[center][img]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/827282844661186560/827934265827262464/CelvanyaToken.png[/img][/center]

[center][i]Calming calamity[/i][/center]
[hr]

Ever since Celvanya’s encounter with Chakravarti the march towards the unstable magic rift had been relentless. Each time the soldiers that had given themselves to her command voiced a need to stop and rest they found themselves refreshed and renewed with merely a wave of the goddess’s hand. During their march the company of soldiers that Celvanya had brought under her wing had grown slightly. A handful of hiding survivors had been located as they traveled, bringing their number up to sixteen total. Celvanya had taken note of a giant sun disk entering the sky, and breathed a sigh of relief that soon there would be plenty of light for her mortal followers to see by and she would not need to maintain a source of light that made them stand out among the darkness.

After a long and ceaseless march Celvanya and her fellowship of soldiers were finally within view of the unstable magic rift. Raising a hand and calling for a halt, Celvanya instructed her soldiers to remain in place and merely observe as she dealt with the rift. There were protests to this idea almost immediately. Many had seen their homelands fall to the forces of the apocalypse and wanted to contribute as they could to combating the end. Celvanya was unswayed and spoke plainly: Even she did not understand the energies that composed the unstable rift before them, and beyond that only she possessed the durability to reliably approach unscathed.

This gave the soldiers pause. As great as their willingness to contribute was they could see the wisdom that Celvanya laid before them: To follow her to the rift would be to sacrifice their lives for essentially nothing. Backing down from their zeal, the soldiers relented to taking a rest nearby. Thanking them, Celvanya once again created a barrier to protect them. Then following this she passed out everlasting baskets of meat buns and bottomless jugs of water, just as she had done with the last camp. Bidding the soldiers farewell for a time, Celvanya turned and walked the final distance to the rift.

As she approached the rift Celvanya felt the air begin to energize around her. With each step the buzzing feeling grew more intense until finally a pulse of energy emerged from the roiling rift. Celvanya paused in her advance briefly as she felt this pulse go by. The energy that had filled the air dissipating after the pulse passed her by. Looking back to where the soldiers were, she saw that they were safe behind the barrier. Nodding to herself, Celvanya drew her sword and activated the blade before beginning to walk forward once more. The golden glow that bathed the area provided a measure of confidence to the goddess: Whatever the rift could or would produce would be met with her full fury.

As Celvanya continued to approach the air around her energized once again and a few moments later another pulse emerged from the rift. This one was much stronger than before, and Celvanya found herself briefly off balance from the force. If any of the soldiers had followed her to this distance, it was likely that they would be disintegrated by now, if not worse. Undeterred by the pulses from the rift, Celvanya continued to approach until she was within distance to touch at the rift with her sword. No more waves of energy came from the roiling rift now, but it certainly seemed poised to defend itself in whatever manner it could. Raising a hand, Celvanya extended her divine senses outward to try and stabilize the flow of magic.

Touching at the energy cautiously Celvanya found her senses briefly overwhelmed by the buzzing feeling that she had felt before. Beating the sensation back, Celvanya began to compress the rift down. It resisted at first, but soon began to shrink. As the rift shrank the flow of energy into the world began to slow. Moving from an unchecked torrent of magic to a steady flow, and then finally to a slow drip. As the rift finally calmed, Celvanya breathed a sigh of relief. She had thought that there would be a greater difficulty to this task, and was pleasantly surprised at the fact that she had been wrong.

Unfortunately, she was also wrong about it being easy.

Shortly after it had been stabilized, the rift shook violently before expelling a figure. This figure glowed with nearly every color that Celvanya could perceive at once. Each shifting rapidly across its form. What really startled Celvanya, however, was the fact that the creature expelled from the rift looked remarkably like herself. After a few moments of pondering Celvanya came to a realization: As she had touched at the energy, so too had the energy touched at her. Now that it had learned how to take on a form, it was manifesting something to try and better defend itself.

Worse still, it was manifesting [i]many[/i] of that something. With an inhuman shriek the first of these magic-born creatures lunged at Celvanya with hands that rapidly transformed themselves into claws. Rolling to one side, Celvanya brought her sword up into a ready position and had mere moments to react as another manaborn lunged at her. Spinning away, Celvanya used the momentum to bring her sword down across the back of the creature and sliced it in two. As the sword passed through the manaborn, it dissolved.

Good, they could be killed.

Ducking and dodging out of the way, Celvanya remained on the defensive for several minutes until she realized a few things that put a major wrinkle into her plans. First, she was slowly losing ground against the rift. Second, for each creature she cut down another was disgorged by the rift. Third, the rift was growing back to its original size. None of these things were good. The rift needed to be sealed, and it needed to be sealed [i]now.[/i]

Pressing forward, Celvanya switched to using sweeping sword strokes in order to cut down multiple manaborn at once. She needed to be careful, as with each broad swing her defenses were left open for a few moments. One of the manaborn was almost able to take advantage of this opening, but in a moment of extreme speed Celvanya was able to bring her fist down upon its head. Though its head was crushed the goddess found her hand numbed for a few moments before the feeling returned, none the worse for wear thanks to her divine resistance.

The answer was plain: There were too many of them. A few of the soldiers emerged from the barrier with a rallying cry to aid their goddess, but Celvanya immediately shouted at them to remain inside and shield their eyes. There was a moment of hesitation in following the order before the soldiers noticed something about Celvanya: She was glowing. Not only that, but the glow surrounding Celvanya was growing in intensity. Coming to the understanding of what might be happening, the soldiers ducked into the barrier once more and covered their eyes with their shields.

Spinning on the spot with her sword extended, Celvanya used the breathing room she had created to leap into the air. Releasing her grip upon her sword, it and the scabbard that she kept it in vanished. Celvanya’s staff vanished as well, and soon thereafter Celvanya was shrouded in a brilliant golden light. For a few brief moments it looked as if the sun had been reborn upon the eastern part of the continent, and when the light faded in intensity Celvanya looked… [url=https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/827282844661186560/827934263797350460/CelvanyaToken2.png]Immensely different.[/url]

Now standing at ten feet tall and clad in a suit of golden armor, Celvanya brushed her extremely long blonde hair to one side before raising her arms. Small portals began to manifest around her, and from them emerged an array of swords, spears, javelins, and other weapons of the battlefield. Celvanya pointed down at the hoard of manaborn below and a brief moment later these manifested weapons launched themselves down at immense speed, peppering the creatures with incredible accuracy. The rift began to produce more and more of them as they were slain, but Celvanya’s wrath had only barely been expressed.

The rain of weapons intensified, and soon there were no more manaborn remaining. Only a barren hill that contained enough weapons to arm an army. But Celvanya was not done. A circle of ten swords plunged into the earth around the rift, and from these ten swords an array of light coalesced around the rift. Floating down to the rift, Celvanya clenched her hand around an invisible force and forced the rift to shrink once more. As it shrank, the swords that were sealing it slowly moved inwards in order to maintain their perimeter.

Finally, when the rift had shrunk down to the size of a [url=https://cdn.arhaus.com/product/StandardV2/30ACAC70KT_B200821.jpg?preset=ProductLarge]small table[/url] Celvanya produced an eleventh sword and plunged it into the center. As it fell into place the array of light took on another layer of complexity before flashing briefly. Now complete, it would contain the rift and hopefully keep it from spreading.

Staring at the rift intensely for a few moments, Celvanya watched and waited to see if it had any more tricks up its sleeve or it had finally been beaten into submission. Minutes passed and nothing happened. Nodding to herself, Celvanya released the divine energy maintaining her form. As it slipped away another flash of light bathed the area and when it faded Celvanya was back in her usual form once more. Her sword and staff reappeared a few moments after the light faded. Notably, weapons that had been generated while Celvanya had brought her full might to bear vanished into nothingness, save for the swords that made up the seal around the rift.

Taking a moment to breathe, Celvanya turned and returned to the soldiers. As she returned to their company they hailed to her valiant efforts. Celvanya could only smile before thanking them for their praise. Taking place among them, Celvanya shared the experiences of what she had encountered. Many of the soldiers came to admit that their zeal to fight would’ve gotten them killed against odds like that, but Celvanya assured them that she appreciated the effort they were willing to go to in order to help.

As she was telling them that such an attitude was commendable Celvanya froze mid sentence. Whirling around on the spot she began to sprint towards the stabilized mana rift, and was both annoyed and concerned with what she saw: The rift was pushing against the seal once again. The seal was holding for now but it was likely to break in an hour, if not less. Extending her divine senses outward, Celvanya reinforced the seal and once again squelched the rift into a state of calm.

This time, there would be no stopping the soldiers as they came to follow. They looked upon the rift with concern, and only when the rift was steady for a moment did Celvanya turn her attention away from it in order to explain what had happened. It was in that moment that the group came to an understanding: They needed some way to constantly sap at the strength of the rift in order to keep it from slowly eroding the seal.

It was then that Celvanya remembered the staff she had picked up along her travels. If the tree that was could be restored and made to feast upon the magic that the rift was constantly producing, then it could perhaps serve to keep it weak enough for the seal to keep it contained? There was only one way to truly find out. Extending her divine senses outward and raising her hands, Celvanya pushed the barren ground aside before gently pushing the sealing swords downward. As she hoped, the rift was moved along with the swords. Once it was in place, Celvanya buried it carefully. Once that was done she took the staff from her back and removed a piece from the fibers that grew from the top.

Returning the staff to its position on her back Celvanya gently dug open a hole for the fibers to be planted. Covering the fibers, Celvanya stood and waited to see if her plan would take effect. When nothing happened for several moments she began to grow concerned. Was what she planted enough? Was it fully dead and impossible to return to life? Was the magic preventing it from growing?

One of the soldiers was able to offer an idea: They mentioned that perhaps the ground was simply not fertile enough to support any plant life, and Celvanya nearly smacked herself for not considering something so simple. With another wave of her hand Celvanya infused the barren earth with the fertility it would need to support plant life… And nothing happened.

Narrowing her eyes, Celvanya began to think of alternate solutions to the problem at hand. But before anything could come to mind the ground began to split. Before their eyes a tree began to grow from where Celvanya had planted the fibers, and in mere minutes a [url=https://www.monumentaltrees.com/im/liveoak/angeloak.jpg]huge tree[/url] grew. But that was not all.

As the roots dug deep into the magic rift, the magic accelerated the growth of the tree exponentially, and soon something quite interesting began to happen: As the roots of the first tree dug deep into the earth they carried with them the fertility that Celvanya had infused into the earth to allow for the first tree to grow, and as the first tree reached the final stage of its growth hundreds of small flecks of light began to drift from it. Scattering across the peninsula, everywhere a light landed a tree began to grow, and in the span of a few hours the entire area had been reshaped into a [url=https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ae/55/98/ae559864460628419301c3d492d430b6.jpg]thick and untamed forest.[/url]

The soldiers watched with childlike wonder as the forest spread as far as the eye could see. Underground, the roots of each tree joined together to form one cohesive network as they bit deep into the earth, digging into pockets of metal, water, and whatever else could be found. Not only did this stabilize the ground against earthquakes and ensure that the entire forest had the resources it needed to thrive, but it would have an interesting effect on the biology of the trees in time…

As the forest spread beyond where they could see, Celvanya turned to the soldiers that had followed her this far and looked over the group. Then she looked back to the tree, and then to the mortals once more. Nodding to herself, Celvanya began to speak to them. [color=limegreen]”Soldiers! Hear me. I would ask of you something that brings me hesitation. As much as I would like to stay here and guard this tree and this rift I know that my divine nature will see me called elsewhere inevitably. Thus I would ask of you a task that will consume your lives forevermore: I would ask of you to settle here, rebuild, and guard this tree and these lands in my stead. Know that I will help you, and bestow as many gifts to aid you as I am able, but ultimately this task will fall upon your shoulders and the shoulders of your children and their children. I would also have you know that it is fully within your right to refuse this calling, and there will be no punishment or mistreatment should you choose to refuse.”[/color]

Silence swept over the soldiers. Celvanya had saved their lives and stabilized the rift as she said, but this was also a monumental request to bind them with. To devote their lives to safeguarding the tree that had been grown over the rift was something quite unexpected. They talked among themselves around an hour and a half before they returned to Celvanya with a collective decision: Yes, they would guard the tree.

Thanking the soldiers, Celvanya gathered them all close and spoke once more. [color=limegreen]”You have my deepest thanks, all of you. As promised I will help you found your future home, but first, before anything else, I would grant unto all of you my first and greatest gift.”[/color]

Clapping her hands together, Celvanya produced sixteen spheres of glowing green energy. One was given to each soldier, and when they touched them a change swept over the group. It was an unpleasant change, but when it was over the soldiers realized what they had become: The first of the Celvanian Elves. Unknown to Celvanya, as she had given of her divine essence onto the mortals in order to reshape them, she had taken on some of their human essence herself. Though this would only come into play later...

Nodding to the soldiers, Celvanya looked at the clearing that surrounded the tree and the twisting woodland that lay beyond before looking at the elves and nodding. It was time to build a city.

[hider=summary]
After getting abruptly married to Chakravarti, Celvanya wastes no time in making her way to the magic rift with the soldiers in tow. As she leads the march, she keeps refreshing the soldiers so they don’t need to rest in order to keep up. As they travel they pick up some more soldiers, bringing their total to sixteen, not counting Celvanya herself.

When they arrive, Celvanya tells the soldiers to camp out while she handles the rift. They protest this idea, wanting to continue the fight. Celvanya tells them that the rift would probably shred them without effort should they approach, and the soldiers back down. Celvanya approaches, and the rift tries to shove her away with waves of energy. This barely hampers her, but confirms her statement that the rift would’ve shredded the soldiers.

Celvanya tries to quell the rift, and mostly succeeds, but as she interacted with the rift it had examined her and produced pure magic constructs that looked somewhat like her. The constructs swarm her, acting as a defense system. The soldiers rally and try to come to her aid, but Celvanya yells at them all to stay sheltered and shield their eyes.

Assuming her true form, Celvanya wipes out the mana-beasts before sealing the rift up. Finished with her fight, she resumes her normal form. As she does so she also dissolves all the weapons that were generated and thrown as attacks. Returning to the soldiers, Celvanya explains what she did and how it felt before having to promptly run to the rift as it tries to break free. As it turns out the rift is kinda like water running over a stone: No matter how hard the stone is, water eventually wins.

Reinforcing the seal, Celvanya tries to figure out how to constantly sap at the strength of the rift so that it wouldn’t build up energy and try to break free. Enter the staff that Celvanya carries. Plucking a piece from it, she buries the rift underground and buries the piece on top of it. When it doesn’t immediately work one of the soldiers suggests making the ground fertile too, which causes Celvanya to mentally smack herself for not thinking of something so simple.

Making the ground fertile, Celvanya and the soldiers watch as the tree grows huge in the span of minutes, sending roots deep underground. When it finishes, magic seeds plant additional trees in the area. When all is said and done, the peninsula is re-fertilized and home to a twisting forest of incredibly tough trees that are quite difficult to navigate.

Speaking with the soldiers, Celvanya convinces them to guard the tree to ensure its safety, and when they all agree she presents them with the first of many gifts: A transformation into the first of the Celvanian Elves. When the change is wrought, they set out to start building the city that will surround the tree covering the rift.
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[hider=Major Actions]
All major actions reduced to 0 cost due to turn 0 mechanics.

1 MA: Assume true form.
1 MA: Alter the biome of the eastern peninsula into a twisting and difficult to navigate forest.
1 MA: Convert humans into Celvanian Elves.
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