Page 11 of Crown of Flame
She shrinks down in fear at the sight of another pointy-eared creature.
“Stop where you are,” the creature shouts.
I catch the material he wears on fire, unleashing a jet of flames in his direction.
He tries to run away but falls down on the floor, the smell of his burning flesh more unpleasant than at home.
“Thank you,” she says, running over to the body.
She finds a key on him and picks it up. It’s still hot, and she nearly drops it.
“Now to do what we came here for.”
Her fear is lessening, much to my relief.
She walks over to the cells and begins unlocking each door individually, removing the imprisoned creatures from a strange magical device that connects them all. They are weak and almost cannot move.
The display puzzles me. Where I come from, if a creature is weak, they cannot survive and should be killed as a mercy.
What use do these creatures serve her?
“Can you do me a favor?” she asks me.
I say nothing in response.
“These people are badly hurt, and they will need to recover here,” she says. “Can you check the other floors of the tower and make sure it’s safe for them?”
I still don’t know what a tower is, but I figure that if I help her, maybe she will help me later.
Below us, I find many more pointy-eared creatures who all respond with hostility.
I decide that they need to die, but many objects in one of the areas catch fire while I kill the creatures. Seemingly, entire shelves of flammable objects line the area.
I don’t understand the logic of it. Why would you fill an area with objects that easily catch fire?
That’s when I discover a hole inside the structure. I move outside it, discovering an entire realm even beyond this one.
Just when I thought I was starting to understand my environment, it reveals an entirely new layer.
The world out here is black, and a strange white moisture that chills my flames falls from the ceiling. There are cliffs in the distance, but they don’t stretch infinitely upward toward the ceiling.
I turn around and note the strange black structure I exited. More of them dot the horizon, accompanied by green and brown objects that move in the wind.
“What is this place?” I ask aloud, as though it might give me insight I didn’t already have.
I return inside the structure, which I’ve now concluded must be the ‘tower’ she described. Perhaps it’s a more elaborate version of what I found back home, a functional shelter of some kind.
“Can you check upstairs, too?” she asks when I return to her. “There should be other elves and other people that need our help.”
“What will you do for me in return?”
She looks around the room, surprised by the question.
“Well, if there are other dark elves here, they might kill me,” she replies. “And I’m your only source of information right now. So that would be bad.”
I sigh, fire exhaling from my form. She ducks out of the way of the flame, but it still partially scorches her.
The creature looks at me in confusion.