Trial By Fire (Imogen, Talisman)

[Talisman]

With Norani’s refusal to remain connected with it, the fire elemental raged hotter, as if it was frustrated. It certainly seemed to be in pain, as it swelled and torched the sands beneath it, searing the earth and driving the water deeper and deeper away. Air could not cool itself fast enough in this area, not with the rampaging blaze that was roaming the sands and leaving blackened glass in its wake. The glass shattered, cracked, reducing down to shards and powder from heat and pressure around and under it. All the same, it was logical - whatever was twisting the elemental that was within that mass may well have been contagious, and it would not do for her to be twisted up like it was.

If she was lost, what would that mean for her quest?

The efforts of Norani and Ooshi were successful - they were able to force their way through the tsunami of heat, and the funnel guided Albagen’s protective orb. The air spirits strove to assist the Grandmaster Elementalist, eager to aid her in these endeavours: they sensed that she could help, and help was desperately needed to restore the balance in these spirits-forsaken lands. As magical a Kingdom as Solunarium was, this stretch was apparently not so regularly traversed that the elemental spirit had been found before now. Or maybe it had, and those who had tried to restore it or eliminate it had been sent to their next life. That same fate was one that might well befall them if their concentration slipped.

Whatever was wrong with the outspread mass of fire did not keep it oblivious to their efforts. It was starting to form up upon itself, and in doing so, sought to surround the Sunsinger. Had it not been for her use of Traversion, she might well have been charred to a well-done piece of crispy fried albatross. Molten heat sought to overwhelm the air that had protected her, consuming and devouring to feed its heat even more, making the black and purple within the flames grow and spread.

As Imogen brought her Truth Fire to bear against it, Raxen’s ancient spell revealed a Fire spirit that was corrupted to its core by the dread mist storms that had rolled through the Kingdom nearly a year ago. Within those flames, was what was left of an elemental spirit begging for help. Pure chaos had warped and twisted it, and its ability to hold on to what tiny shreds of self it retained was fading fast. Wind howled in pain as the sands screamed out, trying to recoil now that the creature had been exposed for what it was. Condensing its form meant that the effects were much stronger on the world around them. The last of the air that had protected her was gone, and the heat was starting to threaten to overheat and ruin the weapon Imogen had used to bring her Truth Fire against the chaos-warped elemental.

[Norani]

Norani watched as the funnel held true, and Imogen was able to reveal the true state of the elemental spirit, and a piece of her heart broke. Now that she understood the energies of the elements better, she remembered the dread mists from that fateful night in her home village. This poor spirit had been suffering this entire time, and was nearly at its limit. Time was running out, for both the spirit and for Imogen, she could feel the fire caving in, filling the void.

Norani was acting purely on instinct now, and acting fast.

She severed the draw of aether from the surrounding environment through her Symbiosis. If they survived these next few moments, she'd have to call on the environment once more, and if it was too depleted, it would become more damaged. Ooshi and Norani remained attached, and Norani began pouring her aether through her Rune. She pulled in heat and fire that touched her winds, adding them to her own power, as her shared form began to glow.

She entered her Lightning Prescient state, burning hotter than the raging fire below.

In a blink, she disappeared from her spot outside of the blaze, traveling faster than most eyes could follow, reappearing between Imogen and the spirit, as the crack of thunder sounded from behind. She yelled over the roaring winds and the rising inferno, "Call forth all of your Truth Fire! Let it answer my call!"

She was the marriage of wind and fire, not fire and wind fighting one another. She'd forgotten that. She did not know if Imogen's special flames would answer to her, but she was an elementalist and she would try to communicate to them. But first, she collapsed the funnel around them into a sphere once more, putting herself, Imogen, and the spirit inside the bounds of her winds. She tasked the winds with accepting the flames, to merge with them, and they did.

Soon, they were inside a ball of lightning, burning hotter than the flames, spinning faster around them, a blinding effect, and one that would serve an even more effective purpose. The spirit was trapped in here with them. Norani could feel her reserves fading fast, and it was time to make the impossible happen. She reached back to the witch with her aether, ready to accept the fires if they would have her. She also sent her aether forward, not an attack, but a means of communicating with a spirit with so little energy. An offering.

'I come not for the power you have, but to give you our own. Accept it, and fight this corruption with us. We will save you, we will save this world you've cared and tended for so long. Fight with us.'

Norani intended to bind them all together through this. Imogens purifying fire, filtered through her. If she could get the spirit to accept the offer of her aether, she would bind to it as well. She intended to pass Imogen's filtered flames to it, guided by herself, to burn away the corruption, a surgeon cutting away a taint, while using the bond to help keep the spirit alive with her remaining aether. There wasn't much left to give, but Norani was giving all of it, here and now.

This had to work.

"Now!"

If not, she knew the corrupting fires would likely consume them both.

[Imogen]

As Imogen left the fire behind, she eyeballed her position in the sky. It wasn't easy to gauge the ambient heat from the distortion of the air from behind the veil, but the need to return to reality was pressing; Carina had warned her, many times, that to remain phased out for too long and too far was tantamount to entering Slipspace blind. Once you were lost, the likelihood you'd ever find your way back to the other side of space was remote.

Thankfully, it seemed she'd gauged it aright, ascending into the extreme thermals without cooking herself.

She could feel the strain on her Pact staff below as she flew, but she had no need to test its strength against the elemental. With an easy act of will, Imogen hitched the staff through slipspace, teleporting it high above the raging flames and allowing it to cool itself as it spun upwards through the air, end-over-end, seeking to return to its mistress. The Sunsinger was well aware of the risks of Shattering, after all, and there was simply no reason she would ever allow it to happen. Frankly, the very idea was laughable.

Albatrosses don't laugh, though Imogen could have given her totem the capacity if she chose. Had she done so, the laughter would have died a moment later.

"Call forth all of your Truth Fire! Let it answer my call!"

Imogen's upward momentum was rudely interrupted as lightnings crackled suddenly on all sides. She banked harshly, forced to flap to avoid flying right into the rapidly-forming sphere of electric energy encompassing herself, Norani's indistinct form, and the hellish blaze below.

"Wh-" Imogen protested, trying not to panic. "Wait, wait, wait, Norani what are you doing-"

Unfortunately, it seemed that the headstrong girl had committed herself to whatever grand act of Elementalism she was bent upon. Imogen considered her options: she could break through Norani's sphere, perhaps, but this might only serve to distract the girl and turn her strange spell into certain death. She could vault away, but again it seemed likely that abandoning the girl here would kill her. She could try to destroy the elemental before it could reach Norani, but the backlash of a powerful elemental's death, in this enclosed sphere, could kill her anyway.

Sea and fucking sky, Imogen cursed to herself, not bothering to share this observation aloud, I hate working with amateurs.

Well, there wasn't any way to try to reason with her now. She would simply have to produce the Nova as Norani had demanded and hope that the girl could actually do something with it- and if not, well, perhaps killing the elemental was still an option. She supposed it was just possible that she could survive that, if worst came to worst.

She had only moments to prepare, but Imogen was well-trained to act in split seconds. With one of those precious seconds, she invoked chrysalistry, supercharging the Rune of Animus until her albatross totem wobbled and burst open like an overripe watermelon. She fell from the little cloud of silver liquid it left behind in the form of her first totem, the lemur, landing just a few meters down upon her hovering Pact staff. Another moment was wasted as she hopped from foot to foot, having forgotten that the staff was still hot from the fire she'd plunged it into; but this was remedied by another act of animus, as her tiny monkey feet warped and hardened into scaled ork-talons, gripping the hot staff less painfully.

The witch did not go through these motions for aesthetics, of course. For her next trick, she needed to have hands.

With a flourish, the little monkey produced a seven-foot-long greatsword from the aether. Imogen always felt a little bit better when she materialized this, her first Pact weapon, even though the worn blade would not have made sale in any of the finer smithies. Lemurgen gripped the sword firmly by the hilt, forming a circuit between the aether of her own body and the soul-borne aether of her pact weapon; necessary for the casting of her next and final spell.

If the skies had not already been warped and twisted by heat and wind and electric charge, a keen observer would have noticed them warp subtly in the moments before Imogen began materializing duplicates. Swords filled the skies about her, winking into being one by one before each one burst into their own nimbus of silvery Nova flame. Though the ordinary casting of Arsenal focused on the quantity of duplicates--for use as massed projectiles--Imogen went slowly, methodically producing each duplicate and unleashing the pent-up flames within every one until the flow of aether through her body and soul were at their absolute limits.

"Whatever you're doing, do it now!" Imogen yelled, voice heavy with the strain of sustaining the virtual aurora of steel and silver fire in the air around her, "Or I'm going to stab the damn thing!"

[Talon]

The silver fire of the Nova flame ensconced the blades conjured by Imogen. These fires bestowed upon every Sunsinger who received their Reaving from that martial coven. The origins of that fire had only one source and that source was linked to another power within the cosmos.

Talon quirked his head. He sat in the quiet peace of a snowcapped villa deep within the Astralar Mountains. There among the ebony peaks, he had been in meditation, his back resting comfortably against the massive frame of a red and obsidian scaled dragon. Across the expanse of his consciousness, Talon was always peripherally aware of those who invoked powers in his name. Whether the Dawnfire of his Eminence or through the similarly blessed flames wielded by the Sunsingers that found its origins from the powers of Novuril, his holy blade. Those who had earned Novuril’s blessing he subconsciously allowed to continue wielding those flames but as he focused his attention, he realized that there was one seeking to command them that had not earned his or Novuril’s blessing.

Will you go to them, beloved?

Talon rose to his feet, stepping forward. Though the lights of the sky were blocked by the eclipse and its ensuing blanket of darkness, the light still managed to filter its way to him. He ran a hand along one of Aoren’s forelegs then focused on the events unfolding that were drawing his attention. He saw the battle unfolding, he saw the Orkhan woman who was the rightful wielder of the Nova fire of Novuril. He saw the Orkhan woman reaching out to the silvery flames.

Yes. I think I will.

---

The silver-white flames of the Nova fire grew brighter, bathing the world in an alabaster luminance that gave everything a silvered edge. The roar of the fires grew louder until they crescendoed to the point of blocking out all other sounds. For a the briefest of moments, the darkness that so swallowed the world abated and in that moment, a form appeared in the fires before Norani. An aethereal figure wreathed in the holy fires that she now sought to commune with, but these were not the elemental flames of the world’s nature spirits. These were the fires granted by the blessing of a Divine and so in communing with them, Norani bridged the gulf and communed with Talon.

The silver eyes of the Judge Himself stared at Norani and beheld her heart and soul. He weighed her heart and deeds and in that particular moment, he did not find her wanting.

Talon nodded, satisfied.

The Nova flames answered Norani’s call.

[Norani]

As she had become, truly become, the very lightning that crackled around them now, isolating the most unexpected of trios to be found in the sands of Atraxia, she found that the world slowed down. No, that wasn't quite right. The world wasn't slowing, she was moving, seeing, living as fast as lightning exists.

Which allowed her to better perceive what all happened in a very short set of moments.

She felt the spirit, the pure portion of it, tired, exhausted, on its last legs, weakly accept her offering. It grasped onto her aether, devouring it like a nomad lost in the desert without a waterskin. The aether connection between them ignited, flames orange and red, a stream of the purest form of power the spirit held. And she completed the bridge, binding the spirit to herself, a small image of the flame spirit appearing among the branches of the Runes upon her back.

She looked through the walls of lightning around them, able to make out many dark shapes forming that then lit aflame, Imogen's handiwork. Silver flames awashed the area, casting strange and beautiful hues as Norani looked on through the filtering walls of lightning and corrupted flames. Norani reached her aether out to them, seeking to bridge with them as well.

As her aether approached it though, her eyes fell upon a lone figure that was now floating among these fires. A name she'd heard, but not one she knew intimately crossed her mind. Arcas. He was terrifying and awe inspiring at the same time. There among the flames, he was a beautiful power, a light pure. And his gaze was cast onto her, and she felt small before him. The weight of his eyes was stifling upon her, so much power there that she felt as she could be crushed under it with little more than an acknowledgement. And then the heavy gaze was lifted. Her aether touched the flames, finding them to be entirely different, foreign, something else entirely from the natural flames of the elemental world.

And with a nod of his head, the bridge between Nova Flames and elementalist was formed. The aetheric connection ignited in silver flame, and Norani gave a small nod of deferential thanks to the figure, and pulled the Nova Flames through herself. All of them. She poured all of her aether into this, everything she had, her form shining silver as the flames passed through her, mingling it with her own aether. She felt an upwelling of Hope rising within her, a comfort in the power of doing what was right.

She looked down the connection with the spirit, seeing a web of darkness spreading out from the spirit, threatening to cross the bridge into herself. The spirit was at its brink and the corruption spreading. And Norani sent the aetherically mingled Nova Flames across the connection. Orange flames were engulfed by silver, and when it struck the corruption, it burned it away. She poured all of it into the spirit, every bit of Nova flame that Imogen could muster, Norani would process and send.

Her power waning rapidly, a thought was sent with the flames, 'Please, hold on just a little bit longer...' Norani's vision began to blur, shaking, doubling then tripling. Her world began to go dark, the walls of the lightning shell flickering then beginning to fail. As the last of the silver flames surged across the connection, Norani hoped it was enough, that she had enough time.

The lightning flickered out, and the connections with both the spirit and the Nova flames were severed all at once. Norani slipped out of her prescient state, eyes rolling in the back of her head, darkness taking over, as she slumped forward, falling toward the sands, unable to even notice if the raging inferno around them filled the void of the now missing sphere.

[Talisman]

With Norani's impulsiveness, it was decidedly a good thing that Imogen was quick on her feet and up to the task of working in tandem with the younger Orkhan. Norani may have been new to this sort of adventure and struggle, but sometimes listening to one's gut instinct paid off, and paid off well. This, it seemed, might just be one of those times. And with Imogen's assistance, oftentimes success followed experience. It was fortunate further that the Justicar granted the Elementalist His boon in this endeavour.

Fortune favoured the bold, and adventure belonged to the venturous.

The timing of Arcas' judgment came none too soon, as the corrupted elemental's own sickness was broaching the defenses that Norani had erected to protect them. It was not merely an overwhelming darkness, it was a sickening array of colours unlike anything either of the Orkhan mages had seen before. It was causing an overt, awful wrongness to permeate the environment around. While Norani had sought to keep the infection in the fire elemental from causing further damage to its environs, the full brunt of it was now being brought to bear against much smaller targets. One Ork, and one little monkey. And since Norani had opened herself up once again... her own heartbeat was thrumming loudly in her ears, as she felt a pounding ache that was impossible to ignore. The darkness was starting to pull at everything that made her her... The elemental had been fighting that for so long, it seemed, and it had lost nearly everything. Would they lose themselves as well if it was not purified?

The prismatic, writhing mass of ooze sought to devour and consume, to overcome the flames. Even with her own symbiosis between the natural world and herself, the tainted mass was growing, and it was thickening up and expanding on itself, sensing a new source upon which it could sate its boundless hunger. But what it found in its efforts was the nova flames, bolstered as they were by Norani's aether and Lemurgen's own efforts to summon and channel it, were more than its equal. The flames burned brightly, the Justicar's inferno blazing even more in reaction to His presence. It pierced the ooze in multiple spots, sending rays of silver fire through the umbra that surrounded them. The nova flames continue to grow, spreading now that the defenses of the aether-devastating thing had been breached. It recoiled away, helping to diminish that horrible feeling that had been threatening to consume them, too.

The noxious substance was being burned out by the nova flames, forcing it away from them and back to its host. It was a tug-of-war, now, between Norani's determination and strength of will against something that had been feeding on a very powerful host and gathering ambient aether in the environment.... not to mention what all else it had devoured in the time it had been able to grow and operate unchecked. As she fell, the sand rose up to meet her, padding and cushioning her fall to cradle and protect her. A second pillar would similarly cushion Lemurgen, sweeping the pair of them from the purifying fire that was systematically destroying the disease that had ravaged the fire elemental. By the time the nova flames faded, what was left of the colossal flame was much, much smaller, less than a quarter of what it had been, but to those who looked into it, it was no longer ill. It was no longer trapped and warped.

It was free.

Time seemed to have slowed as it approached the prone Orkhan, a careful warmth surrounding her. It wasn't just the unending harshness of the desert, but something far more gentle and appreciative. "Windwalker. Waterweaver. Lightningrider." A small tendril of aether was being fed back into her, to help reconstitute what had been lost in her efforts to save the elemental from the unnatural rot that had been festering in it.

[Norani]

Norani could hear a voice. No, hearing wasn't right. She could feel the voice. It called to her, through her rune, into her soul, reverberating through this body of hers that had been destroyed and rebuilt from love, a love among the elements that now made her up. She stirred a moment, feeling a warmth slowly starting to embrace her.

In her mind, it felt like Yeva, draping over her, comforting, keeping her safe, and warmed and loved. Like the night of the storm back home. Yeva cared for the Orkhan who had gone too far, nearly lost herself in the magic and the chaos to save Yeva and herself. She gave her warmth, healing, love, comfort. She gave her safety.

But Norani knew this wasn't Yeva.

Yeva was still lost in the Astral Sea. The Orkhan painfully slid her eyes opened, her cheek pressed into the soft sand, finding it surprisingly cooling. She heard her name, and some that she had not yet been called. Windwalker. Waterweaver. Lightningrider. The warmth grew and Norani felt the gentle offering of the elementally charged aether. A smile grew there in the sands.

She recognized the feel of it.

The elemental was alive, and it felt whole, and wished for her to be whole as well. Norani accepted the offering, but only just the smallest amount, she knew the elemental would be weak after its ordeal. She took in just enough energy so that she could move. And she thanked the spirit for its kind and thoughtful generosity.

And then Norani tried to push herself up from the sands, gasping in pain loudly, falling back down again. Each joint was aflame with pain, literal burning as she tried to move. She had gone too far with her magic and now it was claiming its price. Her eyelids scraped their way back open. And she grit her teeth, and called out, hoping she would hear.

"Imogen? Are you alive?"

She paused, waiting.

"Can you move?"

Could she? She took a deep breath, closing her eyes again, and pushed against the ground, as her joints ignited, burning, screaming, as though each was touched by a torch that was held there long enough to bubble and pop the skin, long enough to smell the flesh burning. Agonizing moment after moment, Norani managed to bring herself to a kneeling position, leaning back on her heels, trying to hold back the nausea that was coming from the overwhelming pain she'd just endured.

Her eyes drudged open once more, and she could only see the world in hues of reds and oranges and yellows, of warm colors, of flames. Her vision was blurry at a distance, and focusing up close caused it to double and stir up her nausea further. She was barely alive and she knew it. She ground her teeth as she looked around for the little elemental, to check in on it, make sure it was truly okay, and she looked around for Imogen as well.

She had a little aether left from what the spirit had offered back to her. And she used that tiny bit to put a few words out to any spirits that might be around, any that might answer. "Please, help us. We're hurt, we need shelter and safety." And with that, she waited there, under the high, false sun, just focusing on trying to breathe, so she could try to muster the energy to look around for Imogen, to see what damage was brought upon the area by the spirit's corruption. To see if she could even manage to stand up without toppling over.

Norani knew they needed to move, and soon. They were exposed, she was exhausted, and likely useless right now. Possibly worse than useless, a liability. They needed shelter. This was not territory she was familiar with, she knew nothing of surviving in the desert. And without any reasonable amount of aether left, she couldn't do much if another problem were to arise.

Her eyes fluttered open once more, and she saw the harsh landscape of the desert around her, and felt that fear creeping in on her gut once more.

[Imogen]

Imogen Ward had found herself drained of power and exhausted many times in life. It wasn't a wholly uncommon exercise for a Reaver; the art often called upon the practitioner to push themselves for hours or days, and so it was prudent to test students to their limits. In hard-won duels, the kind which came down to the wire, you often pushed yourself a little further than you should. In her recent sleepless flights, she'd burnt power on Animus and Traversion as one might burn a candle's wick, jealously petering out her power until she was finally forced to rest. In her ill-conceived trek through the northern jungles, or postings in the Warrens of Karnor, or her fruitless picking through the ruins of Zaichaer, she'd burned her spirit black over the course of days.

What she'd never experienced, however, was someone pulling all of her aether out like a drunk guzzling booze.

The Sunsinger spread her spirit across the sky and Norani's spell tore magic from it at an abysmal speed. The lemur hardly even noticed the sudden divine visitation, wracked as she was with the concentration of maintaining her nebulous web of duplicates. Light poured out of metal, and the metal was spirit, and the spirit was torn apart by the friction of energy and motion. One by one, the duplicate swords crumbled, the Nova burning so bright and hot that it destroyed even the spell Imogen was using to conjure it. She spent days' worth of energy in the span of moments, and her body felt so light and uncertain that for a moment she feared that it would crumble to ash as well.

And then she ran out.

Well, not really. A true and complete draining would, of course, have killed her--obliterated her even, body, mind and soul--and she did not die. It did not even end all of her spells; neither her Pact staff nor her sword forcibly dematerialized.

(The fact of this should not be overstated. Maintaining a Pact weapon requires a bare trickle of power, and Reavers are trained intensively to avoid dematerializations even in extreme situations. After all, the loss of a Reaver's weapon signifies total defeat.)

Still, her staff's hovering was a function of power and will, and when she lost both it rediscovered physics quickly. Lemurgen tumbled to the ground, her two weapons spinning haplessly through the air, and was saved only by the sudden pillar of sand which caught her. The world grew dark in Imogen's eyes as her strength failed, but she could still see the blaze of silver fire everywhere. She'd have grinned, if she had the presence of mind. The Nova fire took a lot of power to summon, but nothing at all to maintain. The instant it had overwhelmed the chaos' ability to damp it out, they had won.

The lemur closed her eyes.

~~~

"Imogen? Are you alive? Can you move?"

The witch woke, moments later, to a pounding headache. Her tiny monkey body was splayed across the sands, surrounded by dying scraps of Nova, the mystic fire determinedly devouring every last bit of Dread Mist before giving up the ghost itself. She forced open one eye and tried to push herself upright, but her arms refused to get with the program. She closed her eyes again. Perhaps it was time for a nap...?

"Please, help us. We're hurt, we need shelter and safety."

Her eyes fluttered open again. Apparently she wasn't getting any sleep so easily.

The sands suddenly shifted below Imogen, and she felt her body jostle and rise. A moment of panic swept through the little monkey-witch, only to be replaced with a sense of relief as she noticed shiny black fur beneath her. Kitty shrugged his way out of her shadow, the jaguar cub just large enough to lift the prone lemur on his back, then padded over to Norani. The cat's steps were slow--clearly he wasn't a fan of the sand's texture or its heat--but determined, and soon he was approaching the praying girl's back. Imogen forced herself into a slightly-more-upright seated pose, arms and legs still drooping.

"I'm up, I'm up. Sheesh."

Lemurgen glanced around the sands, her neck painfully stiff. "Went a bit overboard on that one, I think. Good spell, but not great to be stuck in the desert on fumes."

The noonday desert was not a good environment for either Orkhan girls or lemurs. If she had just a bit more aether in the tank, she might have transformed herself into a shape tailored to get herself and Norani to safety, but wishes were poor fuel for magic. They were too far away to use her ring to contact Carina, either. That left only a few things to try.

"You got a mirror handy? Might be able to contact Drathera."

[Talisman]

The ever-present heat from overhead was not helpful for the two Orkhan in the blistering desert of Atraxia. It did not help, either, that a fire elemental was looming large over them. It was easier for Norani, what with her being an Elementalist, but that heat was still there, and as spent as she was, Deference was hardly an option. The spirit was silent as the younger Ork spoke to her elder, who was also suffering from what expenditures had been demanded of them in the pursuit of balance in foreign and incredibly hostile territory.

Movement hurt. Trying to sit up was difficult, just moving into a kneeling position took up even more than it ever should have. The horrific wrongness that had saturated the air was gone, obliterated by the nova flames. There was still the acrid stench of smoke and burned flesh and hair, but for the moment, that was unavoidable. Nothing seemed to be broken, at least, the sand pillars that had risen up to their aid had spared them from that particular agony. There was still large swathes of obsidian-black sand where the earth had been scorched over and over and over. The water was deep, far away from the surface, and the winds gusted around the two of them, fanning the fire elemental that that they had risked their lives to save.

"Hunters of earth and air come," the fire spirit told Norani when Imogen asked about a mirror. "Atraxia is not safe for you, Windwalker. But we will help." Beneath the Orkhan girl, the lemur, adn the jaguar cub, the sands opened, and they soon found themselves sliding at a rapid pace down into some sort of sloped tunnel. The fire elemental was apparently coming along for the ride, condensing itself down to be perhaps twice the size of Lemurgen rather than something as big as it had been moments ago. They were deep within the earth, in a tunnel that had been hewed through the rock and clay. They finally slowed down, and the elemental spirit was in the centre of the tunnel. The only light they had was that of the diminished elemental, although it seemed a bit brighter in the darkness than it had been above in the sands. Water, precious water, made for a small rivulet along the stony walls of the tunnel if they sought to slake a thirst from the aridity of the environments they had just quit to give them shelter.

The elemental pressed its lower half against the sand beneath it, and when it moved away from that spot, there was a small mirror there, perhaps a bit larger than the size of Imogen's palm in her normal form. It would take a few minutes to cool, but an impromptu mirror had been provided for them. They had some shelter for now, but recuperating was going to be a process.

Assuming they were able to get out of here in order to do so...

[Imogen]

Lemurgen ended up below the earth in a graceless heap, stuck below Kitty's sprawled hindquarters. If she thought to complain about the elemental's rough treatment, however, any annoyance was washed away by relief when it produced the mirrored surface she'd sought. The little monkey scrambled free of the jaguar cub's but, scrabbling against the loose earth of the tunnel, and popped out head-first with enough momentum to roll all the way to the mirror.

She rocked back and forth for a moment before pulling herself up into a seated position, and poked gingerly at the impromptu glass before letting out an audible sigh of relief.

"This ought to do" Imogen announced, demeanor much recovered from a moment prior, "I doubt I have the power left to reach Drathera, but we'll do it anyway- Norani, I need you to think of someone there who can arrange our rescue. Not the dragons, I don't believe they're willing to enter the desert."

The lemur unfurled one long monkey finger and gingerly pressed it against the elemental's mirror. A moment later, a line of golden light ran from the point of contact, zigging and zagging along the dark surface until it reached an edge. More gleaming cracks followed, spiderwebbing rapidly across the mirror until the entire surface was covered in a crazed patina of sunlight.

Imogen's brow knit tightly in concentration. Opening a Window was among the simplest of all the spells of Traversion, but at the distance was near the edge of her range in normal times; drained and exhausted as she was, just manipulating the veil at all was taxing. Even if she could keep the working together through the headache building in the back of her tiny lemur skull, she was never going to be able to keep the connection for long enough to actually speak to anyone.

But of course, she'd anticipated this. So instead of seeking out someone miles away in distant Drathera, she sought for someone she was pretty sure was literally in the same tunnel as them.

The glass seemed to shatter, but it did not- the dark and imperfect reflection caught in it tumbled into Slipspace, only to be replaced... with the same scene. Imogen and Norani in a tunnel. One girl further back, the other with a single finger pressed against the glass. Only- the Imogen in this reflection was not a lemur, but an Ork. And when the lemur reopened her eyes, the eyes of her reflection were empty, a vacant patina of black and white static.

Mirrorgen observed Lemurgen with a disapproving look, silently shaking her head.

This was the spirit summoned by Master Gerhard to watch her- or perhaps it was his Aidolon itself? She wasn't sure how to tell. Master Gerhard consorted with a type of being which existed only between places, locked within Slipspace and entirely unable to enter the material world. It could be seen, when it wanted, in mirrors and through windows, but she wasn't sure it had any actual form of its own. It couldn't offer much help, but it was enormously useful for Master Gerhard in keeping track of his wayward apprentices.

If the spirit had a name, she did not know it, and she did not spend much time thinking about it. It was less than a shadow, after all, imperceptible even when going through the checkpoints back in Zaichaer. Mage lenses and impressed Semblers had little to say about a spirit which wasn't even there. More to the point, she'd never encountered any situation where it could offer any help whatsoever.

"I know he won't be happy about it." Imogen admitted to the spirit behind the mirror, separated from this cavern by a distance smaller than inches and vaster than miles. "But the matter is urgent. I need to get in contact with Drathera. With-"

Imogen turned to look at Norani, expectant.