[Stella]
Travelling through Bundo Pass tended to disorient the senses. One would be accustomed to its narrow landscape that anything broader would stun their sights.
Their arrival to the Central Plains was testament to it. There were no mountains to limit their view to a single path—no dull greys of stone and faded browns of dust to act as the only shades for their surroundings. Instead it was the sky and the earth expanding to no end. It was many paths forking to different ends. It was the gentle blue of sky interrupted by the white of clouds, the bright green of earth interrupted by the pinks and yellows of flowers.
Stella took her fill of this lovely scenery. It wouldn't linger for long. Not with the Scorched Fields as a destination.
Taking that first turn to its direction brought tangible consequences.
Heat weighed on them, at first mild then overwhelming, accumulating on the skin then boring down to bone. A windless heat that clutched at them as green turned ashen—black and grey and white. Like being in an oven-room. Incendiary. Miserable.
She distracted herself with work, preparing a number of soaked cloths to combat the onslaught, absently noting how her companions battled it.
Jehona’s approach was to bring out a small folding fan, alternating its fanning between the four of them and whatever phantom trace she could reach of Rolo. William’s was to divest himself of his tunic, settling to drive the wagon in his inner shirt. And Yonten’s was… to do nothing. He made a marvelous impression of buried roast meat of Western Continent’s east with the inconvenient dark layers he wore.
Stella handed some of the cloths to William and Jehona before turning to Yonten last.
“Loosen your scarf and run it over your neck at the very least,” she had to say when Yonten put the cloths she gave him on his head and face, sparing none for any other area.
Her advice nudged Yonten in the opposite path, raising his scarf further up his chin.
Stella stared at him, baffled, and Yonten didn't acknowledge it. He leaned forwards to tell William, "Stop here."
[Yonten]
“Stay put,” he ordered his companions when they intended to follow. Well, the Butcher and Coroner at least. The Beauty took advantage of their stop to rush to the horse’s side, wet cloths in hand. “You’ll catch fire if you progress further.”
“And you won’t?” the Coroner returned, doubt clear in her gaze.
Yonten grinned. “Not with water under my feet.”
He thrust his staff forwards, producing a layer of water to cling to his boots, and dashed towards the giant mound of ash in the distance. He fixed his sights on the dark bits where the mound solidified, faintly glittering under the midday's sun.
It grew hotter the closer he got to the mound, every step he took carrying with it hisses of vaporizing water and tendrils of rising steam.
Even dead the Bestowed Beasts were formidable, marking the land they died in with unnatural phenomena. This one was no different: a falcon that hosted the heat of a Fire shard. Some stories referred to it as the closest thing to a phoenix—it didn’t rise up from its own ashes, but its shed feathers turned to fiery embers with the changing seasons, piling up until it made this mound before him.
Grave-sites of Bestowed Beasts were best avoided, at least when one didn’t know what to look for.
Yonten knew exactly what he wanted.
Remains of Bestowed Beasts were one of the best materials an Elemental Smith could work with. It would be an absolute travesty to pass this chance.
He brought out the knife he carried for occasions like these once he stood at the base of the mound, scrapping the solidified surfaces with its sharp edge, and collecting the falling debris on a cloth he placed on the ground. He worked slow, rhythmic, trying to ignore the heat threatening to bake him in his clothes. He couldn’t afford a wrong move; anything other than the knife touching the mound’s surface would ignite both the mound and its immediate surroundings.
Relief overtook him once he collected enough material, crouching down to hurriedly tie up the cloth in a small bundle. He straightened up to a stand then, and so abruptly that his vision blurred. It was instinct that had him reaching a hand to steady himself on the nearest surface.
A mistake.
“Run!” Yonten told his companions standing in waiting, following his own command and running from the flames chasing at his heels—too strong against the water and earth shields he could afford to deploy, so hot that they turned the former to steam and the latter to coal.
The scent of burnt leather and fabric wafted to his nose, and he acknowledged the grim reality that he caught fire.
But going aflame didn’t explain the angle his sights now suddenly veered towards, away from a horizon cut into half charred earth and half near-white sky, to a skewed view from above. It didn’t explain his body’s state of imbalance, his feet kicking at air.
“Hold still,” came a soft grunt, and then Yonten was face to face with the ill-named horse, the burning mound a good distance away from him, the Beauty by his side and digging the scorched edges of her boots into barren soil.
He barely registered his surroundings before water poured over him, putting the lingering flames on him to rest.
“That was dangerous,” the Butcher said, his voice hanging over him, heavy with unfamiliar reprimanding.
“I got what I wanted,” Yonten returned, blinking water away from his eyes. He raised his hard-earned bundle of remains to showcase it.
“At the risk of becoming barbecued,” was the Coroner’s response, far from impressed.
“A minor mishap.” He dismissed.
“Minor?” the Beauty repeated, pointedly gazing back at the mound silhouetting them all in its bright, fiery light.
“I am alive, am I not?”
“Not by your own efforts.”
The Butcher reaching to take the bundle from him distracted Yonten from a retort. He yanked the bundle away. “Sorry, but this needs careful handling at the moment.”
The Beauty raised an eyebrow. “As careful as you were just now?”
Yonten ignored her. He knew a losing battle when he saw one, and it didn’t help that he owed her for saving his hide. “We better put some distance between us and the fire,” he said.
At least that was a point no one refuted.
“How did you manage to scarp the mound’s surface if a mere touch would bring it aflame?” Yonten heard the Butcher asking from the wagon’s front.
Yonten currently lay in a corner of the wagon cleared from its cargo, sights obscured by bandages soaked in medicinal extracts. They felt cool on his scalded skin, but they smelled awful. The Coroner cared none for his protests regarding it, piling more horrid-smelling things on his face and head.
“I used tools reinforced with Void Stone," he answered, wincing at the incredibly bitter taste that slipped and settled on his tongue upon speaking.
“Void Stone…” repeated the Butcher, in his voice a contemplation.
While the Coroner’s carried obvious surprise. “The one that can negate Elemental energy?”
“It’s more like they negate as much energy as they’re initially charged with," he corrected. It was to his immense fortune that his tools were charged with high enough energy to be able to work against the ash mound. “Take for example the West Gate’s key we obtained in Aslan. It's entirety made out of Void Stone. And since it belongs to the Succession Hall, I’m willing to wager that it was charged back when the Crystals were intact.”
“So?” the Beauty prompted.
“That means no Elemental energy in this era could destroy the key.” They were fascinating things, the Void Stones. “In contrast, all Stone-reinforced items made in the present time could be destroyed.”
Couple that with one annoying disadvantage: while Void Stones make for excellent defense when infused into armors and shields, their indiscriminate blocking of energy was an ordeal for Elemental wielders using them.
“Were you the one who charged your tools, then?” the Beauty asked.
Yonten was glad the bandages covered his face at that moment, foul-smelling as they were. “No.”
A moment of silence passed, his companions probably mulling over what he revealed, before the Coroner interrupted it, “So you used the tools to collect the Bestowed Beast’s remains. Why? What can the remains do?”
His mind eased at the question, quickly jumping at the chance to divert the topic. “They can boost the effect of Elemental Fire weapons.”
“But we don’t have…” the Butcher started, only to trail off and then ask, “You’ll make them?”
“Why do you think I asked for the bandits’ weapons? I have big plans for you all." He slammed his hand on his chest for emphasis and regretted it almost immediately. His hand, still scalded under all the bandages wrapped around it, stung on impact.
“I hope those plans are worth the roasting you received,” the Beauty said, and it insulted him to hear that lecturing tone in her voice.
Yonten put his irritation away to counter, "They are."
If they helped achieving the results he wanted?
They would be worth everything.
