The Fundamentals of Catalysts and Magics | On Fire and Fortitude
Don’t breathe, don’t breathe, don’t breathe, don’t breathe!
A small rock-body Gooey squeezed his eyes shut, lightly quivering as a shrill scraping sound filled the air — a heaving, jagged shadow looming over him.
Usually teeming with amphibious bims, avian shrieks, and herbivore whines, one of the more unsettling aspects of this swamp was the gas that filtered sunlight into an eerie red, and moonlight into a ghastly, yellow haze.
Too, there were a number of bizarre creatures that called The Burning Skies home. Leaf Shakers, Swamp Stalkers, and Dragilisks were only the upper crust of this stinking swamp’s secrets.
The Dreadful Copse was far more dangerous to a Gooey such as Meden — but not even the Copse dared to birth such sinister beasts as the blind Beast of Blades… the Dragilisk.
And it was this particular beast that hunted Meden.
Saliva strung from its enormous teeth, and the monster’s jowls slapped softly as its mane of crimson, cacophonous scales flowed against each other at blistering speed. Its claws dug into the boulder it perched on, causing cracks to snake lazily down toward Meden.
A large glob of Dragilisk saliva slopped onto Meden’s rocky head. The ground around him bubbled and blarped as his weight pressed down on the bloated patch of marshy soil and pungent moss.
How am I going to get out of this mess?
Minutes before that accursed beast turned up, Meden failed to notice that the Burning Skies had fallen silent. A lone Leaf Shaker had dared to shriek one last time; the echo of its call bled and confused into a low, slow, and guttural grind — the beast had embarked on its hunt, and Meden was none the wiser.
Like a Basking Toad in a boiling pot — the pitch and speed of the grinding had increased, yet the Gooey was unaware of the danger facing him until it was towering above.
Suddenly, his body began to pulsate, and a resonating sound tremored from deep within his belly.
The tones emitted from the Dragilisk’s scales were building up within Meden’s body. He ought to run away, but in that moment his body seized and he fell mask first into marsh. Unable to control the impulse to breathe any longer, a distorted grinding sound erupted from his open mouth — right into the thin layer of water covering this patch of swamp.
The air whipped into a razorwind, as the patch of marsh several paces from him exploded — utterly eviscerated by the beast’s aggressively dangerous claws and overwhelming strength.
The Dragilisk vindictively raised its right paw into the air, and sliced into the pulverized earth once more, as if confirming its prey’s escape.
Just then, a Leaf Shaker screeched and in the blink of an eye, the crimson horror launched itself deeper into the swamp. After several crashes and the cascading slams of a falling tree, Meden’s presumed doom abated.
With the swamp’s silence returned, Meden squinched away as he regained the ability to move. Sloshing as quickly as he could to the tree line, he recalled the riddle his master had shared with him for this trial:
As the hazy hand falls with the Celestial Face,
Seek the Jagged North,
To behold the Heart Pyre,
And face the Beast of Blades.
Moving into the dense tree line, Meden knew he’d be safe for the moment. As Dragilisks were blind, dense foliage and trees served as a natural enemy to their hunting ability.
“That was lucky…” Meden whispered.
Luck was a fickle mistress to enjoy.
Digging in his serpentskin satchel, Meden withdrew his journal and returned to decoding the riddle.
“The ‘hazy hand’ has got to be nightfall… ‘Celestial Face’ is obviously the moon… But what is the ‘Jagged North’?”
The only jagged topography he could recall was the Owlkin Massif — could it even be seen from here? Meden closed his journal, tied his satchel shut, and raced to the opposite side of his wooded alcove.
If the Dragilisk proved to be persistent, Meden knew he may need to call off his Trial of Fire. While this was a solo test, he was thankful that the elemental sages were nearby. Mushroomhead, Nenona, and Oggin — the Fire Sage — had made camp at the outskirts of the swamp.
In the event he encountered a truly overwhelming force, he could smash the Summoning Coil in his bag and the trio would appear before him.
Relief washed over him for a moment. I can do this!
Damp from marsh water and particularly potent Dragilisk saliva, Meden marched forward toward the silhouette of the Massif. As he pushed and pulled through patches of mud, vines, and mire, red swirled into yellow and the swamp seemed to exhale as the music of the night swept over him.
As the trees and swamp creatures settled in for the flaxen night, orblike shapes twinkled through the haze — stationary, blinking, almost beckoning for Meden to follow. Glancing around, the lone Gooey sucked in a shallow breath, puffed out his cheeks, and pushed on along the twinkling path.
Through the mist, he spied the shape of a jagged incline, and a deep darkness below it. Meden squinted through the ocean of yellow haze to ensure he was still facing toward the Massif.
“Into the cave we go then…” he muttered to nobody in particular.
As he approached the foot of the cave, a gust of hot air seethed toward him. It hadn’t occurred to him that the “Heart Pyre” could have been literal — given that the riddle would have to descend into this cave to claim his fire catalyst.
After about ten paces inside, Meden took a tumble down a rather steep slope, launched through the air, crossed over a dimly glowing red chasm, and landed with a thud in a swarm of Brightflies.
Before they could disperse, Meden snatched a handful out of the air. Reaching into his satchel with his free hand, he pulled out a mound of translucent goo and shoved the Brightflies into the thick ball. Then, he placed the ball of shining bugs on his head so he could illuminate the cave around him and get his bearings.
The dimly lit walls pulsed with an ominous red light, just like the chasm behind him. The red streaks twirled deeper into the cave, as if enticing him to journey deeper.
Finally, after a long stretch of silence and the Brightflies had refused to lend their light to Meden any longer, he stumbled into a small cavern with a raging fire in the middle.
He couldn’t help but stare, slack-jawed, at the fire as it pulsed with different colors — each shift increasing and decreasing its size. Meden reached into his bag and removed his Rune Circle chalk, and got to work writing runes around the Heart Pyre. After it was surrounded, he created a smaller circle in front of it where he would start the ritual.
Then, he took his place and closed his eyes. Discharging his aura into the Heart Pyre, it began to pulse and rapidly shift its coloring.
Blue. Green. Red. Yellow. Orange. White. Blue. Green. Yellow. Red. Orange. White. Blue. Black.
Meden gasped for air. The black flame surged to the bounds of his rune circle, threatening to engulf the room. It bulged and clawed up invisible walls — the Heart Pyre refused to be tamed!
Oggin’s teachings flooded Meden’s mind as he searched for the ability to contain such a wild power.
“Meden! Why is fire dangerous?”
Oggin’s habit of barking questions out of the blue had once given Meden chronic nerves. However, as the memory of Oggin’s voice broke through the panic, he was thankful for his brash nature.
“Fire is fury incarnate, Master Oggin. And fury cannot be tamed by fear, nor strength, nor reciprocal fury,” Meden muttered under his breath as the black flames launched toward him. “Only through fortitude may it be tamed, contained, and controlled!”
As the flames engulfed Meden, he accepted the burn.
He breathed in the wicked flames and let them fill his body. It ripped at his insides, clawing for some escape. And yet, he held his ground. There was nowhere to flee, so he cleared his mind and marched toward the center of the wild and untamed Heart Pyre.
The black flames flickered to white, then blue, white, orange, red, yellow, green, blue, white, orange, yellow, red, green, and finally blue — each shift coming with every step he took. At the center of the brilliant inferno were a pile of disc-like stones etched with runes. Each glowed with a different color, corresponding to the Heart Pyre’s hues.
Arriving in front of the black fire’s catalyst, he laid his scorched hands on the stone and chanted. The disc slipped into a whip of black flame that snaked around Meden’s body until it reformed upon his back.
As suddenly as the flames had engulfed him, they were extinguished.
Meden exhaled and closed his eyes. As a cool breeze washed over him, he was shocked to discover he was no longer in the cavern, but back outside.
Just as he was about to poke his head back in the cave to see if there was some sort of trick to what happened, he heard that low, slow, guttural grind pulsing behind him.
How? There’s no way it could have…
The mane of scales wasn’t the only way the beast could hunt — Meden realized he still reeked of Dragilisk saliva. It appeared marking its prey (intentional or otherwise) was another means of locating food.
Meden wheeled around black flames in hand, ready to do battle with the Dragilisk. A hulking mass charged toward him through the yellow haze.
Clearing his mind and breathing through the pain of the flame, the small Gooey unleashed a black inferno — which the beast darted around. It launched itself into the air, swinging its hefty tail around to crush Meden.
Out of moves, Meden thrust his hand into his satchel and crushed the Summoning Coil. At least the Sages could recover his broken body…
Yet, the blow never came.
Instead, the beast snarled frantically as the trees seemed to contort and snatch the Dragilisk out of the air — by the same tail meant for Meden. The ground beneath the Gooey quivered as an impossibly tall shape rose up from the swamp layers.
An avalanche of slop and peat squarched and skwalked as the earth heaved forth its enormous offspring. An otherworldly beast with ravenous, empty eyes that pierced the fog; a vaguely humanoid form distorted by faintly glowing roots that seemed to grasp at the air around it.
As it stood, it unleashed a body-rattling groan. In the gnarled colossus’ fist dangled the Dragilisk, shrieking and yelping helplessly. The giant curled its grip tighter, causing the smaller beast’s scales to shatter and crack like clay pots being smashed.
Meden fell back into the sloshing swamp and heaved. Even with his newfound power, he would be devoured as if an insect.
“Meden! It’s time to leave,” a firm, familiar voice whispered from Meden’s right — Oggin.
Mushroomhead, Oggin, and Nenona looked fearfully at the scene transpiring before them. Silently, the quartet turned their backs on the Dragilisk’s plight as the Swamp Stalker partook in its meal.
If this is your first Gooeys lore chapter, be sure to go back and check out Book One: Beyond the Horizon!
