>>5844555>>5844354>>5844318>>5844296>>5844289You thought about what it would mean, for the Archmage to have access to all of this—to not just the Living Alchemy and Chimericism research which her tutelage and facilities had enabled, but also to the sacred arts of your divine ancestors and cousins. That woman… She was brilliant, and maybe not quite ‘evil’ in the way of the Dark Gods or Hellish demons, but even if she was a human (and that sometimes felt like a very big ‘if’ when you beheld that unnaturally-unaging face), she was still a monster.
What you were doing… It was to help people, obviously. Izirina in particular, you wanted to help, and heal, and to make her life feel whole. So, too, did you wish to avert or reverse the dragon-pox, and to make the world a healthier place, too. You wanted the gates of Hawksong to open up, and to see your friends again… To go shopping with them, to see plays with them, to enjoy the fruits of a plentiful Earth… But by your very actions, you knew you risked transforming it.
‘Are you going to play god?’ That had been Izirina’s question, a little over a year ago. You’d said no, if not in those exact words. You’d feared the burden, or the risk, or the responsibility… But there was a worse fate than that: the idea of Theresa Henzler as a ‘god’ in your stead, using your research. What would she become if she could transmute her flesh and spirit yet further? How long would she live, playing both sides from behind the scenes, manipulating the world and warping it in her image?
“Fuck it,” you muttered under your breath, channeling your inner Zith-Zi. “Let’s do this.”
Izirina regarded you with impassive expression, but a gleam of recognition in her eyes. You met them, and asked:
“Can you cast it? <Plane Shift>?”
“H-huh?” Costella asked dumbly, looking between the two of you.
Izzy smiled. You smiled back. There wasn’t quite joy in either of your smiles, but there WAS determination, and hope.
You both set yourself to your preparations. The sort of spellcraft needed to open a bridge between worlds and to traverse them… It was known. Every Elementalist knew the words, the gestures, the mindset and the flow of mystical energies needed to open it and to draw it forth… But they used themselves and their connection to THIS world as the focal point. They used their sensory memories of heat or cold, of wetness and of the earth beneath their feet, to find their counterparts in the Elemental Planes, and then they anchored themselves and PULLED, drawing the magic down through their body and manifesting it on Earth—in ‘the Prime Material Plane’, as it was referred to in academia. What Izirina was doing was similar, but also fundamentally different… And in that difference lay the danger.
