AbyssalRoadTrip
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Abyssal Road Trip - 195 - Destination unknown
🕑 Added 2022-05-12 20:13:42 +0000 UTCAmdirlain’s PoV – Limbo – Monastery of Will’s Hand
With the marks handed out, the guest examiners filed from the training hall, leaving the class to clean up the ritual circle. When the door clicked shut only Lezekus exhaled sharply—nearly an unseemly cheer among the Githzerai—the girls all having worked on their composure over the years.
“Know I thought we would not pass,” Nomein stated, and Gemiya glanced towards her before returning to cleaning up. The crinkling around the corners of her mouth and eyes showed the excessive laughter that she was restraining. “Are you going to be alright with tomorrow’s exams, Amdirlain?”
“I’m likely doomed, but I’ll give it my best shot,” replied Amdirlain.
“Know you must pass,” insisted Zenya. “You don’t want to be transferred to another dormitory, do you?”
Amdirlain kept a straight face, and her tiny nod received a smile from Zenya. “Know that I can only do my best, Zenya.”
“Know you should look to structure all your responses in such a fashion for the Masters’ questions,” chided Zenya. “Know that after five years together, you’re not allowed to flunk.”
“How was I to know they were going to make the last exam a verbal one, and be half the grade?”
“Know I believe they are trying to make you sweat,” Lezekus declared, her eyes crinkling with amusement.
“Could it be they are trying to make you sweat, Lezekus?” asked Gemiya. “Know you’ve developed quite the fondness for ignoring formalities.”
Lezekus spread her hands and started on her own cleaning, those that had been delaying joined in. The chalk they’d used for the ritual circles was stubbornly persistent on the stonework.
“Know I believe the Anarch is maintaining the chalk in place,” grumbled Gemiya.
“Will Livia be here again for this rematch?” asked Zenya, over the top of muttered agreement from the others. “Know I hope she brings Sarah again; I like the sharpness of her wit.”
Her phrasing, implying Sarah was the younger of them, almost set Amdirlain laughing, but she kept a straight face.
“Know she intends to arrive when they’re setting up the stadium,” responded Amdirlain and gave a quick eyebrow twitch that had Lezekus snorting.
“Do you think you’ll be able to keep your cool tomorrow?” asked Lezekus.
“I live in hope,” retorted Amdirlain, and when Lezekus broke down giggling, the others just shook their heads.
* * *
That evening, deep within meditative cycling, Amdirlain floated with memories teasing at the edge of her mind, whispered words that faded if she focused her attention on them. Years of practice kept her drifting in a zen no mind state, and she waited to see if another memory would rise high enough to learn more.
The flames of the pyre waxed and waned until the power overran the pool within her, and accumulated in her flesh. With her flesh glowing a brilliant gold, she released the Ki into the Mantle with her flesh feeling like it might catch fire. In the sparking power, her awareness and memory found each other, and flared into life.
* * *
The forge sat centred atop a kilometre-wide platform orbiting a white star they’d brought to life amid the matter and energy that still streamed upwards from the rift. The star’s proximity burned with enough power that it should have incinerated the platform and those atop it as flares threatened to arc down onto the stone.
A Dragon, her scales gleaming a molten silver in colour she resonated with adamantine’s vibrant song, yawned in a display of teeth that each stood taller than Orhêthurin. Her Song pulsed with sparks of inspiration provided by Bahamut’s form but was uniquely her own. Lounging on the plateau edge, her half-lidded gaze affected boredom, but the notes of curiosity were clear. With casual disinterest, she ignored the Primordial beings that floated in space nearby, each occupying an area greater than the plateau, but still shuffled sideways to get closer to Orhêthurin.
Bahamut’s gleaming wings stretched, giving the appearance he was drifting on the solar winds. Unlike the Dragon on the platform, there were no scales to be seen, rather he looked formed by someone having poured metal into a mould. An idealised Dragon of power and grace, a long-necked serpentine body with a tail that stretched further still and ended in a pointed spike. When his wings flexed again, one curled around momentarily, blocking the young Dragon from Tiamat’s glare.
Her solid black eyes, set in a griffon-featured bone-white face, turned towards him and grinding teeth emit a horrendously violent noise whose essence vibrates the platform. The Titan didn’t glance at Tiamat, but when he hunches into his work the vibrations cease, and her scaly tail lashes the air with a force that could obliterate mountains. Every motion of her body has the metal feathers ruffling with violence that should have put the noise of a volcanic eruption to shame, but the silence remains.
Though much of her father’s crafting required the precision and leverage the hammer provided, such isn’t the case at present. Still, his hammer isn’t far from his side, leant against the anvil while streams of energy swirl free from the rift and pour into his hands cupped above the forge. In his current form, each finger is longer than the young Dragon’s body, indeed the platform’s size is more to give him space to stand than for anything else.
Overflowing his fingers, energy pours into the forge while the flame within continues to change colour, shifting towards burning pure white of the Song of life and a universe pulsing within. The flames twist upwards past his hands, reaching towards a growing mass far above the plateau where a pillar of grey-white stone was the birthing of the Spire. Already around it, a corona of energy slipped across dimensions, attracting with it Elemental forces to seed the birth of the inner planes.
As Orhêthurin’s dance continues, the last Dragon pairs finished forming and she stopped at last. Unwinded, she bowed to Bahamut and Tiamat, respectively. When the shimmering around the bodies ceased, they both considered her sleeping creations. Bahamut, the gleaming coppers and Tiamat, the whites radiating a winter’s cold. At their nods of acceptance, the Titan acknowledges their gesture, and the pairs joined their kin, twisted out of sight into stasis until their worlds were ready.
“There is a spare adamantine template. I should remove it to keep the balance between us,” Tiamat declared.
“No, she’s my sister now,” Orhêthurin objected. Even though their forms towered above her, she didn’t hesitate to move between Tiamat and the Dragon who had ducked her head away from Tiamat’s focus.
“There is already no balance between us, but in your favour,” Bahamut stated. “Nuwa has shifted this reality’s foundations into a deeper plane. Do you not believe her hate and spite will always be an aid to you over my own interests?”
“I don’t care what she does playing in the Infernal mud,” hissed Tiamat, her huff a hurricane that swept out through the void but didn’t disturb the platform’s occupants.
Before she could continue the Titan’s rumble drowned out her words. “She swore kinship to my daughter. They have exchanged their Oaths; in this life and all others their Souls will call to each other. She is no longer Bahamut’s, rather, she is her own.”
“She is not Immortal, as the other lineage progenitors will be?”
Bahamut chuckled and allowed the motion to drive him further from the platform’s edge, but his words remained audible. “Could you not tell, cousin?”
“As the first Dragon I Sang into existence, I wanted to ensure my music didn’t overreach,” explained Orhêthurin. Though the sad look she gave the still nameless Dragon was a clear apology.
“Very well, but I insist upon the creation of more Dragons to set the balance between us eternally—Nuwa’s spite isn’t enough, constrained as she is,” Tiamat grumbled. Bahamut drifted further as Orhêthurin considered Tiamat’s demand, light reflected from his scales caused gemlike glints to appear across Tiamat’s hard gaze and inspiration struck.
At first tentative steps had her shifting balance to find the music’s flow, and then the light blended within her mind. The Song made from her voice and movement flowed outwards to call materials from the rift’s torrent, setting the foundations of her intent as they moved. Concealed within the backdrop of that surging power, and its ever-shifting Song some energising flecks never made it to the platform. Instead, they were drawn away across newly blooming planes, deep into the depths. Caught up in the inspiration she didn’t notice the theft and never faltered in the Song. Hours after it began, the energised gemstones had multiplied and merged into Dragon forms along the platform’s edge. Diamonds, Amethysts, and Emeralds were among the first, but soon there were more, and variations atop.
“There is more of these than my own,” complained Tiamat.
“You wished for balance keepers; shouldn’t they outnumber both our groups combined?” laughed Bahamut. Unbothered by their numbers, he looked over them, admiring their forms’ majestic beauty. The desire for such magnificence stirred through him and touched the minds of the Draconic progenitors despite their stasis.
* * *
Holding herself open to allow her memories to flow, the summoning came with neither warning nor prompt, its force simply set her amid a tunnel between planes. The rainbow wall tried to rush past but pulled from the memory’s embrace she lashed out. Fighting tooth and nail against the draw, feeling the burning hate within the call.
Ki strikes, spells, and sheer bloody-minded Willpower dug jagged gouges into the conduit’s wall; though her efforts didn’t breach the barrier, raw energy joined her passage between planes. The energy of the conduit’s tunnel glimmered with the raw Mana as the passage forced her True Form forth and tore clothes apart. Before she reached the end, she pulled her bracelet from Inventory and the shadow vines formed Elven clothing about her larger shape.
The first glimpse of her arrival point was a mirrored cylinder reflecting her image from all sides, its expanse enough to allow her wings to stretch at full extension. Engraved on the stone floor was a sun disk she recognised as Apollo’s symbol, but with tiny runes embedded within every line. The inner edges of the radiant sun’s boundary appeared more to be the jagged teeth of a consuming maw than the starting point of light heading outwards.
Blood and vomit were a bitter odour staining the cool air and almost masked the cold stone beneath their stench. Unseen, retching noises and cries of pain came from multiple sources, racing heartbeats shuddering within Mortal flesh made it clear the price summoning her unwillingly had exacted.
Reaching out with Telepathy, despite the noises, she felt no minds; instead, a tidal bore of pressure pushed back against her awareness. The pressure of it apparently rippled against her Mantle, setting a clear heat haze within the long golden strands, a ripe wheat harvest waving about in the sunlight.
Unless I’m released from the summoning circle, I can’t affect the Plane about me.
The sound of Celestial blessings spotted the chamber, and cries of pain from beyond the mirrored air quietened, though from some directions the scent of death simply grew thicker. When no one spoke, she just started humming under her breath and laughed aloud when she realised the tune she’d picked.
Hello, is it me you’re looking for? Seriously twisted, girl!
True Sight just showed her the same flawless mirror, she couldn’t even glimpse the runes used. Still, Amdirlain turned in a slow circle, scouring it methodically, but there wasn’t even a ripple as she tried the varied means at her disposal to break out. By the time she’d completed turning, none had spoken and Amdirlain sought to learn the nature of the trap.
Analysis
[Flawless Summoning Circle - Grand Rank
Crafter: Arch-Artificer Soranus
Details: Designed and crafted with precise care by the Arch-Artificer Soranus, long time Artificer to the rulers of the Kingdom of Crete. This circle incorporates adamantine and flawless gemstones sourced from the finest providers at Dwarven auctions, among other sources. Well, that plus knowledge from Hecate, along with enough blood, sweat, and tears to break a lesser artisan and one pseudo-power.
Recently used to summon Amdirlain—that’s you—at the cost of multiple Priests and Novices contributing to the ceremony in the upper Temple. Don’t think they were expecting said pseudo-power to kick up such a fight, but the weakest links break first.]
The information that came seemed to do so only from the circle’s inner edge, despite Apollo’s symbol glowing with power within the circle itself. Focusing on it alone, she used Analysis again, and the information that was returned ironically sent a chill through her, and remembered nausea twisted within her guts.
[Sigil of the Consuming Sun
Crafter: Arch-Artificer Soranus
Details: A sigil design provided by Apollo himself to the humble High Priest, Prince Charilaos, and engraved by an Arch-Artificer at his direction. Designed to feed the energy of those trapped within the confines of the Sigil’s effect to the power to whom it is dedicated to.
Note: Don’t you feel honoured? Is it getting hot in here? Are you going to take off all your clothes?]
Amdirlain didn’t take her attention from Apollo’s sun but felt her Mantle’s strands closest to it wilting under its symbolic heat. As some grew parched, a haze of energy started towards the Sigil. Hissing in anger, spells lashed out with increasing force, but her attempts to gain purchase on stone or barrier resulted only in fading Mana bursts. Switching tactics, she hopped in the air and set a defensive shield beneath her, but its energy siphoned away as well. Landing she dropped to one knee and drove a Ki Strike towards the stone. The energy crackled about her fist, but the circle’s barrier extended through the stone, prevented her from grounding the strike. The energy remained within her arm, and the Sigil intact.
Varying Psionic techniques set her at the barrier’s edge, but none of them allowed her past. Message spells cast in quick succession dissolved against the Planar obstruction, both those targeted locally as well as those planes away. Trying for the Oath Link’s connection Amdirlain reached for Ebusuku and pushed a message out.
“Alright, I’m in trouble. Prince Charilaos—a High Priest of Apollo—has summoned me, but he pulled me into a killing jar. There is a Sigil of the Consuming Sun within the summoning circle—the same way I used runes of Planar Attunement—and it’s attacking my Mantle. It’s drawn energy off but not into the Sigil, it’s fading away across planes. I hope you get this message. I can’t risk connecting to you via Spirit Bridge in case it works across it.”
One moment she could barely feel Ebusuku’s presence through the Link, and the next it glowed with rage. While she didn’t fully enter her Mind Palace Amdirlain could feel the grass that had grown around the closest forms under the restored golden sun wilting in slow motion.
“Fucking arsehole.”
Within the connection between them, Amdirlain pushed an image towards Ebusuku, showing her the Sigil beneath her feet and shared all the information her use of Analysis had provided.
“Ideas?” asked Amdirlain.
“We’ve got a few Archons within the kingdoms but if they arrived in the circle with you, they couldn’t leave. If it’s Aggie or any other Mortal teleporting to you, I’m sure they’d be attacked immediately. If it’s like the Dwarven circle rooms, there will be protective runes focused on holding the barrier in place and attacking anyone not dedicated to Apollo.”
“All I have to go on is the circle’s edge and the Sigil beneath me. I can’t see any of its formations, so it might contain a barrier preventing them from teleporting to me. There is supposedly a Temple above me, but I don’t know which Temple of Apollo,” growled Amdirlain. At the grim intensity Ebusuku projected, Amdirlain could only quip. “Bastard wants to eat me, and he didn’t even buy me dinner first.”
“Spells?”
“Sorry, already used a number. The planar threshold of the summoning circle didn’t even let them touch the stone, same with Ki Strike, and Psionic techniques.”
“Aggie wants to try teleporting to you regardless. I’ll be right back.”
Ebusuku didn’t ask, but her connection in the Oath Link grew suddenly distant. As Amdirlain waited, she focused on the Mantle’s boundary and wrestled against the power she felt feeding on it.
Despite her initial fuselage of spells, her Mana pool was almost untouched. Setting a Spell formation together, she didn’t just let Mana flow into it but compressed it. Unleashing the overpowered Spell still made no impression, but the Sigil’s consummation of the Mana flood slowed the drain on the Mantle.
“She tried teleporting to the symbol and opening a Gate based on the image. Neither worked.”
“Ebusuku, take care of them.”
“Don’t rush to that course, Amdirlain. Aggie knows Crete’s cities, and she is currently teleporting around to every major Temple she knows, looking for signs of excitement. Priests dying in a Temple will cause a fuss.”
“That could take too long. He’s already drinking it, Ebusuku. He can’t get the power within my Mantle, it could let him claim Letveri, and I don’t know how long it will take me to pass it over. I have to start now in case it takes time, heck, if I can make this work,” insisted Amdirlain. “The longer we delay, the greater the chance he gets a connection to another world. We don’t know if this Temple is even in a city. Please, he can drain all my Mana but he can’t have the Mantle.”
“I don’t want your Mantle,” grumbled Ebusuku. Frustration quivered along the link between them, and Amdirlain could almost feel her stalking about.
“I know that, but would you rather he gains control? Who do I send it to? What if he can use it to force you and the others to serve him?” Amdirlain asked and projected a sense of hug and kiss down their link. Locked down with her control of it, their connection provided Ebusuku with no hint that the Sigil might be draining more than the Mana and the Mantle.
“Amdirlain…”
“Hush, big sister. Hopefully, he gets bored having a Fallen in his holding cell. I’d appreciate you sending someone to find me.”
“Send the Mantle. I’ll care for them and find you. You have my word.”
When the sense of Ebusuku disappeared again, Amdirlain pictured rising above the Mantle’s grassy field and pushing it to Ebusuku, but it wouldn’t budge. One image and intention after another proved fruitless, but with practice from the Psi techniques Amdirlain continually switched approaches. As she wove her way through mental images and options, she steered steadily away from whatever got the least reaction and ticked off the possibilities she eliminated. When the smell of a grass fire tickled in her awareness, Amdirlain’s tactics grew desperate. The feel of the Mantle’s energy being pulled from her deepened and she pulled the cold Yin energy within Ki State, and let it surge out along her skin. She found the thought of Apollo drinking the corrosive energy appealing. The only counter for it was Jade Count's Yang Mana, and she doubted he mediated.
Momentarily, the pressure on her Mantle eased, and the burning scent died away. Before it could resume, she pressed more Yin through Ki State until the power danced across her skin. Consuming tornados drank in the chamber’s light. Overflowing her control, the Yin ate at the shadow vines’ robe, even drawing slivers of skin and muscle away. For a moment she hesitated, and almost allowed it to consume her, but unsure of the Mantle’s safety if she simply died, instead continued.
The bracelet pulled into Inventory left her clad only in the writhing darkness. Tendrils of energy drawn from her Ki state fell into the sun’s consuming maw. Mentally pushing again, she felt the Mantle shift further and lashed out. Flight held her hovering in mid-air, and a surge of Yin formed a black corrosive pyre to block the Sigil beneath her feet. With Ebusuku’s smile firmly in mind, she pushed again, but nothing changed, and the Sigil drank from the Mantle’s edges. Sending out a massive surge of Yin packed into an overcharged Circle of Flames gave it too much to consume at once, and the draining energy spun like a whirlpool. Burst after burst of that Spell drained her Mana in massive gouts that dangerously overcharged the Spell.
Fuck! Eleftherios said it buoys me up! I’ve been trying different ways to get above it or off to the side.
Splitting her focus, she cycled Ki through her pattern and twisted its essence around Yin Mana, bending it to serve her purpose and sending them together through Ki state. Flesh glowing golden, gained threads of blackness stretched between the Mantle and the Sigil at her feet. She threw out a massive burst of spells dipping her Mana towards dregs. Focused solely on separating, she left the Yin to its own devices. She visualised tossing the Mantle upwards, with all those linked to it, to rise away and herself to fall. Wanting with an absolute conviction and unwavering focus for them all to be safe with Ebusuku.
In that instant, the circle became a void, darker than space at a galaxy’s edge, and the Mantle finally moved away. Without her focus on the Yin, the energy she’d thrown outwards reversed course, and joined the whirlpool in such a rush that walls of a tornado climbed above her. The Sigil caused its base to swirl and drain away—a steady whirlpool beneath her. The motion the Sigil had set in the energy kept her clear of it with her wings folded tight.
Like her efforts with ejecting Viper, the Mantle quickly gained speed, but her efforts from years of cycling Ki had won great strides for her Domain and the Mantle both. The departing power was a metaphorical grassland with its roots grown far and wide. As the last of the Mantle lifted away, a few trailing roots caught at her blazing Soul and, drawn to the one who’d guided their growth, clutched at her side. The sheer power in the Mantle deflected her positioning and tossed her into the tornado’s wall. In the blink of an eye, the millions of Mana that she set loose, happily consumed her.
With her sudden absence, the circle’s barrier died, and that raging power was suddenly uncontained. No longer protected by the summoning’s threshold, the Sigil, circle, stone, and flesh fed the tornado that expanded. Most flaring upwards, it devoured everything in its path until finally having darkened the summer palace’s grounds completely, its momentum halted, and it fell in on itself. As the destruction ended, the gutted, Yin-expanded cavern collapsed and a massive sinkhole devoured the Temple, the few still living and the meagre remains of the dead.
Everywhere her Mantle had touched, Amdirlain’s followers felt the moment of her destruction, and only the reassurance of Ebusuku’s stability tempered their cries of sorrow and rage.
Olympus
The image of the Hoplite had commanded the centre stage for years now, but the new voice that joined them drowned the cries and the Titan’s chiding alike. Beneath his tanned and handsome features, black dots of power roiled under Apollo’s skin. Drawn in by the Sigil’s effect, the Yin had greedily consumed the Mantle’s energy before he’d gained mastery of it, turning into a black hole within him. A consuming void that continued to drink, for Apollo’s radiant power wasn’t the Yang fires of creation, but simply more fuel for ever-increasing consumption.
Those gathered to witness his moment of glory stayed well back in case it was contagious—like some foul Mortal’s vernal disease. Zeus, unheeding of Apollo’s shifting skin tone, had moved to kneel by his son’s side and grasped his wrist when Apollo clutched at Zeus’ robes.
“Apollo needs compatible energy to snuff out the poison that thing inflicted on him,” growled Zeus, over his son’s screams. “Hera, Artemis, Athena; I want your strongest Paragons in Egypt immediately. Everyone that hasn’t invested in Paragons, do so now, there are Mortals who will serve and it’s time to act. The Roman will be too strong for now, but if needed, we’ll take him as well.”
“That’s madness father, you know his rules. He’s shown his willingness to enforce them,” Athena cautioned. “Better to get Hecate to draw it out than risk his ire again.”
Zeus lifted Apollo from where he’d slumped on the bench and strode through the image glowing in the centre. Locking a look of contempt on his daughter, he spat his words at her. “Hecate is the one that led Apollo to this fate. She convinced him he could deal with that upstart thing alone—we need to strike together. If you have your Paragons in place, I have weapons prepared they can use against the Egyptian’s lineage. Consuming the bloodline of another Sun God will give Apollo the power to deal with this poison. Time for this farce to end. The Mortals will worship us alone.”
Only when he turns away do Athena’s lips narrow at her father’s words. His ham-fisted attempt to wash over the events of the last decades—well before the strange Elven power appeared—left a sour taste. The arguments she’d had with Apollo about pursuing this course are now bitter ashes seasoned by the prophecy’s threat.
A breeze brushed by a trio at the back, and the Fates grasped for each other. In the blink of an eye, its coldness lifted, leaving them unaware the cause was now planes away, where only the Titan and his Servants could roam.
Ebusuku’s PoV - Outlands
The Mantle’s pressure rested on me, clamped on the Human shape I currently wear, but I couldn’t take my attention from the scroll glowing in my mind. The feeling of devastation that had followed in the Mantle’s wake twisted thousands of fearful claws within my chest.
[Mantle transfer accomplished.
Non-resident Celestials ejected from Domain.
Boundary secured.
Mantle Name Change: Lerina (Sole Use Name of entity commonly referred to as Ebusuku)
Note: Status information provided immediately to all followers and beings connected to Mantle:
- Mantle transfer.
- New name.
- Affiliation and name of individuals responsible for the destruction of the original holder.
Domain planar re-alignment beginning.]
“No, that’s not right. It can’t be right. I was to return her Mantle when she was free!"
It didn't say she was killed, destruction is an entity's final death.
The words are barely from my lips when a wave of blackness swept across the woodlands beyond the window. For the first time, night fell across the Domain, something that should be impossible for the Outlands. As Farhad wrapped a sheet around me and moved to hold me, the light drained, and the sounds of mourning washed through the Domain.
For the first time in my existence, I think I might know what Mortals mean by grief.
Comments
Krazo
I hope she'll take it back. But this time on her own accord.
Blackmoon11
I am glad she had a chance to give up her mantle, damn thing was nothing but a burden, another chain finally broken
Krazo
"You destroy a form, destruction is an entity's final death." Really elaborate on this line before you publish it to RoyalRoad. Because of the problem I mentioned on discord (destroy and destruction are the same word) this sentence sounds nonsensical, and it isn't immediately clear that it references to the word "destruction" in system notice. I wanted also mention the Mantle thing in Apoollo's PoV but I think you already edited it because it is much clearer than I remember.
marconjecture
Well done! I am looking forward, how this crisis will play out.
Arkeus
She doesn't need a new one, does she?
Glenn Wright
I shall endeavour to rise to the challenge to the best of my ability and thank you for the trust.
Kale Daley
Huh....not what I was hoping for but at least he didn't get the mantle. Now she just has to fight her way back from non-existence and then take on an entire Pantheon of Gods. I trust you Redhand but it will be hard to come back from this without cheapening all the progress she made herself.
Glenn Wright
Thousands of kilometres spent travelling and die falling asleep at the wheel a few kilometres from home ;)
Overclocked
195 chapters of buildup up, power gains, and helping others, just to die to some stupid summoning...lol
Glenn Wright
I promise the answer to that is in the next chapter.
AchroniaXenia
Did the Prince actually die too? Or was he Somehow not in the Temple when it fell?
Glenn Wright
Well, the Prince can't say he didn't get what he paid for, right?
AchroniaXenia
I seriously hope we get some more Amdirlain chapters soon and that she gets back from wherever The Titan and His Servants operate from better than before and takes back her Mantle; damn the greeks
Xtriver
What the fuck?
Adurna
Balnerith might not be old enough. I too am curious however about where those pieces went. Since we have fate as an element I think that the pieces of energy might just be where needed and together with the loss of the mantle and Amdirlain's new balanced sense of self they will lead her to rediscover the song of creation giving her a true rebirth and resurrection completing the current growth arc. That is assuming we are approaching the end game of this story. If not I think only one of the two. :)
StormyAngel
Man, I wish I wasn't at work right now. Taking my break to write this comment. Some initial thoughts: This doesn't actually feel too much like a cliffhanger. It's obvious that Amdirlain's "destruction" isn't permanent because the story is all about her and this would be a terrible ending. A tragic and possibly realistic ending, but this is a story darn it, so I expect better. That means the real question is just how much she was damaged by this whole process, and that's concerning yes, but it doesn't feel as cliffy as it might if she was still trapped in the circle. I'm definitely dying to read the next chapter, of course. But not necessarily for the reasons I thought I would be. I really hope this transfer of the mantle isn't permanent. Much as I love Ebusuku, she's just not the same as Amdirlain, and it feels like a step backwards for her to lose the mantle. I'll be disappointed if she recovers, reconnects, and then decides to never reclaim said mantle. Obviously that's more long term, but it is the thing that concerns me most right now. Although, those materials that were "stolen" when she created the gem dragons concern me too. I suspect either Tiamat or Balnerith, and neither of those possible culprits bode well for the future.
Lictor Magnus
Dang, did not see that coming. Hopefully she doesn’t have to start over as a level one succubus again 😬
Robin Richards
Well, figuring out how to Dr. Manhattan this will probably give Amdirlain her next T7+ achievement...
