“In the Ember Cavern, I combined wood and fire to gain ash. Now, I’m going to combine fire and water, for whatever that makes.”
“Acid,” Kumi said, and then, when I looked at her in surprise, “I thought everyone knew that.”
“I thought you said you didn’t know much about trained Augmentation.”
“I dabble in the knowledge. Not as seriously as Labu, but I know a few things.” Kumi frowned at me. “I’m surprised you don’t, actually.”
“Like I said, I’m not from around here. Can you watch my back while I do this?”
“Don’t worry; I’ll keep you safe. Just as a Swordslinger’s wife would.”
I couldn’t help but smile. “You’re a princess with your own city. Surely, you’re above such things.”
“I’ll make an exception for my city’s savior.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
Kumi blushed and turned to examine the lake.
I closed my eyes, slowed my breathing, and emptied my mind. Using the techniques I’d learned at the Radiant Dragon Guild, I let my mind drift free. I was no longer in my body, in a marsh on the Diamond Coast. I drifted through the space between realms.
Reality came back into focus in an unfamiliar landscape.
The ground around me was like a marsh, but instead of stands of reeds, tiny gouts of flame rose out of bubbling water peppered with algae. The sky tumbled with swirling clouds that flashed with brief bursts of rain. The raindrops hissed as they hit the ground and stung my skin when they fell on it.
A path led to a bridge across a river that bubbled, steamed, and, every so often, flickered with embers. But not everything here would melt my flesh. Regular water streamed away from the bridge’s river of acid.
I walked along the path and onto the bridge. It was made of solid, black stone pocked with ash-streaked indents. As I halted in the center, my spiritual sparring partners appeared.
The familiar fire spirit rose out of the bridge behind me in a pillar of flame. It didn’t waste words or time as it sprinted toward me. Out of the corner of my eye, a skeleton of ice formed from the running water into the water spirit.
I ducked under a punch from the fire spirit and countered with a right hook. My fist snapped the fire creature’s head back, but it recovered quickly and drove in to tackle me to the ground. I ignored the blistering heat that radiated off the monster, smashed a knee into its gut, and caught it under the arms.
My clothes singed as I gritted my teeth and pivoted my hip into the creature. The fire spirit tried to grab my head, but I tucked my skull into my shoulder and hurled my opponent off the bridge. It crashed into the water spirit in the stream below. A tremendous gout of steam hissed from it as I vaulted over the bridge and into stream of regular water.
The fire spirit sputtered like a dying candle as it fought to stay alive while half-submerged. Cold arms snaked around my legs and threatened to topple me as the water spirit hit me from behind. I spun and threw a blind elbow into its skull. A crack like a gunshot echoed over the stream as the water spirit lost its grip and collided with the dying fire spirit. Steam washed over the surface and threatened to boil my skin as the two creatures melded and canceled each other out.
“You don’t get any smarter, do you?” I climbed over the edge of the bridge and watched as the acid spirit began to take form.
The clear stream began to take on a green tinge, and it soon turned to acid to match so many other bodies of water in this realm. A head rose from beneath the surface, but it had no eyes, mouth, or ears. It was a faceless entity made of glowing, green ooze. Bits of flesh dripped off its body as it rose from the stream and calmly ascended the bank. The ground melted beneath its feet, and smoke drifted from its footprints as it made for the bridge.
I strode to meet the spirit, picked up speed as I went, and slammed straight into it.
My skin burned with pain the second I touched its skin. My new opponent staggered back, and I went with it, carried by my own momentum. I managed to right myself and take a step back. The spirit leaned against the side of the bridge as I fought off a blazing bolt of agony.
The side of the bridge melted at the acid spirit’s touch. A section crumbled and fell into the river.
The spirit righted itself and charged me in turn. I leaped aside, and it slammed into the other edge of the bridge. Again, stones melted at its touch and crumbled into the fast-flowing streams below. What had been regular water was now a mass of broiling acid. I needed to get the hell off this bridge before it came crashing down.
I kicked the spirit in the side as hard as I could. My foot stung like hell as I knocked it down. A chunk of acid flesh went flying, and the creature gurgled out its discontent.
I couldn’t keep delivering blows like that. Each one scorched my skin and left my mind further fevered by pain. But, at least, it had told me something about what I was dealing with. The acid spirit wasn’t solid. It could be battered at, broken apart, maybe even diluted.
I ran off the end of the bridge to the side the spirit had come from. It lumbered after me, and sections of the bridge gave way as it ran. Some of the debris fell with a hiss into the burning river as others thudded down on the bank in chunks of warped and melted rock.
The game of
