To Shield the World (Warhammer High Elf Mage Quest)

Turn 6 Results



On a not particularly hot day, you wake up in a sweat, and throw your blankets off, racing along the hardwood floors of the manner, feet slapping as you go. You see your brother and sister and many of the cousins who are either residing or visiting your family open their doors in curiosity, only to shut them the moment they realize it is just you being strange once again.

You throw open the door to dining room and burst in on your mother and father not quite yet ready to spar.

"The past can't change." Your mother and father look up at you, your mother raising an eyebrow, your father stopping with his tea cup not quite to his mouth yet, looking at you with a particularly potent mixture of concern, regret, and not-quite-dread. "But…but perhaps that is for the best. I do not think what the two of you did was right. But, the world is too large, too dreadful to face alone and I have very few others I can trust as much as my House, which must stand together against the darkness."

"What did you want help with?" Well, trust your mother to get straight to the point then. But as far as these things go, there could be far, far worse responses. She could have simply said no; as far as your father goes, well, he is certainly not some shrinking welp to cringe away the moment your mother says something, but by that same token well, it's not likely he'd be opposed to helping you in the first place so if it also makes her happy, well.

"There is a temple to Asuryan, not far from here, built by our Ancestors long, long ago, in the Golden Age of this world, before the madness of Haclad and the idiocy of humanity brought us so low."

How do you even begin to explain?
"I would journey there once more, and see it with my own eyes."

That your sleep has been riddled with visions? Of Phoenixes and of Manticores battling out their fury against each other, great, ravaging blows that burn and poison the very countryside each seeks to claim, the symbol of the eternal battle between Asuryan, the just ruling, and Khaine, whose sole claim to kingship is raw, naked, worthless power? Power for its own sake, power for the ability to bully, to threaten, to insult and degrade? In short, the epitome of the Druchii spirit?

Your mother looks you over, once, twice, thrice. Examining you, looking for any weakness, any failure, any flaw in your spirit. Any sign your dedication may waver, even the slightest amount of doubt or regret in your chosen course. For to doubt is to court failure and death. You cannot read her, but it is more than obvious.

And she finds nothing. This cause, this cause is yours, and you will see it done.

Her face splits in a smile, and she takes up her tea, a mix of bitter happiness and happy bitterness for a moment even as you, impatiently, wait for her to speak. "Looking back, I don't know that what I did to you was right. I can admit this now. But a part of me has to wonder whether it did not also make you more independent, more yourself and less me, less your father, less this family."

You breathe out, letting the snarling hound within remain silent, remain muzzled and leashed and caged. "I think I would have preferred having a family to having independence."

"Ha. That's because you've never had somebody try to take yours from you, Vardanis." Unexpectedly your father speaks up for the first time, reminding you both that the quiet archer does have opinions, for all he is willing to let the grander personalities of the House dominate most of the time. "Much did my father bring upon me to try and force me into compliance, to try and chain me: until his last great plan turned against him, and proved as strong as she was beautiful."

"I hardly turned against him," your mother says looking embarrassed and pleased at the same time. "But you are my husband, and he made you unhappy. What was I to do, merely allow such to come to pass and say nothing?"

"Anyway," you say to cut the two of them off before they can begin to reminisce again,"I need the two of you to prepare something for me. Please."

"What?"

"A storage room, a vault, a pantry, whatever, that just doesn't get used that much. I intend to claim reagents while I am there and I don't want somebody stumbling on them and destroying them, or getting hurt by them, before I use them."

"Alright. We can do that." Your father sighs. "And Vardanis, for what it's worth, we are proud of you. Never doubt that."

---

86+5=91

65+5=70

You race through the woods, wild and free. No beasts, not even the mighty White Lions, meddle with a great Bear lightly and so none have dared attempt to dissuade you as you have journeyed, constantly transforming yourself into a bear, a wolf, a raven, to more easily journey through the wild places without causing damage as you go. It is peaceful and serene, not to have to deal with great crowds of people for the time being.

And then you hear it. The screeching of an eagle, a falcon, a hawk greater than you, and then something much, much worse. The roaring of something not quite a lion, a screech not quite a bat, and a hiss not quite a scorpion's. Unnatural, beaten together into a cacophony that never should have been, forced into a hellish chorus that makes your ears begin to bleed as you grow closer and closer and yet never, ever stops being as clear as the great bells that ring in Tor Achare.

Bursting into the clearing and the entrance to the abandoned temple, you see them. The manticore, of course, as vile as possible, drool pouring out of its mouth ringed green, a body leonid and positively layered with muscle, thin batlike wing, claws sharp enough they glint in the sun, a scorpion's tail with a stinger as sharp and as hard as a lance, covered with wounds that bleed and everywhere the blood touches the grass sizzles and dies.

But that is nothing, nothing, compared to the Phoenix. Its bright and fiery plumage is neither the roaring red fires of a Flamespyre Phoenix, the great conflagration of the young and vigorous bird. Nor is it the blue hoarfrost of the Frostheart Phoenixes. It is instead a constantly scintillating prismatic band of ruby and sapphire and gold, amethyst and pearl, amber and silver, constantly flowing over the whole body, shifting and moving like a rainbow. Its wings are vast and many-hued, flowing with that same mystical fire. Its claws, talons each long as your arm, caked with blood and yet beautifully burning in the bright noon sun like precious jewels. Its tail feathers drape behind it as though it wears a livery of rainbows, and where it goes the grass is just a little greener, the trees a little brighter and more verdant. It is huge too, easily capable of biting you in half in a single move, and yet sinuous and graceful for all that.

More important, though, is to look at it with your sixth sense. Magic is rich and potent in it, harnessed by the powers of Asuryan Himself to His champion, granted as a gift. A burning rainbow, constantly dancing and charging and moving and flowing, dancing and shifting. Qhaysh, crafted not simply by mortal hands but by truest divinity. Worked, intricately, meaningfully, into each feather until it is just as saturated with the Aethyric energies as the entire rest of the body, and so each is all enchanted, making the beast more vigorous.

You cannot let such a being suffer even a single more wound, never mind die.

So you take up the magic of Chamon, and shape the Silver Arrows of Arha, each thing of purest moon light shimmering in the sun, and begin to throw them at the manticore.

The first misses.

The second clips its wings, and it turns towards you screaming and your ears do not simply bleed but burst and so you are left incapable of hearing for the moment.

It races at you, fast, too fast.

The third lances into its shoulder making it bleed even further, pouring out yet more of its life blood.

It gets close enough for you to count the follicles of its mane when the Phoenix slams into it, wrapping its claws around the thing's throat now that it's distracted. You watch as the Herald of Asuryan leans down, closes its beak around the thrashing, dying thing's neck and then sends it off back to hell.

You breath, letting out air you did not realize you had held.

After the din of roar and battle, the clearing before the temple is silent. Or perhaps it is just that you are deaf. You weave together Ghyran into Earth Blood, and let the natural energies of the world suffuse you, restoring your hearing. You look at the Phoenix and find, for all that it won, it was not an easy battle: wounds litter its body arrows upon the field of battle, great, rending cuts that leak blood that burns with arcane light and fire and yet no heat. What remains of its feathers litter the ground as it breaths, trying to recover from what was done to it.

You make a choice.

"Help?"

You forge together Ghur, and in a voice like the Pheonix's, begin to speak. "Recover, aid, beneficence?"

It looks at you and closes its eyes. "Yes."

You nod, walking toward it. "Wreath with World Dreaming. Must touch. Sorry." You raise a hand and drench it in Hysh, forcing it into the Boon of Hysh as you have practiced ten-thousand times, and place it gingerly upon the beast's leg, sensitively as possible, and wrap the Hysh like a blanket woven by a mother around it. The bright light soaks into the wounds, pouring motes of healing and comfort, shutting each and not even leaving a scar.

But a single phoenix feather falls, pristine, as a new one grows into place, and before it can be sullied by the ground you manage to catch it with your free hand even as you feed the great beast more and more of your magic.

Until, all at once, it is healed.

"...Thank you, young one." It looks at you closely, gingerly, carefully.

"You are welcome."

And then with a beating of wings it is gone, and you are left with a headless manticore body as your sole company. Its blood is too acidic for you to gather without special tools, and most of its body has been so ravaged as to be near worthless; but, there is one sharp claw still reasonably intact.

You look up at the bright sky.

Well, since you're here anyway.

You look up to the sky, and follow the patterns of the wind.

---

The storm howls and blows and cracks its cheeks, and yet, you dance within the rain like the wind. Thunder roars and lightning burns, and yet you fear it not, for you burn bright as a bolt of heaven's fire yourself. The breeze screams and the trees quiver in their fear and you have none for you see the dance, not as the celestial objects above with their apathy to the whims of mortal life but like the storm and the wind and the rain, the natural forge of life that allows it to fulfill its purpose. For it is of Asuryan, and you are of Asuryan, and so the two are one and same. And as Asuryan makes the lightning His arrow, and the storm His voice, and the clouds His armor, so might you do the same.

And so never again shall you fear the storm. For the wind carries His will, and His strength is the lightning, and His fury is the thunder; and so you shall not fear it. It cracks the earth around you, silver arrows unleashed by His bow Ceyaval, and you understand. Fury like lightning, and lightning like fury. It is His arrow and His judgement, and yet in His beneficence he passes such along to you, to make use of yourself, and so it was that you understood the lightning even before you understood Azyr, for the lightning and He are one.
So it was that understood the rain, for the drops are His tears and His sorrow as He understands how far the world has fallen, and how much evil has been, and how He allows Himself to remember, to grieve, and you and He are one in the same at that moment for much has been taken from your people, and your homeland itself has been cracked by evils. And yet like Asuryan for all your griefs and losses and pain you will never, ever stand down.
And the wind, the wind is His joy, for those few moments when the world is right, and all is not yet lost, and the light may yet burn, and all the evils of the world that could stand against you have not won, may not win, and there is still hope for this world that you love and are sworn to protect, and things free and beautiful and worth the fighting for and that is why Asuryan, and that is why you, yet stand.

But this has also left you thinking.

You need a weapon. A blade, a keen cutting edge thing, for without it your options against the Manticore were mostly limited to taking shots at it from some distance, and you will not always have a Phoenix to carry your weight.

So you begin writing to your first client, Methelian, requesting his advice and counsel in how you should prepare such a blade for yourself and find his wisdom is both true and more than helpful, as he also suggests he would be willing to help you learn, when or if you should seek to take up the blade for yourself in truth.

---

Asur Culture Corner: Ceyaval, Just Fire, the bow of Asuryan. Fire and lightning are produced when He looses its fine payload.
Gain:

-Mystic Comprehension of Azyr

-Sky Seeker becomes Sky Servant (3 AP invested into actions involving things linked to Azyr and/or the sky gain one extra AP)

-Tier 4: 1 Arcane Phoenix Feather (Broadly useful for all manner of enchantments)

-Tier 3: Manticore Claw (Bearing the savage nature of the manticore, mostly useful for weapons)

-Plan out your sword, not proper construction yet

-Art of the Sword 0/3 AP -> 1/3 AP

---

Sorry it's short, hospital visit sort of threw off my mental plan for how it was all going to go. Next thing up will likely be a vote on the enchantment and materials for your sword but not the aesthetic, and you will not actually make it until the turn where you finish Art of the Blade.