A new hill

[Anastasia]

Okay, so Alicia and Marie want to go visit Mystra? If I have that right, any prep or anything I need to be aware of?

Aka basic setup.

[Ebiris]

We'll pretty much just go straight from Bytopia to Dweomerheart. Syala and Latha can come with if they want. Just go over through our usual channel to get a meetup with her or an avatar.

[Anastasia]

You meet Mystra in a small, cozy library. She sits here, a spellbook on her lap to read from. "Alicia," she greets, "Syala, Latha. Join me."

[Ebiris]

And Marie too!

"Mystra," Alicia returns the greeting, going to take one of the seats with the mother of magic while the eladrin goddess does the same. "Did you feel what happened in Bytopia?"

[Anastasia]

Latha and Syala join you as Mystra shakes her head. "I have not. I fear you're about to tell me something terribly unlikely, upsetting or remarkable." she slowly marks her page and closes her spell tome, which is gone a moment later. "There never seems to be merely unremarkable meetings these days."

[Ebiris]

Marie is almost bouncing in her seat with a sort of giddiness that suggests the news wouldn't be upsetting.

Probably.

"Then it pleases us to be the first to tell you," Alicia says with a more restrained smile, nodding to the neophyte trickster goddess. "Marie?"

"Garl Glittergold is back!" Marie blurts out upon that invitation.

[Anastasia]

A long, pregnant pause.

"Pardon?" Mystra says at last.

[Ebiris]

"We visited the Memorial," Alicia picks up on that. "And helped soothe some of Bytopia's rage by letting it vent upon a curse left by Daa-vid," she presses a finger against the ring of eternal celerity she's wearing. "And so we saw what happened when Daa-vid came to heaven, when the gnomes there refused to kneel to him. But the power of the Fairest Star that was used to kill Garl Glittergold and everyone else in Bytopia? Hellman Oberuth was given a fragment of that same power to renew and restore after he enacted the judgement of the God King. That same power brought the real god of the gnomes back from death."

[Anastasia]

"That's not possible," Mystra begins, slowly. "Gods don't come back from a final death, Alicia. Not like that."

[Ebiris]

"And yet?" is all Alicia can say in response to that. The truth is self evident.

"He said it was like being on the edge between sleep and wakefulness. No thoughts, just a feather-light sense of being aware," Marie adds.

[Anastasia]

"And yet." Mystra rises, faster than even Alicia can follow. Before your eyes a second Mystra emerges from the first, who steps through a portal that is there for a split second, just long enough for her to move through it.

She is silent after, a statue before, "...And yet, a miracle has happened," she concludes at last.

[Ebiris]

"As a god he's been diminished, I think even less than I am," Marie says after that conclusion. "But he still has his own knowledge and wisdom. And if gnomes manage to resurge as a people, he can regain what was lost."

"We wanted you to know a great crime from that war has been undone. So many others are still gone, perhaps forever... perhaps not. With Garl back there is some hope. And I hope you and he can be good neighbours," Alicia adds, smiling over at Mystra.

[Anastasia]

"What you did is impossible," Mystra says softly, "Yet I see it with my own eyes. The Fairest Star..." she trails away, "Hellmen Oberuth." A smile, a slow one. "Yes, of course."

[Ebiris]

"It can't be repeated. The echo he was given was spent," Alicia says, electing not to think about what could be done with the full power of the star. It should just be a world and people should stop obsessing over harnessing its power. Herself included. "But Creation can shine a little brighter because of it."

[Anastasia]

"A single miracle, a fair price played for what he did," Mystra concurs after that. "There...may be hope for Bytopia again."

"There is hope," Latha says, softly but with confidence.