Due to the viciously extreme climate of the Anhydrous desert, there were few who ever willingly entered. Even when the Country of Smiling Skies existed, all the trade routes looped around the deadly wastelands, instead preferring to traverse the Dead Lake and out from the Golden Country to reach their destination. Not even adventurers were enticed enough by the prospect of untouched artifacts hidden in buried ruins to risk the journey. There were some, however, few that they may be, who managed to call the Anhydrous desert home. A small tribe whose existence wasn''t even known by most of the outside world.


    The roaring day star was beating its scorching rays with an unusually high heat on this day. A blaring bonfire rose high in the sky in the center of a small tribal community. The star and bonfire worked together to cook the surrounding sand, bubbling to languid arms of blackened glass.


    The Phlogiston had built their culture on their absolute control over temperature and were mostly immune to the usual heat of the day star. Mostly immune was not completely immune, and not all members shared the same degree of mastery. On particularly scolding days, such as the one they suffered today, most of the tribe gave the central bonfire a wide berth, preferring to lounge at the nearby oasis, hidden under umbrella trees and watching the children splash in the shallow pool. Not all the Phlogiston avoided the bonfire.


    Within the blazing flame of the bonfire itself, nestled atop charcoaled logs, a man sat cross-legged. His teeth clattered uncontrollably, his arms hugging himself tightly, fervently trying to rub warmth into his frigid limbs. The short man had long platinum hair and wore around twenty layers of heavy winter coats. His body looked completely bloated as the countless layers of clothing struggled to remain tied closed. He wore an innumerable number of mittens, and he still bunched his hands into fists, recoiling them into his sleeve for more warmth. He had seven cotton hats, each one larger than the last, stacked atop one another and still wore every winter coat-hood on top of those. Stacked atop the layer of hats and atop the layers of hoods, delicately balancing at the very peak of cloth on his head, was a large pewter cauldron filled with boiling stew.


    While most of the tribe steered clear, hiding in the shade and fanning each other with fronds, the man in the fire used his power over fire to fuel the bonfire even more. A continuous stream of deep red flame bellowed out from his body, vitalizing the bonfire, melting more sand, and still not warming him enough.


    In front of the burning man and the bonfire, sitting about halfway to the edge of the glass was an elderly man, clean-shaven and thin to the point of near emaciation. The elder quietly sat cross-legged upon the burning glass, hands peacefully resting over his knees. Surrounding the elder further to the edge of the glass was a group of distraught children wincing and huffing as they hopped from foot to foot, trying to reduce the amount of time their poor bare feet spent touching the scorching glass.


    Not all the children struggled on the glass; there was a pair of fraternal twins, a boy and a girl, who managed to sit themselves. Although they tried to maintain a stoic face, all could see they were in a constant battle of subtly readjusting to avoid having any individual part of their body bear the heat for too long.


    The tribe''s clothes could not be any more different than that of the man in the bonfire as they all wore thin light cloths that merely worked to hide their skin from the rays of the day star. The elder was totally unfazed by the glass''s temperature or the children''s radical movement as he continued his lesson. "You must rest tranquil on the glass and meditate on the temperature if any of you wish to unlock the power of the Phlogiston''s flame."


    One of the younger boys complained. "But it hurts, it''s too hot."


    The elder carefully stroked his beard while ignoring the groans of the annoyed children and continued with his lecture. "The Phlogiston''s flame thrives through strife. When a Phlogiston puts themselves in a position of discomfort and learns to accept and make peace with that discomfort, is when a Phlogiston will finally be able to grow."


    "My mom grounded me from going to the oasis for a whole week. Don''t we know enough about strife?"


    The elder laughed with such ferocity he fell on his back. "No, you will need to at least be grounded from the oasis for a month to even catch a glimpse of the flame."


    The children let out a ubiquitous outcry of displeasure at the impossible obstacle placed before them. One of the children eventually asked the elder. "I could be playing kickball right now. I just showed up for your lesson because I thought I could shoot fire out of my hands like you or Mr. Crockpot. I didn''t know there would be training, and why does it have to be so depressing and sad?" The children resonated with this concern harmoniously as many nodded their heads in agreement.


    The twins did not join in this class mutiny as they silently meditated on the glass, using all their will to overcome the overpowering heat, their faces scrunched in pained concentration.


    The elder calmly responded to the child''s question. "The Phlogiston flame is not depressing or sad-"


    One of the children quickly butted in. "But you said it was all about strife or whatever!"


    "It is about overcoming strife. The phlogiston flame is about overcoming one''s limits and dashing away the shackles of leisure which excuse imperfect action. When we put ourselves in these positions or in this mindset, it is then that we can work on improving the core of ourselves and refine the person we desire to become..."


    "I don''t know; it sounds like a lot of work when I could just go play kickball."


    "…and you''ll be able to shoot fire out of your hands." The children all shouted out in rapturous excitement and were revitalized into another weak attempt at bearing the glass''s heat. The day continued on, and slowly, more and more children would give up and move on to other things.


    On the bright side, there were now enough children to have a full kickball game.


    The only people left within the glass perimeter were the elder, the man in the bonfire, a few meditating adults by the edge, and the twins. The twins were the last of the children forcing themselves through the arduous lesson, a mixture of pride and competition pushing them through the hardship. The twins were each trying to best the other by inching closer to the bonfire than the other without having to run out of the glass to cool down. Both had made significant progress since when they first started and were even close enough to confront the man in the fire.


    "Psst, psst, hey… Mr. Crockpot!" The man inside the bonfire stuck his nose out from under his winter collar, wiggling himself free of his scarves and looked at the little girl in front of him. He pushed through his constantly spasming muscles to show the girl a great, big grin. "Hey, Mondo, looks like you made it here first this time. New technique?"


    Mondo pushed off the glass with her hands to give her bum a brief reprieve and then dropped down and shot her arms high in the air to give them a turn, rapidly repeating the process as she huffed in and out with a practiced rhythm. She gave Mr. Crockpot an ear-splitting smile and a thumbs-up. "Yeah!"


    "Are you going for the full prize today?"Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    "Huff, huff. Yes, yes. I can do it." Mondo was speaking quickly between winces. Mr. Crockpot raised an unconvinced eyebrow at the girl, but nonetheless, he grabbed a metal bowl next to him and poured in a big ladle full of stew from his cauldron. Now that the bowl was ready, the girl cupped her two hands to receive the bowl. As she felt a lick of the bonfire flame, she retracted her hands, holding them as close to her chest while tilting her head as far away as she could.


    Mr. Crockpot snickered at the action. "Now come on, Mondo. I can''t give you the bowl if your hands aren''t past the line."


    Mondo''s brother finally noticed how close his sister was to the bonfire and quickly began scooting closer while letting out pained oohs and aahs. Mondo turned her head back towards the bonfire but kept her head down as she couldn''t take the heat waves directly splashing against her face. She slowly stretched her arm out, shaking incessantly.


    "I''m going to hand you the bowl now. Are you ready?"


    Mondo fought back some small, quickly evaporating tears and bit her lip. "mmhmm."


    She gave the briefest nod, and Mr. Crockpot let out a sly smile before slowly moving his arms over hers and descending the bowl. "Okay, here you go."


    He placed the bowl onto her hands, and she immediately retracted her arms away, spilling the stew all over the glass. "YEOUCH!!!!!!!!!" She shouted at the top of her lungs and instantly jumped up high into the air and ran out of the glass perimeter in as large of steps as she possibly could. The elder and all the adults ruptured into laughter at the expected result.


    Mr. Crockpot held back his mirth and turned to the brother, "What about you, Zen? Are you going to try the stew today?"


    Mondo''s brother Zen stopped his hurried scooting as he watched his sister run away. He turned back to Mr. Crockpot and gave a shy smile. "I think I''ll just try and get used to being this close for now."


    The elder stood from his meditation halfway out the glass and approached the bonfire, joining Mr. Crockpot inside. The elder grabbed the spilled bowl of stew and started scooping the remaining unspilled food with his hands and eating it. He spoke to Zen as he did this. "Very wise, Zen. Divide and conquer, take every challenge, one problem and one step at a time. Eventually, you will make it here and have a delicious taste of stew, yes?"


    "Nope!" Zen swiftly retorted as he rocketed into the air, span around, and bolted out of the glass perimeter, barely even touching the glass, shouting as loudly as his sister had. "YEOUCH!!!!!!!!!"


    The elder and Mr. Crockpot broke into laughter, refilling their bowls and gulping down. After downing an entire bowl of stew and wiping his chin of spilled remnants, the elder spoke to Mr. Crockpot. "And what about you, Hiemal? How is your meditation going?"


    Hiemal drank two full bowls of stew but his shivering did not relent. "I don''t know; no matter how hard I try, I can''t seem to break into the orange stage. I managed to unlock the red flame just five years after coming to your village, but it has been fifteen since then, and I still don''t feel any closer to orange."


    The elder nodded, stroking his chin. "You managed to unlock the Phlogiston flame exceptionally quickly as you worked on conquering the strife that sent you to this desert. But as I told the children, the Phlogiston flame is not about strife but overcoming it and moving on. Even now, twenty years later, you are still holding on to something. Acceptance was but only the first step.


    Hiemal''s complexion was wrought with a deep sadness. "But I don''t want to forget and move on."


    The elder grew a wide smirk and wagged his finger at Hiemal. "Ahh, but forgetting and moving on are not the same thing. You seem to have it in your mind that if you don''t remember those who were important to you at their worst moment, then you have done them some sort of injustice. You think that if you truly embrace yourself into our tribe and openly call us as a new family, then you are discarding your old family."


    Hiemal had nothing to respond to the elder; he just continued to shake as he prepared another bowl of stew for himself. The elder shook his head in disappointment. "You have been listening, but you have not been learning. It is not what was destroyed that made your relationships important; it is what was created, so why are you so fixated on the destruction? Why don''t you tell me about the Country of Smiling Skies."


    Hiemal was taken aback slightly by the sudden prodding of the elder. He brought his hand over to his breast pocket and contemplated, though his outermost jacket didn''t have a breast pocket. "Well, it''s colder than here."


    "Tell me about before the storm."


    It took Hiemal time for him to rummage through his mind to find what to say. He gave a small smile. "It was still colder than here."


    The two shared a rapturous laugh; the laugh was much more exaggerated than anyone else would have thought the comment was worth. Hiemal continued on. "I guess since the tribe is so seclusive, you probably don''t know the rumours, but it was just as beautiful as everyone said. Every night, it was so clear that you could see the whole galaxy; you could go swimming all year round and fly a kite at any time. Oh, kites are these sheets of thin material tied to a string that dance in the wind."


    "These kites sound very interesting to watch."


    Hiemal let out a hollow chuckle at the elder''s comments. "They really were; my sister and I used to love going to the yearly kite festival and watching thousands of crazy huge and intricate kites fill the sky. There was this one time that my sister wanted to see this specific dragon kite up close, so we snuck into the engineering tent. We ended up accidentally snapping the string, and the kite flew wildly in the air for an hour before it crashed down and landed right on my sister. I guess you could say that was karma."


    "You seem to be really close with your sister."


    "I actually have five, but I was particularly close with Gascon."


    The elder burst into a fit of laughter while slapping Hiemal''s back. "Yes, yes, exactly! You HAVE five sisters. You see, fire is very destructive. People tend to think that way, but fire created this glass before us, and it helped create this stew for us, as well as the light that fills our homes. The worst mistake a practitioner of the Phlogiston''s flame can make is to think that destruction negates creation and that the two are separate. I''m going to make an assumption now and say that your sister Gascon is dead. But that destruction did not negate the creation of Gascon. She is still your sister and always will be. The red flame was you accepting what was lost, the orange flame will be you accepting what can be found."


    The elder stood up and arched his back, letting out an uncomfortable number of cracks. "Now I''m going to join those two twins at the oasis to cool down. I have no idea how you can constantly handle all of this heat."


    The elder then tilted his head to either side, cracking his neck. He took a final scoop of the stew and massaged his throat. He shook some life back into his sleeping legs, took a deep inhale and then-


    "YEOUCH!!!!!!!!!" The elder shouted at the top of his lungs, running out of the bonfire and its glass perimeter as quickly as he possibly could.


    Hiemal was different from the locals; while they worked on mastering temperature itself and overcoming the cold and heat, Hiemal only wanted to overcome the cold. He hardly ever left the bonfire unless it was to help the village in some sort of emergency or building effort, and even then, he would usually bring the bonfire with him.


    Hiemal meditated in the bonfire while thinking about what the elder had said. He thought about what it meant to accept what could be found, but his contemplation was interrupted by the sudden chime of a bell.


    Directly in front of Hiemal there was what seemed to be a small pink rhombus that grew out of thin air, or it was a rhombus, but its body would reject any stable state. It would shift and transform, shrink and grow, continuously morphing into other shapes. The pink shape finally locked into a form resembling that of a featureless human with only one limb. The pink organism''s single arm was outstretched toward Hiemal holding on to a glowing parchment.


    As soon as the parchment was exposed to the ludicrous heat of the area, it burst into flames and disintegrated. The pink organism once again began to morph and transform, continuously changing shape until, finally, it was just a rhombus that simply shrunk out of existence. Then Hiemal heard the sudden chime of a bell.


    In front of Hiemal, a little way away just outside of the glass perimeter, there was what seemed to be a small pink rhombus that grew out of thin air, or it was a rhombus, but its body would reject any stable state. It would shift and transform, shrink and grow, continuously morphing into other shapes. The pink shape finally locked into a form resembling that of a featureless human with only one limb. The pink organism''s single arm was outstretched toward Hiemal holding on to a glowing parchment.


    For the first time in three months, Hiemal stood up and left the bonfire. He walked over to the pink organism. Hiemal took the glowing parchment and read it.


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    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%; text-align: center">You have been invited to</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%; text-align: center">The Tournament</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%; text-align: center">You are The Hyperborean</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>