Place Parted

[Nyssis]

Transcribed 'Dance of the Black Queen' event chain, Part III
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."

[Nyssis]

It was no surprise that Daniels looked beside herself with worry as she asked, "Are we going to be taking a trip?" at that announcement. The two initiates who were already rehashing the arcane circle for Aeron's personal use seemed to be trembling, even with distance obscuring their more subtle gestures and emotions.

Their master didn't even try responding to the brunette's question. "Force," he reiterated, some insane idea bubbling out into practice as he explained his thought process to the air around him. "We shall grant it considerable force in apprentice Bresk's suggested formation. I will open a portal to the plane of shadow and direct the full brunt of the other side's displeasure toward it."

At that moment, he turned his words more directly towards the group and commanded, "The rest of you shall do the same with every spell capable of generating physical force." Loyal to a fault, Aldym only nodded seriously at this order and started perusing his own arcanabula for proper spells of that description.

Daniels, however, had to give it some more rudimentary contemplation and that instantly made Lasvi aware of the fact that she had no spellbook on her person. Her eyes tilted upwards as she mulled to herself, "I've got a few that I know are capable of force," and it confirmed that the human woman was a naturalist. Not only a naturalist, but an apprentice Hand as well.

There was a naturalist Hand of Mundus that she met only once prior: a man with long black hair who attended the Castle Hellstrom tournament many, many years ago. The widower whose deceased wife's wedding ring Lasvi had dug up from the ruins of Arbiter's Stand after the war. Is this why Daniels was so familiar to her? No, she was fairly certain that the memory was linked to something else.

"Apprentice Bresk," Aeron called to his bodyguard, who had adopted a roost to one end of the tower's dais, and she respectfully turned towards the inflection. "Be on stand-by for anything that seeks to slip out of my considerable grasp. It will need pummeling." Her only response was a nod of confirmation before repositioning herself in equal distance from her master.

Snapped back to the present from her thoughts, Lasvi issued a regretful, "I'm unfortunately not proficient in the circles of magic you request," with a practiced and unabashed tone. Although she apologized preemptively, she did have a few appropriate scrolls on her person that could help in a pinch if they really needed it. Hopefully, they wouldn't.

"It's nothing to be ashamed of, Omh," the elderly man half-replied and half-patronized the elf twice his age. It might have gotten on anyone else's nerves, but the nostalgia of being talked down to by her wizard father bolstered her spirits instead. "You merely need stand in awe of our considerable prowess and shoot anything I hadn't intended to live."

She barely had the time to reach for her driftwood longbow before a lightning-fast, "You can come by Myr," echoed out from the Azuthian monk, eagerly calling the smaller woman to her side. Lasvi couldn't complain. Myr had a habit of keeping a watchful eye on her during combat, so it was a welcome distraction to stand closer to her.

Aeron shooed apprentice Daniels away from the circle when she was done messing with it, having assisted the two initiates with their work to speed the process considerably, and stood at its center. Everyone equal distance apart from the wizard, he set his staff upright on one end before subsequently channeling power into the crystal at its mouth.

The particulars of the ritual went over Lasvi's head, but she could understand the draconic intonations that were praising Shar and beseeching the Shadow Weave. Even without a single speck of arcane power to call her own, the she-elf recognized the inherent danger in Aeron's words. Apparently, he did too judging by the sweat coursing down the side of his face.

A waning Selūne directly overhead marked the passing to the 27th of Eleasis, 1384 Dale-Reckoning. "Incidentally," he remarked with his chest heaving from exhausting his own breath, "I may not be able to move at all during this. Try to ensure I don't die. This tower may disappear entirely if my will is broken."

One last push of power into the crystal wed his scattering of the spell components on the diagram underfoot, and miasma roiled inside until it snapped the gem in twain. Blackness oozed out from the cracks and engulfed the entire roof of the tower, but deep in the murky pit Lasvi could see the outline of the magic circle before it dimmed to nothing.

Some indescribable void ripped itself through the fabric of space, swallowing light and breath and revealing a monochromatic existence devoid of either on the other side. The components reacted instantly to the presence of the plane opposite the portal, flitting into the air in violent glossy bursts until it became a flame that resisted physical shape.

This was what he had been working towards the whole time. "Focus all your force on it, apprentices!" the wizard responsible snapped once his concentration shifted to maintaining the portal. Despite this and all of his considerable skill, it was unstable beyond belief. "Every spell, every ounce of your will! Demerits to anyone that holds back!"

The portal and the flame fluctuated violently as apprentice Daniels and Aldym leveled into it with an exhaustive amount of spells, though Aeron's hold kept it from collapsing. The sand, on the other hand, suffered the brunt of the force in varying degrees of potency. It condensed down bit by bit until it formed an awkward, indecisive sphere.

Another authoritative bark from the Elite-Magus made it apparent that whatever progress the duo had made wasn't enough, so Lasvi pitched in through the collection of scrolls on her person. The Azuthian monk too found the shape easier to make contact with than a fire, and likewise pummeled the object until it attained a perfect and pure orb likeness.

One final hit resounded for good measure, but apparently the crystal didn't appreciate it. A sudden and blinding darkness not dissimilar to the initial miasma reflexively filled the area, and Lasvi among others let out a surprised cry from the thickness of it. She coughed weakly as the smoke filled her lungs, trying to wave off the swirling mist but accomplishing nothing.

Her senses failed her. She couldn't see her own hands or legs, and wasn't completely sure what used to be up or down. For a few seconds, Lasvi didn't think anyone else was there with her and perhaps she'd been displaced with a spell, but a hum of familiar voices assured her otherwise. She couldn't understand them, but they were familiar.

Feeling around blindly in the dark resulted in the she-elf smacking into the barricade around the upper dais of the tower, though her wounded hands gratefully pulled her closer to the small security the stones offered. Although admittedly terrified and prepared for the worst, she tried to focus on the dialogue emerging from somewhere in the shadows.

A woman's voice bled into her ears first, beyond what blood was already pounding there. Was it Myr's? "What ... doing? Stop ... with marbles, you ... to be professional." Yeah, that was Myr's.

Then came a man's. "Excellent. We ... now begin the true ... this orb. All the components ... and dissenters ... silenced." That was Aeron's voice, right? It sounded like the ritual was a success or thereabouts.

But there was a struggle going on when the darkness permeated the area. Aeron couldn't keep his hands on the crystal he'd just crafted, despite closing the portal and devoting all of his strength to it. Perhaps he was simply exhausted and overworked from the endeavor, yet there was also the 'problem' with his acquisition of the components required.

The group had visited the abaddon near the southern roads and emerged unscathed. He found the shadow dust with minimal effort involved; the only reason they ventured so far into the dead magic zone was because a Moth Oira renegade led them there. Something was amiss.

[Nyssis]

Eventually, the miasma dispersed with a breeze and the full brunt of the conversation returned to the sun elf's ears. "I ... total confidence ... our success," Aeron spoke in an attempt to inspire the gathering, and Lasvi noticed beyond the last huff of shadow that he now had two crystals in his possession instead of one.

Thankful for the monk's keen perception and her bluntness, the elf's concerns were voiced before she even had the chance to speak. "Myr thinks we should wait," her namesake insisted, gradually becoming grumpy. "This not smell right."

"I agree with your apprentice," Lasvi added some leverage to the argument immediately afterwards. She knew that Aeron had a tendency to completely dismiss anything Myr offered on impulse, and sure enough her words silenced what refute he was about to give.

A barrage from the two women ferreted holes in his desire to forge the crystal, Myr first stating matter-of-factly, "We messing with things too quickly. Not even know what shadow orb capable of! We should at least research a little."

Lasvi chimed in a solemn, "I also find it suspicious that your scrying orb was fighting your own control," despite an encroaching thunderstorm getting tired of her voice. Its thunderous boom overhead distracted her momentarily, but she lowered her eyes in time to see the decisive nod bobbing Aeron's head.

He seemed to agree with their concerns. But with superb reflexes and concentration --- and without a warning to the people gathered around him --- Aeron incanted a potent light spell to oppose an incoming enemy spellcaster's veil of darkness from the opposite tower.

Lasvi barely managed to speak before reflexively raising her arm to protect her eyes from the brilliant flash of magical daylight, but the girlish yell of surprise that followed made it obvious that she was rendered disoriented as a result.

Everything was a strange, blinding and swirling blur. She had no depth perception or sense of space reminiscent of when her wings were severed, and it tore the balance out from under her. Her arm managed to protect her from too much damage, though, as she noticed a vague shape aiming a sword for her after it erupted out of the conjured shroud.

This blow wouldn't connect. Mindful of everything happening around them, Aeron's bodyguard bullrushed the shadar-kai from aside and sent him rolling impotently towards the stone underfoot. Something --- a scream or an order, maybe --- whistled into her ears and jerked her senses back to reality, even as she defensively put distance between herself and the attackers.

The elf drew back the kelp string of her bow to conjure an arrow at its riser and took aim, but her weakness for killing people made itself apparent quickly.

Her initial nocked volley caught one in the side of the neck and avoided her jugular, but Myr's subsequent barrage of hits skewered the poor woman's throat with the shaft of the arrow. She shot another in the same leg twice to slow his advance or stop him in his tracks, but a spell from Aldym singed him until he was indiscernible from his previous self.

Lasvi realized during the fire fight that all her attempts to spare their lives would be for naught, yet it didn't stop her from trying anyway. Towards the tail end of the melee, Myr shot a hyperimposed, "Maybe we should be going inside now," to her companions, and one of the shadar-kai screamed an order back at her face to combat it.

"And leave them to assault the tower?" Aeron responded in a flurry, immediately noticing a second wave of the assault manifesting in the middle of the group from the pit of magical darkness. His hands were already poised to fling another spell in their direction. "No, we hold here and kill every last bastard after my orb! Death to anyone that's not an apprentice!"

The prolonged fight for her life wracked Lasvi's body, but it didn't deaden her attentiveness. From the corner of her peripheral, she noticed a familiar elven shape dancing toe-to-toe with a few shadar-kai in melee range: the dusky-skinned Vanshera who barely survived arousing suspicion from the master dwarf Tyranus. The one that led them to a priest of Sha---

Wait, when did she get here? Did she come with the attack? Lasvi was a paranoid woman by nature, so how could she slip into combat without being noticed? Something wasn't right.

The sun elf aimed for the duo attacking Vanshera and caught one in the ribs with her volley, announcing that she was mindful of the other etriel's presence, before returning her attention to the group attempting to get to Aeron. Although the battle died down in rapid succession thanks to some assistance, Lasvi was in no way soothed by victory.

Aeron didn't notice Vanshera's presence until well after the fight was over and almost leveled a spell in her direction. Strange. Did anyone else see her in the middle of combat? "Savras' dilating pupil, girl," Lasvi heard him exclaim with surprise, "I nearly disintergrated you."

The brunette seemed impartial to the woman's appearance, but Lasvi assumed it was because they were unfamiliar with one-another. That apprentice wasn't at the abaddon where they first met Vanshera. "About that going back downstairs," Daniels somehow managed to say between desperate and terrified huffs of air, "let's do that!"

Her master wizard argued otherwise as the discussion hummed elsewhere. "No, they clearly fear my orb's completion. We should finish it now and prove them right."

"Are you alright?" Vanshera asked with a worried look giving her face some color, precariously wiping blood from the encounter off the flats of her weapon. Aldym responded in the affirmative after taking a headcount of everyone present, likewise undisturbed by her sudden and convenient appearance.

Of all the people present, only Myr had an incredulous look on her face that doubted their benefactor. It both confirmed in the same instant that Lasvi wasn't being paranoid for nothing, and that this ex-Moth Oira woman needed to be pried for information.

Lasvi's combative, "We might be better were you to explain your convenience in being here with them," cut through the density of the conversation straight to Vanshera, and the other elf visibly paused before giving her reply.

"I noticed them tracking you, so I followed," she said with what sounded like regret or excessive care. "I apologize I could not stop them from their attack." What an unconvincing excuse. If they were going to attack, why didn't she find the wizard of her own volition to warn about the impending danger?

She has proven to be a sufficient tracker in the past, herself. "You took from the abaddon some sort of reagent or ... component?" Vanshera continued. Great; now she was probing for details into the Hand's endeavor.

"I did," he confirmed easily and comfortably. There went Lasvi's hopes that he'd withhold this information from someone who never should have been involved in the first place. "Something your sibling-in-faith appears to desire for a similar purpose as my own."

"In-faith no longer," she corrected him. There was a particular nervous tick with the way the woman constantly shuffled her posture around, but it appeared to be an idiosyncracy. Maybe a snap reflex from having suffered an old injury? "He said he had a vision. That whatever construct or creation you intended to make ... would be of great harm to the Lady of Loss."

Hmm, the priest mentioned receiving a vision from Shar that set him at odds with Magus Ancrath. The memory drifted here and there in Lasvi's mind even as she listened to the woman continue. "If that is true, I would advise you speed its creation as much as you can. The abaddon has assembled more forces --- more of my former brethren --- to take back what you took."

Wait, what? She suddenly started rushing him after--- "That not reason to speed into things we don't know," Myr offered her misgivings with a shake of her head. Lasvi pinned her eyes on the monk to gauge her emotions, which proved Myr thought Vanshera's haste was as surprising as she had interpreted it. "Could be harm to many other things, too."

"How many years do you believe I have left, apprentice?" Aeron replied in exhasperation. "How skillful do you believe us to be, to withstand the ire of all the abaddon indefinitely? Better we create the orb now and utilize it against them."

"It's unfortunate, but I must disagree with your statement, Magus Ancrath," said Lasvi to deflect his impatience with a little bit of reason. "I do not trust the convenience with which you acquired your components, nor the convenience with which she's arrived to push you to hasten your endeavor."

Myr shared her sentiment in its entirety. Interestingly enough, the monk seemed to genuinely share a lot of Lasvi's perceptions. "She right. Fate have aligned a little too convenient for this. Devastating components? Falling into your lap?"

[Nyssis]

Vanshera looked woefully at Lasvi, which caused the latter elf to cringe and tighten her own muscles. "Cousin, please," came that woman's attempt to dismiss the unspoken accusations levied at her. "Why would I lie about this?" Why would she, indeed.

It took only a moment for her body to relax again. Knowing that the conversation had drifted towards her statement, Lasvi offered an effective, "Because traitorous deeds have a tendency to hide behind false sincerity, especially traitorous deeds likened to the Lady of Loss."

From her peripheral, she noticed Aeron retrieve the orb from its magic holster and inspect its worth. He seemed mindful of the concern circulating about Vanshera's appearance and commentary, if his attempt to obscure the crystal from her field of view was any indication.

Her attention remained on him even as the dusky other elf said, "I cannot prove my innocence, but the Moth Oira are ready to do battle." Very curious that she changed the topic so quickly. Vanshera had the alibi that impending doom was well on its way to them, so Lasvi dismissed it.

At that mention, however, Aeron grew impatient and was easily prodded towards making a snap decision. "I will create it," he declared with finality. "If the outcome is not a favorable one, I will pay the consequences with my entire being. Let whatever upset balance be settled with that."

"It's so resistant," Myr argued with him indignantly. "Aeron, this is not wise. You being forced to do something at knife point." Her words --- and Lasvi's, for that matter --- fell on deaf ears with the elderly wizard, though, and he was spurred towards methodically gathering up everything required for the ceremony despite them.

The shadar-kai attacked like clockwork as soon as he began imbuing the shadow stone with magic, and they attacked with much more fervor than previous attempts combined. Combat atop the tower was made significantly more difficult too because the group had to prevent Aeron from being disturbed.

One wrong move could've broken his concentration and potentially spelled disaster, but thankfully there never was a wrong move.

Aeron focused all of his power, will and knowledge into the components before him, protected throughout the entirety of the assault until the last Moth Oira Sharran fell dead or dying. They swirled upwards into the air while melding in an impressive display of the wizard's skill, but that was the last part of the ritual that the she-elf cared to watch.

Lasvi wandered a gyre around the entire dais, nervously invoking the names of the Seldarine for some guidance before the scene culminated. Corellon, Sehanine and Labelas were said without receiving a stroke of Their wisdom. Sashelas, Rillifane and Solonor were said without a moment of brilliance. Eilistraee, Hanali, Aerdrie and Erevan gave her none of Their wit.

But a thoughtful, "Fenmarel," reflected on her most beloved god, and it accompanied Lasvi's stare leveling on the other elf anew. In that very instant, the Felmaren saw the woman's intentions for betrayal as she always expected them. A wicked, terrible grin that was both malevolent and comfortable split her dusky face ear to ear.

Lasvi raised her bow and pulled back the string, invoking the god of vengeance, "Shevarash." But the three components united in the wizard's grasp, sending a wave of dark energy outwards from the epicenter, and she crumpled while her arrow veered off-target to the masonry underfoot. Almost everyone was blown completely over by the impact.

Even the air was knocked out of her lungs, and Lasvi could barely announce, "The woman is a traitor!" to warn the rest of her compatriots after recovering from the force. Unsurprisingly, this drew the incredulous or surprised glances of Aeron and his varied apprentices when they slowly stood back up.

"You did it," the supposed traitor remarked at the glory of the wizard's achievements. The now-combined orb was a hideous void not dissimilar to the portal he previously opened to compact the sand, and it radiated the same malevolence that momentarily played across Vanshera's face. "You actually did it."

"Quick, magister," she continued vehemently, completely ignoring all of Lasvi's pleas and accusations. "Join the two orbs. Remember the vision! Together, united, they will be stronger than ever! Only together will they have the power to stop the Lady of Loss!"

"Don't listen to her, Magus Ancrath," the she-elf insisted between grit teeth. Gods above, please give this man some sense with what he's considering. "She is trying to force your hand! I've seen her deceptive smile for what it truly is!"

He weighed the new orb in the flat of his palm and glanced sideways to the other, considering them. No, this is bad. Why isn't anyone else trying to stop him? "Power without purpose is nothing, Aeron," came his bodyguard's wise input. "To someone else's purpose? Worth even less to you."

"We've no time!" was argued otherwise from the traitor. "Do you wish to see the true spark of power or not?"

Vanshera's words stirred something in the elderly wizard, though what it was Lasvi couldn't be completely sure. He regarded his creations --- the two affiliate focus crystals that audibly hummed in their attempts to fly from his grasp --- before offering his thoughts on the matter. "A hundred years has taught me one thing," he spoke contemplatively to the assembly.

Lasvi looked to Myr for a moment to see the tall woman's concerned face, but then he finished his statement with a stony, "Never trust anyone older than yourself."

A mortified, "No!" barely rang forth from the woman before her voice was cut off by Aeron intoning a spell, and a ray of virulent green energy engulfed the entirety of her image. Armor, clothing, hair and flesh instantly disintegrated under the potent might of the wizard's magic. Once the bright light died down, only a smoking pile of ash remained where Vanshera once stood.

Even that didn't remain for very long, and as the Left Hand lowered his arm she was blown away by a late summer breeze sweeping across the top of the tower. In a panic, Lasvi looked to the apprentices gathered and counted their number to regain her bearings. Nothing else was amiss. Everyone was alive and relatively uninjured. The sun had begun encroaching over the horizon.

All was right with the world, but Aeron didn't look the least bit comforted by what had just transpired.

"Impetuous witch," Lasvi remarked in a fury to try and bolster the wizard's faith in his decision. There was no response, however, so the she-elf's anger died as soon as it began. Why was he so remorseful about killing the traitor? Did he actually want to go through with what she demanded of him? Perhaps he thought she could provide him with answers than no one else could, being a member of the Moth Oira.

An inhalation announced Lasvi's reclaimed composure, but she withheld the discouraged sigh that would've come afterwards and fell into a silent prayer instead. "It would seem we have reached our intended goal," she heard Aeron inflect. With her eyes closed and only his voice to concentrate on, the subtle notes of regret in his delivery were easy to pinpoint.

She prayed for the deceased shadar-kai and for Vanshera, but her mind wandered midway toward thoughts of her father. Myr asked a belated, "You alright?" and again there was no immediate reply from Aeron. Was this old man so desperate for the complete and utter success of his ritual that he wanted to listen to the traitor? That's madness.

A small and emotional, "Go to your gods in peace," finished her inflected prayer as she opened her eyes again, and they instinctively pinned themselves on the elder wizard's silhouette in silence. He hung on his words. Whatever he wanted to say couldn't come out. Myr had go so far as to answer her own question after a heavy minute of waiting on his reply resulted in nothing.

Daniels had grown paranoid due to the attack, so she preoccupied herself with investigating all of the bloody and spell-seared carnage atop the tower while Aldym stared impassively at his master. Lasvi too wanted to search for traces of the components used during the ritual, but she was admittedly worried by this new development.

Her contact was acting strange. He uttered a weak, "Well done, apprentices," finally after mulling over his words for several minutes. Or perhaps it literally took him this long to speak them. Could a man be made so exhausted as he looked in that instant?

"What do you plan on doing with them?" the brunette called out now that Aeron seemed to catch his bearings. She motioned to the two orbs in his possession --- one belted to his hip and the other filling a seal pouch --- which he had stored at some point when Lasvi wasn't looking. The she-elf returned her driftwood longbow to the shamshackle leather holster draped across her back while considering this.

"For now, I will study them," the old wizard responded precariously. He sounded confused about the very thing he was saying. "It may be that in its creation, the prophecy the orbs spoke of has been completed or averted. That I ... cannot recollect the words now belies the potency of what must have been told."

Myr glanced over her shoulder, judging by the small motion Lasvi saw in her peripheral vision, and posed a questionable, "What was told, exactly?" in her master's direction.

[Nyssis]

"I don't know," he confessed in return. "I remember it was grave, utterly mysterious and enthralling. But the words are gone." Ah, so he was worried about this. It was understandable, considering the man based his entire endeavor off of a couple visions he experienced. Without that guidance, Aeron probably felt lost and wasn't sure where to channel his efforts.

He probably didn't even know what to do with his creations now. His bodyguard tried to reassure him with a simple, "Maybe they better off gone for now," before helping him downstairs.

As the group funneled back through the postern and down the height of the tower, Lasvi instead wandered around the dais searching for any trace of the shadow dust Aeron used in his ritual. She located a pinch or two, more than enough to entertain her aleiryid with an evening of study, but she wasn't the least bit elated about the discovery. How could she be?

The return journey cutting through the western woods was largely uneventful, even with so many colorful personalities offering their hums and quizzical words about what had transpired. It seemed from afar that despite his success and despite his usual expressive self, Aeron was unnerved or afraid. Even when he tried to speak, he struggled with internalizing his feelings.

"You all did ... very well," came his awkward attempt to praise the gathering. "A very impressive display of magic, and of reason." Lasvi watched him in silence, fazed by the compliment but unwilling to bring it to their attention. After a heavy moment, a mumbled repetition of, "Well done," was the only thing that announced his slow and laborous departure.

He looked so frail; a step beyond frail, even.

Seeing him clutch his staff white-knuckled to so much as barely walk reminded her of her father's silhouette, after her mother --- and his aleiryid of several hundred years --- died. He physically survived his grief but emotionally he was a mess greater than he projected, and Aeron too was a mess. Lasvi half-expected the human to draw his last breath long before he disappeared out of her field of view.

"He gonna need some time," the woman close to her said with what sounded like believable nonchalance. This had become a typical thing for the mage, perhaps: exhausting himself with his studies and pursuits until he could hardly move? Killing himself over his zeal for his craft? Besides generic fatalism, only the threat of an oncoming, known death could push an old wizard to the desperation he showed hours ago.

Aldym replied with a composed, "Time and distance," in agreement, and the knowing nod that accompanied it further cemented Lasvi's suspicions as probable truth. Maybe she shouldn't have told him ab--- No, it's better to dispel thoughts like that.

"You've my thanks for your assistance," Lasvi regarded the apprentices with as much neutrality as she could feasibly manage. The sight of Aeron in such a state had burned a hole straight through her heart, but thankfully the thick canvas of her mask did its job in muting and concealing her fluctuating emotions.

"Myr would not have suspected woman," the monk quipped down at Lasvi rather than to her, either avoiding eye contact out of habit or out of respect. Considering the very brusque nature of her compliment, it could've had generous notes of both. "You were very good at disrobing her lies, so Myr could punch her lying jaw."

"Perhaps," the she-elf tried to agree, "but I chide myself for not seeing through her ruse sooner. We could have avoided the confrontation entirely." The group offered their thoughts on the matter before apprentice Daniels abruptly left the conversation, and Lasvi figured that it would be preferrable for she too to take her leave.

Aldym had busied himself with stuffing a pipe at some point during this conversation, curiously intoning so quietly that the blowing wind made him appear silent. Focused on a conjured flame that fought his attempts to hide, he offered a courteous and attentive, "Fair winds, madam," when she said her farewells.

"Yes," she replied with finality. Aldym had already started walking towards the northwestern road to leave, and that prompted Lasvi to favor the dirt path east to avoid accompanying him. Her gait was slower than usual, however, because she knew Aeron's other apprentice was going to hound her. Just like last time.

Sure enough, it was ten or eleven steps into her departure when she heard Myr's feet trailing behind. Lasvi entertained her to keep the monk's curiosity sated, unwilling to risk letting the larger and faster woman follow her to the ends of Toril for answers to her questions, but their conversation took a strange and unexpected turn.

Myr asked a simple, "You care about the old man?" towards the tail end of it. The image of Aeron departing from the group returned to the forefront of her mind, and for all her attempts to keep her emotions under wraps they came bleeding out again. A sting of grief --- both for the wizard and for her father --- made her eyes water beneath her hood.

He really was dying. He---

"I care for his life, yes," the small elf spoke honestly to her companion, betraying vulnerability. "I care for all life, no matter whose, and I would prefer to see the arcanist succeed in all his endeavors before he goes to his gods." It hurt her to admit it. It made her seem weak. Even long after their conversation ended and they parted ways, those words rang through her head.

She suffered in the past for saying things like that. People took advantage of her kindness and turned it on her like a sword, leveling her between choosing what was the right thing to do and what was the proper thing to do by society's standards. What she saw as being 'right' wasn't what everyone else saw.

A Zhent would live a life of oppressing others and die a painful death because of it, and people would rejoice gaily in the streets at a tyrant's demise. But she'd mourn their passing, she'd give them a grave, and people would hate her for it. Why? How come? To what end? These were questions that she asked many, many times, and she never got a reply that made sense.

Eventually, she stopped asking other people altogether. She stopped asking herself when she made it back to Port Avanthyr.