Cece spent the next several weeks preparing. Nothing was too small to notice and attend to. She studied her memories for the layout of the estate, and cross referenced them with blueprints of nearby buildings she had obtained from the city’s archives. Eventually finding her perfect entrance. She used her daemonic ocularis to scout the area as well as to keep tabs on Solastria. She prepared her tools, took inventory, made sure her affairs were in order in case of the worst, and most importantly she studied.
She had been overconfident in her skill as an alchemetrix, and she wanted more than anything to remedy it. She tested every refining technique that Knowledge had given her, and then, when she felt she knew all of them as well as she could, she began extrapolating. She applied every technique to different metals, different inks. She found nothing, predictably, but then she started changing what inks she used in the refining process as well. It took her the better part of a month, but she managed to use a similar process for the silver ink she used previously, on a tin ink. Instead of adding a two percent solution of mercury and platinum, she instead used a solution of five percent copper and two percent gold, although it didn’t seem to have an additional requirement like sitting in complete darkness. Still she was happy to have finally discover something.
Actually, she felt more relieved than happy. She didn’t want to admit it, but getting the techniques had wounded her pride slightly. Now she could say she had discovered a refining technique. It was a notable achievement, it wasn’t that rare, but she could publish it. She could actually publish all the techniques in her name if she truly wanted to, there would be no one who could contest it, but someone with enough pride to be wounded, wouldn’t stoop so low as to take other’s achievements. Besides she had already been published a few times before, even if it was mostly just small spell combinations she found worked well together.
She continued with her experiments in the time leading up to the solstice, but didn’t manage to find any new discoveries. Most of her days ended in exhaustion, pushing herself to account for every possibility. She made as many grimoires as her wallet could stand, the new techniques helping a great deal in that regard. She didn’t intend to engage directly with Solastria if she could help it, she would simply do her best to make the whole thing go haywire, but still it eased her mind to be prepared for conflict. She made a grimoire even stronger than the one she used against the angel, for quite a bit cheaper she might add. She did make some additions to it, altering the structure of the spell so that the salt sphere would contain several smaller spheres of phosphorous magic with the space between being filled by concentrated oxygen magics that would continue to draw in any nearby oxygen to fuel the fire. Furthermore the mercury magics had been repurposed to stabilize the orb until impact, and to speed up the projectiles. She created a few smaller, but still extremely deadly tin grimoires, the new process letting her create a potent ink for them.
Finally she rounded out her arsenal with a few alchemical items. She had neglected them in the past, her expertise in alchemy was inscription after all, but she had been finding the necessity of expanding her repertoire as of late. She made bombs and acid primarily, along with a foaming adhesive that should immobilize anyone caught in the blast. She kept them in transmuted glass orbs with a gold circle around the center. In the middle of the gold band was a small button that, when pressed, would cause the sphere to explode after a few moments. Just enough time to throw it.
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It was the day before the solstice and Cece sighed after yet another session of making alchemical goods and researching. After stretching for a moment she did her best to clean up her atelier. This was a problematic task due to parts of a large angel corpse being spread over her work bench. Surprisingly or perhaps unsurprisingly, the feral angel’s body didn’t decay. It had no smell, besides the charred feathers which smelled like burnt hair. Knowledge had told her that it was completely magically inert, and they hadn’t been lying, despite going over every organ and bone, her scribe’s eye revealed no magic. Despite this she had a few ideas for the body. It being inert may mean it has no use as an ink or alchemical reagent, but it does mean it had use as a medium. She had tested a small piece of bone for use in a scroll, and it did have some sort of crystalline structure to it that made it more efficient than paper, but it wasn’t anything special, still she had a use for it, it would just take several books she ordered to arrive before she could proceed, unfortunately it would have to wait until after the elemental ascension was stopped.
The next day Cece woke before sunrise. Her hands were shaking ever so slightly, she had had that awful dream again. Solastria likely wouldn’t start the ritual until midday when the sun was at its zenith, but she wanted to be prepared in case they started early. She had her ocularis in their estate observing them scurrying to and fro, getting ready for the big day. When they were finally ready, at midday just as she assumed, she recalled her ocularis to her. It was time to start the first phase of her plan. The Solastria estate was normally well guarded, but they would be even more so during that day. Solastria would have focused all its energy on keeping people out on the off chance one of their rivals wanted to interfere. However, they were preparing for full on assaults, the kind of attacks that come in through the front door. Cece was not going to be at the front door.
She had disguised herself physically, with a honey blonde wig and some non-descript clothing, despite the fact that she was invisible. She was lucky the grimoire she used to infiltrate Solastria the first time, still had some ink left, as it was hard to create an illusion that would interfere with gold detection spells. The disguise served only as a backup in case her invisibility was dispelled, which she thought was unlikely since it was cast using an extremely powerful silver grimoire meant to fool gold magic, but she wasn’t going to assume anything with gold elementals in the mix.
The invisible form of a woman walked right past the Solastria estate, taking a turn across the street, and entering the Ari City bank. She calmly and assuredly walked behind the counter, she had scouted the area already and knew where she going. She descended a set of stairs into the area that housed the bank’s underground vault. The area was cavernous, and strangely desolate. Cece supposed there was no real reason for a guard to be down here, it was after all one of the most warded parts of the city, and had Cece needed to use magic to get into it, she likely would have concocted a different plan altogether. Cece didn’t have to use magic though, her ghostly eye let her see straight into the machinations of the gigantic brass vault door. It had a six digit numerical code, Cece began turning the mechanism, giving it a look with her eye. A complex work of gears and metal revealed itself to her. If she willed it, she could see straight through the vault door, but she contented herself with merely looking at the guts of device. She slowly changed each digit until a certain gear was displaced and the bar holding the vault shut was moved. The door swung open, and Cece walked in, closing it behind her. Now it was time for the hard part.