Wrap up (Various)

[Anastasia]

You continue on, finding a widening path that leads to a long hallway with pillars of ice reaching to the ceiling along both sides of the path ahead. They're packed thickly enough to block any attempts to go past them without some serious contortion (or being smaller like Afina) and ahead stands an elemental. An ice elemental, barely the size of Hanna.

"Seekers?" The elemental asks. "Seekers of Absolute Zero?"

[spoiler]

Hanna http://www.soulriders.net/forum/index.php/topic,103876.msg1078446.html#msg1078446
HP: 378/378 regeneration 11
Spells Active: Mind Blank (CL15), Fortunate Fate (CL24), Planar Tolerance (CL7), Greater Mage Armor (CL5), Epic Mage Armor (CL24), Heroes Feast (CL20), Divine Insight (CL24), Freedom of Movement(CL24)
Bonuses: +20 armor bonus to armor class, +1 morale attack rolls and Will saves, immunity to fear and poison
Negative Conditions:
Resources Used: 1 rage

Mirajane http://www.soulriders.net/forum/index.php/topic,103876.msg1078449.html#msg1078449
HP: 341+1/341
Spells Active: Mind Blank (CL15), Fortunate Fate (CL24), Planar Tolerance (CL7), Greater Mage Armor (CL5), Epic Mage Armor (CL24), Heroes Feast (CL20), Divine Insight (CL24)
Bonuses: +20 armor bonus to armor class, +1 morale attack rolls and Will saves, immunity to fear and poison
Negative Conditions:
Resources Used: 1 rage, 1 turn
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[Ebiris]

"Yes," Afina answers, alighting on the ground before the elemental. "I seek Absolute Zero and through it a greater understanding of myself."

[Anastasia]

"You are many and none," The ice elemental replies, eyes boring in on you. "You are familiar and hated, good and bad. You are paired twice. You are doomed." Here the elemental considers, "Be ice and you can pass."

[Ebiris]

If she could then she wouldn't need to pass because she'd have achieved what she came here for. "Tell me what ice is, what it means," she counters to try and fill the gaps in her understanding.

[Anastasia]

"Ice is ice. It is ice. It will always be ice. Ice is eternal. Ice is matched. Water plus air is ice. Do you understand?" The elemental asks.

Hanna hums to herself as she listens, arms crossed under her chest.

[Corwin]

Is ice really eternal? The water plus air part makes sense, at least.

[Ebiris]

She'd been hoping for something more philosophical because that matches the conclusions she drew before. "I understand that much, and yet it's insufficient. Still, I will try." It's possible just being in a place like this will heighten her connection to the elements and make up for imperfect understanding. "Be patient with me but if I don't respond for an hour just nudge me and we can assume it failed," she tells her companions, closing her eyes and going still as she reaches into herself.

Fire and Earth are subsumed while Air and Water are let free inside her elemental makeup, to combine with each other and react however they please, while Afina meditates on the meaning of Ice, on the paradox of constantly shifting air and water combining to form something solid, immobile, and eternal.

[Anastasia]

"Mother," Mirajane says in a soft aside to you, "I think I understand what he's saying."

[Anastasia]

Make with the Charisma again.

[Ebiris]

[18:23] <@Ebiris> roll 1d20+12 cha
[18:23] <Kobot> Ebiris rolled 1d20+12 cha --> [ 1d20=1 ]{13}

[Anastasia]

You try, but you just can't focus. Only a little time passes before Afina emerges from her attempt, no closer at all.

[Ebiris]

She shakes her head at last, "It's no good. Smoke was so much easier to grasp..." she realises what a contradiction that is as soon as the words leave her mouth, but it's true. "There's something I'm missing, a gap in my understanding of Ice."

[Anastasia]

"One thing stands out to me," Mirajane says, "Are you familiar with the idea of the unstoppable force and the immovable object?"

[Ebiris]

"I've heard it mentioned a few times," she turns to look up at Mirajane. "It's a paradox isn't it? That's how I've been viewing the para-elemental planes. Fire illuminates and Air is clear, yet when they combine they form Smoke, which obscures and suffocates. In the same terms, Water will always adapt to its surroundings and Air is ever flowing, yet when they combine they form Ice which is static, unchanging forever so long as the temperature is maintained."

[Corwin]

"The immovable object wins, when they meet?"