Ignite the Sun

Całen stretched in his head looking around the room he chose for his bedroom, not that there was much to see.

There was a single nightstand and a bed, that's it - maybe the priests of this temple led a particularly frugal lifestyle, but compared to the quarters in the first one, this was really empty.

Still, he couldn't complain that much, the place was untouched and relatively clean thanks to the magic seal on the door.

Before he went out to meet the rest of the group he wanted to look at his wound - the injury didn't hurt nearly as much as yesterday, but he should probably still check on it. He carefully lifted off the bandages Elira graciously put on him, and assessed the damage.

The previously gaping hole was now nearly closed, it was still obvious that it was a stab wound, but now it looked as if someone just lightly jabbed him with a knife, and not completely penetrated his shoulder.

He reckoned that by tomorrow morning there would be no trace of the wound left. Satisfied with the progress he readjusted the dressing and left his room.

No one was in the corridor leading to other bedrooms, and the floor was silent so he decided to check near the Altar

***

"Ouch!" Israra hissed. "You're going to make it worse!"

"Quit whining." Elira rolled her eyes. "I know it hurts, but I'm doing this to speed up your recovery."

"What's going on?" Całen asked as he entered the room.

"Cal, save me!" Israra pleased. "This madwoman is torturing me!"

"Oh, is she now?" He chuckled. "How's your shoulder?"

"It's healing, but it still hurts as hell." She narrowed her eyes when Elira returned to applying some blue paste on her shoulder. "What about you?"

"I'm almost healed already, this healing factor is insane."

"No kidding." Elira nodded without taking her eyes off her work. "Most people would bleed out from a wound like that, but you're completely fine."

"Say, weren't your flames supposed to heal as well? Couldn't you do something about... this?" Isara pointed at her shoulder.

"I wasn't able to do it last time I tried, and I don't want to hurt you by accident while trying."

"It was quite a while ago though." Elira pointed out. "And it would help us a lot if you could heal her, otherwise we'll be stuck here for a few days - and if you don't want to test it on her you can start with yourself, you're injured to after all."

"Fine, but for the record I don't think it'll work."

He summoned a small flame and held it up to his wound - he focused on his intention to heal, to regenerate.

"What's going on?" Cassian entered the room.

"Wow, déjà vu." Israra laughed. "Cal is trying to use his flame to heal himself."

"And failing miserably at it." Calen sighed and dispelled the fire. "I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but it's just not working, it's like the fire doesn't know what to do when I want it to heal."

"You'll get it eventually." Israra encouraged him. "I mean, you're doing it right now technically."

"What do you mean?"

"Your healing factor, it came after the ritual, so it stands to reason that it comes from the flame. I think you just need to understand what the flame is doing to your body, and if you can repeat it you'll be able to heal."

"... but I don't feel like anything is happening to me."

"Try sensing harder then, you'll have plenty of time to do that since we'll be stuck here for a while."

"Speaking of being here, did someone see Alfred?" Cassian asked. "His room was empty when I checked."

"He went to check how far the barrier from the altar extends, and also to bury the initiate who died here." Isara turned around. "Speak of the devil."

Alfred appeared out of the staircase leading to the lower floor, quietly whistling a tune.

"Oh you're all up, good." He smiled. "There were a few rather angry looking corrupted beasts just outside the barrier, I recon the thing incinerated a few of them yesterday."

"They probably came here because of the explosion Cal did, that much light will attract a lot of curious beings." Cassian said.

"Well hopefully they'll get bored and leave before we have to." The knight nodded. "Did you check whether the Krakee left behind anything useful? "

"No, should we?"

"Very much so, those little things are hoarders, and they often find really weird stuff when they go outside their nest."

"But I didn't see any secret stashes" Isara frowned.

"The hoard belongs to the Krakee in charge of the nest - in this case the chieftain - they would always keep their riches close at hand, any ideas?" His words indicated a question, but his tone betrayed he already knew the answer.

"It's the throne, isn't it?"

"Yeah it's the throne, I'm quite certain we'll find a lot of shit once we remove the outer layer of rubble."

Calen was still injured, but he also was physically stronger than anyone here by a decent margin, so the responsibility of moving rocks fell on him anyway.

It took a bit to get to the hoard - in fact it took so long that he was starting to think there was no stash here.

"It's... not much." Alfred looked rather unimpressed.

"That's an understatement of the century." Calen commented.

There were five items in the stash

Five.

And to make the matters worse, most of them were literal garbage: a bent silver spoon, a leather saddle cut in two, and a book on agriculture with only two pages remaining.

The non-worthless items were a closed onyx amulet sealed by powerful magic, and an important looking key with a rune for 'space' engraved on it.

"We can't really use that, I was hoping for an armour of some kind seeing as my own has a giant hole in it." Calen admitted.

"Mine is also slightly bent after yesterday's fight." Cassian agreed.

"Once we get to the Order our blacksmith will happily fix that for you." Alfred ensured them. "But there's one more item we got from the Krakee that has been overlooked."

The knight pointed at a black sword lying next to one of the walls.

"I have a feeling that's not a regular sword."