Chapter 7 Volatility

The flames dancing over and sticking to her didn't bother her any longer. In fact, they didn't even bother her eyes once she opened them. Whereas the heat before had attempted to scrub the flesh from her bones, now there was a light tickling. Instead of any pain, there was, in fact, comfort in the heat as Khall subconsciously pushed against the gouting flames as their subtle pressure soothed her before ceasing to exist. The agony of her seared flesh had disappeared through her evolution, she understood, and looking down, there were no burns visible as there would have been before said evolution. Her body confirmed to be in fighting condition, Khall grinned and began to stride towards the origin of the flames that had ceased their attempted assault on her.

Not ten seconds had passed from the beginning of the fiery baptism to the flaming breath's ceasing, and the lavaline obviously expected to find a charred corpse once the fires died down. Khall's sprinting approach took her prey by surprise as she exploded through the last of the guttering flames towards it. The prey yowled in fear as Khall's still flaming claw swung down and batted its head into the wall. She pressed her advantage as she squeezed through the tight passage and into the main room of her burrow. No longer did she fit with room to spare in the space, but now was forced to hunch as she continued to attack the prey as it began to try to flee from her presence. The cramped space now served her well.

The lavaline began to flee, but there was no escape from the much larger and more powerful drake. Khall reached out with a foreleg and caught the coward by the leg, and with a quick twist to the side, she snapped its leg away from its body. While it whimpered in agony and tried to continue fleeing, Khall crawled forward while pressing the lavaline down with the full weight of her body until she reached its head. 

For the second time, Khall took the lavaline's head in her jaws, but this time, she didn't simply twist it and attempt to break the spine. Now that she was much larger and stronger than her fuzzy prey, she lifted the entire creature as much as she could within the cramped confines of the burrow before slamming it back down on the ground. Again and again, Khall smashed its body against the floor, the dull thuds of flesh and bone on packed earth ringing out and echoing hollowly through the burrow. Finally, with a crunch, she snapped the neck entirely and the corpse went completely limp as the flashing notification appeared that signified the prey's death.

[Flaming Lavaline, 6, slain. You have gained experience. Current Racial Designation: Moltenscaled Juvenile Drake. Current Occupation: None. Total level: 6. Occupational options unlocked.] 

Khall's immediate desire was to begin the consumption of her prey, but she purposefully and willingly pushed that desire away to first begin to look at what these new options were, to learn about what an occupation was. The thought of delaying a need was strange, especially since she'd never done so before. In fact, before she could get to looking at the flashing notification, she was distracted by her home. 

Specifically, she found herself gagging at the smell. There were rotting bits of flesh sprinkled around the area, the meat and bones obviously having gone rancid since she'd left them wherever they fell, unable to bother herself to pick up small things with her clumsy fingers. Beyond that, she'd relieved herself whenever the desire had struck, regardless of her location, and her feces and urine had made the space so disturbingly disgusting that Khall couldn't begin to bring herself to eat or look at her new "occupational options''. It was absolutely filthy in here, but she'd never noticed before. Now, however, she couldn't help but notice, and, pushing down her disgust, she grabbed the corpse of her prey and immediately dragged it up and out of the burrow. 

With the advent of fresh air, Khall sighed in relief. How had she lived like that? How had she been so willing to dwell among that filth? And she had known that something was lying in wait, but still she had left the arcanite alone when she'd known that creatures were willing to sneak in and steal things from her. She shook her head in disappointment at her previous self's ignorance and generally disgusting ways before turning her attention to the notifications. Reading through the notification once again, she was greeted by something she had seen before, something that she had been shown frequently but had never paid any mind to before. 

[Proceed towards the Divine Summit, Ascension awaits. The System guides Stines. Ascend from the Void below. The Stars await you.]

With this evolution, Khall realized she had gained some understanding of what this was saying. The Divine Summit–if she continued going up, then she would eventually find it, the place where the perfect ones resided. Beyond that, though, she wasn't sure what it was saying, or even what the perfect ones were. Even so, this little notification didn't mean anything more important than that to her right now, and instead, she focused on this new change, these new options. Once she thought about "occupational options", the letters changed.

[Current occupational options:

Miner. Acquisition requirements: dig a total of 50 ft of tunnel. Completion: 39/50 ft.Fell Miner. Acquisition requirements: dig a total of 100 ft of tunnel, slay 5 creatures within a tunnel of your own excavation. Completion: 39/100 ft, 2/5 creatures slain.

No other options currently available.]

Again, Khall found herself thinking more deeply about her options than she would, or even could have before. Previously she only thought that there was a greater possibility of pain that would come in the creation of the magma core so she had immediately dismissed the option. On the other hand… why had she never thought about what the difference between the two cores and evolutions would be? Now that she had become a Moltenscaled Drake, and had seen a glimpse of the difference between immutable and volatile, Khall couldn't believe she hadn't even begun to think about her future. Shaking her head at her past self, Khall asked the question, 'What's the difference between the two occupational options?' In response to the query, the words shifted again.

[Both occupations give identical bonuses to excavation of earth and stone, as well as a better understanding of the quality and makeup of soil. The primary difference between Miner and Fell Miner is that Fell Miner is a more advanced occupation that in addition to the benefits granted by Miner, it also gives a bonus to physical might and greater proficiency in tunnel fighting.]

Khall cocked her head and, hearing her stomach growl loudly, quietly began to eat the prey laid at her feet as she considered the two options presented to her. The decision did not take long to come to. She would definitely want to go with the better option. Before long, she found herself full and the prey fully devoured before her. Finally, Khall thought to look at herself and try to evaluate what was different beyond her size. 

As near as she could tell, she had nearly doubled in size, and her color had changed from a deep, dark brown to a pure black. Black, that was, except for the small spaces between her scales that showed when she stretched. These sections of exposed flesh glowed like the fiery death river that she now knew to be flowing magma. Unsurprising that magma was called magma, considering the name of her core essence. Her scales had expanded too, to be longer, thicker, and almost ornamental, especially the ones surrounding her head, which had sharp edges pointing towards her neck and spine like a crest. She actually nearly cut her forepaw as she had explored the feeling of her head, and wondered if the sharp protrusions could function as a weapon if necessary. Finally, her tail was now taller and thinner than its thick, round shape from before her evolution. Khall, as before, had an intrinsic understanding of the reason for the change in her tail's shape–to function better while swimming.

On her hands, as she began to think of her forelegs, and feet, there was a subtle webbing that had appeared, though it was only obvious when she spread her fingers and toes. When she wasn't spreading her fingers, the webbing pulled back against her fingers. She understood, just like with her tail, that this webbing did so to ensure it didn't get ripped while not being used to swim or to burrow and carry excavated soil. Additionally, her legs and arms had lengthened, allowing her to gain a greater clearance between herself and the ground, though if she wished to get lower, her shoulders and hips had become much more flexible, allowing for much more complete movement than before.

Her self-inspection complete, Khall decided to look around her burrow before she left. Yes, she was leaving, since the only reason the bush (far less magnificent in her eyes now that she was nearly half as tall as it) had been able to survive in this inhospitable area was the arcanite it had wrapped its roots around. On top of that, there weren't many creatures here, and Khall's nature had, perhaps unbeknownst to her, changed from a more sedentary lifestyle to one much more volatile.

As she descended back down into her burrow, Khall was again struck by the generally disgusting state she had willingly lived in until now. The smell especially was stomach turning, and she had to fight to keep herself from retching at the cloying, almost sticky odor. There wasn't anything in the burrow that she wanted to take with her as she left this primitive life behind her. All that remained in this hollow was dirt, rotting flesh, and foolishness, all of which Khall was more than ready to leave behind.

Since she was within this burrow, and had the opportunity to, Khall took the time to figure out that, if this burrow was "39 ft", she was about 4 ft long herself. Regardless, just one pass through the burrow was enough for her before she was absolutely sure and gave up on finding anything worth keeping before retreating from the disgusting hovel. At last, having long since made her decision to leave and knowing where she would go, Khall began to retrace her steps.