Axel winced as he chopped up some plants for dinner. He was still sore from the dueling they did all afternoon. I couldn't beat any of them. Big surprise there. He swept the plants onto a small stone slate where some bird meat was waiting. Qassot had turned out to be incredibly tricky; she floated up in the air and kept duplicating her swords, which flew around him of their own will like flies. Overly deadly and ridiculously quick flies. When the sword count reached well over a hundred, Axel had surrendered. Cyil was different, he was completely reckless and spewed fire everywhere, making the most random shapes out of fire and moving them around with no regard for aim and no strategy whatsoever. The clearing had eventually become too… on fire… to find Cyil. As for Aavern, well…
"Aavern just blasted me once and I went flying," Axel muttered, looking at all the scorch marks on his exposed arms. "I couldn't even dodge in time."
He had been able to shield his torso with his sword, but the light beam had done its damage. Axel winced. His side was hurting again. He cautiously lifted up the tattered black short-sleeved shirt he always wore and looked. A group of black tendrils covered his left side, just under the ribs, and the patch was spreading steadily across his toned, muscular chest. The parts covered by the tendrils pulsed with pain at the most inopportune times. It was a constant hindrance, breaking his concentration continually and slowing his movements in his left arm. It even dulled his senses and weakened his magic. He gritted his teeth. He needed to find a way to get rid of it.
"I can't believe you're making the guest cook," Riselus grumbled as he walked past the kitchen door. Axel quickly pulled his shirt back down. "That was your job today."
"He said he knew how to," Cyil's cheery voice said, "so why not?"
Axel took the stone slate over to the fireplace, where he dropped a metal grate over the dry firewood and carefully arranged the pieces of bird meat on it. He then set his hand ablaze and put it against the wood, setting it alight. He then went back to preparing more meat, making sure to flip the pieces on the fire every once and a while. The routine - methodically deboning the meat and removing any fatty parts, all while grilling them over a wood fire with little to no seasoning - felt strangely familiar to him. Axel closed his eyes and thought for a moment. He combed carefully backwards through his memories; the duels, Cyil's story about how the Gem Keepers got their gems, Axel's arrival on a tiny island north of Falnear, and then… nothing. An blank fuzz of gray that pushed him back so gently that he didn't notice. It felt like cotton. What's cotton? Axel puzzled over this for a while. He then sighed and reached for the salt.
Wait, they don't have salt.
Axel groaned and shook his head. Words like cotton, salt, spatula, and olive oil kept popping into his head as he cooked. Maybe he was going crazy.
"Or maybe it has something to do with where I came from," he muttered. "Oops, those are about to burn."
Axel rushed over to the fire to flip the meat, before stopping and wondering why he was doing it with his hands. As he wondered if there might be a tool for flipping them without burning himself, he overheard the Gem Keepers talking.
"We should ask him," Dracoa was saying.
"No," Riselus grunted.
"Why?"
"He's a guest."
"That doesn't make any sense," Cyil said in his squeaky voice.
"We do not impose on guests."
"Why not? He seemed perfectly fine with cooking for us."
"What are you talking about? We live here. We're supposed to cook," Dracoa insisted.
"Okay," Cyil said. "Why don't you help him?"
Axel could hear Dracoa whack Cyil into the wall the next room over even over the crackle of flames.
"We really should help him," Aavern said. "I don't even know why you convinced him to cook in the first place, Cyil."
Qassot suddenly walked into the kitchen, claws clicking on the stone floor. "Why are you cooking?"
Axel turned. "Huh?"
"You're our guest. Why are you cooking?"
"Cyil told me to."
Qassot grumbled something very rude about Cyil under her breath. "I'll handle it. Go rest."
"I already started, so might as well finish it."
Qassot seemed about to protest, but decided against it.
"I'll help you, then. What do you need?"
Axel walked over. "I'll show you. This'll go a lot faster with you helping."
As they worked, they listened in on the discussion in the other room.
"Well, Dracoa said that those dragon dudes were supposed to be as powerful as Shadowfang," Aavern said.
"Elder Dragons," Dracoa corrected.
"Yeah, close enough," Aavern said. "The important thing is that we barely defeated Shadowfang back when we first got all the gems. How will we handle 6 more?"
"7 more."
"Yes, that makes it so much better."
"I don't know why you're overreacting about this," Dracoa said. "Azor can't wake them up anymore. He's in the Beyond."
"But still!" Aavern insisted. "Even Kovo warned us about them back before we had the gems! Remember the message?"
"By the way," Axel said, staring intently at the sizzling meat browning nicely over the fire, "did you get the elemental orbs back from Azor yet?"
"Not yet," Qassot said, sighing. She flipped a piece of meat and frowned slightly when it turned out slightly burnt on the bottom. "We haven't found a way to the Beyond."
Axel frowned as he flipped his own pieces, revealing perfectly cooked cutlets with a beautiful golden brown crust. "Didn't Cyil say that this whole place shattered when the orbs were out of place?
"He did," Qassot said, "But we made replacements."
"Replacements?" Axel lifted the pieces of meat he was cooking and set them over some prepared edible leaves on some stone slates.
"We got kind of irritated at having to jump and fly around everywhere," Qassot explained.
"How'd you make new ones?"
"Ezarik had a scroll about making them."
Axel rubbed the bridge of his nose in confusion. "Aren't they supposed to be powerful enough to hold reality together?"
"Yep."
"Were the ones you made that strong?"
Qassot shrugged. "We're hoping to track down Azor and get the originals back before these ones fail, and we can just replace them if things start to collapse. Not a big deal."
"Sounds like a big deal to me," Axel muttered under his breath as he put a few pieces of meat which were not quite fully cooked yet back on the grill.
Qassot sighed. Her tone got serious. "We'll definitely need your help if Azor somehow manages to wake up the Elder Dragons."
"You're all stronger than I am. I won't be much help."
Qassot laughed. "I don't believe that for a second. You were injured the whole time and you were still able to put up a good fight. You're definitely a wizard."
Axel scoffed. "As if."
"Well, maybe not against Aavern, but you would've won against the rest of us if you didn't have that wound."
"Wound?"
"Yeah, your left side. It's got a wound in it, right? It's almost impossible to fight with that kind of injury."
"How did you know?"
Qassot shrugged. "You were using your right arm a lot more than your left."
"That's because I'm right handed."
"And you were leaning to the left a lot."
Axel sighed. He didn't have the energy to argue about this.
"Let me look at it."
"No." Axel began to pick the last of the bird meat off of the grate, arranging them nicely in a circle on a bed of leafy greens, before looking over the multiple plates of similarly sized, perfectly cooked meat pieces arranged on leaves which he had prepared. Axel nodded in satisfaction at his handiwork.
"Why?"
"I'll be fine." Axel set his hands on fire to vaporize any leftover residue from cooking, then dusted the ashes off.
"No, you won't."
"I'm fine," Axel insisted. He reached out his hand and the white flame in the fireplace rushed back to his hand. He clenched his fist and the fire disappeared. Picking up a slate of meat and leaves, he turned to bring it to the dining room.
"No, you're not. I saw how much pain you were in right before Dracoa hit you with her mind powers."
"That was…" Axel said hesitantly, stopping on the way out the door.
"Dracoa definitely didn't hit you hard enough to do that. In fact, I don't think she hit you at all during that fight."
Axel sighed again and walked over. "Fine." Cyil did say Qassot could heal wounds or something. He set the stone slate of meat down and lifted up his shirt. Qassot gasped.
"What on earth-" she began. She carefully ran a claw down the tendrils. Axel winced. She quickly withdrew her claw.
"Did Shadowfang do this?"
"I don't remember." If this continued any longer, 'I don't remember' would become Axel's catchphrase. Imagine getting defeated, and asking why, but all you get is 'I don't remember.' Axel chuckled inwardly. What a bad protagonist one-liner.
Wait, what's a protagonist supposed to be?
Qassot sighed. "Right. Hold still."
Qassot reached out a claw and closed her eyes. Her gem glowed a dim turquoise. A stream of blue-green energy flowed from Qassot's claw to Axel's side. Gradually, a pain that Axel didn't even notice was there started being drawn away from his body. Axel took in a sharp breath. A weight in his chest, on his arm and leg, and in his side was slowly lifted and replaced with a refreshing feeling. Even the scorch marks from Aavern's light blast were closing up, leaving behind no scar to speak of. Axel took a deep breath. He didn't feel stiff anymore. His bones seemed to regain a lost degree of freedom. Qassot withdrew her claw with a frustrated look on her face.
"It's still there," she said.
"Feels a lot better, though," Axel said.
"The pain will probably come back until we find a way to remove it."
"It'll be fine," Axel said, turning and throwing small tongues of fire all over the kitchen, burning any leftover residue from his cooking to a crisp.
"No, it won't. We need to find a way to remove it."
Axel sighed. "That would probably involve finding out why I have it in the first place. And for that-"
"-you need to remember your past." Qassot finished.
Axel nodded.
"You should ask Dracoa about that. She's pretty good with this mind stuff."
"I doubt it," Axel said, picking up a stray piece of meat that had fallen off of a place and chewing it. Perfectly cooked. He nodded in satisfaction.
"No harm in trying," Qassot replied.
"Isn't the orb thing more important?"
Qassot took a deep breath and began picking up slates of meat. "You're a wizard, right? All the wizards left for the Beyond all that time ago. If you remember your past, you'll remember how to get to the Beyond. Healing your wound is a bonus."
"That seems like a long stretch," Axel said. Qassot just shrugged in response.
"We've tried everything likely already and they got us nowhere. An unlikely lead is better than no lead."
Axel hesitated.
"We've gotten kind of desperate," Qassot explained.
Axel finally nodded in acknowledgement. Qassot's face brightened. She began to pick up slates of meat with her claws, walking on her hind legs in a manner that made her look more human than dragon.
"Great! Let's go eat," she said, walking out the door.