To Miss
Amabel Aranrhod, daughter of
Isle Maddalena, student of the
Wizarding University of the Aquatic Kingdoms:
It is with awe and honor that I recognize your achievements as an
Evoker and battle mage. The Convocation has tested Aranrhod's Suffering Scream (as submitted by Archmage Colliné), and found it both consistently reproducible and chillingly effective. Your professor also sent exhaustive proof of your stellar academic career, as well as character and field references from his colleague Archmage
Lucretia Britt and from one
Callalilly Oakenheart. After review of these materials, the
Convocation of Wands has voted to bestow you with the official title of
Archmage. Your name has been recorded in the annals of the
August Spire, and your signet ring is enclosed within this package.
On the behalf of the Convocation, let me be the first to congratulate you on this honor, Archmage Aranrhod. Evocation is the base field of my arcane practice; I know firsthand the rigorous study and precise control it takes to wield elemental destruction without invoking tragedy alongside it. Your grasp of magic is both comprehensive and intensely focused. Your expertise relative to your years of study is not merely impressive—it is frightening.
Archmage Aranrhod, I fear that
you should not be.
The dwarves grow their rhubarb in total darkness in the deep caves to the north. It grows inches by the day, even with no druidic touch. It gasps and crackles as it does, like a crypt brought into necromantic animus. The root is sweeter than any grown aboveground. It is taboo for any mage to commune with the rhubarb; I imagine no spell could make it speak, except in screams.
Has your magic been grown in darkness, Archmage Aranrhod? Has adversity forced you to mature at an unnatural rate, suffused you with powers your
soul was never built to hold? If your arcane spark could speak, would it beg for the light of the sun? Great talent in unfit hands has corrupted more mages and caused more destruction than any malevolent god. Time
branches in infinite directions from any given point—I understand you know this intimately, though it is uncommon knowledge at best—and I suspect there are timelines in which I would be forced to destroy you.
It is by and large on testimony from Miss Oakenheart that I do not regard your existence as a threat. I have been told at great length that you are considerate beyond belief, conscientious to a fault, and loyal to the last. Now more than ever, Archmage Aranrhod, the world needs wizards of great character. The Convocation and I have been made aware of your fieldwork in temporal stream displacement, particularly where it relates to the unusually rapid planar reinvigoration of death knights. For our part, several mystromancers of the Convocation are engaged in severing the pact between
Dicent Éxni and
Urux'fhior the Destroyer. I know your work continues in parallel at the
elemental edges of the world. If you have even one-tenth of the moral strength your friend attests, this robe will protect you as you go.
Ad animae ex arcanum, Archmage Aranrhod—and
krommte'naï, for good measure.
Prismatogogue Salonen, Hierophant of the Convocation of Wands
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