Welp.

That didn't work.

The brambles did burn away at least. Though maybe it would have been better to leave the brambles where they had been, to slow its progress - but would it burn them away instead?

He gulped, and squeaked something not unliked "Ohsonofabitch," fur standing on end and voice cracking in a way it hadn't since he was a cub. He was doomed. He was going to die.

But maybe he could put it out?

It took another step. And another. Each searing paw-print left a crumbling, ashen mark upon the narrow span it crossed. The abyss yawning black beneath it served only to emphasize its fiery light.

Water, if it came, merely hissed off it--not enough, or not strong enough, perhaps.

Closer, and closer--and now it was tensing down, prowling, stalking, its black-pit eyes fixed on Sebastian.

_____________

2/3

@Sebastian

'Sonofabitchsonofabitchsonofabitch,' the panther stepped back, matching the monster step-for-step, snarling and thinking, trying to make a rapid decision - no water had come, but it was all he knew when it came to putting out fire, and so again he tried to spray water on the monster.

The fiery beast's tense muscles tautened further--that fraction of a second before the spring--and then the water struck it. This stopped it cold; it flinched as water cascaded across it, and then plumes of steam hissed up around it, thickly obscuring it from view.

Sebastian could have been forgiven for thinking he had destroyed it.

As the steam cleared, an earth-shattering roar--screeching, bellowing, deafening--shook the entirety of the little cave. Pebbles and streams of sand fell from above, and the narrow bridge beneath its feet half threatened to crumble.

It stepped forth from the steam, then--slowed, but not stopped, a thing that looked like orange vines or perhaps muscle: ropy cords entwined to form a body, flaming eyes shining malevolently, yellow points forming jagged teeth. Fire was already licking back up over its body.

It had nearly reached the end of its little bridge.


_____________

2/3

@Sebastian

Water came, and for a moment, just a heartbeat, he thought he was safe.

Steam plumed through the air, and he lowered himself, squinting - he'd suffered through scalds before, knew better than to approach, even if he was certain it was downed he wouldn't have dared, steam could burn worse than any fire - and it wasn't down, he learned with a startled yowl and all four paws leaving the ground, the beast roaring fit to destroy the cave.

"Hell." so. water. not enough then. And it was, naturally, still approaching. Crossing its bridge and - oh. The bridge, he had one last, desperate try, his fur standing on end, hissing and snarling.

The bile splattered across the stone. Hot. Sizzling.

The porous, thin rock had been vibrated; soaked cold, scorched hot, and weakened.

The fire-beast crouched, and then sprang--muscles tensed, flames jetting--but the shove of its weight was the final straw for the narrow span. The stone cracked and violently fell away. There was an instant of flailing yellow claws, of bared fiery fangs and flashing fur-like flames, and then the beast, too, was tumbling into the abyss.

For a moment, there was silence.

And then the rest of the brambles began to clear--the abyss rising up, the gaps in the stone closing. "YOU DID NOT EVEN MOVE," came an accusatory screech, and then the massive black owl-beast Emuh was fluttering down to land before Sebastian. It towered over him, staring, but then huffed, the click of its beak a report like a gunshot that echoed through the cave. A cave which was, now, indistinguishable from how it had been at the start: the brambles were gone, the room again a simple, smallish cave half-steeped in shadows.

"FINE," Emuh snapped, as if disappointed he hadn't gotten to see the black puma tumble away into an abyss or get eaten by a fire-beast. "CONGRATULATIONS. YOU HAVE PROVEN YOURSELF TO EMUH!"

There was a flash of magicka, a sense of horrid draining, dizzying and confusing: as though Sebastian's magic were being torn from him, drawn away. Yet there was something beyond that, too: as though some new, hidden potential lay within him, and some strange new knowledge...

Sebastian has Transcended. He will be the first to learn the spell Firestorm, as well as being made a Transcendent Pupil. Once he works his way back to Transcendent Master, he may choose a Specialization: post in Update Me to advance and apply the specialization once it's reached.

"NOW GET OUT."

@Sebastian