by Ian Rodgers
At the end of the rectangular room lined with chairs was an open door that led into a very cluttered office. Again, I was struck between how similar it was to my headmaster’s personal space. There was a large desk laden with paperwork right in the middle of the room, and bookshelves lined the walls that bulged with rare or important texts, scrolls, and knickknacks. A few pictures, plaques, and accolades hung in the spaces not taken up by shelves and desks, giving off a ‘lived in’ feel.
Dora was sitting in one of the two chairs in front of the desk, looking nervous and out of place in her dirty Healer robes and the large Bag of Holding at her feet. When she spotted me roll into the room, a relieved grin came to her face. I made a pseudopod hand and waved at her, assuring her I was fine.
Behind the desk sat a very old minotaur. I’d never seen one in person, but I knew of them through the Academy’s books. The head and legs of a bovine, but the upper torso and arms of a human: that was a minotaur, alright! They were one of the few Beastfolk species left on Erafore after the Great Calamity, and lived exclusively in the Valley of Horns in Val’Narash, rarely venturing beyond the confines of that Void ravaged continent.
This particular minotaur was female, judging from the breasts I could just barely make out through the elegant and expensive looking robes worn on her human section. Her fur was snow white, and her skin was wrinkled and sagging with age. A number of glass lens and artifacts decorated her body, attached to her pristine white robe with chains of pure gold and orihalcum.
“The illustrious Fateseeker, I presume?” I greeted politely, bobbing up and down in emulation of a nodding head.
“Indeed, that is my role here in the Tower of Light,” the ancient half-cow said with a smile.
“What exactly do you do here?” Dora inquired, relaxing a bit as I joined her by hopping up into the second chair in front of the desk.
“Well, as my title might suggest, I seek out various fates across the Multiverse, ensuring that certain paths are taken, while others are denied,” she explained with a smile. “For instance, if a world is drawing too close to destruction, and our Augurs have determined that this world’s survival is critical to future timelines, it is my duty to scry for heroes or persons of interest who can avert their home’s doom.”
“So, you’re a person who selects heroes? Sort of like picking Chosen Ones?” Dora inquired with a hint of eagerness to her voice.
“I know what you’re trying to insinuate, and no, I cannot revoke your status as a Chosen One,” the Fateseeker explained with a sad shake of her head. “Fate herself chose you, and then passed you along to Lady Nia in the form of prophecy. I had no role to play there. The Tower concerns itself with destruction and calamities of a more mundane nature such as natural disasters or home-grown Evil Overlords. We do not dare interfere in the eternal dance between Void and Creation.”
“I see,” Dora sighed heavily, sitting back in her seat with a defeated expression.
“Can you help us find the third member of our band, though?” I asked her, a hint of worry in my tone.
“We can scry for them, yes. That does not technically fall under ‘interference’ since we aren’t trying to do anything beyond locate them,” the Fateseeker assured me.
“In that case, we’d greatly like to petition you for help in this matter,” I said. “As for payment, do you take Ignition Rubies, or is there a different system of money I have to use here in the Elemental Plane of Light?”
“We take any of the Elemental Planes’ local currency,” the Fateseeker informed me. “Here in the Elemental Plane of Light, though, we use Illumination Diamonds as our form of money.”
“I see, I’ll have to find a way to acquire some for future use,” I said with a wobble. I turned to Dora, who was still looking rather depressed, and I reached out and patted her shoulder with a tendril. “There, there, it’ll be okay.”
“I guess I’m stuck in this role,” she muttered after heaving out a massive, defeated sigh. She brushed my tendril away and stood up.
“Can we get this over with quickly?” the half-orc asked the Fateseeker, who nodded in the affirmative, a glint of sympathy in her eyes as she looked at Dora.
“Come along, I’ll show you to the Aetherial Lens. It’s the artifact we’ll be using to locate your comrade.” With a grunt and a muttered complaint about her old bones, the Fateseeker rose up as well and took Dora by the elbow. Together, they walked away from the desk towards the door, with me bouncing along behind them.
Upon reaching the ajar door where we had entered, the elderly minotaur closed it, then removed a glass key from the assortment of doodads hanging off of her. She then locked and unlocked the office door with the small transparent key and pushed it open, revealing a completely different location than the waiting room.
The ceiling was domed, and the lighting was quite dim, with only green and blue flamed candles providing illumination for the vast space. In the middle of the chamber was a huge contraption made from a million different-sized glass lenses and mirrors held aloft by countless brass and gold mechanical limbs. If you squinted, the device looked like a metallic, upside down octopus, but with many more arms than normal. And in the long shadows cast by the candles, it loomed above the trio of visitors like some twisted, otherworldly entity.
A single curved, egg-shaped chair was attached to the floor right beneath the assortment of metal appendages, and was built onto a series of rails, the seat capable of moving in time with the lens.
“That is one strange device,” Dora murmured as she took in the magnificent contraption of glass and brass and gold.
“This is the Aetherial Lens, the greatest tool that allows us masters of Divination to spread our gaze even further,” the Fateseeker revealed. “It can scry any location and locate any person with ease, so long as they’ve been exposed to light at one point in their life.”
“And this will help us find our lost companion?” I asked, double checking.
How, though?” Dora inquired. “That doesn’t make any sense!”
“Just as every river, ocean, and drop of rain in the mortal plane comes from, passes through, and eventually returns to the Elemental Plane of Water, so too does every form of light pass through Luminoth,” the Fateseeker explained. “Candle light, sunlight, starlight, the light of a bonfire, the bioluminescence of a deep-water fish or a buzzing, dancing firefly, even the light of an explosion! All of it falls under Luminoth’s dominion. And through the connection, the disciples of the Tower of Light use the Aetherial Lens to gather and collect the experiences of this infinite and all-encompassing energy.”
“So, what you’re saying is that you can, with advanced Divination magic, scry anything that has ever been touched by so much as a flash of lightning, or the glow of a Glittercap mushroom?” I asked incredulously, and the Fateseeker nodded.
“Absolutely,” the aged minotaur confirmed. “First, though, I have to start it up.”
With a grunt and a muttered curse about her elderly bones, the Fateseeker sank into the egg-shaped chair. Despite its flimsy look, it supported her easily. Levers, joysticks, and more spindles rose up out of the ground in front of the Fateseeker, all attached to an entire console of buttons, dials, and beeping monitors.
With quick taps of her fingers, she input a series of commands, and the dome rumbled slightly before a tiny portal slid open on the ceiling, admitting a thin beam of pure white light.
As the light shone down upon the room, the Aetherial Lens whirred to life, and with a cacophony of creaking and grinding, the mechanical limbs began to move. A mirror was placed beneath the beam of light, reflecting it through a lens of a golden arm. Thus began a series of movements to maneuver the mirrors and lens around so that the beam of light was caught and redirected through countless different pathways through the room.
Mesmerized by the way the light was being artificially moved and shaped, I traced the beam’s path in my mind. At first it looked nonsensical, but the more the Fateseeker work
ed, and the greater the light spread out, the more I realized she was doing more than just manipulating it for fun.
“By Cynthia’s socks! You’re making a three-dimensional magical array!” I gasped as I realized what the old minotaur was doing.
“Indeed,” she replied with a grin, her eyes still focused on her work of carefully guiding the lens and mirrors into their proper places around the room. “By reflecting the magical light of Luminoth through this collection of enchanted and magically forged glass and mirrors it is possible for the Tower of Light to construct massive Divination rituals that allow us to see every possible thread of fate we desire, as well as pinpoint the location of nearly any entity in existence.”
“Amazing!” Dora breathed in awe. Suddenly, she gained an expression of hope. “Anywhere, you said?”
“Err, yes, practically anywhere,” the Fateseeker confirmed a bit warily, seeing the wide, hopefully grin on the half-orc’s face.
“Then does that mean I can see my friends and family to make sure they’re alright?” Dora asked eagerly.
“I suppose there’s no harm in that,” the minotaur shrugged. “But it’s one way only. You can observe them, but they won’t be able to see or hear you.”
“That’s good enough for me,” the Healer declared, and the Fateseeker nodded slowly.
“Very well, after I find your third member, I will recalibrate the Aetherial Lens so you can look for your companions back on Erafore.”
Dora settled down to wait, fidgeting slightly in anticipation. I, however, was eager to watch this massive ritual in action. This was the first time I’d ever seen a 3D magical array, and I already had a number of ideas for developing some new spells!
“Activating Aetherial Lens! Configuration Zero! Zero! Ninety-nine! Five! Twenty-three! Seven! Fifty-five! Three! Three! Magical Capacitors at 97% efficiency! Initiating Divine Convergence Array!” the Fateseeker announced, her voice almost drowned out by a sudden swelling of humming and buzzing in the air.
The beam of light from Luminoth that was stretched out across the entire chamber seemed to harden, going from mere energy to a solid diamond-like material. Sparks of rainbow energy danced along the now frozen rays of light, and the air grew heavy with the tang of ozone.
Then, from beneath the floor rose a marble basin full of water. The birdbath-shaped container rose up in the direct and absolute center of the array that the Fateseeker had constructed.
The water in the altar’s basin suddenly erupted, turning into a cloud of misty droplets that hung in the air, covering the entirety of the Aetherial Lens’ array.
What occurred next was like watching a mirage form. A blurry image of a tall person wearing intimidating black armor appeared. A blurry object was flying around the person’s head. It was hard to tell where they were, the background was so distorted.
“What’s wrong with the imagery?” I demanded, doing my best to memorize the basic sight of the person being displayed.
“Something’s happened to the target!” the Fateseeker uttered in shock. “His connection with Fate is still there, and he’s definitely a Chosen One, but his mind… his mind is damaged! He has no idea who he is, or where, either!”
“Are you saying he has amnesia, and that’s why everything around him looks so blurry?” Dora inquired in disbelief.
“It could be due to a Memory Stealing curse,” the elderly minotaur replied. “Or a nasty encounter with an Idea Drinker. There’s a whole host of reasons why we’d be getting a bad reception on him. But there seems to be something else actively shielding him from the Aetherial Lens’ sight!”
“Let me try to adjust a few settings…” the Fateseeker murmured as she fiddled with some dials and buttons, trying to refine the image and make it clearer. For a brief moment the picture sharpened and I was able to see that a few of the brown and white blobs in the distance were, in fact, floating islands and clouds respectively.
But the white feathered object that was following the black armored Chosen One suddenly became agitated as we tried to look closer at them, and a burst of rainbow-colored light lashed out from it.
There was a loud ‘WHOOOSH’ as all the moisture in the chamber instantly vaporized. The water-born mirage immediately vanished and the Aetherial Lens whirred in confusion as the medium for projecting the scryed image disappeared.
After a muttered curse from the Fateseeker she pressed a few buttons and pulled a lever, lowering the marble basin in the floor so it could be refilled. Then, she undid whatever had turned the beams of light into a solid, reverting them back into immaterial energy waves.
“Whoever or whatever is accompanying your fellow Chosen One is very powerful,” the Fateseeker revealed as she began to reconfigure the Aetherial Lens into a new array. “It was able to detect the scrying spell and dispel it with contemptuous ease. I know of only a few beings that strong.”
“Is our fellow Chosen One in any danger?” I asked worriedly, and she shook her head.
“No, if anything, your friend is even better protected than you two currently are,” she informed me.
“Truly? In that case, I’m relieved,” I said with a jiggle. “And I have a good idea of where they are.”
“Really? Where?” Dora asked, glancing over at me with interest.
“I saw some floating islands in the background. I think he might be in Aerum, the Elemental Plane of Wind,” I replied. Dora groaned a bit.
“I was just there! Ugh, just my luck.”
“What were you doing in Aerum?” I asked curiously.
“Running from two horrific Void spawn,” she answered bitterly, and I flinched a bit while the Fateseeker sucked in a gasp between her teeth.
“Oh. Well, at least you got away safely,” I said in what I hoped was a comforting manner. Dora just huffed in depression.
“Yeah, but barely. And I had to practically throw my two friends through a portal back to Erafore in order to save them. I didn’t make it through in time, though.”
“How did you escape and make it to Luminoth?” I wondered, and she sighed.
“Remember when I told you about those Elemental Tails I rescued? They used up the last of their power to send me through a portal they made.” Dora shook her head sadly. “I wish I knew if they were okay. Both my friends and those two cute foxes.”
“Elemental Tails are notoriously difficult to scry due to their inherent nature as natural born Planeswalkers. The dimensional energy that coats them at all times makes it hard to identify them, and even high-grade and powerful scrying spells will only be able tell you their vague location,” the Fateseeker spoke up, a hint of apology in her voice. “However, I’ve set up a connection to Erafore. All that it needs now is your own input.”
In response to her words, the birdbath-esque altar rose up once more, full of crystal clear and purified water, but this time it was accompanied by a second plinth. Atop it was a sphere of clear glass. It resembled a stereotypical fortuneteller’s crystal ball, but even from where I waited on the sidelines I could feel the power within it. That was no common magical tool, it was an artifact crafted in the same manner as the assorted units of glass of the Aetherial Lens.
“Simply place a hand atop the attunement orb while the ritual is active, and think of the people you want to see. They will eventually appear as images similar to before,” the minotaur explained to Dora. The half-orc cautiously placed her right hand onto the crystal ball. When nothing zapped or stabbed her, she relaxed and closed her eyes, thinking of the faces of her distant friends and family.
As Dora called up the images of her companions in her mind, the Fateseeker activated the Aetherial Lens. She had already reconfigured it into the proper array to locate Erafore, and all that was left was the solidifying of the light. The process went off without a hitch, and once more the water droplets erupted out of the basin and hung suspended in the air, creating a large illusory screen.
The crystal ball Dora was holding proceeded to glow with a silvery light, a
nd in the air a series of images began to manifest.
“Open your eyes, child,” the Fateseeker urged, and Dora did so, looking up at the projected image, only to choke back a sob as tears threatened to spill down her cheeks.
Two young men were covered in bandages and strapped to beds in what appeared to be a medical ward. One was a Grand Elf, his blond hair, pale skin, pointed ears, and lithe figure giving his race away. On the elf’s right was a human, though from what I could discern his skin was the same hue as that of Kine, a close friend of Princess Liliana’s and a member of royalty from Distant Qwan.
He was bald, though a bit of stubble was starting to grow on his head, but not nearly enough to hide the numerous swirling runic tattoos that covered his scalp and ran down his chest and arms. Both he and the elf were arguing with women in Healer’s robes, trying to struggle free of the restraints keeping them in bed. An elderly Healer hobbled over supported by a cane and whacked the duo over the heads, a flash of blue accompanying each blow. They soon slumped over, sleeping peacefully and no longer trying to escape the healing process.
“I’m glad to see they made it to Erafore safely,” Dora said, her throat thick with emotions. “I wonder where they landed?”
“Is there anyone else you wish to view?” the minotaur inquired, and Dora nodded. The half-orc closed her eyes again as she thought of her family next.
There was a disorienting swirl as the image in the water screen broke away from the slumbering duo, and began to move, blurringly fast, towards the next destination.
It alighted on a well-kept office, a desk and shelves appearing before the Aetherial Lens’ audience. Behind the desk a man with black hair and a goatee was yelling soundlessly at a younger man whose face was decorated with scars and whose sandy brown hair was lanky and unkempt.