Victorious advance

[Ebiris]

[20:35] <@Ebiris> roll 1d20+52 diplo
[20:35] <Penuche> Ebiris invokes Penuche's magic: < 62 > [d20=10]

[Anastasia]

I gave you a chance to make a smart choice. It seems you are bent on your own destruction. There will be a day you lament this choice, and it is not far in the future.

Yet at the same time, you feel a sense of triumph. Malcanthet's rage comes through loud and clear, transparent as glass.

[Ebiris]

A shame she doesn't have the freedom to really take a proper swing at Malcanthet what with needing to be ready for this efreet business, but she's confident their defences will hold against anything Malcanthet sends their way.

Really good tea, though.

[Anastasia]

Gimme a quick d100, would you?

[Ebiris]

[17:03] <@Ebiris> roll 1d100
[17:03] <Penuche> Ebiris invokes Penuche's magic: < 56 > [d100=56]

[Anastasia]

The odd tension of waiting for possibly lethal combat contrasts with these moments of peace on Sylica.

As you wait, a knock on the door. Antenora enters, holding her hand out. The air twists faintly, ever so slowly becoming a hazy, indistinct apple. "We should inform Seira,' Antenora says, "Anarch powers seem to make this process far easier, and would well aid Kascha." Lowering her hand, the apple fades away. "It also implies things about the natural ability to be an anarch and the exact properties of Limbo."

[Ebiris]

"She's busy right now," Alicia says, lowering her teacup onto its saucer as she sits back and looks at Antenora. "But yes when she has time it's a short process, and I've noticed how it's improved my control over Sylica as well."

[Anastasia]

Antenora takes a seat and focuses again, an identical teacup appearing ghostly and indistinct in her hand. As she does, "Yes, when she's no longer occupied - or we're not technically at peace, for as little or as long as it lasts."

[Ebiris]

"We can expect even more trouble from Malcanthet soon, she contacted me a few minutes ago and was quite threatening," Alicia says, though she doesn't sound concerned. "I'll want to use the icon on Latha when she's back too, and I'll call Ebony back for a visit for it soon as well. No sense letting it go to waste."

[Anastasia]

Finally Antenora's cup vanishes, "Could you?" she asks and after that's done she has a sip of tea. "No sense wasting it. But before we make dozens of anarchs, an examination of the underlying cosmological issues is warranted. In particular - law is set and rigid in its planes and organization. There is a limited number of planar lords and those close to them. There is a hierarchy that is not lightly dismissed. Chaos? It is far more varied and often infinite. The Abyss and Limbo - we know of slaad lords but none can say what alien things live deep there that none know of. A realm when any could possibly rise to that power. I think it is no coincidence that Limbo and anarchs occur."

[Ebiris]

"The Abyss as well has its infinite variety of terrible layers," Alicia says, easily providing Antenora with some tea. Proper tea from a kettle, not something magicked up in an instant that is. "Though Pandemonium, Ysgard, and Arborea are more conceptually coherent."

[Anastasia]

"Pandemonium is also a hell hole amid hell holes. No one wants to be there but the mad," Antenora sips the tea again, putting it down after. "It isn't fully consistent, but I've given up getting consistency out of chaos."

[Ebiris]

"I've heard Marie make the argument that Chaos is fundamentally a force of creation and Law is fundamentally a force of stagnation, and yet there's a slaad lord of entropy," Alicia points out, her tone mild and not particularly worked up. "Yet I distrust Mechanus all the more for its Prophecy of Primus handing victory to Shar - it should be a warning and a call to arms, and yet it often gets deployed as a call to hopelessness and futility that perfectly fits Shar's own dogma."

[Anastasia]

Antenora frowns, and quietly, "It makes little sense. Why did Primus do such a thing?"

[Ebiris]

"Makes one question just who's side he's on, doesn't it?" Alicia asks, a small nod of her head. "No one says anything thoughtlessly, not at this level of existence. He disclosed the prophecy because it served his interests."