V I Hold with Those Who Favor Fire (NPC)

[Rebecca Chambers]

When Rodan hatched alone and fierce, rising up from the seething mantle of Inverxe like an eruption, a shrieking cataclysm announced his birth.

He would never see another like him, could not know if the circumstances of his birth were unremarkable, typical of his kind. He could assume, though, and make up stories with which to amuse himself—stories spoken in his crackling, smoke-laden tongue that only the bones of the world would understand, the world that bore and warmed him in the absence of his egg-layer.

Inverxe was his mother, his life-giver, the kindler of his inner flame: he would know no other.

A tempest of dust and blistering heat ravaged the sprawling subterranean chamber his nest resided within, sparks dancing like frenzied fireflies in the thick, suffocating air. The caldera rumbled ominously, spewing a monstrous column of ash and acrid smoke towards the cavernous ceiling. Beneath its gaping maw, deep craters akin to hollowed eye sockets split the scorched landscape, resembling festering, bleeding wounds on its fiery surface.

The walls of the large stone dwellings peppered around his cradle's fringes crumbled beneath the weight of the volcano’s shifting rock, the geometric stonework—decorated with boldly sculpted lines and shapes that were as mathematically faultless as they were beautiful—fragmenting into chunks of senseless debris, the patterns rendered meaningless, null. Bronze-colored pipe work, the pride of the Dwemer, melted into white-hot rivers of molten gold, spilling like sinuous veins of fire across the fragmented city, the layered passageways and tunnels resembling a honeycomb of glowing amber as the flowing magma gorged upon everything in its path.

Above this sea of flame broke the glorious crimson silhouette of wings, and at the heart of the gutted volcanic ruin that once was, some time ago, the subjugated and much-abused city of Neo-Nippur, there was a great burning.

As Rodan pulled himself free from the sweltering, bubbling lava, screeching his fury at simply being alive, hardened plates of dark igneous armor shifted and flexed along his body as he moved, his clawed feet digging into the crumbled stone ruins for stability, reducing whatever remained to rubble. His massive wings beat down with all the might of a hurricane, churning the smoky air and scattering embers in swirling eddies. Between the scaly immensity of his wingspan rose the jagged shape of a ridged back, glowing red-hot like the liquefied rock below, marred with scores of smouldering, angry fissures that trailed all the way down to his spade-shaped tail.

His neck arched nimbly to inspect the fine cracks in his armor, showcasing a sharp-ridged skull with two curved, horn-like spurs. Lava dripped profusely from his body and talon-tipped wings, sizzling as it struck the ground.

With a displeased clack, Rodan's hooked beak snapped shut, the jagged, tooth-like spikes within grinding against each other like the harsh scraping of stone on stone. His head swiveled to the side, drawn in by the foreign objects dotting his volcanic nest. Piercing yellow eyes darted from structure to structure, trying to make sense of them.

A low-pitched, curious rumble emanated from his throat, accompanied by a series of clicking sounds as he tried to communicate with these new additions to his home.

It was a shame that buildings could not speak, especially when they were engulfed by several layers of molten lava. If they could, perhaps they would have told him that the civilization below had been brought to ruin long ago.

 

[Rebecca Chambers]

Despite spending a not insignificant amount of time clicking at the inanimate objects in his nest, Rodan eventually came to the realization that this was not, in fact, proving to be a fruitful interrogation.

In a fit of disappointment, the immense pteranodon sought solace in the molten baths of his volcanic home, swanning into it with all the giddy grace of a songbird approaching a shallow dish of water. Without an ounce of hesitation, he plunged his head into the seething pit, a cauldron of magma that would have reduced any other living creature to mere ash and melted residue within moments.

But not Rodan. No, he reveled in the scorching heat, wings flapping as the fiery red-gold liquid flowed down his neck and back, seeping into the crevices of his thermal rock armor. With a satisfied rippling of his stone-like plumage that sounded much like the thunderous rumble of a mountain shedding a few glaciers, he stretched out his wings and preened, reinvigorated by the blazing heat engulfing his form.

In the midst of his bath at the heart of the flame-riddled cavern, Rodan was abruptly jolted out of his washing up by an intense grumbling that shook the massive walls around him, stalactites breaking free from the lofty ceiling and boulder-sized stones skipping across the floor. His massive wings fanned wide, instinctively flapping to stabilize his body, sending droplets of liquid fire raining down upon the rugged ground below.

With a slow, distinctly bird-like motion, he rotated his skull towards the origin of the the disturbance. His beady yellow eyes narrowed in irritation, the pupils constricting into sharp, pinpoint dots of black.

A low-pitched, throaty hiss emanated from his beak, a cloud of grey ash and rekindled sparks eddying out from his nares like a dragon's breath.

Thoroughly peeved, Rodan emerged from the caldera with a flourish, shaking off the softened magma from his wings, his talons hooking around the volcano's rocky lip, pulverizing the stone beneath them. Sweeping his wings wide, he then swooped down to the grotto's floor, settling near the only cavern entrance that was big enough to accommodate his massive body.

He tilted his head to the side, intrigued. A strange pink light radiated outward from the entrance, pulsing gently, almost mesmerizing in its simple incandescence.

Fascinated, Rodan cautiously leaned forward, his long neck craning to get a better view of the glowing, rosy passage, a curious chirrup in his throat. The ever-changing light seemed almost alive as it pulsed and flickered along the length of the glittering tunnel, which sloped gently downward, echoing the scrape of Rodan's massive talons against the rocky ground when he shuffled forward.

As he descended down the sloping passage, the fire bird carefully maneuvered his wings, tucking them in against his torso to avoid scraping them against the irregular, mineral-pocked walls. The air down here was thick with a sour, metallic scent, he noted, and strange wisps floated around his head, burning to ash as they made contact with his super-heated skin—seeming almost like pink, glittering spores as they were frisked about by the stagnant, subterranean wind. Weird.

After several minutes of descent, the passage gave way to a vast, cave-like chamber, not unlike Rodan's own nest in structure and breadth. The fiery creature blinked slowly, tilting his massive head to take in the... eerily tranquil ambiance of the cavern. He twisted his neck from side to side every so often, meticulously scrutinizing every nook and cranny with each eye in turn, a soft, questioning purr stirring in his throat.

The whole cavern sparkled with the same pink light he had glimpsed before—seemingly emitted by a host of blush-colored crystalline rock formations, their angular shapes protruding outward from every available surface like blooming flowers, shimmering and glistening wetly with moisture.

A subtle, flowery aroma hung in the air, tickling at Rodan's nares, and the spore-like specks of light were... considerably more abundant, around here.

Talons clicking against the slick ground as he stepped into the cavern, Rodan's attention was immediately snagged by what rested at its center: an enormous, globular mass, pale and veined, nearly the size of Rodan himself. It appeared organic, quite literally a mound of squishy, pale flesh, though no creature he knew of looked like this.

And he only knew of himself, really, so it was a rather glaringly obvious contrast.

With his wings tucked tightly against his body, Rodan inched closer to the... creature? He assumed it was a creature, in any case. His sharp beak chattered in query as he neared—a high-pitched, raspy 'chirp!' splitting the air—but the thing remained inert and gelatinous.

It did not move or acknowledge his presence.

Rodan huffed, unfolding his wings from his back, and hunched over the thing like an angry gargoyle. Turning his head sharply to the side, he fixed it with one glinting, ember-like eye.

Up close, he could see that it palpitated slowly. Almost as if it was... breathing, or perhaps it was in possession of a very weak, irregular heartbeat. He could also discern angular, bony shapes that seemed almost like limbs stretching against its membranous, sticky-pale skin from within the mass, but little more than that.

Blazing wings outspread in a threat display not unlike an irate turkey, Rodan circled with a note of caution to his intimidation-oriented posturing, examining it from all possible directions.

He leaned in, dipped his head and nudged it experimentally with the sharp curve of his beak. It gave slightly under the pressure, but didn't break or burst, as he might have expected.

Intrigued, Rodan prodded at it again, poking harder this time. Same result. The thing felt... spongy, but firm, still holding its glob-like, vaguely rounded shape.

He went to prod it again, and—

Suddenly, the thing convulsed. Violently.

Caught flat-footed, Rodan squawked and flapped backwards as a tremor ran through the mass, rocking the ground beneath his feet. The pulsing quickened as more shudders wracked the enormous, soft-fleshed glob—until suddenly, the glob began to rise... and rise, and rise, followed by the broad-shouldered, four-limbed shape of an immense figure that utterly dwarfed Rodan in size, breaking free of the rocky ground and casting a long, misshapen shadow over the Fire Demon's form.

The creature was practically a titan, a behemoth spawned from the very heart of the moon, its body a mosaic of quartz-like pink crystals protruding out from its spongy, mushroom stalk skin. Atop its head was the glob-like growth Rodan had picked and prodded at, the cap, with various frilly, dirt-specked gills lining the space where its bulb-shaped head meshed with its shoulders.

Razor-sharp protrusions caught the flickering light and refracted it back, intensifying the rosy glow present inside the cavern. Each twitch of the crystal beast's limbs echoed throughout the chamber with the shrieking, scraping chime of mineral against mineral, and as it stood upright on its fibrous-yet-firm hind appendages, it loomed even higher.

Hackles raised, his head ducked low to the ground so that his beak nearly brushed against the cavern floor, Rodan hissed.

His thick burgundy skin glistened in the flickering light of the crystalline chamber, the roughened ridges and scales of his body rattling, glowing with molten energy as he surveyed his opponent. Waves of heat radiated from him, causing the air around him to shimmer and distort. His fierce yellow eyes glinted with a primitive fire, mirroring the intense heat of his volcanic home.

This was weird. And what's more, it was here! Near his nest! Challenging HIM!

The massive crystalline creature lurched forward, its four mushroom stalk limbs shifting and swaying as it moved. Raising its arm for a gargantuan swing, the sharp edges of the quartz protrusions embedded within glittered sharply in the light, scything through the air towards Rodan like a torrent of pink, sparkling death.

Rodan let out a deafening screech, the walls of the cavern trembling in answer. As he spread his massive wings, the edges glowed with bright fissures, beating back the rosy glow of the cavern only to replace it with searing, fiery gold.

With a powerful shove, he launched himself into the air to avoid the strike, a single flap of his wings spawning a gust of high-speed winds that whipped across the space in an aggressive maelstrom of red-hot, stinging ash.

 

[Rebecca Chambers]

The mushroom titan responded with a resounding stomp of one of its stalk-like legs against the cavern floor, the ground cracking under the blow, its crystal-studded body vibrating with some strange inner energy that set the very air to shimmering—more spores emerging to froth within the chamber's walls like a syrupy-pink fog, near-blinding in their intensity.

Much to Rodan's chagrin, the fluttering cloud of dainty pink spores seemed to actually help disperse the winds stirred up by his wings, reducing them to a mere light, springy breeze before they could reach the titan. Breaching through the fragrant cloud, the fungal behemoth advanced with purposeful, thunderous steps, wobbling slowly over the ground, its massive body swiveling to follow Rodan's flight path.

As he circled above, the creature's crystalline appendages reached out futilely, dumbly—unable to grasp him whilst he was in the air.

Rodan's beady yellow eyes got a mean glint to them. But of course, this creature would never be able to challenge his aerial superiority—

Completely without warning, a massive, dark boulder suddenly swerved into the Fire Demon's field of vision, hurtling straight towards his skull. Emitting a piercing screech, the pteranodon halted mid-air and wrapped his fiery wings around himself, the stone crumbling into fine shards of rock upon impact, showering over the floor.

Unfurling his wings, he glared down at the hulking mushroom monster, and dove for it.

Like a blazing, red-singed comet, Rodan hurtled towards the mushroom titan, his serrated beak leveled like a deadly lance at its breast. Fire erupted from the point of impact as his immense form collided with its body, talons first—his fiery claws tearing through the slimy, pulsating white flesh of its shoulders, while his sharp beak stubbornly speared and pecked at its torso like a woodpecker boring into a tree, attempting to butcher, maim and, if there was truly any justice in this world, disembowel.

A massive, glimmering hand with rose quartz claws grasped onto one of Rodan's wings, sinking like meat hooks into his armor. The touch was like ice, sending a foreign chill creeping throughout the fire bird's igneous body—piercing straight to his core.

Rodan had never felt... cold before.

As he craned his neck to glimpse just what this thing was doing to him, Rodan's shining yellow eyes dilated at the sight of the titan's hand, its crystal claws digging deep into his armor... emitting a frost-like layer of sparkling pink crystallization that seemed to take root and spread upon contact with his fiery wing.

With a mighty screech of pure outrage, Rodan wrenched himself free of the crystal titan's hold, using its shoulders to slingshot himself back into the safety of the air.

Soaring closer to the roof of the cavern, his wingspan cutting a massive black shadow over the ground, Rodan circled back around within seconds, unwilling or unable to abandon a fight.

Taking a rumbling, doddering step backwards, the crystal titan pivoted and wheeled towards the approaching fire bird, one colossal arm swinging with all the inevitability of an avalanche, seeking to bat Rodan from the air like an annoying fly. But Rodan twisted mid-dive, his nimbleness defying his size, and the blow instead merely glanced off his smoldering, fissure-lined wingtip, sending a shower of molten, white-hot sparks spraying into the air—singing his foe's fibrous flesh.

Fueled by Rodan's internal combustion as he shrieked his fury, the oppressive heat within the cave climbed to absolutely sweltering heights, the air growing thick and faintly tinged with red. His body, a living incendiary device, radiated intense, mirage-like waves as he spun, whirled, and spiraled around his opponent, near obsessively seeking a new mode of attack.

Every near-touch sent searing black marks streaking throughout the crystal shards adorning the enemy titan's limbs, causing them to kindle with a strange, uncanny internal light, the acrid stench of smoke and ozone choking at the air.

Yet all the while, the stain of fine quartz upon Rodan's wing continued to spread... creeping like frost over the limb, encasing the molten armor below in pink, glittering crystal.