Dread wing-walked to the thing that looked like a brick well, with its basin on the top. And his head swung around to the strange clinking of the falling stone; he eyed the glitter of gemstones spilling out. He couldn't really smell blood over the stench of smoke and burning foliage, but he was already puzzled, and his frustration quickly mounted.

He did not have the patience of a wise, mature being.

In front of him. Hole. Sort of.

Behind him? Lots of rocks.

What did that mean? He didn't know. He looked around, trying to see if there was anything else--anything more useful. Was he meant to put the rocks into the hole..? How was that a test? He lifted one wing, clawing and slapping loosely at the strange basin and the well in which it sat. Then he let out a sound of protest, a half-roar, half catlike-squall, and shook himself. Finned spines rattled along his neck, and he blinked ember eyes squinting here and there through the smoke.

Clueless, he turned, waddling back over to the gemstones. Oblivious of what else he might do, he scooped as many as he could into his jaws, then walked back to the basin and dumped them all in--and roared at it, for good measure.

The basin was completely nonreactive to any slapping aside, but the gemstones each clanged and clattered in.

Likely to Dread's disappointment, nothing particularly happened because of his roaring. The less heat-resistant of the gems started to melt, but others barely gleamed in the burning-hot basin. They merely stuck to the melting ones of the bunch.

Smoke was starting to truly choke the room.

@Dread

Dread was at a loss. The rocks started to turn red-hot, presumeably to pop, melt, but it didn't seem to do anything and he had no idea what he was meant to accomplish, here. The room was too hot to remain in, now--too thickly choked with smoke and heat--and he squinted and shook his head again, turning to wing-walk a few paces away.

He turned back, again, narrow-eyed, emitting a cough, and then snarled at the weird well-thing.

A short--and coughing--inhale, and then he'd let out another stream of flame to engulf it, a long, tail-thrashing blast inspired not by cunning but by sheer annoyance. Jaws snapped shut, only to open again to emit a deafening, screeching roar--but by then the smoke was too much and, shaking himself, the dragon moved for the exit he'd created.

"WHAT IS THIS?!" he bellowed, and he was going to complain but the next lungful was that of smoke, and so instead he hastened to squeeze back through the space that he'd created.

Given a proper heat source, the gemstones sizzled and popped, melting and amalgamating into a red-hot mass in the basin. Even the toughest of them yielded to the annoyance-fueled dragonfire. A show of focused power, if... somewhat anticlimatic.

Dread made for the exit, but there was hardly a need. The stone shrunk out of view and let the cold of northern Polaris in. Oppressive shadows fled, even as the sweeping gales were guided to smother the flames around the room. The smoke poured away.

In response to the bellowed question, Emuh cried from above, "A TEST OF FOCUS AND INTELLIGENCE." He alighted silently behind Dread, crowing blithely, "IT WAS DONE THROUGH LUCKY GUESS!"

Green eyes cut straight through the black dragon's, almost capturing them and making everything else seem to... sway around them.

The cavern churned and shifted, but that could quickly fall into the background of Dread's thoughts. It'd feel like his very being was getting siphoned. Every bit of familiarity he might've had with magic was gutted and filleted in a disorienting, twisting haze. Yes, the reservoir was being dug out, leaving potential in its wake, but the immediate feeling would not be the power and strength that the dragon craved.

When it was all over, the room had shifted back to its blank canvas state and Emuh was taking to the air with a shrill utterance: "GET OUT, AND DO NOT COME BACK! YOUR ACT HAS ENDED." Leaving the dragon to his feelings of annoyance and transcendence.

3/3

Dread has Transcended. He is now a Transcendant Pupil, and may work his way back up to Transcendant Master. Upon attaining this rank, his player may post in Update Me to choose a Specialization (viewable in the Magic section of the Guidebook).

He has also learned the spell:

Firestorm:

Transcendent Intensity Manipulation. Incinerate the very air, bringing down a cascade of powerful fireballs raining down across a large area. Potentially deadly to any living thing caught within.

@Dread

Dread bellowed his protest. It was an agonized sound, a roar of confusion, of almost pain; but it didn't hurt, not exactly.

It just... really sort of sucked.

He felt as though his magic had been sucked from him, left him empty, dry, and were it not for the hollow feeling of potential left in its wake he might have raged. Might have crushed this cave, filled it with fire, destroyed-...

...But, well. He didn't feel... up to that, just now.

He emitted another bellow, displeased, unhappy; and with that he swiftly wing-walked out, and took flight.

Wings spread, and caught the air, too cold for his liking, still; powerful beats punctuated the sweep of his tail as he went skyward. A few pumps of his wings and he was staring down as Polaris whipped past him: oh, and there went the cave deer he'd spared, galloping below, at least alive.

He did not know the mercy he had granted them in sparing their lives. He hadn't needed them, but to others, perhaps it would have been a sweet thing to see them racing free, alive and well.

Dread, meanwhile, was going to rest, and then set everything he could on fire.

exit Dread