The rest of the day she was locked in her room. Occasionally her maid would knock on the door asking to come in or if anything was wrong, but Ember turned her away each time. Nobody could see what she was doing.
She was practicing magic. She felt the flames heating her skin as she used more and more fire. Every spell she casted, she felt more alive.
Then she stopped with a sudden realization. "I need to get out of here."
She packed her belongings that would be useful in her bag of holding and changed into her training clothes. She brought all her gold, as well as her family ring and dress and put them in her bag of holding as well. She opened the door that lead to the balcony and walked out. It was a 10 foot drop. Without hesitation, Ember leapt off and used a move she had been taught by her brother, rolling as soon as she hit the ground. She checked to make sure nobody followed, and then left.
After about an hour of walking, she realized she had no clue which direction she was going, or where the nearest town was. She had forgotten to pay attention to where she had gone. She knew what the continent's layout was, but that was of no help if she didn't know where she was.
Ember wandered through the wilderness for the rest of the day. She didn't stop to rest even after the sun had set. She was determined to find the edge of the forest before she rested.
Ember felt something following her. She looked around with her darkvision and saw a figure that looked as if it was made of pure darkness. It was as if there was just a creature made of void. And she sensed that it had immense power.
Then she couldn't remember anything about it. She knew the shadow being existed, but forgot that it was powerful.
As the sun was starting to rise, she reached the edge of the forest. As she emerged, she saw a small village that she recognized from tagging along with her mother on trips. For whatever reason, she couldn't remember the name of it. It felt like something was stopping her from remembering. But that didn't matter. She knew where she was now, and where to go from there. Tired from the sleepless night, she went to the inn. When she tried to look at the name of it, the letters started to jumble and glitch.
When she walked in, there was nobody there except the barmaid, whose face was glitching in and out of reality. Ember wanted to turn back. Everything in her was screaming at her to run. But she felt her body move on its own. Shewatched herself walk up to the barmaid and and get a room to stay in. The faceless barmaid handed her a key and pointed to the stairs ominously.
On her way up, she saw a man, whose face also wouldn't register.
"Ember of the noble family. You shouldn't be here," the man said with a low frequency voice that seemed to surround her.
Every fiber of her being was trying to pull her out of the inn, but her body moved on its own again, pushing past the man to a door. When she opened the door, she saw the Abyss. When she stared into it, it seemed to stare right back.
Suddenly, it felt as if her mind had shattered as memories came flooding back to her. The old Ember had flickered out long ago. She smiled wildly as she launched herself into the Abyss. Her old body crumbled away as she soared through the air, turning her from a 6'7 giant of a dragonborn with slightly messy hair, donning basic training clothes, to a short, 4 foot tall dragonborn with fluffy, extremely messy hair. She wore a cross between a fighter's outfit and a sorcerer's robe.
She was Ember, the Harbinger of Flame. She had made herself equivalent to a goddess over the past several centuries. And recently she started hunting a false hydra. She had ventured through the realms until she arrived at the abyss, where the false hydra had used her memories of when she had just escaped her parents. Of course the memories had some missing pieces. The name of the town, the name of the inn, the people of the town. The names of her mother, father, and maid. That's why it had been so odd. Because it was all the doing of the false hydra. The town hadn't existed since almost 2,000 years ago when she had burned it down. The fire had called her, and she had answered. She just couldn't help it. The fire was just so mesmerizing. So addicting.
She shot a delayed blast fireball at the false hydra and immediately followed with a normal fireball, along with an altered prismatic ray, which was composed completely of fire. The false hydra disappeared in the flames and the abyss was brightened. Once the flames dissipated, she saw that her opponent wasn't dead quite yet. She snapped her fingers and the delayed blast fireball erupted into a massive cloud of fire.
The charred corpse sat there, burning. Ember checked the corpse to see if there was any loot, but anything it might have had was disintegrated in the process. She was slightly disappointed by this unfortunate event. She would've liked to get her hands on some rare materials. Perhaps it would've helped her become even more powerful than she already was.
She set off through the abyss in search of the exit. She could feel her mind corrupting even further. If she didn't find a way out soon, she would lose herself completely. Should she gamble her life and see if the abyssal corruption made her more powerful? No. She had already risked her life enough. It wasn't worth it just for the chance of a tiny bit more power. She was already more powerful than anyone she had ever met.
Then the abyss started swirling around Ember, followed by her blacking out.