Chapter Text
Gem glanced at the portal, framed in gold and amethyst, at least she assumed it was a portal. The thing had been there for thousands of years according to history books and the tales that the past grand wizard had told her when she was preparing to take over, still in her teenage years.
It was one of the main focuses of all the grand Wizards. Part of their job really. The crystal cliffs had been founded around discovering and trying to harness the magic of the portal. But none of the Wizard in the past had managed to get any further than it had been made with magic more powerful than any one Wizard should be able to use, hell even 10 powerful wizards couldn’t do anything with it. And that the magic had left a long time ago.
Gem honestly didn’t understand why she was forced to focus multiple hours a week into poking a used old portal. She would rather research the magic that she could actually use and help train new students in their preferred magic. Traditions could be damned, a kingdom is allowed to change their goals.
The funniest thing is that barely anyone even knows about the portal. Turns out most Wizards don’t like to be known for failure. Gem knew better than to look at the portal, heaps of wizards already had done that, if there was a lead then it would have been found by now. So she sat sheltered behind a curtain of glow berries and vines.
Gem doesn’t like to slack off but she’s smart enough to know when something is futile. So she decided to take the time to rest, Gandolf had followed her down to the cave and was now curled up on her lap demanding attention. He may be a familiar but that doesn't mean he puts nearly as much energy into magic.
After about half an hour Gandolf decided that Gem was no longer worth it and went to a small pile of moss near a specifically large amethyst shard. He started clawing at it, it was weird because gem knows how much andolf hates getting moss in his paws.he seemed to also remember this after trying to dig into the moss for a third time before hissing at it and lying down, glaring at it as if it were a baby dragon that severely offended him.
“What did you find?” Gem laughed as she moved over to the patch of moss that had caught Gandolf's attention. Still giggling at the scene. Gandolf just gave off a demanding meow getting his point across that he wanted her to dig for him. She gave him a quick pat before digging into the moss trying to find out what had made him so dedicated to find something in that specific spot.
Gem wouldn’t deny that it seemed as if there had been moss leaves and dirt gathering over this specific patch of dirt for years. But she still kept digging for until she hit what she assumed was stone. How long had it been since stone had been exposed in this cave?
But what really shocked her was the crescent moon necklace lying there covered in years of dirt but still seemingly shiny. It had tiny strands of amethyst and gold perfectly welding into the silver as if it had always been that way but that couldn’t make sense because that was impossible, and from how deep it had been buried and the fact the dirt and moss had been undisturbed Gem was certain that there would have been no craftsmen able to make it in the time it was made. She’d always trusted Gandalf's senses and sure he'd made her dig up a dead mouse before, she was still surprised he'd been able to sense the necklace when no other familiar had in the past.
She quickly laid it down on the moss carpet next to her before starting to place back at least some of the dirt. She tried to ignore the way the necklace tried to draw her in, and radiated magic that was combatting her own. She knew how bad it was to mess with mysterious items you find in a cave that emisses magical presence. So when she was done she pocketed the necklace in the magic safe shulker she always kept in her inventory and picked up a now sleeping gandalf and carried him on the huge trek to the surface.
~
Gem laid Gandolf on his bed before walking off to find one of her council members. She ended up finding Aria, one of the older council members having been around since the last grand Wizard took the title.
“Hey Aria?”
The woman looked up from the letter she'd been reading and raised an eyebrow. “You’re back early.”
Aria didn’t really mind that Gem didn’t put as much effort into studying the portal as most of the castle, maybe because she’d spent decades in the council with there being any leads at all.
“Can you tell everyone to go home early, I might have found a lead and don’t want to hurt anyone…”
Aria widened her eyes in shock. “Really? How?”
“I’m not certain it could be something left by a past grand Wizard by accident but maybe…”
Aria still smiled and told Gem that she’d get right to it before rushing off to find everyone who worked in the tower. Gem just trudged up to her office and leafed through the many books on past Grand Wizards, it would take a while for everyone to leave the tower but she could at least check to see if any significant wizards had ever enchanted a moon pendant, though it was unusual seeming as gem is the first known wizard historically to study moon magic she cant deny that she enchanted a random piece of jewlery without thinking of symbolism on multiple occasions, it made it quite hard to keep a theme when she had enchanted bomb earings for protection, and then proceeded to enchant a flower necklace with a spell that enhances the spell, she had stopped doing that recently though but it was definitely not unusual for Wizards to completely forget themes when all they want to do is experiment. So she checked anyway.
By the time an hour had passed shed seen nothing like it in the images and found nothing in the many segments about older items and descriptions of items that never had a picture. So she decided to experiment the magic instead. When she tried a spell to make the magic readable it came out in symbols that weren’t translated by even a translation spell. And gem already knew a lot of languages without the spell.
Gem didn’t ignore the feeling of familiarity that she’d had since she saw it that had excelled when she saw the symbols. And nervously walked over to the moonlight holding up the necklace and taking in the fresh air. The symbols had gone away by now and Gem couldn’t recognise the spell at all.
There was more though, even some of the professional Wizards wouldn’t have noticed it but Gem is more than a professional though. Magic has a subtle way of having a preference for certain people, it’s why enchantments always seem to work better when used by the creator or if it was enchanted with a gift in mind, and if you are skilled enough you can even make it so that it only works for you. What baffled Gem was the way the magic reached towards her as if she had been the one spending hours enchanting it. Maybe it's because the pendant hadn’t seen another wizard in hundreds of years but that didn’t make sense, sure people had brought up the possibility in the past but no one had actually found true evidence.
But that was where she reached a standstill no matter what she did she couldn’t make the enchantments reveal itself nor could she manipulate or affect it, it had a very clear unbreakable shield from most other magics. The magic was stronger in the moonlight, if she held it up to the pale orb of light it just got stronger.
But the only thing she could think of after multiple days of fiddling with the pendant was to actually wear it. Now gem is all for putting herself at risk for magic but she didn’t want to put someone else at risk. But magic…..
After about half an hour of debating with herself she finally pulled out her comm and hovered over fwhips contact before deciding that he probably wouldn’t react to well to this, especially after what was happening to sausage. So she turned to pearls contact, she called fighting a demon fun so she couldn’t really scold Gem too much for being incredibly unsafe with magic.
Geminitay: hey pearl
Geminitay: I’m about to put on an incredibly magical necklace with no idea what its enchantment is so if I get possessed or something that’s why :D
Pearlescentmoon: wait what?
Pearlescentmoon: gem! What!
Pearlescentmoon: don’t do that.
Gem quickly fastened the necklace around her neck neck bracinng herself for whatever it was that the necklace was supposed to do, but nothing happened. After a few minutes of fiddling with it gem turned her comm back on to find a large thread of messages from pearl.
Pearlescentmoon: what are you thinking?
Pearlescentmoon: please no
Pearlescentmoon: gem?
Pearlescentmoon: respond to me please!
Pearlescentmoon: that’s it i'm coming over right now.
Geminitay: damn it did nothing, dont worry about me
And apparently that wasn’t where pearl had stopped, as soon as she turned to the main chat she saw more messages.
Pearlescentmoon: guys can you all spam gem
SolidarityGaming: is it really a good idea to annoy a wizard? She has magic
Pearlescentmoon: she did a dumb
Pearlescentmoon: she can suffer as long as she’s still alive.
LDShadowLady: yeah!
LDShadowLady: @Geminitay What colour are your socks? Do you match them with your dress, coat, hair or maybe something else?
Gem quickly scrolled through a series of annoying and concerned pings by the other empires cringing about how hard it would be to find old pings now.
Geminitay: guys shut up
Geminitay: I'm fine
Geminitay: this is why I shouldn’t tell people things…
LDShadowLady: I expect a full letter answering all my important questions
Geminitay: there is no way I'm reading that ever.
Fwhip: seriously are you okay or was this an elaborate prank by pearl?
Geminitay: I’m fine
It was at this specific moment that Pearl came barrelling into Gem's office with what seemed like a painful landing, clearly deeply concerned about Gem.
“How do I know you’re not possessed right now? Give me pointers that you’re still ok! Whereis the necklace?”
“This is why magic safety is overrated, I get oversized ducks crash landing in my office!”grumpily glared at pearl who very clearly had no regrets about any of her actions in the past hour. And Gem couldn’t blame her, she would have probably done the same thing if one of her friends had also decided to play with magic that could be potentially dangerous. But she would do anything for magic.
“I still have no idea what the thing is, it's so annoying!”
Pearl just raised an eyebrow looking exasperated. “Am i going to be able to convince you this is a bad idea?”
“Nope” Gem stopped turning the pendant over in her fingers to look up at her friend.
“I’m staying with you for a while tonight then. And you can not convince me otherwise.”
“Fine.”
Gem didn’t stop fiddling with the necklace for hours. Pearl stayed around simply drafting up ideas for new builds before both of them finally went to sleep at around 3 am.
~
Connel trudged through the snow, grumbling about her antics as they tried to keep up with his sibling who was somehow ignoring the freezing ice under their feet. Gem just laughed at him.
“Why couldn’t we wait for summer to explore this path!” Connel complained loudly, glaring at his sister who had had absolutely no problem dragging him out of bed at a horribly early hour of the morning so they could sneak past the Guards who tried desperately to keep the two royals inside the castle but failed miserably. Even if elves were commonly morning people, 5am was a bit of a stretch for some of the guards.
“But I won't have the schedule memorised in summer.” Gem stopped for a bit and waited for her brother to catch up. “Come on con I swear I actually saw something interesting this time, I’d never drag you out of bed in winter for nothing.”
“Last week's snowball fight says otherwise.” He grumbled pulling the coat tighter around his shoulders and trying to blow a snowflake out of his hair. “Let’s just get this over with.”