The Conflux
The collective’s most heavily warded area is the Conflux, the area where two leylines meet and create strong elemental turmoil. It lies in the volcanic chamber underneath the island’s caldeira, barely over sea level. Magma, sulfur clouds and steam from the overheated waves create strange puddles of many-hued sulphuric acid and salt crystals around a well of lava, where once fire elementals would be birthed.
To bind the elements
Since coming to Autarkia, former headmaster Venici has worked to moderate the Conflux’s randomness, creating steam-vents to avoid volcanic eruptions or quakes, and building magical safeguards to keep the fire elementals in check. After a grueling week of conjuring and binding, two of their strongest, nicknamed Grim and Jaw, were bound to great gargoyle-statues that now overlook the well, protecting it against intruders.
The Conflux’s energies power many enchantments within the college, and explain the strange intensity of magic within the Autarkia campus, as overflow from the well’s intense combination of Water, Earth and Fire has birthed a constant, swirling storm of arcane forces, restrained by barely perceptible wards, safeguards and talismans strewn throughout the college, in the form of pillars, statues, carvings, mosaics and great sigillite masonry, many of them created by Venici’s own geomancy.
While the overflow of energy is designed to allow students to learn spells quickly and minimize their overall fatigue when experimenting with magic, tapping fully into the Conflux’s raw power is strictly forbidden outside of absolute emergency, as doing so would rouse the elementals kept in check by Venici’s enchantments. As such, the former headmaster is particularly watchful, and personally ensures that no one tries to tamper with the rune-web he has woven over the years.
