Nymphlopedia
Entry 93: Hot-Cold Nymphs
Beginning AN:
FUCK I forgot to mention that yesterday was the tenth anniversary of The Binding of Isaac!
Sonata had that same instinct she always did whenever she saw freezing ice and burning lava together. Yeah, there were sandy and 'mildly cool' borders, but really, for the most part it was ice and lava way too close to one-another for her brain to just accept right off the bat. Especially with the outright lava lakes surrounded by snow, or the freezing icy waters with cracked and glowing obsidian spires from them.
"Sonata..." Said Vince. "We're here on business matters, so..."
"This place looked like somewhere Sawflame would want to hang out." Sonata bluntly said. She flinched a little noticing Tania. "Oh- was that still too soon?"
"It was, and this was the exact Collision he used to frequent."
Sonata "I'm sorry. I really am. That one overstepped a line and I was inconsiderate."
"...It's fine. Just try not to bring him up when talking to the Hot-Cold Nymphs."
"Bring who up?"
Oh dammit.
Tania turned around and was faced with a sky blue Nymph decorated in sand and snow.
"Di-" Tania stammered. "Did anybody see where she- did anyone..."
Vince, who had been poking around at a cluster of lava that was frozen in a spike of ice... yet still looked like liquid lava, turned around in confusion. "Wait, huh?"
Tania figured she could just try the thing on her own. "We are... um... here to..."
"You're the Naked Empire and you're reaching out, I got that email."
"You did?" Sonata asked her. "You just got a weird message telling us to meet you. I swore up and down that your account got hacked by a spammer."
"No, I just word my messages poorly. Right, I'm a warrior for hire."
"You worded that poorly." Said Vince, finally bringing his full attention to her. "I thought you sold us warriors or something."
"No that's slavery! Do I look like Lindsey to you? Anyway, who were you talking about earlier?"
"Oh, Sawflame?" Vince asked. "I thought I heard Tania and Sonata talking about him."
"Uh- Vince!" Sonata said. "Shush! That's a little personal-"
"Oh no you don't need to keep talking if it's personal." Said the Hot-Cold Nymph. "I know who Sawflame is. We fought."
Sonata sighed in relief. "Oh good."
"We fought a lot and he would try to turn the entire cold side of my home Collision in to a hot side. He kept using the word 'side' to talk about the entire thing after his transformation."
Sonata groaned. "I fucking hate it when people do that! I can't even imagine how much you get people misusing that since you live here!"
"Yes."
Tania sighed. "Sawflame is a... touchy subject for me, can we not talk about it?"
The Hot-Cold Nymph nodded.
And following that, all four people heard and felt a rumble. The ground shook once.
"Do you have obsidian skin?" Asked that Nymph of dual temperatures.
They all nodded, with Tania adding a "Yes."
Once the Trio looked up, they saw a ball of spiked ice hurtling towards them... apparently fired out of a mountain in the distance? Barely even blinking, the Hot-Cold Nymph raised a hand up, both her eyes and the snow and sand on her wrists glowed, and with a flash the ice turned in to a ball of lava. Which... 'harmlessly' crashed on the gang.
"Good." She said. "If you didn't, I would not have known what I could have done to save your lives from that."
Hot-Cold Nymphs.
Snowy fields and dry sand seas seem like two locations that would never meet together. Alas, they do,
Preferred Environment: Hot-Cold Collisions.
Environment Threat Level: Severe.
Environment Stats: Average wetness (it averages out). Average temperature (again, it all averages out). Fantastic. Very rare. Locations that are both high in snow and sand, with dry, cold, wet, and hot patches around. Also prone to having giant ice spikes and lava lakes.
Other Names: Freezeflame Nymphs, Collision Nymphs.
Affinity: Fire.
Color: Dull Sky Blue.
Traditional Costume Weapon: A ring of sand around one wrist and a ring of snow around the other. Typically helps them with maintaining temperature and moistness of the environment, and they can control these things at will, increasing or decreasing atmosphere, heating up objects to melting point, or freezing them. Related is a sub skillset that can change objects to either lava or a "superfreezing" material that is not quite ice.
Vince's Comment: ...Okay these are like several Nymph Variants just kind of blended together. I swear, Gaia or Pan or whoever was high when they were made... their weird ones, and that's saying a bit. Um, stay away from the lava, it's way worse than the freezing cold waters. At least I think? I don't know, freezing water usually doesn't glow like that...
Sonata's Comment: Befriend one and you pretty much never have to worry about any cover dilemas in bed. And no, I've said this before and I'll say it again, covers do not violate Rule #1.
Tania's Comment: Hot-Cold Nymphs.
Nymphae Mediocris.
These Nymphs represent the harmony between extremes, environments of warm and cold coming together alike with no fuss. It's a beautiful unity, one overlooked by the dangers associated with them, if rightfully so. Hot-Cold Nymphs are born with an instinctive ability to find not a "middle ground," but coexistence, between the forces of nature. These are only the first of a number of "hybrid" Nymphs and regions, but it is sadly the only one that will be documented in this First Edition (unless you count Dual Nymphs). Various energy fields and the combining magics of hot and cold regions are what allows the lava to be in close proximity to ice in the first place. Enough of these sort of combinations - it also works well with fire surrounded by freezing waters - and it makes the sort of ambient energy that these Nymphs draw from.
Closing AN:
I couldn't think of too much for the story, so this mostly just turned in to more foreshadowing... actually, of probably this 'worksafe' Zenith Nymph story I had in mind. I think I discussed it before.
I considered moving this to be one of the greens but... I kinda ran out of time for that, and this day already hit.