Callum had arrived in Cepheus. Was it to go look for more hellswans? He had been lucky with the first encounter, and as a result, he was rather overconfident with his hunting skills. So he was back. Not looking for any prey in particular this time, but rather, to just look around at what else there was to do in this cave. Any other prey to catch? Or-
His eyes landed on the tree. The singular tree situated at the top of a hill. Being a dragon, he felt that it was very important to do something about that. Callum flew towards it, and tried to douse it in pyrogel. This was gonna be good. He landed at the base of the tree once he was finished. Not much came up, but it was enough for him to adequately start a fire with his next spell.

@Bedlam

There was. A giant orange dragon. Projecting spit all over the pretty flowering tree?

Bedlam was intrigued.

However, it knew to approach such large, dangerous-looking things with caution. Even Greater Gembound could kill you if they felt like it. See: Deathmatch. Those with intelligence were not necessarily benevolent. So it tried to ensure that the probability of it getting randomly attacked would be as low as possible, by magically coating itself in friendly-pheromones. If that wouldn't keep the dragon from attacking, it hoped it would at least cause some confusion and buy it some time to run away if things went bad.

Its backup plan in place, it crawled closer to the grassy knoll, the tendrils on its back gently waving back and forth and glowing with a soft green light as if to advertise its complete friendliness and harmlessness. "Hellooooo," it called out in something that sounded oddly like whalesong. "What are you doooing?"

@Callum

Though Callum may look frightening, he is a dragon after all, he's actually rather outgoing and friendly. But it was always good to be cautious right? Anyway! He was trying to determine how the hell he could actually ignite the pyrogel considering he didn't think he would get this far. The last time he had tried to cast this spell he choked on it. As he was thinking about this, he heard the greeting of another gembound.

"OH! Hello there!" he had a slightly guilty smile on his face, he knew what he was doing was probably a teensy bit illegal, and he was caught in the act. "I'm uh- I'm decorating this tree! Making it look better!" He tried to channel his magic outwards, but instead found that his paw was burning. "SHOOT! AHHHH!" Callum started jumping around in circles, waving his paw frantically as he did so. God he was making a fool of himself.

@Bedlam

Blink.

"Oh." Bedlam squatted back on its hind legs and folded its forepaws together. "Interesting... design choices?" it offered. Strange. The dragon looked... a bit suspicious? Almost like it was trying to hide something. Bedlam's grin widened slightly as he screwed up a spell and started dancing around, desperately trying to put out the fire on his paw. Perhaps the spit, too, had been a failed spell? Decoration turned to gooey fluid.

Not that it was against gooey fluids. In fact, gel was possibly its favorite state of matter. Not-quite-solid and not-quite-liquid, it reminded it of warping reality and twisting matter. Breaking free from the chains of ordinary physics. "Well, don't let me stop you," it said cheerfully, conjuring a banana to munch on as it watched.

@Callum

Once his paw stopped burning up he looked at it to see how much damage was caused by the spell. Well... it did not look pretty. That might take quite a while to heal. Ouch. "I see ya smiling over there! This is not funny!" Callum let out a 'hmph' and turned his attention back to the tree. He would show that weird gembound his true power!

He felt the magic course through him, and his paw started burning again, but not like last time. It was controlled. The dragon gritted his teeth in pain, then pressed his paw to the pyrogel on the tree.
And there was fire.

"WOOOO! LOOK AT THAT! Tree looks SO much cooler now don't you think?"

Low-hanging, far-sprawling branches dotted with beautiful white petals were ever-pristine, a sculpted vista for residents of the palace; and though it was not actively guarded like other palace items, it had been enchanted to be forever, infinite—as petals fell, new ones bloomed. And never did it wither or sag, bugs had no interest in its flesh. It would be perfect, always...

But fire was new to it.

As flames roared to life against its porcelain-colored bark, agonizing screams split the darklight air of Cepheus, and the tree shuddered from the fear and pain that it was experiencing; at the same time, white roots ruptured the ground beneath Callum and entangled him. They seeped blood-red sap that would burn his skin, and as if it were not enough to simply trap him, they squeezed. The screams did not cease for any breath, a constant, shrill alarm broken only by the crystalline crack of rapidly growing gemstone—bits of diamond had spread to smother the flame, embers dancing off of the facets as the stone raced to save the tree.

Callum was set ablaze inside the root-prison that contained him, and as his wings and his bones and his body were crushed and burned, his gemstone struggled to push the roots away as it desperately tried to save his body. When it finally enclosed his mutilated form, the blood-sap had poisoned the amniotic fluid of his chrysalis and he was cursed. While the raspite would heal him indeed, Callum would suffer a nightmare for the entire two weeks of chrysalis, feeling like he was burning alive; and furthermore, when he wakes, his blood will carry the curse of the blood-sap, and he will experience momentary bouts of debilitating nerve pain as if he were burning alive all over again.

-------------

From a palace balcony, Eggbert watched the flames die down as he sniffled and cried, a murmuring whimper shaking loose from his beak.

"Nice," said Isra as she approached the railing, the three snakes hissing wildly behind her and waving in the air with endless glee. "Works as intended."

Eggbert looked up to her with sad, wet eyes.

"Oh, it will be all right," she promised, looking down at him with a smile. "It's a favorite, after all. It comes equipped with the best defensive and healing mechanisms, and," she paused to look back toward the knoll as smoke began to cloud the air in the wake of the fire, "it curses whomever harmed it." The screams had quieted abruptly, as jarring as they were when they started.

His frown did not lift; in fact, it fell more. He whimpered again and followed her gaze back to the tree, unable to make out the other chrysalis from his spot on the balcony but he felt bad for the gembound all the same.

"Hmph, their fault," she commented, turning back into the palace. "Come along, Eggbert. The tree will be fine."

"Yesssss, FIIIINE," hissed Ba; "AAAALL RIIIIGHT," hissed Si; "COME ALOOONG," hissed Ra.

Eggbert shuffled slowly after her, glancing once more over his shoulder to shed another tear for the tree. The room-wide screaming had rattled him hard enough that he was sure to hear it for days to come.

@Callum has chrysalized in a gruesome manner and will suffer nightmares of burning alive for the entire two weeks of healing. When he re-emerges, he will suffer a blood disease that causes random, momentary bursts of agonizing, burning pain throughout his entire body.

The tree...

Exploded.

There was no other word for it. What it had thought was normal gooey spittle suddenly ignited in a fierce explosion, sending white-hot incendiary gel flying everywhere. It choked on a mouthful of banana and scrambled back, trying not to get roasted by the intense heatwave that came roaring forth from the flames. And then the tree started screaming!!!

Bedlam shrieked, adding its silly whalish voice to the cacophony. It was absolute chaos, and it had no idea what was happening, but it was almost... fun chaos? It hadn't gotten hurt yet, at any rate, so this was all still terribly exciting and not terribly terrifying. It almost reached for its lightning magic, the one it'd gotten from the Wishing Stone and had used successfully exactly zero times thus far. If there was any time for a power, flashy, loud, and awesome lightning storm, this must be it!

But then it saw the white-and-bloodred roots ensnaring the orange dragon, as well as the diamond racing to encase the tree, and some shred of common sense--dare it even say empathy?--stopped it from bringing down the death and destruction in the form of lightning. Or trying to, anyway. Not only was this a scene straight out of a horror movie, it didn't think lightning would have much effect against diamond gemstone, and it didn't want to hit the orange dragon in the process.

He was, after all, the one it could thank for bringing all this fun.

It reached with its magic and twisted, trying to warp the stone and roots of the tree. Space and matter would bend to its will, and it would break both Callum and the Tree free from the chains of reality, to an adoring chorus of agonized screams... except instead, the ground beneath its paws twisted and bubbled, turning into some kind of sludge that began to try to suck it under.

"NOOOOOOO," it howled, desperately trying to claw its way free. In response, the green-brown swirls of earth burbled happily and made a horrendous squelching sound as it simply sucked the one leg that made it out right back in.

Its chest heaving with literal sobs as Callum was consumed by his stone and it lost its one chance to show off its magic, the catwhale bunched its muscles for one more burst of strength to hopefully carry it out of this earthsoup of its own creation.

But gravity and the newly-sticky sludge that was the hill beneath its feet were its undoing. The force its muscles unleashed went nowhere, and it was pulled back by the neverending suction of the earthsoup, resulting in a faceplant right into the warped earth. It choked, spluttered, and spat as swirling grass and softened rocks slid their cold, slimy way into its ears, mouth, and nostrils.

"Shtooooopbdbdb magukfkfffkfkk," it groaned into the mud.

At long last, it managed to at least extricate its face from the goop. By now, its olive-green hide was covered with bits of Grassy Knoll in who-knew-what-state of matter, and the sludge had consumed it up to its neck. Gasping for breath but finding it increasingly difficult to expand its lungs against the pressure of the warped earth on its ribcage, it decided: ENOUGH WAS ENOUGH.

Mustering up all its strength, it kicked and paddled against the hill-material, but to no avail. It was like trying to swim in semi-solid jello against twice the normal force of gravity, with a vacuum yawning underneath it. By the time it had exhausted its strength and was gasping for breath, it had still made no progress whatsoever.

Well, physical means clearly weren't working, and it couldn't exactly just let the warped earth consume it, so why not go back to magic? It tilted its head toward the sky, the corners of its mouth turning down in a rare frown, and gasped in a few breaths. Magic was fickle and probably worked less than half of the time, but it had a feeling that trying to extricate itself with physical force had a zero percent chance of working at this point.

Gritting its lovely ivory-green teeth against one another, the catwhale focused its magic on the area around it purposefully this time. If it could just get the consistency of this earthsoup a little more liquid...

The ground bubbled and sloshed as its spell FINALLY worked as intended, for ONCE IN ITS LIFE. Bedlam gasped with relief, paddling its way out of the warped puddle and scrambling back onto solid earth. It was so happy it could literally kiss the ground right now. It didn't even think to try to exact revenge on the tree that had, in its mind, been the entire cause of its humiliation.

It just waddled away, thanking its lucky stars with every step on wonderful, solid ground.