“Even a Charnel Duke’s power has its limits,” said Lianshi in exasperation.
“Not against a Dread Blaze,” said Scorio.
“This isn’t even remotely a fair fight.” Lianshi finished her cup and stepped over to the tank. “Not only can he end the duel immediately by establishing dominion and nullifying your mana, but he could just summon his Ferula and blast you apart. His Shroud will be impenetrable, and his Charnel Duke body is augmented to the point of being immune to your attacks.”
“No, please, lay it on me,” said Scorio. “Don’t hold back.”
“Beyond that, if you try to strike him with your claws you’ll be frozen,” said Lianshi. “And even if all of that wasn’t an issue, he can come up with an ever-improving strategy to defeat you after only a few exchanges.”
“Guess I’ll have to keep my distance,” said Scorio. “The caldera has a high ceiling. I can fly up and blast him from up there.”
“Blast him from up there?” asked Leonis.
“Oh.” Scorio sighed. “I made Dread Blaze yesterday. I can breathe fire now.”
Lianshi and Leonis gaped at him.
“You what?” exploded Leonis. “You’re joking!”
Rather than try to explain, Scorio simply ignited and then surged up into his scaled form. He rose to his nearly eight feet in height, power and might coiling within him and buffering him against the despair, then summoned the black flame from his essence.
His whole body transformed into fire.
A second later he inhaled it, so that the power became a bolus of terrible pressure within his chest.
Glancing around, he took three broad strides to the entrance of an unused bedchamber and exhaled the flame down the short hallway. A stream of vibrant blue fire blasted forth from his gullet and roared into a conflagration that turned the chamber beyond into an inferno.
The pressure released, Scorio exhaled, allowed his Heart to gutter, then turned back to his friends and froze.
They both looked somewhere between aghast and stunned. Leonis had placed a hand on Lianshi’s shoulder and was squeezing, hard, and Lianshi had cupped her hand over her mouth.
“So, that’s what I can do now,” said Scorio lamely. “We’ve experimented a little. Physical attacks go right through me while I’m in my flame form.”
“The gods wept,” whispered Leonis. “Dread Blaze? Yesterday? How?”
“I might know that Pyre Lord technique you mentioned,” said Scorio, embarrassed. “The one where you drain mana from the environment continuously?”
“You do?” Lianshi’s voice was faint. “Oh. Of course.”
“Remember that giant fiendish toad that helped us kill Praximar?” asked Scorio. “Nox? He taught me that technique.”
“Right,” said Leonis. “Sure.”
They stood there in awkward silence.
“Well.” Lianshi blinked, coming back to herself. “That’s… that’s incredible. I don’t even… I mean, wow.”
“Wow,” agreed Leonis. “And your new scaled form, it’s… impressive.”
“That’s one way to put it,” said Lianshi. Then she hurriedly refilled her cup and drained it dry.
“So I was thinking I can fly and breathe fire on him,” said Scorio. “If I hit him enough times, maybe I can slow him down. It doesn’t sound like he has a ranged attack.”
“He has his Ferula,” corrected Lianshi, refilling her cup again. “And he can drop you from the sky by depriving you of mana.”
“Right,’ said Scorio with chagrin. “There’s also that.”
“Look, you only have one hope,” said Leonis, tone growing heated. “You obviously can’t win, not physically. But battles are fought on many different levels. You need to beat him emotionally, spiritually.”
Scorio went to protest and then fell silent.
“Hmm,” said Lianshi, considering. “Valid point. It’s well known that Plassus has been demoralized by his defeats.. That’s his weakness.”
Leonis nodded. “You just need to make sure you don’t drive him to execute you straightaway by insulting him in the wrong way.”
“So I need to insult him in such a manner that he’ll… concede?”
“No, he’ll never concede. But perhaps you might…” Lianshi hesitated, then her shoulders slumped. “I don’t know. But you’ll have an audience. I imagine the entire Fury Spires will turn out to watch. Leonis is right. You’ll need to fight the true battle on that level, in the court of public opinion.”
“Can I shame him for agreeing to fight a Dread Blaze?” asked Scorio.
“Eh, not really.” Leonis considered. “You called him a coward. It’s your comeuppance.”
“Hmm. I guess I’ll think on it.”
Lianshi shook her head in disbelief. “Dread Blaze. And you already know the Pyre Lord mana manipulation technique. Do you know what’s required for making Pyre Lord?”
“An integration of my powers?” asked Scorio. “Something about reconciling my sense of self so that all my abilities become a greater whole?”
“Yes, but it’s cemented by mastering that ambient mana draw technique. The symbolism is that you’re now able to burn directly from the world around you, that you’ve entered the world as your new self. And…” She trailed off, shaking her head again.
“And you already have that down,” said Leonis. “Damn it, Scorio. If you integrate your sense of self, you’ll make Pyre Lord like this.” And he snapped his fingers.
“What was this fiendish technique?” asked Lianshi. “And why isn’t everybody using it?”
“The Delightful Secret Marinating technique.”
“You’re kidding me,” said Leonis. “I love it already.”
“It involves entering an Imperial Ghost Toad’s sacred gel bath and there drawing in enough mana that you learn to split the stream. Which involves befriending a toad like we did.”
“We did?” asked Leonis.
“Yeah. Nox considers you both his favorite friends…” Scorio’s eyes widened. “Oh! Wait - we asked Nox to create a gel bath for Naomi. He’s doing it right now. There’s no reason you couldn’t use it, too.”
“Wait.” Lianshi closed her eyes as she visibly steadied herself. “You’re telling us that the fiend whose… ‘gel bath’ allows a Flame Vault to acquire a Pyre Lord technique is already creating said bath and considers us both to be his favorite friends?”
“Yes?” Scorio hesitated. “But it’s not quite that simple. I used the imperial pool to make Emberling. It was only when I was trapped in the Crucible that I twisted his Delightful Secret Marinating technique to copy the Pyre Lord ability.”
“Explain,” demanded Lianshi, eyes snapping open.
“Watch out,” said Leonis with a shaky grin. “When she gets like this there’s no stopping her.”
“Sure. You might want to sit down,” said Scorio, gesturing to the rotunda. The three of them sat and Scorio recounted what had transpired in the Crucible. Ydrielle’s prism, and how its function had emulated the gel pool’s stabilizing function. How the giant lizard had created a tiny hole in the prism through which the ambient Gold had begun to bore its way in, and the desperate race Scorio had undergone to master the technique so as to prevent himself from being destroyed.
Lianshi’s eyes only got wider, while Leonis just slow-blinked every few minutes.
When Scorio finished with his evolving to Flame Vault he sat back, sheepish once more. “So there’s a bit more to it than just entering Nox’s pool.”
“But Scorio thinks he can guide us through it,” said Naomi. She’d emerged from her room at some point to lean against the entrance to her tunnel, arms crossed. “The Delightful Secret Marinating technique will give us the base, and his guidance will help us translate it to the Pyre Lord ability.”
“This is… ridiculous. Amazing. Impossible. Beautiful.” Lianshi pulled on her face with both hands so that her cheeks sagged down, then released and turned to Leonis, animated. “We’re going to make Dread Blaze!”
“Well, maybe,” Leonis allowed. “First, Scorio has to defeat Plassus.”