By the time I was done, I’d Repeated the spell twenty times, each Casting just that little bit stronger than the one before. The hundreds of impact holes on the cubes were glowing and smoking with heat, even as the ice about them rippled and crinkled and cracked, fissuring the stone as they reached out to one another...
With a rumble of protest, something gelled, and there was a single massive CRUNCH, the sound of shattering stone, and the entire façade of the stone cube shattered, broken like glass between the tensions of superheated and superfrozen stone, and leashed Force and Holy Primal Magic tearing at the matter.
The Luans behind me actually ruffled their wings for a moment. Frozen stone sizzling with heat lay in a heap before their eyes, and continued to break down under the force of the Magic acting on it.
In about five minutes, the whole façade had basically cracked apart and was reduced to sand before the energies infusing them mixed, neutralized one another, and basically it was all suddenly at room temperature.
The Beasts around were all very interested in the display, especially if they had any skill at Fire or Cold, or had rigid defenses. This was obviously a type of attack that could play havoc with powerful solid defenses!
The Luans stepped past and around me, their massive plumed and ornate tails rising up high, brimming with energies. They approached the cube regally, and stopped only a few feet away from it on either side as we all watched.
“Again,” trebled the fiery male Luan, and I agreeably brought up my Shards again, set my Stance with my Staff Noble, and let them fly.
They watched intently from much closer range this time, studying the interaction of Fire and Frost Magic, nothing of ‘ice’ save the moisture in the air caught as incidental rime. No, this was pure heat and cold, nothing else, delivered deep into the structure of the stone with Force and Holy magic, and the hapless stone had no choice but to endure the proximate temperature differentials and give way before the tensions of expanding and contracting that they created.
The Luans stared at it all the way up through a good foot of the facing falling down again, and they watched the rocks crumble and shatter themselves down to small sizes again before the temperature differences finally equalized and cancelled one another out.
Winkle stepped up next to me, waving his seven Tails leisurely, his tongue lolling and his pale sapphire eyes dancing mischievously. The Luans were basically incarnations of their respective Elements, and so the simple truth that they were the exact same thing was something that escaped them completely. Cold and Fire were real, tangible things to them, not points on a temperature scale!
And yet, here I had leashed them together, where each only made the other stronger!
“We shall watch you absorb the Seeds within our Eggs,” the female Frost Luan trilled. Some of the hostility was gone from her voice as they both turned back to stare at me.
I looked about at the waiting Beasts. None of them were Nobles, so the Luans’ words were basically law here, none of them willing to utter a word of complaint. I glanced up at Winkle, who was basically the authority here, and he gave me the silvery-hided equivalent of a shrug.
I sighed. “I apologize to my Elder patients.” There was patient, knowing tolerance from the assembled Beasts waiting to be treated, who, truth be told, looked to be expectant of seeing something new. They’d witnessed other Beasts taking in Seeds, but never a Human, and we were a pretty weird bunch of furless Monkeys about such things.
Absorbing a Seed was nothing special, as all the Beasts did things like that. But naturally none of them had ever seen how a Human dealt with such things, or anything at the quality of a Luan Seed.
Or more pointedly in my case, two at once!
Even Winkle raised his eyebrows when he saw me put both half-shells and their contents down on the ground right in the middle of everyone, and they all watched the tai-chi symbol flow into existence around me with exquisite control of the stone there. More symbols to regulate multiple types of Elements filled in around the Theurgic Circle now etched in around the central symbol, even as I settled in to take a cross-legged seat.
Well, time to charge this sucker up.
I pursed my lips and blew a series of Notes, running up the scale. Heartsong trembled in the air, testing, feeling...
Right there.
My Staff Noble chimed in counterpoint, holding that Note steady as all the Beasts trembled in surprise, feeling all the many kinds of Mana in the air Singing along with me, all in their own Notes. It wasn’t Sound Magic...
Eldritch and Arcane energies streamed down around me, swirling into and around the Theurgic Circle below me, filling the Runes and Seals with power as Mana danced and chimed to the Sublime Chord!
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Winter and Summer, the relevant Domains of the Natural Seasons.
The Sublime Chord Heartsong rising to the Words of Creation, and Silver Magic, the magic of Goodness, buttressed with Holy power.
Seven Elements, Eight Schools.
A Bloodline of Fire and Cold, from the Ceremony of the Frozen Soul and Ritual of the Fiery Heart.
Bring them together, unite all the disparate energies, stack them for a Caster Level north of Thirty, and reach out to the Luan Shells and the power and potential inside of them.
The living Essences within the shells had no experience or power to resist the swirling array of energies coming down on them. I had far more power than this process required, with a raw Caster Level of 37ish and a Concentration check of 43. My Arcane Focus was locked into what needed to be done, and my Will was shining through my collected magic.
Cold wanted Focus, but needed Power to move. Fire wanted Power, but needed Focus to be controlled. I had both in spades, and as the Luan Seeds formed and the shells they’d been imbued in disintegrated, they coalesced into sparkling gems ablaze with inner fires glowing with heat and cold, red and gold vs blue and crystal-white, respectively.
Keeping up the Note with Noble’s help and a lot of breath control/Perform (Song) Ranks, I reached out my hands and touched both of the Seeds.
The right side of my body turned crimson, the left pale blue. I promptly began to rotate the energy they represented around me, both inside and out.
Cold fed the fire. Energies flowed into my bloodstream as the flames began to circle me rapidly. Waves of heat and cold filled the air all around me, blurring together as Arcane and Eldritch energies joined them, Divine and Primal power hummed along with them, and everything danced to the Sublime Chord of Creation.
These energies were Primal in their own way, and certainly could have killed even a creature of their own Elements if consumed wrongly. But Ice was feeding Fire, power growing in my blood and heart, and I had no trouble controlling these two Seeds, such as they were, regardless of how powerful they thought themselves.
Each side had everything the other side needed, after all. I was just helping them come together!
---------
They are all the same power, Winkle repeated, enjoying the stupefied thoughts of all the Beasts watching this process of absorbing two Seeds at once, especially ones of such power and purity.
This is a very good show, the Silver Fox laughed to himself. The Luans, Nobles or no, were watching as raptly as any other, absolutely stunned as to what exactly the energies she was wielding were, and how Fire and Cold could be so complementary instead of opposed in nature.
It was plain that the energies she was using were building, and the Seeds she was absorbing were having at least twice the effect they’d have on any other being who might have ingested them, the Seeds stacking on one another.
Totally crazy and impossible! Winkle grinned even more broadly at the show, watching how quickly the Seeds were being drained down. Were another Beast to absorb them, the purity of the Ice and Fire would surely take a day or more to be carefully merged into their bodies, although a more powerful Beast could certainly do so more quickly, such as another of the fiery Avians.
The little Human Monkey was going to be done in an hour! It was something a Noble Beast would be proud to accomplish, although such a Seed would be wasted on a Beast so powerful.
Any resentment the Luans might have had was evaporating on the wings of the display the little furless Monkey, her casual and strange ‘clothing’ blasted off of her by the ceremony, was putting on. Most interestingly, her long white hair was completely unaffected by the entire process and was drifting freely about, completely unaffected by the energies and Fires swirling about her so tightly and brightly, waves of heat and cold so tightly intermeshed it was impossible to tell them apart, yet still completely separated and not intermixed.
Cold feeding the heat! Transferring energy! Making the Will of the universe your helper, not your foil!
Such a wonderful marvelous assignment this boring little task assigned by his ancestor had turned out to be!
------
When I finally opened my eyes, the two Luans just looked at me, turned as one, walked away far enough to be polite, and took wing, their long tail-plumes flaring wonderfully behind them.
I glanced at Winkle, broadcasting my query, and he replied simply, They show their tails to you. They approve. And they left you a feather.
Good enough for me, I thought, dropping my eyes and bringing the foot-long nonesuch feathers to my hands before looking after the departing Great Birds. The other Beasts watched raptly at the sight of Fire and Cold incarnate catching the last of the sun’s rays on their magnificent plumage as they headed home.
I glanced at my Assay, focusing on the changed parts.
Sorcerer/1 (Arcane Sage/Void Phoenix)
Okay, that hadn’t been my imagination. Einz’s discovery really did apply to all of us, and presumably to Aelryinth, too. These two Seed things inside me had Awakened the Secondary Bloodline which would normally only pop at Ten.
Affinity for Fire and Cold Magic (25/25%)*
I bored down on that to find the supporting facts underneath it.
Soul-grade Fire Seed, Luan’s Heart. Damage multiplier to Fire Spells 2.0. +5 to contested checks against Fire below High Heavenly Grade. *Restricted by Wielder’s ranking. Will grow with the Wielder’s number of Stars.
Soul-grade Cold Seed, Luan’s Spirit. Damage multiplier to Cold Spells 2.0. +5 to contested checks against Cold below High Heavenly Grade. *Restricted by Wielder’s ranking. Will grow with the Wielder’s number of Stars.
Void Phoenix Bloodline Passive: You may use Fire or Cold Magic as Healing at half-strength. *Improves Fire and Cold Seed grades by one category if both are possessed and in balance.
Since everything in this bloody place was based on ‘damage’, or sheer quantity of power being thrown about, that... looked to be a substantial buff? I didn’t have anything to compare it to, to say otherwise. I guessed I’d just have to find out in the future, or something.
I flicked up my plain cotton attire, reflecting that if a Moth or something came through I should ask for some silk I could spin up into more comfortable clothing. I was going to have to get a handband or hairband or something I could put the feathers in properly, too...