Sylver Valis
Most people noticed when Anthousa Mona entered a room. Heels
clicking, staff tapping on the marble floor, she strode into Sylver’s workshop,
but neither the inventor nor his assistant Stavel paid her any mind. Stavel
hunkered atop the gleaming machine they were working on, going at the rivets
with a planar tuner, while Sylver had slid entirely under the chassis. Anthousa
smacked the butt of her staff on the floor.
Sylver
Stavel, at least, looked up, then jumped down. “High
Priestess. How may I serve you?”
“You may not. I must speak to your… to Sylver,” she said as
if his name left a nasty taste.
“Of course.” Stavel kicked Sylver’s outstretched leg gently.
The inventor started, smacking his head against the underside of the machine
with a loud klang.
He slid out and sat up, rubbing his bruised forehead,
ignoring Anthousa entirely to talk to Stavel. “I think it’s ready. Proceeding
with test run.”
“Wait, Sylver—” Stavel called, but the inventor was already
at the controls, fingers pattering on the keys like raindrops in a storm. The
machine whirred to life, six planar pressure gauges filling with the color of
their element. Stavel had no choice but to run to his station.
Sylver looked over his shoulder. “Yes, priestess?” Then he
turned back to Stavel. “All levels stable for elemental bonding. Death levels
lagging.”
“Stabilizing,” Stavel said. Then he muttered, “Don’t forget
her holiness,” too low for her holiness to hear.
Anthousa rubbed the bridge of her perfect nose. “The general
staff is convening shortly. And spirits know why, but that includes you.” She
turned on her heel, and was halfway to the door before she realized no one was
following. Sure enough, Sylver was still hunched over his meters. "Oh, do
come along you spiritless nalthema.”
Stavel’s eyes flicked from Sylver to Anthousa, concerned for
the first, blazing at the second. Save for a quick twitch in his brow, Sylver
did not react to the slur. “I’m busy,” he finally said through his teeth. “Tell
Asha I agree with whatever.” Then he waved the priestess away. “Water reading
optimum levels. Fire. Earth.”
The High Priestess of the Kelari pointed her staff at
Sylver. That same gesture had doomed riftspawn and Guardians alike. “You ignore
the general’s summons for this idiotic contraption? Just yesterday you were
moping at her heels like a spurned puppy.”
Valis
“This Attunement Chamber will allow the Ascended to bond
with energy from the planes. It could win us the war. But it doesn’t work by
moaning and waggling your fingers, so you wouldn’t understand.”
“Tell me, Valis,” Anthousa said, “why does your research so
often involve bonding to external elements. Is it because you cannot form a
bond with the spirits that love our kind?”
Noticing something in the dozens of dials, Sylver began
hammering at the controls. “So inventors are motivated by crushing insecurity.
But then why doesn’t Orphiel devote his life to finding a cure for collars?”
Stavel suppressed a laugh by coughing and calling out, “Fire
feedback spiking. Compensating.”
“Compensate for Earth as well!” said Sylver.
“One single spirit bond,” Anthousa mused, “and you could
predict this malfunction. Poor, poor lonely nalthema.”
“And yet this nalthema perfected the Ascension process. Will
perfect. In the future. If we fail. Whatever! Not now, Anthousa!”
The machine began to rattle and scream, all the meters
flashing their colors angrily.
“Sylver, she’s done for! Abort!” Stavel vaulted over his
console, hiding behind a well-scorched blast shield a bare moment before the
Attunement Chamber exploded. Shards of jagged metal flew on jets of elemental
flame.
“Idiot,” Anthousa said, walking toward the door with a smile
on her flawless face. “The Ascended are already one with the elements. They
don’t need your machine.”
“Sylver! Gods and spirits,” said Stavel, beating his way
through the rainbow smoke, “Gods and spirits, please be alright.”
The haze parted and there against the wall sat Sylver, his
jerkin scorched and his hair standing on end. Blue soot covered his face,
making him look like a tiny, starved Bahmi. “Already imbued with the elements…
already imbued…” he said to himself dreamily.
Stavel threw his arms around the inventor, all but sobbing
with relief. “You’re alright! Thank the spirits!”
“Don’t thank them,” Sylver patted his assistant’s back, then
pointed to the burnt-out sourcestone disc smoking on his belt. “Thank my
personal disruption field. That works, at least. Imbued with the elements…
Ascended…”
“Oh, don’t listen to her,” Stavel said as he sat down beside
his master, rubbing his shoulder as pneumagic vents sucked the smoke into the
ceiling. “What would someone who dresses like that know about anything?”
“The same thing we know!” Sylver flipped his goggles down
and the lenses blinked to life, casting multicolored light across the floor as
they scanned the wreckage. He grabbed Stavel’s face and laughed his
high-pitched mad-scholar’s laugh. “Asha’s meeting can wait. We have work to
do!”
Sylver Valis stood at his podium, wearing new robes of
purple and green. The sun beat down on Epoch Plaza, gleaming off the chrome of
the rebuilt machine that stood on the steps behind him. The inventor’s hair was
still a wild mess, and he had forgotten to flip up his goggles, but if
anything, that added to the affect. Stavel stood at the controls of the
steadily-humming console. Every now and then, he cast Sylver an admiring smile.
“… A wise Kelari reminded me recently that the Ascended are
already bonded to the elements,” Sylver said. “With new bodies crafted from
sourcestone at this nexus of the planes, Defiant Ascended are literally
overflowing with elemental magic. In early… er… prototypes, I had tried to add
power needlessly. All one needs do is harmonize existing power with the music
of the planes. Defiant, I give you the Attunement Chamber, built to unlock the
true potential of the Ascended!”
Standing in ovation with the rest of the crowd, Asha Catari
looked askance at her friend Anthousa Mona. “A very wise Kelari, to recognize
such hidden potential,” she said.
The Attunement Chamber opened, and out stepped the
volunteer. From the audience, the High Priestess clapped as loudly as anyone to
see what Sylver had made.
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