The gods, insofar as we can discern their workings, seem to choose their mortal instruments from all walks of life and burden them with “gifts.” Esriella, for example, carries within her an extraordinary reserve of what she calls aether, far larger and more potent than any natural endowment I have ever measured, wrapped tightly around her soul like a second skin. Levak, by contrast, appears able to perceive the weight and shape of a person’s past evils with unsettling clarity.
They are merely two of many: consider the famed High Priestess Zyr’Tellyria Selia’Sethan of my birth-city, who, so the records claim, held back the Mountain’s rockslide with her bare hands, her vharin, and her very life’s blood, buying Zelyr’s survival at the cost of her own. The stories insist she was blessed by the gods; I only hope those same gods know what they are doing in choosing their agents, for I remain convinced that mortals deserve to make their own choices without divine strings pulling at every thread.
— from the research notes of Zyr’Magi Tes’Lothen, “Magi the Blade”, high-aelv scholar, mage, and swordsman
