Rolled 1, 12, 17, 5 = 35 (4d20)
>>5833921“Izzy, even if you can transport yourself to another plane, you won’t survive it,” you pointed out. “You’ll still be in your body.”
Izzy’s hope dimmed slightly. Her frown had never truly lifted, but now it deepened.
“Isn’t that where the ‘birthday present’ is meant to come in?” she asked.
You shook your head sadly.
“I’ve discovered a way to… Become more like the True Fey. It’s more reliable than <Elemental Infusion>, more permanent—once I activate it, I can maintain it almost indefinitely and without conscious effort. But t’s something I can do because I’m FEY… My body, my spirit, they’re both fairy-touched. I’m a child of the Bonum Chaoticum.”
“…And I’m not,” Izirina inferred, sinking deeper into her fortress of fleece and feathers, and deeper into her malaise.
You nodded. Before she could grow too despondent, though, you rested a hand on hers, and squeezed it to bring her back to reality.
“This isn’t the end,” you told her. “The Archmage ahs chosen me for her apprentice—”
Izzy’s eyes widened, and she looked sharply at you.
“—and that means access to more of her secrets, more of her research… And I’ve already gotten some very useful information about… Well, you know… Why you are the way you are.”
Izzy listened with surprising patience and a carefully-neutral expression, as you shared what Theresa Henzler had shared with you: that Izirina had indeed been ‘born’ to human nobles, but that an agent of the mysterious reptilian race had modified her body and her soul in infancy, using demonic powers.
“That’s why your body is… Well, you know,” you explained awkwardly.
“And it’s why I can’t sue Life Magic,” Izirina whispered, staring at her hands with a mxi of awe and horror. “I’m… Demon-tainted.”
You nodded. That was your understanding of it: Izirina Henzler’s ‘meta-biology’, her genealogy of biology and spirit, conspired to inflict dysfunction, and served to limit her. In the same way your fairy ancestry rendered your body and soul uniquely suited to <free Movement>, Izzy’s disjointed and recombinant flesh and blood, spirit and mind, were the rot of her suffering and her inability to join you in a world beyond this one.
“But it’s temporary!” you assured her. “Now that I’m the ARCHMAGE’S APPRENTICe—maybe even Head Chimericist someday—I can’t fix it! Fix YOU!”
“…Fix me…”
You winced a little at your own phrasing but... Well, that WAS what she wanted, wasn’t it?
“We can explore the planes together,” you promised her. “You don’t need to suffer anymore! I just… Need a little more time, to study what makes you… YOU. To find a solution that works for you as you are.”
Izirina was quiet—too quiet.
“Can you do that for me?” you asked her gently. “Please?”
Rolling Sociability; also, you gained Courage for daring to confront the Archmage directly