Astral Ward at X+3; Invisibility at X+3. Up yours, Wurm!

I flitted down into the valley, Wraithform still up, the winds passing completely through me, but no form of magical senses were able to detect me in the slightest, unless they could beat an effective Stealth check of +107! +30 Circumstance bonuses for intangibility and invisibility were not small things!

There was no reaction from the Beast on guard duty below me as I swept down the valley, having less substance than any flake of ice or snow blown by the wind... required, because an errant flake would have been noticed by the watcher!

I headed for the base of the cliff facing Her Nest, where there was a darkness in the rocks that likely meant some form of a passage leading up. On the other hand, there was no way I was going to take any kind of invited path, absolutely sure something would be on it, be it other super-sensitive Beasts or traps or Formations or something.

No, I’d be going right up the side of it like a spider, ignoring physics, ignoring clinging, and making damn sure nothing hidden was around... because I was sure there was.

---

I was right, too. Tremor-sensitive insects underneath Her Nest, very unobtrusive, but they would have reacted to anything passing by swarming out, and definitely would have been noticed by the watcher... and likely the Ice Phoenix Emperor Herself.

I wasn’t touching anything, nor was I disturbing the winds. I moved around and past them, over the lip, and up to the pile of frozen icicles somehow stacked and molded together into what looked like a great rosebush of frozen flowers. It took me a moment before I realized that it was actually alive, a living Plant made out of Ice, subsisting on the power that gathered around the Ice Phoenix... and likely keeping those Bugs below at bay with remorseless efficiency, if I was reading the roots and crushed shells among them correctly.

Whiskers of the Wild didn’t wield magic, either.

-I am here to help Ice Phoenix Emperor,- I told the motionless Crystal Icerose Emperor with a touch. -Will you help us?-

The Plant stirred without moving, and I felt clear sapience moving and locking on to me as I touched it there. Regardless, it made no movement, although I could tell that its body was likely diamond-hard and completely flexible all at once. If one of those Drakes tried to get in here, it was going to be hurting!

There was no movement, but I felt the curious invitation from the Plant. It could measure my power, and it, too, was a Low Emperor, and felt no threat from me.

It could also feel the Phoenix about me!

I drifted up from thorn to branch to coil to thorn, coming up to the edge of the woven Nest.

She was curled up, Her head tucked under Her wing, crystalline wings gleaming softly in the moon and starlight, the wind dying down to no more than a gentle murmur here. As the Fire Phoenix was grand and eye-catching, She was a glittering marvel, as cool and sparkling as He was blazing and burning, every bit His equal.

I could feel Her Cold billowing past me, my Firefrost Seed active once again, and growing marginally as it came into balance with the Phoenix Fire I’d also met, actualizing now that I’d taken a magical step past Twenty, even if I wasn’t ‘truly’ there.

I also felt a distortion of Presence, and knew that the Awareness of anything and everything outside was warded away from here. I imagine if the thing in the ground below tried to look upon Her, the Ice Phoenix Emperor would chastise it brutally for such effrontery!

Good enough for me!

I glided down into the nest as I pulled a case from inside the Cloak I was wearing that broke up my image, coming up into the shadow of the Ice Phoenix Emperor.

She had to be aware of me, the Icerose would have informed Her. But there was no reaction from her as I came in underneath Her tucked head and paused there. After all, if I had no way to get a reaction from Her, why should She respond to an ant like me?

I held up the crystalline case towards Her eye, and waited, TK making it much easier.

The fiery light from within it glittered on the underside of Her wing, danced over Her closed Eye, and glittered on the strands of the Icerose vines beneath me.

If She didn’t recognize it, the Icerose surely would!

And just like that, the cerulean eye of Ice Phoenix Emperor slowly opened, and stared at the feather inside the nihilaen case I was holding out towards Her.

There was no way She would not instantly recognize where that feather came from!

I set the feather down upon the ground, no other motion around but her pupil, following it and me as I stepped out from beneath Her wing. I immediately felt the intensifying force pour into Her Wards about Her nest, making damn sure nobody saw or felt anything here.

Slowly and calmly, I began to weave a couple spells, even as the case behind me defied Her attempts to raise it magically to Her eye. Slowly and artfully, Her long neck curled as She withdrew it from under Her wing, turning Her head to regard me and what I was doing.

She was huge, over two hundred feet tall, as great and mighty as Thunderbird and Fire Phoenix. She felt my Illusion ripple and settle over her, watched the image curl back under Her wing.

She also felt the Portal slowly opening up in front of me, and tilted Her head slightly as She regarded it.

It was... a Portal to a Summoner’s Contract Space?

“If Your Imperial Majesty will offer me a temporary Contract...” I whispered to Her.

For a long minute, She looked at the Contract Space, at me, and then at the case with the concealed feather from Her mate, clearly gifted and not taken, gleaming there on the floor of Her Nest, underneath an illusion of Her still at rest.

She said nothing, but the gleaming crystalline star of the Soul Contract emerged from Her forehead, glittering before me.

I didn’t accept the Contract, although I actually probably could have... which I was sure She sensed as I wove a temporary Contract about Her offering, bringing our Auras into Alignment and meshing Her Icy Presence into the matching one in my Firefrost Seed.

The Portal to the Contract Space opened slowly in front of Her as She watched.

At the same time, very far away, a Portal atop a Pyramid in a burning Nest opened up as well, a burning mote of the sun dancing on display there as well.

No light shone through from either end, but the eyes of Ice and Fire met from the opposite sides of the Contract Space, and did nothing but stare for a long, poignant moment.

Fire Phoenix Emperor took a step forward past His Contract, and into the Contract Space. Notably, His Presence didn’t truly leave His Firelands.

The Ice Phoenix Emperor rose and matched Her mate’s motion, the illusion of Her remaining behind as She stepped forward past Her Contract, and into the Contract Space.

Notably, Her Presence didn’t leave this place, either!

Entering a Contract Space didn’t constitute leaving The Ice Emperor’s territory. Nor did it constitute entering it!

---

The Contract Space closed behind the two Emperors.

I walked over to the Improved Spectral Force +IV of the Ice Phoenix Emperor, buttressed with 343 Mana, which would stand up to just about any inspection short of massive magical attack. It could even react to attacks and act wounded, and without a really damn good reason, was basically impossible to see past.

The Saving Throw at +40 or something was not something to be attempted idly. As far as the world was concerned, the Ice Phoenix Emperor was still resting here.

I sat down next to the case with Fire Phoenix’s feather in it, reaching down and stowing it away again.

I was spending a lot of Mana to enlarge the Contract Space like that, basically using a variant of the Demiplane spell, itself an expansion of various other Dimensional-space spells, to enlarge it sufficiently for both of the Imperial Phoenixes to be comfortable.

Also, a Withdraw spell, at x10 speed! Let them witness some tight chronomancy at work...

They couldn’t stay in there forever, of course, their very existences stresses upon it that would expel them in time, temporary Contracts or no.

But they would have something that had not been permitted them for millennia: some time together now, and ostensibly in the future!

Crystal vines grew up around me gently, and palest blue flowers opened on them. I smiled despite myself, reaching out to touch the vines.

-I’d like to set up a Formation so that I can come back here whenever Ice Phoenix Emperor calls. The best way to do that is for the Seals of the Formation not to exist until, say, a clever Rose reassembles them. Would you like to help me do that?-

The first Iceroses scattered their petals around me, and three times the number abruptly bloomed in their wake.

-Very good! Here is what we need to do together to help the Phoenixes...-

---------

The very complex, very powerful Teleport Seal gleamed full and complete, scribed and shimmering in captured gold and silver across hundreds of interwoven Vines. It thrummed with power, the magic of an Emperor able to empower it, and in truth, could have been used to Teleport this entire Nest, with the Ice Phoenix Emperor in it, right the fuck out of here to anywhere in the world.

Drawing the instant ire of Ice Emperor if they did so.

Vines shifted, rotated, moved with minimal motion, and the Seal was gone from sight!

-Well done,- I patted the Icerose. -You’ve served Her long and faithfully. I must ask... is there a Firerose you could pollinate with?-

The absolute spike of raw interest from the Plant was answer enough to that!

-I will ask Fire Phoenix Emperor where such can be found. I will return with blooms, or do you want to send some with me?-

A short time later, a large vase of steel-hard ice with a crystalline Icerose ‘cutting’ in full bloom was sent into my Pocket. I was certain there would be a Firerose around to pollinate it somewhere in the Firelands.

-------

The air parted silently, and Ice Phoenix Emperor appeared out of nowhere, sixteen hours after she’d entered, although it was more like a week to her. I released the illusion of Her as She reappeared, the Phoenix stepping perfectly into its place as She did so.

There was a vibrancy and quiet joy about Her as She looked down at me, and icy roses bloomed on all sides at Her mood.

“THANK YOU, HEALER FAE,” She whispered to me, as Her Contract unwound and was returned to Her harmlessly.

I bowed to Her. “Oh, I am not done, Your Imperial Majesty. Please make it very plain Your Majesty is watching this one closely as this one zips around here before departing.”

She tilted Her head at me as I gestured, and the first icy brazier with a Vivic Eternal Flame in it rose from the Nest, and began its duty.

Notably, this one didn’t look like icefire. Instead, it burned with cheerful flames of a particular shade of Phoenix scarlet...