An Elemental Party 2 – Lighting Fire

“Overlady Salamander!” with these words one of her many underlings stormed into the throne room. They were small creatures of coloured fire, dark gauntlets and leg armour extending from their burning bodies. This particular one was green, but the many guards standing around the flintstone walls also had blue or red ones in their ranks. The rare white ones, two of which she had in her army, flanked her throne of ever burning coal.

“Urgh, what is it?!” Salamander asked and shifted in her chair. She was wearing the fire equivalent of a monarch’s robe, a long scarlett cape with white fire at the ruff, spangled with blue flames. Frowning, she repositioned her legs on her stool. “Yo, granny, get closer, this isn’t comfortable,” she told the living stool.

She was of light-brown complexion, looked barely older than thirty and had three obisidian horns growing from her head, two long ones from the sides, curving backwards and a third short one, sprouting from the middle of her forehead, just where the line of her hair began. The rest of her body was hidden beneath black stone scales, growing even over the right side of her face. Her long, orange-red hair glowed like lava, the same colour as her eyes which turned towards Salamander.

The image of Nathalia looked at her Overlady with an eagerly submissive expression. “Of course, Salamander. I am honoured that you chose my back to rest your holy feet upon,” she spoke in a truly awestruck and caring tone that the real Nathalia would never have used and followed the fire spirit’s command, inching closer so that Salamander’s feet had an easier rest.

“And?” Salamander asked. The minion sprung to attention, “There is an intr-“

“Not you,” Salamander interrupted him, “fucking idiot. Granny, what else do you want to say?”

“And I am totally old and would never submerge you in water?” not-Nathalia said, “Every dragon that would try to drown you is a dumb bimbo.”

“That’s my girl,” Salamander said and made a gracious gesture. “Now you can talk, flameling,” she stated and leant back in her chair, resting her head on her fist and listening with a bored expression.

“An intruder has intruded upon our land!” the minion shouted.

“Yeah, that’s what intruders do,” Salamander tapped on her armrest with her empty hand. “What are you, retarded? Tell me who and where already!”

“In the eastern coal fields, a tiny g-”

“SYLPH!” Salamander boomed, her voice echoing throughout the entire building.

Except for the constant crackling, the building fell silent. Salamander started chewing on her thumb’s nail. ‘Urgh, what does she want this time? I hate it when our dreams sync up. All I want to do here is to have a harmless power fantasy and then, suddenly, she strides along, is all stupid and acts all just and all that shit, and then I have to deal with her.’ “This sucks!” she shouted and ruffled her hair. “Dumb as bread, Sylph. Okay, maybe I can salvage this, just have to keep her entertained and then she will bugger off…” she nodded to herself. “Just have to create a quest for her or something…Tell me more about her, anything interesting?”

“There is another girl with her, she keeps calling her squire yet the yellow dressed one never carries anything for her. Instead, the small one is getting lectures whenever she does something stupid,” the minion informed the Overlady.

“Okay, so Gnome is with her…wait!” Salamander pondered for a moment; then she broke into laughter. “YES!” she shouted when a plan formed in her head. “I shall burn this pest from my lands like I burnt the Woodlings. Follow me, my loyal guard.”

She jumped off her throne and walked straight forwards, towards the open gate that led to the outside. Following her were the two white-flamed minions as well as not-Nathalia. Her burning castle was built atop a giant, almost straight upwards reaching, plateau of white stone.

After a gesture from her truly benevolent Overlady, not-Nathalia turned into a black-scaled dragon with small wings and big googly eyes. ‘It is my honest conviction that she will look either like this or absolutely terrifying,’ Salamander thought and climbed onto the back of the dragoness. Her true white flamelings did the same, and then they were on their way.

The plateau and the burning palace shrunk in the distance, slowly transforming from an imposing evil castle into looking like an oversized candle.

“Definitely need to change that once I take care of this; that looks stupid,” she mumbled.

Travelling inside a dreamscape was far from an exact science and so Salamander reached her target almost immediately. It also wasn’t hard to find Sylph. The eastern coal fields had exactly one village and, with Sylph being who she was, Salamander guessed she would be there. And she was.

‘What is that stupid armour?’ Salamander thought while she landed. Sylph was wearing full-plate, which was entirely impractical for a fighter whose main attribute was speed. The fire spirit chose not to be bothered and jumped off not-Nathalia’s back.

“Sylph, I have not expected you,” she greeted, scratching her head. The tempest elemental turned holy knight pointed her way-too-heavy blade at Salamander.

 “Aha, but I have expected you, evil Overlady, for you see that I am the great knight Sylph, and I will see these lands free from your terrible reign and all of the good people free from your terrible reign and…”

“You are terrible at giving heroic speeches,” Salamander interrupted. She pinched the bridge of her nose, having no patience for this. ‘I should be up in my palace, listening to death metal while burning forests down or something.’

Instead, she looked over to Gnome. The timid stone elemental was standing there with a hanging head and slouching shoulders. When Salamander raised an eyebrow at her, Gnome just shrugged, sighed and sighed once more, but harder.

“My speeches are of no matter!” Sylph exclaimed. “I will beat you!”

“Yes, yes, sure you will, but first you need to beat my elite guard,” Salamander waved off and pointed at not-Nathalia as well as the flamelings. “Then you can fight me all you want.”

“Your challenge is accepted, vile fiend! I shall beateth these twoeth and thenet- Aaaah,” Sylph sniffed and stuck out her tongue. “I bith ith again,” she slurred.

“Serves you right, also it's three, you airhead,” Salamander corrected her, shaking her head.

Sylph didn’t let the most basic of math stop her and soon she was in a fight with Salamander’s bodyguard. The blaze elemental used that time to walk over to Gnome. “Sorry,” the earth spirit started with an apology, “I tried to keep her occupied, but you know…Sylph.”

“Yeah, I know – Sylph,” Salamander agreed, “and I say that we teach her a fucking lesson.”

“B-but…that is totally l-lewd…a-a-a-and she would totally enjoy it the most,” Gnome stammered.

Salamander pinched the bridge of her nose in a sudden attack of a headache. “I am surrounded by idiots, lewd idiots,” she quietly lamented before lowering her hand to shout at Gnome. “You are as dumb as a rock! Not a FUCKING lesson. A. fucking. LESSON! As in FUCKING underscoring the LESSON!”

“Oh… ooooh…” Gnome understood and stammered. “T-that’s an easy mistake to make!”

“If you are as lewd as you are maybe, miss ‘oh-i-am-so-innocent’. Let’s check shall we!” Salamander grabbed her older sister’s skirt and ripped them upwards. “AND ONCE AGAIN, NO PANTIES!” she exclaimed, “HAVE YOU NO SHAME?!”

“You are running around only hidden by some fire over your nipples and crotch!” Gnome defended herself.

“Yeah, and I don’t have shame!” Salamander stood straight, showing off her half-a-head height difference, and folded her arms under her breasts, showing off another difference in size.

“It’s… just more comfortable without…” Gnome shifted under her judgemental gaze. Throwing her burning sister short gazes she said, “Why can’t I both be a bit perverted and shy…you are mean, Salamander.”

“Well, I have just about had it today, so let’s get this fucking over with. You will do as I say!”

As the topic shifted, Gnome took a deep breath. “No,” she stated.

“Eh?” Salamander stepped really close and put her fists on each side of Gnome’s head. “You think you can just tell me no?!” Then she screwed them tightly, the earth elemental in between writhing trying to escape her grasp. Salamander was way too fired up to remember how bad an idea this was.

“STOP IT!” Gnome shouted out and, with closed eyes, grabbed her sister by the arm. The next moment Salamander found herself getting lifted up and then thrown over her sister’s head. Then she saw the sky above her, giving her a moment of clarity. ‘Oh yeah, note to self for the fiftieth time: Don’t take bullying Gnome too far…doubt I will ever learn that one,’ she thought before very painfully crashing to the ground.

It took a few moments of regretting existence and pain, for Salamander to roll onto her back. At least the majestic cloak made for a nice blanket. A moment later, Gnome bowed on top of her. “Uhm… uhhh… s-sor-“

Salamander raised her hand, halting the apology. “Yeah, no, that one’s on me,” she said in an attempt to sound sorry. “Took that too far. We cool?”

 “Uhm, yes, of course,” Gnome answered and extended a hand.

Salamander rose from the ground and gathered her patience. In the background Sylph was storming by. Blinding speed combined with wild swings of her sword into an absolutely impressive display of martial inability. She overshot every target, missed every opening given, and sometimes ran face first into attacks. They still had plenty of time to talk.

“So, here is the thing,” she said, turning back to Gnome. “We are in a dream, right?”

“That is definitely correct, yes,” Gnome answered and blinked in confusion. “And Sylph is not aware, right?”

A moment of hesitation, but Gnome nodded, “Most likely correct, yes.”

“Okay, so, normally Sylph, with her single-track mind, takes control of the dream and just writes the script subconsciously, right?”

“Well, that does sound like a theory that… could be true?” Gnome cautiously agreed, “but we never really lose our powers in these… even if I tend to forget that…” the last part she mumbled and Salamander guessed there was some funny story attached to it, but she could ask later.

“Then, together, we surely could take control away from her, right?” Salamander proposed.

“I mean…maybe?” Gnome said, “But why?”

“To teach her a fu- a lesson,” the fire spirit clarified. “Beat into her that this is a dream, so that we maybe have our peace in the future. I at least want to sleep without being terrorized by her energy. Like that sweets incident.”

Salamander felt slightly mean for pushing that button, but it worked. She vividly remembered Gnome’s muffin trauma following a dream she shared with Sylph where the tempest elemental and Gnome had to eat all of the sweets in the kingdom, otherwise the gummy bear king would have beheaded them.

“F-fine,” the stone elemental finally agreed.

‘Awesome,’ Salamander thought and rubbed her hands together, ‘Now it's time to burn A LOT of stuff.’