The old lady didn't give me a break. She just kicked a pile of ash toward me and told me to "stop playing with my food."
"Moving the marrow is just a parlor trick," she hissed, her voice sounding like a cat trapped in a dryer. "Now, you have to invite a guest. But don't be a bad host. If you drop the tea, the guest burns your house down. And your face."
The Recipe for a Friend
She drew a circle in the dirt with her big toe. It wasn't a pretty circle. It looked like a smashed pancake.
"Think of a flame," she said. "Not a candle. Think of the sun. Think of the part of the sun that's so hot it forgets it's a gas and starts acting like a liquid. Now, pour your 'rot' into it."
I closed my eyes. I reached for the memories of my old life again. I found the memory of a bad sunburn I got at the beach when I was four, mixed with the time I accidentally touched a hot tailpipe on a car.
Internal Monologue: "If this goes wrong, I'm going to be a very shiny charcoal briquette. At least I'll smell like BBQ."
I threw those memories into the center of the pancake circle.
The Melt
The air didn't just get hot; it got heavy. It felt like the room was filled with invisible syrup. Then, the middle of the circle turned into a puddle of glowing, golden goo.
It wasn't just fire. It was plasma. It looked like melted gold coins dancing in a blender.
Suddenly, the puddle grew legs. Then arms. Then a head with hair that looked like white-hot wires.
Meet the "Warriress"
She stepped out of the puddle, and the floor hissed where she touched it. She looked like a teenager—maybe sixteen—but she was wearing armor made of shifting, liquid light. Her eyes weren't eyes; they were two tiny, angry stars.
She looked at the hut, then at the old lady, and finally at me.
"You?" she asked. Her voice sounded like a bunch of crystal glasses breaking at the same time, but I could understand her perfectly. "You're the one who pulled me out of the Great Burn? You look like a potato with a nosebleed."
"I'm a powerful potato," I squeaked, trying to look cool while sitting on the dirt.
The Sparky Handshake
She crossed her arms, and sparks showered onto my lap. I patted them out before my pants caught fire.
"I am Ignis," she said, tilting her head. "Or 'The One Who Melts Your Homework' in your tongue. Why is your soul so... crunchy? It smells like old paper and sadness."
"That's his 'rot,'" the old lady cackled from the corner. "He's using his dead life to buy your services. Don't be picky, Sparky. He's the only one who didn't explode today."
Ignis leaned down. Her face was inches from mine, and the heat was so intense it felt like my eyebrows were trying to hide behind my ears.
"Fine," she whispered, her golden lips curling into a smirk. "But if you run out of fuel, I'm melting your shoes first."
Key Takeaways from the Summoning:
The Entity: Ignis is a Plasma-Class spirit. She doesn't use "fire"; she uses superheated matter (T > 10,000K) that melts armor like butter.
The Cost: Every second she stays, the protagonist has to "burn" more of his old memories. If he runs out, she might start burning him.
The Bond: She talks, she sassily judges, and she's definitely going to be a problem for anyone standing in our way.
Should we see what happens when we try to take Ignis outside for a "test drive," or should the old lady give us a really scary chore to do together