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Your teeth grit, barely caging the growl clawing out of your throat. Wisp, now Salamander. Your bracelet burned as you shifted gears and tapped into the dual-ringed Relic's capacity for the second time that night.
Just like before. Don't meditate, don't over do it... First thing was first, you needed flame. Something to keep the nightgaunts at bay. Conjuring fire from nothing like Maran had would be more complicated - an additional, unnecessary risk in losing control - but there was no shortage of pre-existing flame in Resuri to draw from.
"...Hm?" Maran blinked suddenly, popping up like a meerkat as something <span class="mu-i">shifted</span>. Her fire trembled, quivering uncertainly above the tip of her finger. "You..." She trailed off, excited awe trembling off the tip of her tongue.
Dipping into the distant edges of Resuri, a staccato of cracking glass pelted the outer streets. Motes of flame surged from their wick, gleeful and whimsical in their sudden birth. Any other night they would have twinkled safely in their translucent shelters, lighting the city around them... But tonight, they had been called. Called to play; Called to come.
The nightsky lit up in a phantasm, streaks of flame in their infancy swirling with fervent purpose towards the lake. Towards <span class="mu-i">you.</span>
And you felt them coming. Felt their response, their simple joy in being addressed. The excitement of having simply been invited. It was all that it took to bring down this migration of cindered wings. A single mote of light and heat, floating on playful butterfly wings as it fluttered to and fro - And no sooner had it arrived did the rest of its siblings flock in, illuminating the remote section of the lake shore you'd spirited Maran away to like a beacon in the night, now utterly subsumed in a cloud of mischievous embers.
And among them, as if finally losing its patience, the greatest of those motes bloomed from Maran's own conjured flame and abandoned her to join the festivities.
Your bracelet <span class="mu-i">seared</span> against your skin, but it felt as it should. Crowded around the two of you now, line after line of silhouettes were forcibly revealed beneath the firelight... And as the light intensified, their vague silhouettes gained feature. Definition. Faces. Some you thought you recognized, most you couldn't put a name to even if you wanted to. Familiar faces from your time spent in Dryad's Atelier, of adepts long sacrificed and left to die, and mixed with them, victims they had claimed since.
Buried in their ranks, your heart stuttered when you found Elly's face forlornly staring back at you.
"Maran... What have you done?" You tore your eyes from the crowd of nightgaunts before you could recognize more, almost afraid to find out if the boy you'd met infiltrating your knights' camp could be found amongst them as well.
