Aodhan ducks into the workshop and promptly hits his shin against something in the dark confined space.

"Working!", Phylis shouts from the other end. Aodhan doesn't know his daughter particularly well, but the meaning is clear: 'Do not disturb'. It helped, of course, that the same message had been painted in bright red letters on the sign outside the door. He decides to ignore it, just as he had outside.

Aodhan looks up and sees his daughter's face framed in weak blue light, bent over one of her armour's gauntlets. Crouching under the low ceiling, he tries to approach but immediately trips over something else. Trying to steady himself he reaches for the nearest shelf. He catches a box, but instead of stopping his fall he just pulls it off the shelf. Aodhan and contraptions spill across the floor, several of the latter immediately starting to emit light or sound.

A disgruntled moan comes from the desk where Phylis is sitting. "I said, I'm working! Which of you brats decided they can't read? If there's an important message, surely it can be delivered from the door?"

Aodhan pulls himself up, hitting his head on the low ceiling. He tries to preserve some dignity by sinking to his knees and making no further movement.

"Oh, it's you. Still didn't learn gnomish, I guess?", Phylis said, some of the anger fading from her voice as she recognises her visitor.

"Er ... yes, that's it. Sorry. I hope I didn't interrupt you."

All Phylis does as answer is to look at the chaos around the Eladrin.

"Er .. yeah. So. Why are you working in the almost dark anyhow? Wouldn't it help if you had better light, gnome eyes or not?"

"What would help", Phylis answers in a still disgruntled voice, "is not exposing the conduit circuitry to elemental energies aligned with fire." She pointedly looks at one of the contraptions that Aodhan activated, which has produced a small flame and is happily casting warm light all over the room. "Since that creates an antagonistic effect in the attached lightning coils."

"Oh. That's bad, I guess?"

"It only means I'll be working for another few hours. Instead of, you know, getting some sleep before we start. As us non-elves like to do."

"Sorry. About that, though. That's why I came, you know."

Phylis covers her gauntlet, which has started throwing sparks, with a piece of dark cloth and looks at her father through her welding goggles.

"About that expedition into the spell scar ...", Aodhan continues.

Phylis interrupts him. "Not gonna change my mind. I'm going with them."

"But you saw how dangerous things can get! You were almost killed by one of those tentacles! I'm not sure that in your condition ..."

Phylis sounds furious as she interrupts Aodhan again. "It's a bit late to play overprotective father, Aodhan. So please don't. That wasn't the closest I've come to dying, not by far. I did not spent all my one hundred and twenty six years locked up safe, only the last decade. And my condition is, frankly put, none of your concern."

Aodhan looks a bit taken aback. "I was just ..."

"You were just what? Barging in after decades to have another child with mom, noticing I'm still alive and that you should probably act a bit more like a father? Which to you means telling your daughter to stay inside the house?"

Aodhan doesn't react at first, then takes a deep breath.

"I'm sorry. Autumn is usually good for social calls, but it can be a bit ... overly careful, I guess." He shakes his head slightly. "You know - I'm not on the best of terms with many of my children. That's why I care so much about what happens to you."

Phylis still stares at him, eyes hidden under her welding goggles.

"About your mother ... I thought we covered that topic already."

"If by 'covered' you mean 'graciously sidestepped', sure." Phylis responds, her voice still filled with anger.

Aodhan takes another deep breath before responding. "As you have already pointed out, you're old enough. So if there really was something with your mother -"

"Oh come on, old man. Do me the favor and stop speaking in hypotheticals."

"- then I'd expect you to handle it a bit more ... gracefully. I'm a bit surprised you seem to object so heavily."

Phylis stares at him for a while longer, then shakes her head. "You have no idea what a new heir apparent means for me, do you?"

"Your still oldest. If your mom had a child again, it wouldn't replace you? Or are gnomish laws of succession based on the youngest all of a sudden?"

Phylis sighs. She takes off her welding goggles carefully and wipes her face with her hands, leaving soot stains and a small bead of blood on her skin. Aodhan bites his lip to not comment.

"Gnomish laws of succession don't exist as they do for humans. The elders choose what's best for the clan, even though it often stays in families that do the job well." She looks at her father, a tear glistening in her eye. "It's pretty clear I won't be succeeding anyone. I wouldn't even want to. Never really did, but now ... still, the child somehow makes it final. It'll be the perfect successor."

"How would you know? It would be months until it was born."

Phylis looks up at Aodhan. A small smile creeps across her face.

"Why do you think mom would do this? Do you honestly fancy yourself so great a temptation she couldn't resist coming back?"

She laughs at the surprised look on Aodhans face.

"You sure don't know mom well outside the bed, do you? She's probably planned this since a decade. Your bloodline is potent. Flandal knows, who wouldn't want to be born under the blessing of one of the lords of the Feywild? I'm not an option anymore, and mom didn't have another child since. She's old enough that conceiving with someone else would be far from a safe bet. Mom likes to keep things in the family, and the best way to do this is to produce another heir."

Aodhan still looks perplexed. Phylis slaps him on the shoulder, still unable to suppress her laughter.

"Don't take it too hard."

Aodhan shakes his head, then grins. "It's rare that I'm the side that's being played. It's actually a welcome surprise."

Phylis laughs with him, her previous anger vanished. Aodhan continues.

"Just so you know, Nissa and I do speak. She told me quite a bit about the last decades."

Phylis stops laughing and looks a bit more serious again.

Aodhan continues. "What I mean is ... it's pretty impressive what you built. Even more so considering you'd have much rather spend that time on ... 'conduit circuitry'."

Phylis looks down. "Well, I probably should have, seeing how it was all a colossal waste."

"I don't think it was."

Phylis scoffs and looks at him. "Do you only talk to mom or do you also listen? It's all gone. The Warrens hate us more than ever." She shakes her head. "I haven't seen my sons in a decade."

Aodhan's voice is very soft now. "You still proved it possible. I don't think many would have believed it was. You know, most families would kill to have a scion like you. And about the sons ... you never tried to contact them?"

"What good would it do? The Warrens have filled their minds with their version. If I abduct them, I'd just confirm that. And I'm not ready for a direct confrontation yet."

Aodhan nods. "I think that was the right approach. You know, I've had my fair share of head-on encounters with children of mine. Might say I'm an expert at that. Forcing your way rarely works."

Phylis smiles weakly. "Thank you. Still, I do miss them. How do you manage, not seeing your children for so long? Or even ever again?"

"I sometimes wonder myself. I think the alternative would have been to go insane one or two centuries ago." Aodhan shrugs. "To be brutally honest, I did have a difficult time initially. But, you know, with humans dying so quickly, at some point I hardened. There's only so many children of yours you can see come and go before you get used to it."

Phylis nods. "Sounds pretty harsh."

"In the end, that's how it is. But it means", he says as he reaches for her hand, "that those children of mine that do stay around a bit longer are quite precious to me. More so when they are clever, resourceful and don't actually hate me."

"Oh stop it.", Phylis says with a small laugh. Then, more seriously, "You know I have to do this. I'll go insane staying holed up much longer."

Aodhan nods and lets go. "I know." He looks at the gauntlet on her table. "Want me to leave you in peace so you can get that thing working again?"

Phylis shakes her head and rises. "It will take some time for the energy build up from the antagonistic effect to dissipate from the arcane capacitors. No use continuing to work on it until then." She bites her lip, then looks at Aodhan. "Can you get me some time with your lord? I wanted to talk to him about our method of descent."