Urza Part 2: The War with Phyrexia Begins
After the destruction caused by the brothers war, Urza started exploring the multiverse with his new planeswalker powers. He swore to avenge his brother’s death by destroying Phyrexia. The problem was, Urza had no idea how to find Phyrexia. As fate would have it, Urza happened upon what looked to be a human girl being killed by Phyrexians.
Urza was quick to action and saved the girl, but it turned out she was in fact not human at all. This Phyrexian Newt, was made to be a sleeper agent on Dominaria. She was named Xantcha. Even though Xantcha was Phyrexian in nature, she had free will by some accident and had been taken to another plane to be destroyed.
Urza decided that he could use this Phyrexian to help him find Phyrexia and Infiltrate it. Xantcha, not wanting to be destroyed also agreed this would be a mutually beneficial arrangement. Together Urza and Xantcha plotted and eventually attacked Phyrexia. Urza’s main goal was to destroy the plane by force, but he vastly underestimated their forces. Xantcha had her own goal, she went straight to the Fane of Flesh to get her life matrix. Xantcha kept her life matrix with her for the rest of her life and eventually Urza used it in the creation of Karn after her death.
While Xantcha fought to get her heartstone, Urza was being overwhelmed on the 4th sphere. Xantcha got back to him just in time and the two planeswalked away.
Urza planeswalked to Serra’s Realm, an artificial plane created by the planeswalker Serra. Serra had created her plane using only white mana and filled it with angels of her own creation. Serra healed Urza, but could not use her white mana to heal Xantcha’s phyrexian body.
Serra did not approve of Urza’s war with Phyrexia, but she did agree to let him recuperate on her plane. Serra’s Sanctum was specially designed so that using the multifaceted windows she could survey the entire plane. However the introduction of Xantcha’s black magic hurt Serra and she needed to retreat to another plane. She left her Archangel, Radiant in charge of the plane.
Radiant could not use the throne room to survey the plane the same way Serra did, it pained her eyes too much. Shortly after Urza and Xantcha left the plane, phyrexians started to infiltrate the plane following Urza.
Urza realized that he needed more information about Phyrexia and to have more resources if he had any hopes of destroying Phyrexia. Xantcha and Urza spent many years together traveling the multiverse looking for clues about Phyrexia’s origins and what they could do to stop them. Urza could not return to Dominaria at this point because the plane had been seperated from the rest of the multiverse.
Eventually Dominaria and the rest of the shard were reunited to the multiverse by Jodah to stop the Ice Age from destroying the plane. This made Urza angry, since he was unaware the plane was near destruction. In his eyes Dominaria was safe from Phyrexia and that was all that mattered, but rejoining the multiverse opened it up for invasion.
Urza and Xantcha moved back to Dominaria to keep an eye on it, and Urza became more and more reclusive. Sometimes Xantcha wouldn’t see him for years at a time, even though they lived right next to each other. Xantcha became increasingly worried about Urza’s sanity as he became more and more obsessed with the past and less concerned about the present.
On and outing Xantcha happened to find a slave that resembled Mishra. Xantcha bought the slave, named Ratepe, and brought back to live with Urza in an attempt to help Urza regain his sanity. Xantcha was very pleased to find that it helped and Urza once again was on task with fighting Phyrexia here and now and protecting Dominaria.
This came just in time since a local town was being infiltrated by Phyrexian sleepers. Urza developed screaming spider contraptions to help root out the sleepers and fight them. In a final fight with the Phyrexian Gix, Xantcha and Ratepe sacrificed themselves to save Urza.
Urza survived the battle because of this and had new resolve to fight the Phyrexians. Urza would always remember Xantcha, she was his companion for centuries and ultimately made Urza realize he could not fight Phyrexia alone.
Radiant Quotes
- Angelic Curator “Do not treat your people as you treat your artifacts. Let them go, and they will live; seal them here, and they will die.”
—Urza, to Radiant- Befoul “The land putrefied at its touch, turned into an oily bile in seconds.”
—Radiant, archangel- Burst of Energy “I stand ready to die for our world. Who will stand with me?”
—Radiant, archangel- Catastrophe Radiant’s eyes flashed. “Go, then,” the angel spat at Serra, “and leave this world to those who truly care.”
- Defender of Law “It is not my place to question Radiant’s rule. I exist to enforce her will.”
- Hope and Glory “Serra ruled by faith. I cannot afford that luxury.”
—Radiant, archangel- Humble “It is not your place to rule, Radiant. It may not even be mine.”
—Serra- Intrepid Hero “We each have our own strengths, Radiant,” Serra said with a sly smile. “If all of my people were like this one, who would carry your scrolls?”
- Knighthood “He has returned. He who brought the dark ones. He who poisoned our paradise. How shall we greet him? With swift and certain death”
—Radiant, archangel- Pariah “It is not sad,” Radiant chided the lesser angel. “It is right. Every society must have its outcasts.”
- Path of Peace “When the sword becomes a burden, let the warrior lay it aside that another with a truer heart might take it up.”
—Radiant, archangel- Peace and Quiet “In time our realm will shine again. But it will gleam only when we scour away the taint of doubt.”
—Radiant, archangel- Persecute “My finest warrior was lost to the Phyrexians. I pray that Lady Selenia died honorably.”
—Radiant, archangel- Redeem “That they are saved from death is immaterial. What is important is that they know the source of their benefaction.”
—Radiant, archangel- Serra Zealot “The humans are useful in their way, but they must be commanded as the builder commands the stone. Be soft with them, and they will become soft.”—Radiant, archangel
- Sustainer of the Realm “The harder you push, the stronger we become.”
—Radiant, to Urza
Urza Part 3: The Academy Years
Learning from past mistakes, Urza finally realized he would need help defeating the Phyrexians. Urza started recruiting wizards and artificers from all across Dominaria to join together with one purpose.
This was how the Tolarian Academy was founded. Urza, along with Barrin and Rayne made a school to teach young mages who showed potential. Students were found from many places including Teferi from Jamuraa and Jhoira from Shiv.
Even though Urza had had little luck with it in the past, Urza still thought time travel might be the key to stopping the Phyrexians from being made aware of Dominaria all together.
To this end, Urza managed to successfully build a time machine, the only problem was that organic matter could not be sent back in time without being destroyed, and even non-organic material could not be sent back in time far before it too would be destroyed.
Urza came up with a solution, he would create a golem to go back in time for him. Through experimentation they found silver was the most resistant to the destruction of the machine, so Karn the silver golem was created.
Karn could go back in time, but unfortunately he could only travel back hours, while Urza wanted to send him back millennia. After a few failed experiments, Urza moved on to new projects and left Karn to fend for himself.
Jhoira befriended Karn and taught him about the world. Unknown to everyone else, Jhoira had another friend as well. Jhoira had met a man who washed up on the beach of the island. Jhoira had been telling him about the island and sneaking him food, not knowing the whole time he was a Phyrexian sleeper agent named Kerrick.
Kerrick killed Jhoira one night when the other Phyrexians got to the island and raided the academy. Karn found out about all this, and used the time machine to got back several hours to stop it. Karn had just used the time machine in one of Urza’s experiments though, and the added stress of being used again so quickly caused the machine to overload.
The time machine exploded and quickly caused time disruptions all over the island. Urza petrified some students and Barrin to protect them from the rapid time fluctuations and fled the island.
Urza returned to the Tolaria 10 years later with new students and teachers hoping to restore the academy and recover any lost data. Much to Urza’s surprise he found there were a few survivors being led by Jhoira.
The time machine had caused rifts of slow or fast time all over the island. This caused much danger since getting a limb caught in a fast time rift would cause it age rapidly and wither off, or getting stuck in a slow time rift would trap you for years. Teferi had been trapped in a slow time rift since the explosion and not aged even a day in the 10 years Urza was gone.
Kerrick and the Phyrexians that attacked the island had been trapped in a fast time rift, but their artificial bodies were immune to aging. This cause another problem since the Phyrexians could do years of research on new weapons and machines in the time Urza could only spend a month doing the same.
Urza learned how to utilize the time rifts for experiments and research. He devised a safe way to travel into and out of a time rift and with some help from Jhoira the entire island was mapped out with markings on where each rift was. Also, Teferi was saved from his slow time rift, though from his perspective it had been only a few minutes, not years.
Urza used fast time rifts to send his most productive students into, so they could do research in fractions of the time. One fast time rift even turned out to have the perfect amount of sunlight and water and became a paradise, used for short vacations by some of the students. Finally Urza found that water taken from a slow time rift and given to mortals could extend their lifespans indefinitely. This was used to keep his favorite students and teachers alive much longer than would be normally possible.
Urza knew that Kerrick and his Phyrexians were still a huge threat and started traveling around Dominaria looking for powerful allies. The last place Urza visited was Yavimaya, the forest that had once been Argoth. Urza had destroyed Argoth and he knew there was still a great hatred for him there. His fears were realized when Multani trapped Urza in a magnigoth tree, and forced him to feel all the pain Titiania had felt when Argoth had been destroyed.
Urza was saved by Barrin, who summoned him back to Tolaria because Kerrick and his Phyrexians were attacking the island. Finally Multani saw the threat of the Phyrexians and helped to destroy the Phyrexians.
“What are your desired outcome, the inspiration for this experiment resulted from our nature preservation having plants with flowers too big for average size bees to pollinated, these bees were an attempt to remedy this oversight, further research is still required as they are more aggressive than we were prepared for, right now these bees primary usage seems to be as minor defenders against any aggression. Further research is still required
“When I did it? I aimed to have a spot application to a colony of bees to prepare a weapon against phyrexian invasion. Once again, test subjects proved them too aggressive for the good of serving as even cannon fodder. Tended to stab everything that moved that wasn’t from its hive, including other warriors. Bit of a problem there.”
We at the Simic regret to inform you that experiment 5430 has escaped. This experiment is a mutated incarnation of the the species Apis mellifera scutellata (Killer Bees) Our strand of bees are recognizable as being a meter tall and have developed the capability to wield primitive weaponry. This strand of Bees also have the tendency to query about their place in the universe, however the sentience has yet to be fully developed so their questions lack sense. Please bolt your doors and windows until our team of experiment retrieval specialists have returned. Avoid meadows at all costs. We apologize for this inconvenience
attached to this memo is a picture of our experiment
“Ah! I remember the killer bees! They,they were a strange experiment I hit on once. Kinda… Kinda underwhelming to be honest. How are yours turning out?”
our experiments presence in the water supply was unintentional, but we do appreciate your compliments to our scientific endeavors.
Urza chuckled, “I can see a scientist in the making. Well, a researcher rather. Izzet claims science as well… And I really can’t deny them. But, they are too chaotic for their own good. Advancing too fast, consuming themselves as they move along. They will be their own downfall.” He said with a sigh and a shrug. ”Though that made it easy to stick the robot factory near one of their labs, they rarely notice the vented steam.”
The chemical that was released with an extract of a viscous weed which has been seen to bolster aquatic travel for a short period of time. We at the simic are attempting to extract the chemical to increase the potency of the weed. By now the extract should be dispersed in the water supply to the extent that it no longer should have any affect, however if you already felt symptoms please report to Zameck.
Rumors that this weed has been illicitly used in contests between adolescent conjurers have not been substantiated.
Theories about the evolution of the merfolk species developing as they did partially because of a high consumption of this weed require more research.
“Interesting. You Simic experiment by dumping a chemical into the water. How amusing. I like your style, and, I must concede, your experiments are largely practical. Better than most scientists I see.”
I had a self-portrait done. I feel like I can use this on all my completely ironic dating websites. I was on E-Harmony before it was cool.
“WHERE THE HELL DID YOU GET THOSE GLA-what did you do to your hair? Why would you do that? It looks awful and is utterly impractical!”
You’re just jealous. It’s ok, I’m jealous of me too.
“Jealous! Jealous of what! I can change my form at will being a spirit!” to prove the point he had a… rather mediocre… mohawk for an instant, it disappeared quicker than it arrived. ”Why! Why would I want a mop on my head!” Although… His current hair wasn’t much better.
