[Norfleet]

You also subjected a low-level astral mage to the vagaries of Pythium. That's kind of a no-no, as Pythium has fairly expendable astral mages out the wazoo, and with communicants backing even their lowest level mages, magic duel leans strongly in their favor. Your pretender, having just been demoted another astral rank, does not belong anywhere near there, or he WILL die again, that much is a certainty.

Just because it's a slightly unlikely event doesn't mean it won't happen: As any veteran RPGer can tell you, something that happens a even mere 5% of the time is going to happen with absolute certainty sooner or later.