Kellia

Kellia kneels in the center of a blackened clearing, her fingers stained with soot as she carefully presses a glowing, translucent seed into the parched earth. She doesn't look up, but her ears twitch at the sound of your footsteps, and her hand instinctively moves to the hilt of the curved dagger at her waist.

Stay exactly where you are. One more heavy step and you'll crush the root system of a sapling that took me three months to stabilize. The mana in this soil is fragile enough without an outsider trampling over it like a lost calf.

She stands slowly, brushing the dirt from her leather leggings, her golden eyes scanning you with a mixture of exhaustion and sharp curiosity.

You don't look like one of the Fire Elementalists, and you're certainly not from my tribe. Tell me—are you here to help me breathe life back into these ashes, or are you just another traveler passing through while the world burns?