She stood holding a burning torch in her hand. Grinning hungrily she looked down upon the village below. Turning to her minions beside her she shrieked; a feral howl as they leapt off the ledge and down onto the main street.

Laughing at the ease of it all, she swept the torch round and caught the thatch of the houses nearest to her. The flames were a delight to watch and she rejoiced with glee as the screams from families came from inside.

Her minions were no longer beside her, and she watched dispassionately as they ran through the streets killing any person that was foolish enough to be walking them. Inelegant, but then they had always preferred brute strength to finesse.

She, on the other hand, liked her victims to suffer, and she had always been fascinated by fire.

She spun as she felt something smack into her legs from behind, and with a knee-jerk reaction cast her hand out to strike at the offender. Her hand froze just shy of her target; a cold expression marring her young features. It was a child—a young boy no older than four—sat on the floor, tears streaming down his face. He looked almost demonic in the light cast by the flames. She liked that.

She leaned down to him but he flinched, backing away.

"Don't be afraid," she laughed and ruffled his hair.

Her hand tightened its grip on his hair and she pulled. He lifted from the ground and squirmed for a moment before the hair came away from his skull, scalp along with it. His scream joined the cacophony of the others in a twisted barrage of harmonies, and the blood ran down his face mingling with the tears.

Soon becoming bored with his incessant whining and cries of agony she lifted the boy in one smooth movement, throwing him into the fiery inferno of the house nearest to her. His screams rose into a crescendo and he was consumed by the blaze—clothes, hair and skin alike, alight and burning.

She laughed again, he was a human torch; a doll that a child had tired of and had decided to burn it for fun—that’s exactly what he was—he was her doll and she didn't want to play anymore. Her attention span was very short. She didn't even stay to watch him die.

The blaze had spread now and the entire town was alight and alive with terror. She could feel it, drink it; it was intoxicating, the most powerful of drugs. Pain. Death. Misery. There was nothing to compare. No mere mind altering substance had that power.

She howled again, calling her fanged, malevolent minions to her. A few villagers had managed to escape the attack, but it didn't matter. They had been more than adequate. She watched them all appear one by one, drenched in blood and smirking.

She smiled back as the last scream died.

You wake with a start, sweat dripping from your brow and clothes clinging to your frame. Of all the dreams and nightmares that have plagued you, that was by far the worst and the most vivid. Your skin is on fire; be that with a fever or the lingering flames of your dreams, you’re not certain. That time it felt a bit too real and close for comfort. Checking the time you still have many hours left until sunrise, and you try and get as much sleep as apprehension allows your eager, inquisitive minds to get.

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It’s the morning of your meeting with the Keeper of the Flame. Torrential rain has hounded the nation continuously for the past ten days, and the fallen autumn leaves—rather than being a myriad of colour and a sight to behold—are nothing more than a dank, rotting carpet of mulch underfoot. Many modes of travel are slowed, aside those that only luxury can afford to grant. Even so, a handful of lightning rails have been stopped in their tracks by sudden mudslides and flash flooding. Even airships are finding navigation difficult.

However you managed it, you arrived within Flamekeep on time and go about your business in the City before duty calls.

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