One step forward and many to go

[Corwin]

"An actual elemental! The all-elemental!" Seira responds, using a great deal of self-control to speak just slowly enough to be legible. "Not a heroine with a powerful will of her own, but raw forces of nature coming together and choosing nonviolent coexistence! And! And! I can do it again!"

[Ebiris]

"That does sound better," Marie says, grabbing an apple from the barrel of endless bounty and biting into it. "Fusing the elements directly rather than relying on a rare heroine's willpower, that is. Though rare heroines are better in general, you can't really count on them appearing to order."

"So how did you accomplish it?" Alicia asks.

[Anastasia]

Oberuth returns it - but you see the bloodshot eyes, the fatigue on his face. He slumps down after, closing his eyes and listening.

Amaryl merely adds, "Congratulations, you were so due, Seira. We all were."

[Corwin]

"You know, I've been thinking along similar lines, myself," Seira muses in response to Marie. "I'm gonna say something blasphemous to the goddess of the battlefield, here," she continues with a sly grin, "but at our level battles are decided by elite forces rather than armies. The armies are just fodder at best, like Glasya had. If I had a choice between an army of thousands of varied elementals and an elite squad of a dozen all-elementals, I'd pick the latter in a fight against her or Shar."

To answer Alicia, she says, "The magical theory will take a while to put to paper, but at the core of it is that all elementals have a natural aversion to those composed of the opposite element, but if you manage a three-way battle the conflict goes out of balance and a magical distortion similar to wild magic begins to manifest. Feeding it with further elemental energies, especially those that were missing in the initial clash, supercharges it and can give birth to the all-elemental, if handled carefully. The caster, myself in this case, needs to make sure she restores the balance definitively and evenly-divided between the elements, except now they are slotted together into one large puzzle rather than exist in competition. I think this is an alternative evolution path for elementals, and a way for them to reach true understanding of their nature and place in the world!" She looks shifty, just then. "Probably best to bring it up with Chan or Zaaman Rul first. Ben-Hadar can be really touchy!"

[Ebiris]

"Glasya did put her army to inventive use," Alicia says with a frown. "And her flying spine-ship was able to contribute. But fundamentally I don't disagree - numbers just can't surpass the gulf in quality when spells can just be sloughed right off and arrows can't find purchase."

"You're still having trouble with him, then?" Marie asks, sounding sympathetic to Seira's woes with water's archomental. "Still though, it sounds like if you just find more of those battles at the elemental borderlands you'll have an easy time spawning more all-elementals now you've figured it out."

[Corwin]

"They're all the closest thing to eternal, right?" Seira not-quite-complains. "I'm thirty nine but to them I'm still a kid. I'll keep on being a kid even millennia later! So when Ben-Hadar is keeping a distance and evaluating me, it's for the long run." Her shoulders slump. "Can't be helped. It's not malicious, so I don't have any reason to go smack some sense into him."

She perks up right back, of course, since the elation is not so easily forgotten and Marie's words make a great deal of sense. "That's a good suggestion! The way I see it, conflicting elementals like that don't have true sapience, so they're struggling to reach it in their own way. Then it's fair game if I pitch in instead of just grabbing random elementals who are at a different stage of their existence. Though maybe I could tie into raw elemental energies-- ooh, I've gotta check with Sanzha and Elle as soon as Omni settles in properly!"

[Anastasia]

"That's lovely, Seira," Amaryl agrees, "We could...but ah, Alicia," a turn to her, "You came here for a reason?"

[Ebiris]

"Well, as nice as it is to hear about these successes, I have news of my own," Alicia says. "I went to Celestia to look into why Chronias is more radiant than usual, and talked to our old friend Xerona. She actually had quite a lot to tell us..."

Alicia then tells Seira everything that was in her thread. See this post specifically.

[Corwin]

"To celebrate, right? Oh, and Oberuth, you took my offer to come visit! Let's all celebrate!"

At Alicia's words, however, she settles down. A nice table is set by the window, and she brings a bottle of Balmurian ale to it along with glasses for all of them.

"Io, huh?" she asks, leaning against the adjacent wall and nursing her drink. "I told you how I ran across Bahamut once, didn't I?"

[Anastasia]

Oberuth takes the drink and drinks deeply, "Go on," he says, listening.

At the moment this is basically your two's show, so I'm mostly going to let you talk it out and interject when prompted or something I feel it right.

[Ebiris]

"He wanted to recruit you, right?" Marie asks, passing her apple core to Alicia who unmakes it with her awe-inspiring deific power and then pats her familiar's head like one would a small child.

[Corwin]

"Well, he was kind of a dick, to use a colloquialism. No-nonsense, but in a really stuffy way. Made me an offer he thought I wouldn't refuse, when I politely did it was like we had nothing more to talk about. Also I think he had that weird 'like me' aura which was just bad form under the circumstances. Still, I figured we had our separate paths-- and then he goes and curses Kascha! How dare he?! That sweet girl, who did nothing wrong, and he brands her with a sigil to send any dragons that see her into a murderous rage?!" Seira crushes the glass in her hand, the remaining liquid vanishing before it could hit the ground at her will. "Her one true passion in life, denied in that manner? For innocently being in the wrong place at the wrong time? To side with fucking Tiamat, of all people!? He's lucky he lives in Celestia, or we would. Have. Had. Words."

[Ebiris]

"And between Baleruk and Afina you had your first success at embodying elemental harmony in a single creature... funny how that worked out," Marie says, sipping at her own ale.

"Well," Alicia glances at her shit-stirring familiar then back at Seira. "I was thinking Baleruk's ascension might be part of why Io has returned, in point of fact. But I fully agree, Kascha in no way deserved what was done to her."

[Corwin]

"If Bahamut and Tiamat were his kids, I can see why he'd be disappointed and leave," Seira hisses, before taking several deep breaths. Her voice doesn't quite calm down, but at least some of her nervous energy leaves her as she says, "In that case, he sounds like someone worth talking to. Both Bahamut and Tiamat are not an option for me, but I do have my contacts. Leave the Io thing to me, I'll look into it."

[Ebiris]

"Thank you," Alicia says. "It did seem prudent to to leave in your hands. For the rest, we were talking with the others in Sylica about how others could ascend to divinity in spite of Ao's restrictions and the consequences he imposes for failure. Syala had the idea of looking into if any other deities were... well, different. And the one I could think of is Eblis, given his high divine power while lacking both the support structure of being a Lord of the Nine or Archomental, or having his own church. You've had dealings with him as well, haven't you?"