Ar'Kendrithyst

After a few hours at the dungeon in the morning, Erick and Poi blipped onto the designated spot Kiri had picked out a month ago. She had been preparing for this for a while, though Erick had never seen her cast [Conjure Force Elemental] even once. That was probably on purpose. Kiri didn’t like to show improperly made magic.

The designated spot was a small peninsula barely two blips north of Windy Manor, but still on Oceanside Island, where the land met the sea in tightly packed landscape of hexagonal columns. The particular spot that Kiri had chosen was a high rising columnar plateau above the waters, where a natural meandering staircase led from the top, to the ocean down below, where thick ropes of bright green kelp had washed up from the ocean to tangle amid the columns at the waterline. Or maybe the kelp had been exposed by a lower tide.

But up on the plateau where Erick and Poi stood, it was bright, and dry, and smelled deeply of salt and sealife. The only addition to this place were ten [Metalshape]d mirrors set up in a large circle, and more than a few sparkling diamonds Kiri had asked for days ago. Erick had wondered what those diamonds were for, but he didn’t pry. He just gave them to her.

Each pair of mirror and diamond stood at the same height, but because of the uneven columnar land, they were each on differently sized metal columns of their own, and each of those metal columns had been carved into what might have been important events in Kiri’s life. Yes. Now that Erick looked closer, that was exactly what they were. There was the woman lighting the wyrm on fire with a [Death Spiral Fire]. There was her time rescuing people from Yetta’s assault on Ar’Kendrithyst. There was the creation of Ophiel. Erick had absolutely no idea what the other ones were, but they seemed deeply personal.

Kiri watched silently as Erick walked around the space, looking at everything. She wore a brilliant green dress for the occasion, with lace and frills, but airy, and thin. It fluttered in the gentle breeze coming off of the ocean, clinging to the fine green scales of skin. It might have actually been a conjured armor, but Erick would have bet against that; she had likely spent a lot of time finding the right shade of green dress to match her magic.

Erick mainly looked at the metal poles, though. There was Kiri with a staff in hand and a defeated foe underfoot, while a dark shadow loomed in the background, watching. There was a young girl, reading books. There was… Maybe a Matriculation into the Script, and her first blue box?

There was—

“Eh hmm.” Kiri said, “We’ve got ten minutes.”

Erick turned. Kiri pointed up. The mirrors and diamonds were all focusing light into a space that was almost bright enough to see, even in the full sunlight all around. But the focusing was incomplete. Some of the beams were ever so slightly out of sync with the rest.

Kiri said, “I’m going to start when the sun reaches Noon and begins this convergence. I will end before the convergence is over.”

“What do you want me to do?” Erick said, “Anything at all.”

Kiri smiled small, as she rapidly said, “I need a [Call Lightning] to block out the sunlight all around, but not here. We’re north of the mana stream and westerlies, so the spell shouldn’t move much, but if it does, I want you to keep this whole peninsula clear of any weather effects. In addition, I’d love for Ophiel to sing the parts of [Telepathy], [Scry], [Conjure Force Elemental], and [Lightshape], to the north, south, west, and east, respectively. I’ve already marked their positions outside of the circle, along with their runes for which ones will sing where—”

Erick summoned three more Ophiel.

“—But beyond that, I would like you to just stand outside of the peninsula, and… watch.” Kiri seemed almost embarrassed to say, “Please.”

Erick smiled wide, saying, “It’s gonna be great, Kiri. Have you picked out a name?”

“No.” Kiri said, “I’m going to let her do that, herself.”

Erick kept smiling, as he said, “Good.”

Kiri flicked her hand toward Erick and Poi, saying, “Places, please. There’s a line across the tops of the columns over there. Stand beyond that line.”

Erick quickly found the appropriate circles for Ophiel to hover above—

“I need them on the ground, like petitioners, please,” Kiri said.

Erick smirked, as each Ophiel descended onto their respective rune. Their eyes were open wide the whole time, taking in the lights and the sounds, as they folded the wings of their bodies into perfect symmetry. Quickly, and looking like child-sized birds made of wings, Ophiel settled into his four designated positions. Each of them began humming their proper tune. The salt scented air filled with the sounds of connection, of sight, of creation, and light, as Erick conjured another Ophiel, and sent that one blipping far around the ritual.

Storms rolled in from every horizon, dark with rain and heavy with mana, turning the bright blue day into a menacing tempest, but the sky above the ritual remained clear, and bright. The sun beat down from almost directly above.

Erick and Poi stood far enough away to be out of the ritual, but close enough to see and hear; Erick made sure they were beyond the line Kiri had set across the ground.

- - - -

Kiri watched the sky. She listened to the songs of Ophiel, scattered to the four corners of her ritual. She saw the light converge, and knew, in a way she had never known until Erick had showed her, that the light she saw was only a tiny portion of something much, much larger. Kiri Flamecrash, who had taken her second name as a part of her induction into arcanaeum, was forever grateful to the fire that had dominated much of her life, but fire was a very small part of it all, wasn’t it? Her experiences were priceless, and she would never change her name, but what she had known was so much smaller than the whole; so much smaller than what life truly was.

Ten beams of sunlight split through diamonds and reflected off of mirrors to rejoin in a meter wide space above the ritual, above the columnar stones of this long transformed lava flow, above the wide, and life-filled ocean. Kiri stepped onto one of two hexagonal stone columns near the center of the ritual that were barely higher than the rest. This spot stood offset from the center. The other raised column stone stood directly below the convergence of light, hanging above. Kiri opened her arms to the bright, sunlit sky, and began,

“Intent please guide the mana flow in knots of twists and echos fragmental

“of thoughts that hold in time to show deep traits to help and ever variant

“to see the world, my life, and know uncounted truths made fundamental

“with light that bounces to and fro, that shows us paths lit ever Radiant.

“Like mana, guide and help me grow! Light takes a shape, my [Elemental]!”

Sunlight beamed down between the clouds, turning solid, crashing into mirrors, and into itself, combining in a flickering mass of something stretching out in all directions at once, but also just existing peacefully between the mirrors; a crash of light waiting to become.

The ritual snapped, as the summoned creature broke from the mirrors and the sun. The crash of light and fire flickered to green life, as it— as she, tumbled from the convergence above, down onto the other raised stone column.

Shafts of green became white and yellow tendrils, became hands and skin and scales, and not at all, as the [Familiar] decided what she wanted to be. Maybe she would never decide; not completely. But for now, she was a perfectly stable…

Dragon.

A dragon.

She was a serpentine green dragon made of light, maybe a meter long, that lazily hovered in the sun, like she weighed nothing at all; she probably didn’t.

Kiri panicked, muttering to herself, “You’re not a couatl,” as a notification appeared.