MTG Salvation

<Maybe....> But then Aggron shakes his head. 't know enough to say either way. All I really know about him is that he's a monster who enjoys suffering, and he's gone after me personally a couple times. He's also native to Grixis, if I understand correctly. But if there is some planar phenomenon happening near Alara, all the more reason for me to go there. Stuff like that attracts planeswalkers, and I've been looking for them as well.>

<Do you think this portal can send me to Grixis?>

<That may be it. But....if that's the case...> Aggron looks at the map once more, thinking hard. <That means this gem represents Dominaria, right? Our plane? Which is why it's multicolored. And that suggests that Alara is somehow moving....closer to us. I don't know much about planar physics, but this looks like Alara is awfully close to us here. Easy to jump to.>

<This could be very, very bad. This plane is not ready for Alara. Our mages could probably handle it, but the commonfolk? I saw what happened once when that demon got loose. And he's not even the worst thing there.>

<Someone needs to know about this. Even if I'm wrong, this is too great a risk to take. We need one of the higher-up mages, someone who has some real political clout, to know about this.>

<Grixis is....almost as bad as Esper, actually. There's almost nothing alive there; the undead rule over it completely. The only ones still living are small bands of survivors and powerful necromancers who control whole hordes of undead. The demon I'm chasing is one such necromancer, but he's not content with ruling a chunk of Grixis; he wants to invade the plane of Dominaria as well. I have to close the portal he's using to go between.>

Aggron pauses and looks around. <So....where, exactly, are we? I can tell this is some kind of planar lab, but what plane are we actually on? We were distracted earlier when I asked.>

Aggron's trying to get a fix on the last two sources of mana, but Dannin's excitement breaks his focus. Irritated, he gets up and walks over. He glances briefly at the diagram....then he turns back and looks hard at it.

<Well, that's definitely Grixis,> he says, gesturing at the red-blue-purple triangle. <Those are the colors of mana that are....there....Oh, of course. That's Alara. I cam from here originally,> he gestures at the red-green-purple triangle. <It's a place called Jund, where dragons rule. I've never been to the other three shards, but I know they exist. This triangle is Esper, the shard of artifice and the home of singularly evil blue mages. I don't remember the names of the other two, but they complete the mana cycle of Alara. But I have no idea what that gem in the center represents. Alara is supposed to be far away from anything where the colors of mana work in harmony....>

<Yes, I think so. I came in from Ravnica, but Lou definitely went to Grixis.> Aggron has a fair amount to think about now. He moves off against one wall, sits, and begins to meditate, trying to feel the mana around him and recall that serenity he associates with green mana. He knew what his plan would be if he was fighting Lou, but now...

Aggron gives Gear a quick look. He's not sure what to make of this new mage yet, but he already likes him better than Dannin. <You cried for help. I'm a black mage, with some green in me. I don't deal with artifice by restraining it. Plus, this is an automated piece of machinery, not an intelligent one. Trying to stop it is an exercise in futility.>

<Don't even try it.> Aggron's magical energy has not dissipated, not even a little. With sharp jerks of his hands, he casts a spell that infuses itself in his limbs, granting him unnatural and terrifying speed. He leaps onto the golem's back, shredding its control mechanisms and breaking the enchantments that keep it animated.

<No idea.> But Aggron prepares himself anyway; he doesn't like hostile surprises. Mana gently flows into an orb near his shoulder.

Glistening Oil much?

It certainly isn't much without flavor.

Quote from Melete

People tend to undervalue non-removal bombs until it becomes obvious that it is, in fact, a bomb.

He has ONE toughness. If he had two, I'd have picked him. But Scars is filled to bursting with single -1/-1 counters, 1 damage things, etc. One toughness is just not reliable enough for something that slow.

Vedalken Anatomist is so, so much better than this guy that it really doesn't make sense. You'd think red would get the good pingers, but apparently not.

First a tiny human girl, now a cat? The multiverse never fails.

'm intimately familiar with the labs Esper mages use. This appears to be one of them. But...where exactly are we, anyway? I just stepped through a portal and got spat out here. I thought it led to Grixis; that's certainly where the demon I was chasing had the portal connected. But something obviously changed.>

Aggron gets up from where Gear knocked him, but now instead of feeling enraged, he's just confused. <House Lat-Nam? Ruins?>

Aggron looks around more thoroughly at the lab. He sees the disrepair, the dust, and finally the total lack of etherium on Dannin. He takes a deep breath, flushing the adrenaline out of his system and getting out of combat mode.

<Sorry, Dannin, I mistook you for someone else. I've had some...trouble with people in this lab or one like it. If you'd been through what they did to me, you'd have reacted the same way.> He then looks over at the mechanized bunny, and slowly his mind registers what it said. <Is...is there another mage here? Someone controlling this leonin-creature? I thought he was just an Esper experiment, like me...>