“One lesser-known reason why old, long-lived mages of great power tend to remain at one place for most of their older years is because of attunement. As a skilled mage stayed in the same place for a long period of time, they could attune themselves better and better with the environment around them.

If this environment had a synergistic effect with their affinity, then the effect could become rather exaggerated. It is one reason why old archdruids in the forest were a particular menace to deal with, and one of the main sources of power for the merfolk clans.

After all, the water affinity was by far the most common amongst them… and since they live in the sea… You get the idea.” - Salazar Hyferious Maudlin, Archmage and researcher of magic, Lecturer of the magical theory course in the Levain Institute of Higher Learning, circa 684 FP.

Mistweave Isle used to be a far more desolate island, which made sense since it was treated as an unwanted wasteland in the past. Most of the current inhabitants of the isle were descendants of migrants who had moved there in the course of the past half a millennium or thereabouts and settled down, or were forced to flee here because of circumstances before that time.

The change in the isle’s status was mostly attributed to the one tribe that had stayed on the island since long before others settled the region, a tribe of tortoise therians who lived near the coastlines and regularly traded with the local merfolks and their aquatic turtle cousins.

They were an extremely long-lived tribe, with their elders often well over a millennium old, some rumored to be past their second millennia even. Cal herself had met one such elder before, namely Archmagus Gapp, who resided in Paradise and was older than even Aideen by a measure of several centuries, which was something.

It was one such elder who was generally considered to have contributed the most to the change in the isle’s prosperity. One relatively young elder at merely eleven hundred years of age or so, the Archmagus Ssuil was one of Gapp’s great-great-great-grandnieces, who was born with the magma affinity and used it to change the lives of the people of her home island.

An inquisitive and talented mage, she had quickly formed a connection of sorts with the land she was born on, and from that connection came an idea that would have been considered revolutionary for the time. In a grand work that took her many centuries to complete and were still being constantly improved upon even today, Archmagus Ssuil tapped into the potential of the molten earth that flowed beneath the island and devised a method to control it for their own uses.

The reason why the volcanoes of the island had become dormant outside of a few controlled, timed eruptions to help freshen the soil when they started becoming fallow was the network of enchantments that was built on and in the island’s soil, nowadays mostly left to the local mages to control. The original parts were all the works of the evenerated Archmagus, however.

Under control of the island’s inhabitants, the molten rock that forward beneath the soil turned from a fearful, uncontrollable beast into a source of prosperity instead. They used its flow to keep the hot springs that nowadays became their island’s most popular destination running and heated, for one.

Yet they also used it for far more mundane uses as well. Rather than the typical enchanted plates that many households on the mainlands used, the locals directly channeled the molten lava beneath their feet to thin, controllable streams and used the heat to cook and warm their waters. During the colder months, the heat from the earth also kept their houses warm, and their streets clean from accumulated ice and snow.

The Archmagus herself was one of the few mortals - though given her extremely high age the moniker might have sounded unfit for her - that were familiar with the matters of the Champions of the Deities, without being part of them or their retinues. She used to be the current Champion of Magma’s tutor, as the goblin tribe of Mugglefoot had made their island their new home after they lost a territorial fight many centuries ago and were forced to leave.

When one of theirs was born with a rarely seen prodigious affinity for Magma, the Archmagus had taken interest in the young goblin and personally taught her, and Roban still kept a good relationship with her former teacher even long after she ascended as the Champion of Magma.

Ssuil herself had been offered the position in the past, but had declined, as she favored just minding her own little corner in the world in peace. Over the centuries though, she had become acquainted with most of the current champions, doubly so after her student became one as well.

As such, when Kino visited with Cal in tow, Ssuil knew what the visit was about. To bring a prospective new champion around was a sort of pilgrimage she had seen many times by now, and she was all too happy to play host to them. The old tortoise happily welcomed the two into her home - which was far more humble an abode than what one might have expected for someone of her status - and brought out some beverages while they all sat on the woven mat that covered the floor.

“Lots of new ones of late, huh?” asked the old tortoise to Kino. Her question was a valid one, since it was only decades ago that Kyara was on her pilgrimage, whereas it was usually rare to even have more than one new champion a century. “Heard there was a new one for Wind as well rather recently?”

“You heard right,” said Kino as she raised her cup in a toast, a gesture Cal followed. The liquor brought by the old tortoise was harsh and spicy, with a very strong alcoholic kick that burned its way down to the stomach, the sort that only heavy drinkers usually enjoyed. “She’d be the third this century. If Evrett’s really stepping down soon, we might see a fourth and fifth as well with those twins he’s grooming for the job.”

“Sometimes it feels really odd when you’re the mortal one,” said the old tortoise with a wistful sigh. “And yet you’ve outlived many who should have been immortal instead.”