Transcribed 'Dance of the Black Queen' event chain, Part III
Lasvi's Perspective
Music: S.F.A. - "Rapal"
Lasvi's Perspective
Music: S.F.A. - "Rapal"
It was late evening on the 26th day of Eleasis, 1384 Dale-Reckoning.
Only a few days after receiving Aeron's letter, Lasvi joined his various apprentices at a site near a tributary of the Elthazar River. She'd passed it a few times before --- a duo of towers that probably once housed recuperating Legion defenses when they battled the Mossclaw alliance --- but she thought it was abandoned after the military bunker in the northern wood got run down.
However, one of the dilapidated towers had been repurposed into a conclave for renegade Left Hands of Mundus, and a few were busying themselves inside. Even as Aeron tapped the foot of his staff to hurry everyone inside, she took her time. Being around a gathering always unnerved her. "We'll make use of these facilities," he insisted after bolting the doors shut. "Familiarize yourselves with it."
Aeron had three apprentices accompanying him this time: the tall sacred fist that served as the wizard's bodyguard, Myr; the dark-skinned foreigner with a penchant for adventure, Aldym; and a woman with brown hair that she recognized but didn't know. Her traits weren't exactly memorable, but she was certain that they'd met before.
"Yeah, no problem," the semi-stranger commented wryly towards her presumed master. Her tone had a measure of disrespect or carelessness, and she wandered around the cloistered ground floor with little to no interest in her environs. Lasvi could've sworn she saw the resident mages there stare derisively at the brunette because of it.
In fact, those resident mages stared at everyone like unwelcome guests. Their reaction made the air tense, so Lasvi lifted the bottom hem of her linen dress and cleaned mud off her boots to show respect. It must have worked because no one was looking at her anymore by the time she was finished, and she could follow the group with her nerves assuaged.
The apprentices took their quiet ganders of the interior, but the brunette didn't seem impressed. If anything, she was a little scatterbrained. "So, uh, what's the plan?" she asked to break --- or 'interrupt,' which is a more appropriate word --- the silence.
The master wizard looked at the other mages present, some managing tomes and some jotting down calculations on a chalkboard, and huffed a disparaged sigh. Myr tried asking him a question, but he abruptly turned toward the stairwell leading up the tower's interior and issued a simple, "To see if anyone useful is present," without acknowledging her.
This was typical behavior for them by now.
A frown on the monk's face burned a hole in Aeron's back as he climbed the stairs, but she shadowed him without giving it a moment of consideration. She was quite loyal despite the way he treated her. Aldym followed afterwards, a little absorbed in eyeballing the various bookshelves, and then the other woman grumbled some misgivings under her breath before lagging behind.
Lasvi merely glanced upwards toward the ascending train of people and watched them move for the time being. She heard the brunette humming a familiar Sundarian folk song, if her ears weren't playing tricks on her, and listened thoughtfully to the echo. When it became apparent that they were going straight to the top of the tower, she curiously followed suit.
A trap door was barely propped open for her arrival. The tailwind of a stout, "Apprentices," rang out from the small opening before she climbed the last couple of steps, and the she-elf caught the full brunt of his statement when she swung the postern open. "Hold a moment."
Lasvi noticed a duo of hedge mages scribing a diagram on the floor of the tower's peak, and mindfully closed the door behind her as silently as she could manage to not overpower the commands. "We'll be altering your circle," insisted Aeron with confidence that wasn't at all imparted in his initiates.
The skinnier of the two stammered as his concentration was broken, and he nearly snapped his chalk in half when he looked up at Aeron's towering elevation. He stared almost doe-eyed at the old man before sending a referral glance to his compatriot at the opposite end of the circle, who responded with a chiding look.
"Now, then, apprentices," the old human directed towards his companions instead. "We have a considerable volume of shadow sand taken from the same plane. The vision hinted only at an hourglass to form it. What make you all of this?"
Almost like clockwork, his bodyguard spoke up first. Her eagerness pined for his approval or his recognition. "Myr believes it mean a circle, with focal point of north to south," the large woman suggested. "Tighten matter and form in the center, but Myr admits she just angry at sand for still being in her boot. May just wish to squish it."
She got whatever it was she wanted because Aeron responded to her first, as well, and the monk beamed. "An interesting notion, apprentice Bresk," he said. "And what medium would you utilize to shape the sand into a coherent form?" The air hung heavily on his words as the rest of the group turned their collective attention to Myr, hoping for a solution.
Unfortunately, a blunt, "Her fists," resounded in reply and her helpful context ended just as soon as it began. Practically every person on the roof shook their head in abashed unison. Lasvi noticed a pleased smile on her face, and Myr turned her attention to the stone barricade fencing off the top of the tower now that she was satisfied.
The familiar brunette woman tried her luck afterwards. "Would adding a bit of water to the sand to make it more pliable ruin it?" came her precarious query, her hands wringing the girth of her staff in anticipation. This question gave Aeron visible pause and the wizard curled a finger through knots in his scraggly beard.
"Shadow clay would be an interesting subject in itself to pursue, apprentice Daniels," he offered in return, "but as you fear I imagine it would ruin our samples." Her surname was Daniels, or perhaps it was a title? The name didn't draw any suppressed memory to the forefront of Lasvi's mind like she was hoping, yet there was still something painfully familiar about her.
Maybe it was her face: she'd seen it before at some point in the distant past. This wasn't the proper time to dwell on something like that, however, and there was more pressing business at hand. Lasvi spoke aloud to herself and recollected what little information she already knew about Aeron's one vision.
"An hourglass drains from one side to the other," she said. There was a hum of conversation around her that she tried not to focus on, so whatever was said went in one ear and right out the other. "You mentioned that this substance may have spawned naturally in the abaddon over time." An hourglass? The Lifegiver was commonly represented through one, but this was a human's vision.
Not only that, it was a Sharran vision masquerading as one from Savras. What could the Dark Goddess possibly want him to--- It hit her in that moment and she mumbled, "Perhaps two halves of an hourglass might allude to the substance's native plane and this one," further suggesting the need for portal magic.
"Omh," Aeron suddenly invoked her disguise's name. Oh, no. He was listening to her the entire time? "You surprise me. Your suggestion is a worthy one, but what we lack is force. Force brought the sand together into a cohesive unit."
"Well, she did offer her fists," Daniels called out while gesturing absentmindedly towards Myr, who had sufficiently distanced herself from the conversation at some point during it. Lasvi withheld a sigh of relief now that attention had been drawn off her. "I bet that could make some force."
The monk in turn waved off the words, probably realizing in retrospect that it wasn't the best suggestion she'd ever made. "Myr believing the sand is oxymoron," she said impartially. "Shadow despises such firm form. Perhaps with force applied to north and gate to 'home' upon the south. Applying pressure east and west to focal po---"
Cutting her off, Aeron informed the gathering with a cheerful, "I have a truly brilliant idea," and everyone likely felt their hearts sink deeper in their chests with equal amounts of dread. "Apprentices," he continued, pointing his inflection towards the two initiates who had been fumbling with their chalk ever since he wrested control of the tower peak.
One of them jumped so high that he nearly lost the thing when his master wizard barked, "Draw up an extraplanar portal."
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