With a quiver the statue of marble and coral, bearing the likeness of a
strange and outlandish merian, began to move. With a quiver the
attention of the Aquamancers and soon all of New Celest was drawn to the
Spires of Aquamancy, and with a quiver of her hands and feet and soon
her face, the statue came to life. Confusion briefly reigned as she
attempted to comprehend what was going on - and shock ruled her as the
Aquamancers Gracia, Lorina and Tridemon attempted to explain their
situation. It quickly became apparent this aquamancer was from the
distant future, originating from an era where the Time Dames and the
Goloth had dominated all four cities and both communes, driving them
into dust and charred ash. She spoke briefly of the days when they hoped
to alter their own fate by sending a chronomantic cube back through the
Wheel of the Goloths, to no avail.

Tears welled in the ambulent statue's pearl eyes as she was escorted to
the Pool of Stars, weeping at the beauty of a thing from childhood
legend. She spoke of the terrible destruction of New Celest and those
who perished, the tragic loss of a link to the Holy Plane of Celestia
and the Celestines and Paladins who were variously annihilated or lost
to the higher planes. She mourned her own fate - to be pulled away from
her fellows, and the fate of a rebel alliance she was a part of, for
every loss was terrible.

Returning to the time-locked chamber from which she originated, the
statue spoke of her longing to return to her time. It was the
Aquamancers and the scholarly Manchal who convinced her of the need for
her to be anchored in this time period, and then Manchal who probed
further on how they fought back against the Time Dames without a
connection to the Plane of Water. She spoke of how they had discovered a
way to create a conduit through the planes, connecting the Prime
Material to the Elemental Plane of Water. Too little, she said, for them
to establish the connection needed for proper Aquamancy, however it was
enough for them to pass through. Suggesting that forging such a
connection might anchor her into this time period, Manchal and the
Aquamancers set about providing the necessary resources she would need,
with a sizable gold donation from the ever curious and occasionally
invasive Sir Inagin La'Saet of the Paladins, who had kindly invited
himself amongst their gathering. It was much too costly, she said, to
forge a new one completely - but perhaps she could connect to one in the
future, and in the process tether herself.

And tether herself she did. After days of pouring essence into a
fountain she had constructed, the Aquamancers found themselves in
possession of a rare and previously thought impossible thing - a rift
directly from the Prime Material Plane to the Elemental Plane of Water,
without a Nexus of Power as a conduit. Transversing, the statue
disappeared in a splash of planar energies, and soon Telperion, Lorina,
Tridemon, Gracia and others followed. Discovering themselves aboard a
ship drawn back through time, the Aquamancers pressed through the only
hall they could find, discovering the Lady Captain Vonuleish Ladantine,
gazing sadly out upon the Starry Sea.

They spoke for a time, and as they did so it became readily apparent her
memories of the future were fast fading. As she spoke she mourned the
nameless faces she could see, and then could not see, blurs that
represented them soon fading into possibilities, people not yet born or
too young to have witnessed the events that could not possibly have
happened. All that remained, she mourned, was what was immutable fact -
the knowledge of the art they had employed for decades, fighting against
the Time Dame's forces wherever they make their presence known. It was
crude, she said, and never so powerful as Aquamancy could be. It was all
they had however, and they employed it in force. She spoke of the vessel
she used - an amphora crafted of platinum - made early in the days
following the fall of New Celest, in homage to one of the Elder Gods who
had perished attempting to save the city. She spoke of how they forged
the pathways - too weak to forge true Nexuses of Power - and how they
used them to reach ships that sailed the Starry Sea, and from there
collected the raw reagents they needed to carry on their offense.

It was Lorina, the Lady Hand of the Exalted Lord and whose Cult of the
August Healer bore an amphora as its symbol, who first asked to learn
the art from Vonuleish. Soon other Aquamancers began to learn, more and
more arriving to practice the art they would come to know as
Aquachemantics.

And so the Aquamancers had, Manchal theorized, altered their fate and
perhaps the very future of New Celest, providing new knowledge and means
to battle the Time Dames in their eventual attempts at conquest of the
Bastion of the Light.

As the N.C.S. Empress's Hope sailed the waves of the Starry Sea, some
aboard their newfound ship began to wonder if it would be enough, or if
they would still be the first to fall before the Time Dames. Or if,
perhaps, they would now be able to turn the tide of war in their favour.



Penned by My hand on the 23rd of Roarkian, in the year 341 CE.