Back in his study, Hill quickly received preliminary information from Laira: Thay had indeed experienced some political turmoil recently.
Szass Tam, the chief of the necromantic faction and a Lich, was fighting for the position of Speaker of the Red Wizards' supreme council... The former dark fire Mage, the Lord of Flames Kossuth's loyal believer, had vanished without a trace...
Control of the Thay kingdom had now shifted from the elemental school to the necromantic faction.
Some Mages who insisted on absolute neutrality and did not wish to become Liches chose to leave Thay. Elminster had just returned from there a few days ago, and it was said that he had saved many people from the pursuit of undead Mages.
Mages overly reliant on the Magic Weave, along with those who purely specialized in elemental magic, had suffered terribly this time.
Magic Weave Mages were one thing... but anyone who still did not know how to cast without the Weave after reaching level seventeen basically had no future worth speaking of.
But elemental Mages had it especially hard this time. They had sacrificed other schools and concentrated all their power on increasing the offensive force of elemental spells... Before the world's reformation, they had indeed been among Toril's most powerful representatives of Magecraft.
Especially fire Mages... The Lord of Fire Elementals had always been very willing to crown anyone who threw themselves into the flames.
But now, the elemental lords had almost completely lost their means of interfering with Toril.
Hill had once tried to summon several ordinary elementals, but even for him, it had been difficult.
He could create Wind Elementals and Earth Elementals, but they were not the kind summoned from the Elemental Realm. Rather, the divinity of those two elements within him allowed him to create them...