Durance Divine

Durance Divine is a tome stored in the Library of the Poet in Rydoon.

## History

Seeking to learn more about the runes and glyphs etched within the temple of Torrent's Bait, Arnica sought out a place to commit to further enquiries, having to travel further afield than the limited range of tomes available in the Amber Archives of her new home town, or those no longer available to her in the city of Chalimar.

To her disappointment however, the topic proved too niche, or otherwise too unknown for even the so-called greatest library in the continent, and so she was instead provided with a book by the stewards that only pertained somewhat to her initial inquiry, with a promise that they would get in touch if they came across anything that might prove of greater assistance.

## Research

### Completed by Arnica - Inquiry (Study)

Though beyond the might of the vast population, the concept - and capability - of an individual to reach out to the planes beyond that of the Material is not, surprisingly, of too great scope for even relatively novice spellcasters to achieve. In truth, some individuals gifted by the arcane, as well as those that instead study and train for the skills, may be able to do so with relative ease, for it is believed by many arcane scholars that when an individual summons a bolt of burning flame, or a stream of frigid cold, they tap into one of the realms of the Elemental Sphere, pulling a fragment of the Plane of Fire, or the vast expanses of withering cold where air and water meet. Furthermore, the conjuring of elemental spirits, or those further span still, the so-called outworlders of the Upper and Lower Planes, is not beyond those with a few years to their name. I must stress that this is not an endorsement of such actions, quite the opposite in truth, but rather a remark on the ease of transition of a being of living stone, or a fiendish warrior to walk upon the Material Plane for a time, at the whim of an otherwise mundane mortal.

But such transitions are limited in their scope, either by means of required components, extent, or most commonly time - although all three are usually in play in combination - and so even if such creatures are exhausted, sullied or otherwise diminished they are more often than not pulled back to the Planes from which they belong, revitalising, reforming or otherwise reconstituting in surroundings more familiar. This transition may not be outwardly obvious, an earth elemental defeated by a hero's warhammer may leave jagged pieces of stone in its wake, but by contrast celestials may vanish in a blinding flash of light, or fiends consumed by flame into ash, or enraptured in chains into abyssal oblivion once more. These creatures are not of the Material Plane, and thus once this tether is broken with their destruction, they are promptly ejected, returning from whence they were summoned.

It is believed that this phenomena may be the result of the divine efforts during the wars between Aita's First and Second Gifts, in which the foes faced by the Ahlusian Pantheon were cast out across the cosmic spheres, effectively imprisoning them elsewhere, and thus tethering their essence outside of the Material Plane. Affixed in celestial bindings to these planes, the Principal Races may rest easy, knowing that those that would seek wanton destruction and devastation lie bound, without the clairvoyance necessary to guide them back to the lands in which they once roamed rampant. The gesture was not truly baleful, priests will remark, for the Sixteen had the divine knowledge to place their foes into planes that would serve their desires, so that they might feast and sate their needs in lands separated from that of our own by the Mists and Seas of the Between.