Meanwhile Hailey starts building a bonfire: stacking some firewood to make a relatively flat spot to sit on, stuffing kindling and tinder into the right spots, making sure to leave room for airflow, and then she steps back with a nod.

"It's ready to light up. I've got a mundane firestarter, or you could do it the quick way with a spell."

Hyacith tilts her head. "It feels more proper not to start it with magic. I mean, it seems strange to use magic to generate magic, right? It feels better to use a mundane source, it's more of a ritual that way."

She sits cross-legged atop the pile of wood on the level pieces, checks again that her fire resistance is properly slotted, then nods to Hailey. "Go ahead," she says.

Hailey kneels down beside the bonfire, pulls out her firestarter, and sparks the tinder. She blows on the embers carefully, stoking the little flames until they can catch the kindling, slowly building more of a fire little by little.

Okay, this is... definitely a Situation... 

Hyacinth settles her palms on her knees and tries to breathe slow. It's okay. She will be fine. A mixture of fear and exhilaration pools in her stomach and hastens her hearrbeat.

Hailey keeps fanning the flame, carefully building up a blaze hot enough to be sustainable. Soon, though, the logs start to catch. and she steps back to watch. 

Her cheeks are slightly flushed — probably just from the heat of the fire, though.

It's intense. The heat wraps itself around her like a living thing. She can feel the flame trying to consume her, to make her a part of it. But she is a part of it already. 

She closes her eyes, triggers Inner Flame meditation, and falls inward. 

It's a different experience than before. Her instinctive reach for an image of a calm dark sea to lull her jars like a bruised shin. 

Inner fire. 

She envisages it. The flame begins at the base of her spine, like a fuse or a wick; from there it spreads inward, towards her abdomen and her sex, flushes of all-too-familiar heat and energy... then upward, through her heart, warm and bright (sable) and onward, nestling in her collarbone before flicking upward to root on her brow. She is a candle, burning, every part of her channeling the flame...

The intuitive interface spirals up into her as a breath of heat, a current of flame. She locks an even stronger Inner Flame meditation with it in a flash like sizzling sparks, using even more of the parts of her nature that are like flame and less of the parts of her nature that grant volume and strength, instead braiding the flame within her tighter, tighter...

The new ability slots in and disrupts her trance, but she patiently rebuilds the flame within her to its full brightness once more. It burns blue-hot within her belly and womb, fierce and sharp — but not intensely enough to break through to the next layer of potential. She will not consume all today. 

Within this forge in her heart, she remakes herself. Ability after ability weave together, each of her standard abilities - Flare, Glue, Quell Flames, and Repel - relocked with the strongest nodes her soul can bear. 

Finally she turns her attention to her other meditation. She can sense how to weave it, in this state, with the flame running through her...

[Ritual I] in the center. Around it, three will-o-wisps, circling clockwise. [Enhance I]. [Intricacy I]. [Meditation I].

It locks.

Hailey watches, enraptured, as Sin embraces the fire. She bites her lip, breathing slowly and deliberately, cheeks flushed.

"Fuck," she breathes, barely a whisper.

Slowly, Hyacinth comes back to herself. It always takes time for her to recover from such a deep trance. 

For perhaps half a minute, she has the sensation of the flame breathing with her, flaring and falling slowly, until it fades away from her body entirely and falls back to the logs beneath her. 

She opens her eyes and meets Hailey's gaze with a smile. 

"Let's be careful getting me up," she says. "I don't want to accidentally kick ash into your lap." 

Hailey steps close and reaches out a hand to help Hyacinth out of the bonfire.

"Holy shit. That was gorgeous."

Hyacinth very carefully steps out of the fire. She nods. "And, um." She looks away for a moment. "Interesting." 

She is not going to say that she is horny now to Hailey.

Hailey bites her lip and nods, cheeks still a bit flushed. "Interesting is a very good word for it. Yes. Perhaps an understatement."

She exhales sharply and grins.

"That's, um, your kind of thing...?" Hyacinth rubs the back of her head and smiles a little.

"Danger, risk, pain, fire? Both inflicting and receiving? Yes, you could say that it's my kind of thing."

"Hmmmmmmmmm. Suddenly I have a thought for something inadvisable we could maybe potentially do eventually."

"I like inadvisable," she replies with a grin. "Do tell."

"We've got wound healing and a knife. And we respawn. I mean, I'd want to know what respawning entails first because if there's like a spirit healer figure then I so don't want to have to explain that I died in a kink scene. But yes."

She grins wider, sharper, and nods. "I like that idea. I fucking love that idea. From what I understand, there's definitely a 'death dream' where you can talk with a caring figure to help you deal, to try to stave off trauma, but I hear she's chill."

"I think I'd like to meet her myself before I trust that she's 'chill'. But it's certainly a start." 

Hyacinth casts Quell Flames over the remnants of the bonfire, and it splutters out. "On we go to fight moose? Or would you like to try the meditation ritual first?"

"Let's try for moose first, then deal try the meditation ritual back in privacy at the inn, I think."

"Alright!" Hyacinth focuses on her Moose Quest Sense and starts heading that direction. 

Another half hour's hike through the hills, and they reach a group of five moose. They're headbutting each other restlessly, antlers crashing together with clatter after loud clatter. Black veins run away from their eyes, down their snouts. They don't appear to have noticed the girls yet.

"Big fuckers," Hailey whispers. "Definitely corrupted, too."

"Same tactics as last time?" Hyacinth whispers. "I should be able to splash the whole group with them bunched up like this..." 

She nods sharply. "Yeah. Extra glues around the outside if it looks like they're breaking free. Sable made a boosted leap ability back at the inn, too, so we should be able to dive right into the thick of them."