pycrin, and we've started returning the Embers we took. Yours is back in Salid right now, in fact. And, yeah, there's another god sending their army to conquer the nation of Pili. Worse, if they succeed, they'll be able to open the portal to free that god from… wherever it is they're trapped. That'd be bad.

"Oh, and you got it completely right, we totally need your help to stop that. Please?"

"You're mocking me, aren't you?"

"No…" El started, but the visible people in the town shifted as an older man came strolling along the street in El's direction. Some of the people gathered more closely around the elderly man, as if protecting him, while others clearly got out of his way.

Somebody of importance.

"Elder, you shouldn't be out here," the woman with the spear half-turned to talk to the man. "If the conqueror attacks…"

"Your spears wouldn't stop me," El risked pointing out. "Look. I'm really not here to fight. I wouldn't be talking if I was."

"You're just bluffing…"

El flared her wings beside her without moving, blue flames shooting out a in a massive display a hundred feet in each direction. So cold and abrupt was the demonstration, the air itself seemed to freeze before shattering into thousands of tiny snowflakes that gently fell outside the town limits. The valley was warm enough none of the flakes reached the ground, but it made for a sparkling – if, admittedly, dramatic – show.

"We really do need your help, if you're willing to hear me out. If not, I'll leave and never come back," El said to the wide eyes and dropped jaws.

"You… the other Firestorm with you…"

"Just me here. And nobody else can find you," El said. "I'm the only one who can open the gate."

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"Another lie to…"

"Hush, Jenita," the elder said. "Can you not feel it from her? The echo of our stolen Ember, like a long-lost sister finally come home."

"She's Firestorm," Jenita cursed. "Look at her! She's just like the ones who took our Ember in the first place. Who chased us in here!"

"Perhaps you should look at her," the elder said softly, his voice like oddly gravelly silk. "Firestorm, she may be, but does something not stand out from the images from our history?"

"She's uglier?"

"Hey!" El snapped. "That's not… very nice…"

"Jenita," the elder said, tilting his head in the teacher-is-not-amused-by-your-outburst kind of way.

"Fine. She has blue wings," Jenita said, then whipped around to face El again. "Why do you have blue wings?"

"No apology for the ugly thing?" El asked, really wishing one arm wasn't bandaged to her chest so she could cross her arms and look upset. It just didn't work as well with only one good hand. She shook her head to put it behind her. "Because a lot has happened in the last few months. And I'm more than happy to tell you, if you're willing to listen."

"We…" Jenita started.

"You opened the gate to this place?" the elder interrupted.

"I did. The gateway in Salid, actually," El clarified.

"And is it still open. Could we… return… if we wanted to?" the old man asked, a sparkle of hope in his distant eye.

"It's still open." El nodded. "And the whole point of me being here is the hope some of you will come back with me. That you can still open the gate to help us get troops to Pili."

"See! Still the conqueror, she admits it!" Jenita said.

"Pretty sure I mentioned the other god was the one trying to do the conquering," El said flatly.

"The Rime?" the old man asked. "That wouldn't…"

"The Fathom," El interrupted, and the old man's eyes widened as his face went pale. "Wait, you know what the Fathom is? What the Depths are?"

"Where did you hear those terms?" the man asked, his voice now so low, El wouldn't have had any hope hearing him without the magic of her frost armor.

Hrm, another thing we stole from a different Ember?

"From a Wirockian golem," El said. "After his nation may've had something to do with the Depths getting out. We're honestly not entirely sure, at this point. If you know something – anything – about what they are, we could use all the information we can get."

The man didn't respond immediately, even going so far as to hush Jenita and the man beside her when they tried to speak up again. Rubbing his short beard as he thought, his eyes went from El to the ground over and over, his head alternately shaking and then nodding, like he couldn't completely accept what he'd heard.

Finally, he spoke. "Seeing you here was already shocking enough, but the news you bring is… worrying. Please, come down so I can stop craning my neck when we speak. We have much to discuss."

"Thank you," El said, beginning to drift forward, but pulling up short when spears shook in her direction, and drawstrings pulled further back.

"Put down your weapons," the elder said, his voice carrying across the otherwise completely silent town. "The lovely Firestorm… er… what did you say your name was?" A hint of a mischievous smile creased the man's lips beneath his beard.

"Anella, but everybody calls me El."

"Anella," the man said formally, "isn't here to hurt us. As she said, if she was, we would stand no chance in a fight. It's why we didn't fight before. Let us talk in peace and learn what's transpired in the outside world while we've been gone."

"Elder," Jenita tried one more time, but the man just shook his head. "Fiiiiiiiine, but I'm not leaving you alone with her."

"Ah, you're offering to make tea? Perfect," the man said, turning and striding towards one of the larger houses even as Jenita sputtered her objections.

With the tension leaking out of the scene below her, El tentatively glided towards the same building. A few weapons stayed aimed in her direction, but no arrows came flying her way, and even the spears eventually lowered when their owners realized it wasn't going to come to blows.

"I'm keeping my eyes on you," Jenita said, eyes going sideways to the elderly man. "Over tea, apparently. I hope you have manners."

"A few," El said, though she kept her attention on the man as he reached for the door.

"No cookies for you though."

Knew I should've brought my own.

"And, Elder." El ignored Jenita's continued jibes, and the man turning to look at her as she got closer. "You'll tell me what you know about the Fathom and the Depths? And how you know anything about them? Won't you?"

Still rubbing his beard, the man nodded. "Yes, of course. Even if we don't decide to help you, if what you say is true, it's my responsibility to tell you what I know."

"But, how do you know anything?" El couldn't wait until she got inside to get an answer to the question. "Nobody in Pycrin has ever heard of them. We had to go all the way to the Vestis library and find a Wirockian golem to give us the little we know."

"Oh? A Wirockian in Vestis, I'm sure that's a story to tell. How did those stuffy old librarians feel about that? They never were fond of people who thought they knew more than they did."

"Uh… I wouldn't know…" El said slowly, weighing how much to tell the man. He acted like he knew the Vestish and Wirockians, though, so she took a chance. "As far as we know, most – if not all – of the Vestish people were captured and sacrificed by the Depths. They're using their Sparks to open the portal to wherever the Fathom is trapped."

"I see," the elderly man said slowly, his earlier mirth vanishing in a heartbeat at the news. "That's very troubling. And the Storm that covered the In-Between in snow, am I right to assume it was present in the outside world as well?"

"Yes."

"Most troubling indeed. That would mean there is a good chance the second lock has already been undone. The Wirockians must've found the other ring we hid. If they dug it out and exposed it to the power of the Storm – to the Rime's power – that would explain why the Depths once again walk our world. Come, come, this is really a discussion to be had over tea."

"That kind of lines up with what Bones – the golem – was saying. The Depths getting freed, not the tea part. Er, actually, they also had a thing for tea." El said, thinking back on her encounter with the scholar. "But, before all that. How do you know so much about the Depths? Or how they were sealed?

"Oh, that's easy, because our ancestors helped seal them away all those years ago."