Zephyra wasn’t sure how she had gotten separated from the two odd individuals she had been traveling with through Koschei Forest. One of them was a shifter with teeth as sharp as a wolf’s even when in human form. The other was some kind of dragon that took on human form. She wasn’t sure about either as she had never met a shifter or even a regular dragon. But the most important thing to her were that they were oddities of society and that was the company she liked to keep, for she was an oddity to society.
 
She walked in the muck and mud of the swampy terrain beneath her. At least she had chosen to wear black breeches, a light and airy almost transparent tunic, and long black boots that went up above her knees. Otherwise she might be in a real mess right now. Instead she was walking through the sludge and every now and then her shoe would get stuck from the suction of the wet muck and she would spend some time trying to fish her boot out of sloshy mess. Luckily it had not resorted to her planting her bottom or face into the swamp below.
 
After she finally managed to get her boot loose this most recent time, she ran up on some higher and dryer ground and went to work trying to shake and scrape off all the accumulation of dirt and mud and plants that had stuck to her boots. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed a dancing of the wisp-like lights that came through the trees and always heralded the arrival of a banshee. Though she heard no wails, the lights got brighter and so it must be close.
 
Seemingly out of thin air the banshee appeared and wailed and moaned as she flew straight at Zephyra and knocked her to the ground. Luckily for the banshee she was landing on ground that was try and not the suctioning death trap of mud. With and artful and almost dance-like movement of her hand, a ball of red chaotic energy burst through the banshee who dissipated as if she never existed. On the ground fell a dark heart- a wounded heart. She hastily stuffed it into her bag.

Pyzis trod through the thick mud of the cursed forest. It wasn't the ideal place to be searching for a rare species of healing plant, but it was where she had to go. How odd was it that to save others lives an alchemist must risk their own in the process of obtaining rare ingredients. The strange, ghastly trees that bent and warped in extreme angles held bits and pieces of armor on them. She reached out and touched the rounded edge of a metal shield that stuck out from the bark only a few inches. Being empathetic as she was could feel the pain of lost pained souls trapped in the trunk. Quickly she withdrew her hand and held it tightly to her chest. She wasn't entirely sure what had caused such a curse, as she had spent the last forty odd years confined in a cellar. With a sigh, she continued forward, very careful not to brush up against a single branch, the last thing she needed as to have a panic attack in the middle of a swamp full of evil creatures. 

Not far ahead of her she saw a light; it descended in the form of a woman who had apparently made her way out of the muck to dry ground near a grove of trees. From the light sprung an ethereal shape, a wispy woman in tattered white clothing that glowed from within. A high pitch wail sounded, and Pyzis clutched her palms over her ears until she noticed the real lady fall to the ground. With haste, Pyzis made her way through the suctioning goo and summoned a ball of fire to her palm, but before she could let it fly a burst of red energy blasted the Banshee. After it was gone, all that was left was the woman who had been knocked down. Pyzis approached her carefully, fully aware that the adrenaline of a fight could make one jumpy.

"Are you alright?" she asked as she moved as close to one of the trees as she dared. She was still in a few inches of mud, but it wasn't as deep as it had been. While the dry ground was near, she couldn't place herself within reach of any of the branches. 

"I'm Pyzis, is there anything I can do to help?" she questioned. Pyzis knew she was an odd sight, an unarmed woman with simple leather breeches and white tunic. Her long chocolate brown hair bound in a braid down her back. She realized that she still had a fireball in her hand and cursed before shaking her fingers, and the flame dissipated. So much for coming across as unthreatening she thought to herself as she plastered a smile on her face to make up for the oversite. 

Zephyra took a moment sitting there with the odd looking blackened heart in her hand, examining it. She swore she could feel or sense the vaguest sense of beating coming from the organ. But maybe it was the cursed forest playing mind games with her. She stuffed it in the pack and withdrew a small scroll of parchment that had the list of her ‘scavenger hunt’ on it. A noose, a worn wedding band, and now a wounded heart were all crossed off. What remained was a petrified hand and a soldier’s locket. She shuddered to think what she would have to do to get the first.
 
Then there was the very recognizable sounds of someone sloshing through the watery mud mixture that made up the swamp. It was very hard to sneak up on anyone in this forest with the ground the way it was. The woman seemed kind enough, asking after Zephyra’s wellness, but what she noticed was her yellow eyes. No human had yellow eyes no matter how human this woman looked. She smiled at the newcomer to show her own friendliness. “I’m quite alright. I have already had to kill two of these. See, there’s this Haunted Caravan in town and one of the ghosts there thought a scavenger hunt for some items off these banshees might be a fun challenge.” She would have scoffed at the word fun.
 
It took her a moment to get up and right herself (her shoes had stuck to the grass with all the mud caked on them). She looked down at her boots and sighed, wondering if she would ever be able to get all the mud and muck off of her boots when this was all over with or if she would have to ask her mother for a new pair. Finally she looked back at the woman, who had now introduced herself as Pyzis. “I wouldn’t mind company. I have to find these last two items here. Are you here for the hunt or for something else?”
 
The dancing lights appeared near a tree near them on the dry ground. Out from the tree stuck a petrified hand. Zephyra pulled and tugged until it broke off and put it in her pack. Suddenly the lights grew much brighter. “Watch out!” The undead banshee came bursting out through the tree, narrowly missing Zephyra with her sinister claws. She spun and tossed another stream of red, chaotic energy at her and dispersed her. Mind games wouldn’t work on them, she didn’t think.

Pyzis watched as the woman took a petrified hand and pulled it out of a tree trunk. She thought about how odd that was that this stranger was collecting an assortment of awful objects and killing Banshees for fun. Pyzis herself wasn't the type to casually chase after a challenge as such, but today she was looking for rare ingredients. She had spent months so far as an Alchemists Apprentice and had finally been let loose to prove herself by traveling to get anything she could learn new alchemical properties from. Neither she nor her master had traveled here so Pyzis wasn't even sure what it was she was looking for.

With a shout, the woman took on another banshee that came from the glowing lights and Pyzis noticed the pattern. This time when another appeared she let the red ball of fire in her palm loose and strike at the vile creature. As she watched it go up in flames and disappear a blacked heart fell to into the mud with a thick slurping sound. Pyzis leaned down and plunged her hand into the muck to retrieve the item. Maybe this was something she could bring back to the Alchemist. With a disgusted look on her face, she wiped as much stinking mud as she could off of the heart and placed it in her sack. 

This stranger was obviously in the thick of things so Pyzis decided that staying with her might bring more rare items than if she went on her own. "I'm not here for anything, in particular, just unusual things that I can dissect and see if they have any use in potions and such," she told the woman. With a tilt of her head she looked at the girl, her eyes were bright with excitement and the tension in her body was evident. The cursed woods contained more supernatural beings than Pyzis had first thought. She could feel her heart thumping in her chest and she kept her palm alight with fire, so if another creature appeared she could deal with it quickly. 

The woman, Pyzis she reminded herself, let loose a ball of fire like she had been holding in her hand before and it struck around the same time as her chaotic force energy. The banshee nearly imploded between the fire and the raw energy of chaos. A heart, much like the one she had picked up earlier, plopped down into the thick mud. Zephyra was glad it was this woman’s turn and not hers and she wouldn’t want to stick her hand in there and get a mud caked heart out of it. It didn’t help that the mud smelled rancid and dead.
 
The woman looked disgusted as she tried to clean off some of the muck from the heart that Zephyra would swear was still beating and wiggling if only very slightly. She shook her head. “The swamp smells awful. I can see you aren’t really liking the dead and black heart there. The little ghost girl promised some kind of reward if you come back with all of the items.” She shrugged. There was no point in trying to convince someone to participate if they didn’t really want to, and she did not look like she was too thrilled about this place.
 
Pyzis mentioned she was not here for anything in particular, but rather looking for rare ingredients that she may use possibly for experimentation, it sounded like, in her alchemy. She could tell the way the woman carried herself and moved that she was extremely nervous. Perhaps it would have been wise of Zephyra to be nervous as well but she wasn’t nervous at all. Thus far she had handled all of her banshees beautifully and had only but one item left to get on the list. She hoped whatever award was worth it.
 
“You’re an alchemist, then? My name is Zephyra by the way. What kinds of things do you make?” They walked a little ways into the forest without attracting any attention from banshees or otherwise. “And… what exactly ARE you? Your eyes are yellow. You can’t be human. I’m a Rosenite. My mother is Angela Rose. She’s a Goddess of earth and fertility and other things. I forget her long-winded titles sometimes.” Shrugging the girl sloshed on through the mud and up ahead saw a cluster of lights. It suddenly was almost blinding and out came not one but two banshees.
 
The first banshee caught her off guard and flew directly at her and slashed up her arms until she had blood pouring from the wounds. The other went after Pyzis. Feeling that he new friend could hold her own, she manipulated her chaos energy and imploded the banshee. A locket drop and she snatched it and stuffed it in her bag before looking for some medicinal supplies to help her arms.

Pyzis smiled as she listened to the woman, her name was Zephyra. This was now the second time she had heard about her mother Angela, the Goddes of Earth. The first had been deep in the jungle immediately after she had been reborn. Here deep in the swamp, surrounded by twisted, tortured, trapped souls, the name was mentioned again. 

As they sloshed through the mud, progressing rather slowly, two balls of light appeared this time. One went straight for Zephyra and the other towards herself. Pyzis looked at the palm of her right hand and summoned a flame large enough that wisps of it were above her head. She then threw the smoldering ball at the white woman. It wailed as it was engulfed in fire. 

Pyzis looked to her new companion and saw blood dropping down her upper arms. A look of pain etched across Zephyra's face, but at least her banshee was gone too. She remembered that the woman had asked Pyzis what she was. At least now she could show her instead of have to explain.

"I'm not sure words can accurately describe what I am, but I will show you. Hold out one of your injured arms," she instructed Zephra. Breathing in deeply Pyzis took a step back, she didn't want to burn anyone during her transformation. She looked deep within herself to the constant fire that kindled in her breast; she willed it to become stronger, and it began to consume her. A moment later she was engulfed in the flames, she could feel herself getting shorter, and her skin separated while red feathers were sprouting out of it. As quickly as it began, she was no longer on fire and became a Phoenix,

With a cock of her small head, she landed gingerly on Zephyra's forearm and instantly felt the pain she did. The raw wounds still wept blood. Pyzis placed her head against one of the wounds and a tear squeezed out from one of her yellow eyes. As it landed on the fresh wound, the cut instantly closed, leaving behind only the blood that had already spilt. She repeated the process on Zephyra's other arm and sighed in relief when the pain vanished. The one thing that she didn't enjoy about being a Phoenix was the empathy, but how was she supposed to cry if she couldn't feel their pain.

Pyzis took flight and landed back in the thick mud; she then sprouted fire all around her once more. This time, it was less impressive since she was so much smaller in bird form. When she finished transforming, she stood up and wiped ash off of her long sleeves with an enormous grin across her face. It had been years since she had healed another human willingly. Being held against her will had prevented her from transforming out of her Phoenix form.

"I hope your arm feels better," she said as she looked around to see what the last Banshee had dropped. It appeared to be a wedding band. If it was cursed, she might have use of it in her potions. Feeling accomplished she awaited Zephyra's next move. 

Clutching her bleeding arms, Zephyra watched happily as one of the wailing wenches was engulfed in flames from her new friend, Pyzis. The banshee eventually disintegrated and became nothing and left behind a worn wedding band for Pysiz. She had already acquired one of those. There wasn’t anything else she needed but she would stay behind and help the woman if she could get her arms settled. She pulled out an old cloth from her bag and wiped at the wounds to try and clean up some of the blood that had seemed to have run everywhere. There were even spots on her black breeches and small pools in the dirt.
 
Pyzis mentioned that it would be pretty hard to explain what she was exactly and that it might be easier to simply show her. She wasn’t sure why now was a good time, what with her arms bleeding rather profusely and everything. It might be of more concern to get them patched up and not bleeding than it would be to transform into some creature just to be able to show her what she was. When Pyzis took a few steps back, so did Zephyra. She did not need to be anymore hurt than she already was.
 
Suddenly, she found that her new friend had kindled flames around her that grew and grew until she was almost entirely engulfed by them. Zephyra could feel the heat coming from them and hoped this was not a painful process of Pyzis to go through as the flames were quite obviously very intense. Then she watched with great curiosity and wonder as the woman grew shorter and her skin separated and gave way to beautiful flame-colored feathers that sprouted. The fire died down and then dissipated into nothingness and sitting there was a phoenix.
 
Zephyra found her eyes wide with amazement. The phoenix that must be Pyzis flapped its lovely wings and landed gingerly on her wounded forearm. She winced because the cuts were deep and it still hurt no matter how gingerly her actions were. The phoenix placed its head against her arm and shed a tear and the cut rapidly healed itself until there was just a mess of blood on her arms. The pain was gone. The process was repeated on her other arm, and she was left amazed at Pyzis’ talent. The pain was completely gone. If the blood stains were not on her arm you would have never known she was hurt.
 
The phoenix took off and went back to the mud. The same show of fire was made as the phoenix grew and transformed back into the human woman that Zephyra had been accompanying this whole time. She noticed her brush ashes from her clothes. “Yeah they feel… like nothing happened to them. Thanks that was, uh, pretty amazing. So you’re a phoenix? Does it feel weird to be a human?” Then she blushed a moment. “Sorry, not trying to be rude I am just very curious about the different things in this world.”
 
She motioned for her to come along and began walking deeper into the forest where there was likely more banshees and more of the items this woman needed or wanted.