After Hill quickly finished building that diamond-shaped research center, Aglaia returned to its seemingly uneventful life.
Although large numbers of Mages had been rushing over from every corner of the Faerûnian continent... this time, even Silver Moon City had stopped keeping silent. They boarded their ships and silently raced along the winding waterways toward the sea, toward Aglaia City.
The upper echelons of Silver Moon City, who had always loved meddling, maintained their silence as well... They did not even know whether they should feel fortunate that Khelben, who had always made Alustriel struggle to make decisions, was already dead.
To the Archmages, all politics and socializing could now be thrown to the back of their minds. Whenever they thought about it... if Mystra and Azuth had not reacted quickly enough, and had really allowed the Talos impersonated by Gruumsh to extend his reach into the realm of magic by relying on the existence of the God of Liches, they truly would not have dared imagine their future.
When facing warlocks, Gruumsh still had to resort to threats and inducements. But when facing a Lich that was already trapped, he probably only needed to give an order.
Looking at how he ruled the Orcs was enough to know how miserable their own future would be.
The Archmages of Toril had already made turning into Liches before they had lived long enough a routine matter... There were even places where one could buy Lich outfits.
They had not noticed anything back then because Talos had always acted stupid enough... Every Archmage capable of turning themselves into a Lich believed they could not possibly lose to someone as stupid as Talos.
Especially after Midnight's ascension, her excessive suppression of evil made many Archmages feel that following Talos was preferable... No one wanted