Flux

Where I Began:



Bogsneak, Crimson/Vermillion/Hunter, Faceted



Flux was born different.

It wasn’t how they were born, no; they were hatched from a solidified mass of the glowing, churning ooze of the old alchemists cauldron, the same as thousands of others. It was that, even after the thousands of repetitions beneath his careful claw, the master had made a mistake.

The fire smells different tonight, the old dragon thought, turning his pearl over in his talons and sighing. He sat aside the polishing cloth, and flicked his tongue into his water for a drink. The ripples reflected the steady orange light from the cauldron fire, making him pause.

Orange? Orange? He lurched to his feet, grabbing for his water and accidentally knocking it over. His familiar hissed and bolted out of the room as the fire continued to grow, the light rising rapidly from orange to a brilliant gold. Skidding on the wet floor, he knocked aside the bowl as he grabbed his emergency fire flask. He heaved it against the cauldron, the glass shattering and spilling powdered clay and Frost Whisper wings into the flames. It dimmed, giving the old dragon a glimmer of hope that was quickly squashed as it consumed the never-before-failed extinguisher and roared back to life. Brighter and brighter it rose, the heat drying the floor and making his parchments curl. He searched his ingredient shelves with frantic claws, trying to remember anything at all that could save his workshop.

A gleam of sparkling white caught his eye, and he gasped, fumbling up his sample of Eternal Snow and dumping the whole specimen-beaker and all-into the conflagration. There was a final, deafening wooft of heat, and in the sudden darkness he worried a moment that he had lost his sight. He closed his eyes, counting ten seconds, and opened them again while fearing the worst.

The glow of the cauldron, this time it’s usual calm green, met his gaze. Scattered, smoking bits of the fuel littered the floor, and spatters of the transmutation on the ceiling made glowing constellations. He found his jar of fireflies, covered in smoldering parchment but thankfully unharmed. Bless the Flamecaller for insulated bugs. Swishing them a bit to make them glow, he picked his way carefully to his workbench to figure out what went wrong. He’d been annoyed to have to interrupt his brewing to feed his fire; before the festival was always the busiest time of the month, with everyone throwing everything under the stars in the pot to fund the lair’s participation. Everything was still here (though he had to pat out a smoldering coal here and there). Dried jungle grass for kindling, a bit of bark from a log, a stasis bag of embers, coal—wait.

The embers. He picked the bag up and peered in. He’d thought he had more when he’d taken them off the shelf, but had become preoccupied by a young Wildclaw that was clipping a very reluctant podid’s claws to brew herself a manicure for the celebration. In trying stay clear of the potential disaster he had picked up the wrong bag, and not double checked the color once they’d woken from their darkened stasis. He used Pulsating Green Embers for his fire, given logs for hotter boils and coals to sustain a more favorable temperature for brewing eggs. They were alchemically neutral to most common reagents, and trustworthy enough to be used as heat in even the coldest lairs.

These were Flamerest Embers, kindled from the mane of the cousin fiendcat species. They were hotter, but it was unknown if they were neutral enough for his specific uses. Of course there’d been enough for one brew in the bag, he’d gotten them from a young warrior at this quantity as a test batch for an egg brew. He’d mixed the fuel for the brew and dashed it underneath without waiting like he usually would.

WIP BRB LOL OMG BBQ