The heat was, frankly, excessive. Teymour Khadiv floated, suspended in a liquid that glowed with the intensity of a thousand sunset reflections. Bubbles, the size of small continents, burped past his ears, each one carrying the metallic tang of liquid basalt. He squinted. Was that a remarkably stubborn piece of algae, or a mineral deposit of some kind? His last memory was of an insistent data buoy in the North Atlantic, then a flash, a crackle, and this. A shadow blotted out the crimson light above him. Not a cloud, but something vast, sinuous, and made of pure, incandescent lava. Two cavernous vents, like angry eyes, fixed on him. A maw, lined with jagged obsidian, opened wide enough to swallow a coastal town. Teymour blinked. It was definitely moving towards him. He frowned, a familiar annoyance bubbling up. Just when he thought he’d finally found a quiet spot, something always had to come along. The leviathan, an ancient terror known only as the Pyre-Serpent of Surak, lunged. Its immense head, a geological event in itself, rushed forward, teeth of hardened basalt shimmering. Teymour, still half-asleep and entirely bewildered, raised a hand. He didn’t mean to push, not really. He was just… gesturing. A light, dismissive flick of the wrist, like shooing a particularly persistent fly. The Pyre-Serpent, a creature that had devoured mountain ranges and weathered millennia of volcanic wrath, recoiled as if struck by a celestial hammer. A soundless *thwack* echoed through the fiery core, and the leviathan was sent spiraling, a bright comet of scales and slag, crashing into the far wall of the caldera. It sank, a defeated, sputtering mass of magma, its two eye-vents dimming in confusion. Teymour watched it go. He still hadn't felt so much as a warm breeze. No crunch. No searing pain. Nothing. Just a dull, ambient heat. He wiggled his toes. Still there. He pinched himself. Still there. He was…fine. Entirely, utterly fine. This was certainly a departure from his usual luck with deep-sea dives. It wasn’t a bad feeling, exactly, but it was incredibly inconvenient. He hated loud noises, and that leviathan had made a *lot* of noise. And the light! He preferred the deep, murky blues of the ocean. He needed a lake. A proper lake. Somewhere quiet, with gentle currents and, ideally, no giant, angry, incandescent worms. He began to swim upwards, not with any effort, but simply by willing it. The searing stone parted around him like warm syrup. He passed through layers of mineral-rich ash, then cooler, solid rock, until he emerged, with a quiet hiss of steam, onto the jagged rim of Mount Surak. The air was thin, smelling of sulfur and distant pine. Below, the world unfurled in a dizzying panorama of emerald forests and silver rivers, all bathed in the gold of a Vashnaarian dawn. It was beautiful, but also… loud. Birdsong, wind, the rumble of a distant landslide. Too much going on. He sighed, adjusting the non-existent goggles on his head, and began to pick his way down the craggy slope, eyes scanning for any sign of a truly tranquil body of water. He’d been walking for what felt like hours, though his sense of time had become a rather abstract concept. The ground grew softer, the volcanic ash giving way to coarse dirt and struggling shrubs. Then, he heard it: a faint, mournful whimper. He paused, craning his neck. Social interaction. His least favorite kind of interaction. But the sound was so terribly thin. It was a cry of genuine distress, not just someone being mildly inconvenienced. He followed the sound to a small, secluded hollow beneath a gnarled, ash-stained Juniper. There, huddled, was a girl. Her clothes, once rich silk, were now torn and grimy, her dark hair matted with dust. Her eyes, wide and luminous even beneath layers of grime, stared up at him with a mixture of terror and awe. Her ribs pressed against her skin. She looked, in short, like she hadn't eaten in weeks. “Oh, dear,” Teymour mumbled, more to himself than to her. He hated seeing people suffer. He also hated having to talk to them. This was a dilemma. He needed to make her feel better, but also make her leave. “Are you… alright?” The girl didn’t answer immediately. Her gaze was fixed not on his face, but on his hand, which was casually holding a small, smooth stone he’d picked up from the lava chamber. It pulsed with soft inner heat, a faint rosy luminescence. He’d thought it looked nice. He liked nice things. The girl leaned forward, her jaw slacking. She slowly reached out a trembling finger. “The… the Heart of Urmal,” she whispered, her voice reedy. “You… you found it.” Teymour glanced at the stone. “Oh, this? It’s just a warm pebble. Good for holding.” He realized one of his shoelaces had come undone. A real nuisance. He bent down to tie it. “Here, you can hold it for a moment, it’s quite comforting. Just don't drop it. Wouldn’t want it to get scratched.” He pressed the radiant, impossibly ancient artifact into her hands. The girl, Princess Despina, exiled and starving heir to the shattered House of Valerios, clutched the pebble as if it were the last ember of hope in a dying world. It pulsed against her cold palm, sending vitality coursing through her emaciated body. A surge of strength, alien yet familiar, filled her. Just then, the distinctive whirring thrum of Trezantine industrial-grade hover-skiffs pierced the morning air. Four dark shapes, armed with arcane cannons and energy lances, descended rapidly from the sky. Their black banners, emblazoned with the cog-and-sword insignia of the Empire, flapped menacingly. A cold dread seeped into Despina, extinguishing the warmth of the stone. “The Empress’s dogs!” Despina hissed, pulling her tattered cloak tighter around the glowing stone. “They found me! They’ll take the Heart!” Teymour, still struggling with a stubborn double knot, glanced up, annoyed. “Oh, for goodness sake. Can’t a man tie his shoes in peace?” He coughed, a cloud of fine volcanic ash still clinging to his lungs. It was a dusty place, this Surak. The black soot tickled his nose. He really did need a shower. He sneezed, a surprisingly forceful expulsion of air, sending a puff of grey ash into the air. Miraculously, or perhaps, inevitably, the sneeze-borne ash drifted directly towards the approaching skiffs. The lead skiff’s energy lance, currently charging a destructive blast aimed at Despina, sputtered. The weapon, a marvel of imperial engineering, warped. Its sleek metallic housing twisted and melted, the arcane crystal within it glowing an unhealthy purple before imploding with a soft *pop*. Then the other skiffs. Their cannons, their lances, their very navigation systems – all of them shimmered, buckled, and disintegrated into fine, powdery dust, leaving only bewildered, unarmed soldiers tumbling from the sky. The enemy captain, a burly woman with a scarred face, caught herself on a jutting rock, shaking with unadulterated terror. She stared from her weaponless hands to the casually standing figure of Teymour, who was now straightening up, having finally tied his shoelace perfectly. The glow of the ‘pebble’ in Despina’s hand seemed to pulse in time with the captain's racing heart. “He… he’s real,” the captain gasped, her voice barely a whisper. “The legends… the River God has awakened!” She scrambled back, shouting orders at her surviving, equally terrified troops. “Retreat! Retreat! We faced the divine! Report to the Emperor! Vashnaar is not ours to take!” Teymour sighed. He'd just wanted to tie his shoe. Now there were people running away, shouting. So much for peace and quiet. He glanced at Despina, who was looking at him with an intensity that made his social anxiety flare. He really had to find that lake. He adjusted his grip on an imaginary fishing rod and began to wander off, humming a tuneless sea shanty. Despina, however, stood unmoving. The Heart of Urmal pulsed with renewed vigor in her hand, illuminating her face, transforming her fear into fierce resolve. She raised the glowing stone high above her head, her voice ringing with an authority she hadn’t possessed in years, a declaration echoing across the ash-scarred plains and down to the fleeing Trezantine soldiers. “The River God has awakened, and your Empire will drown!”

The Volcano and the Pebble