With that, Cirella Shrike released the holding note, and found herself back within her chambers on the other side of continent. Of all her experiments, Petunia was indeed the matriarch's most promising candidate for forging herself a legacy beyond the mediocre results of her natural-born children. All but one had plateaued before the ninetieth expansion. Her firstborn had reached his hundredth, yet when the time came, failed his trial. She missed him, a weakness of sentimentality she had yet to successfully remove. With any luck, a few decades from now, she could push Petunia past the hundredth, and gain the first member of a true family.
Mortals could not choose the Ethea they were offered, but no one said there was anything wrong with bribing a God. And she was one of the few dozen people that walked the Mortal Plane with something to offer they might actually want.
Contrary to what most believed, travel to the Deific Planes was still entirely possible despite the lack of patronage. It was getting back that was harder. Why the Flower would want massive volumes of Lirium delivered to her domain was not Cirella's concern. She would do what was required to ensure Petunia was given an Ascendent Ethos. The early Dungeons were already prepared to get her to at least the 2nd Tier, and the 3rd and 4th would be in place within the year.
A sour note informed her that a tactical team was encountering resistance in one of the border towns. She strengthened their reinforcement and lent them a few blaster blooms through the dimensional chords, if that was not enough then there was no point funding them further. She got back to work, mollifying the latest artefact to fall into her possession. Reaching a 4-piece equilibrium was likely impossible, but they'd said that about a 3-piece too until she'd been the first to do it.
So much work, never enough time.
