The exercise:
Write about something that is: otherworldly.
Prompt partially inspired by the Canadian Men's National Soccer Team being on the verge of qualifying for their second ever World Cup, the only previous time happening back in 1986.
Also: I know I'm slacking on comments again. I plan to catch up in the next couple of days.
3 comments:
I hope your soccer team do qualify! Though you might have to call it football again for the duration of the World Cup ;-)
I'm off to Kyiv tomorrow for a week for the board meetings, and after that I travel to the UK to avoid having to quarantine in Malta. However, my Italian friend might come to the UK at the same time, so that would brighten things up a little :) But if I suddenly disappear, assume I'm a prisoner of war in a siberian camp somewhere, annoying everyone by approving of the snow and the cold :)
I decided to use the prompt to write a lecture on magic, which seemed fitting. Hopefully it won't bore you.
Otherworldly
The spider-elf led Fabian across the courtyard, gently tuggling his arm this way and that to get him to change direction as they weaved through the small crowd. Then they passed through a low wooden door, where Fabian had to duck to avoid hitting his head, but on the other side was a high-ceilinged room that seemed to be an outsize hallway of some kind. The spider-elf woman guided him about half-way along and then paused. She poked her head around a doorframe and turned it this way and then that, and then looked at Fabian.
"You're in luck," she said. "You have a choice of seats; I wasn't sure there'd be any free. Quickly, sit at the back so you don't disturb anyone, as they're starting."
Fabian felt himself being pushed into the room by what felt like several people but was actually just four of her hands and then the door snicked closed behind him. There was a low stage at the front of the room and a spread of chairs divided into three blocks, like the theatre, before that. Here at the back there were several empty seats and he took the closest. Although the woman had said the lecture was for children there seemed to be a number of adults -- and not all elves either -- sat in the audience, which made him feel less misplaced. On the stage were three people: two elves and a human by the looks of it; one was standing and speaking while the other two sat behind him and listened.
"--nd what is magic?" said the speaker. Fabian settled down to listen. "We don't know! We can measure it, we can see what it does, we can harness it in different ways and we make use of it, but we don't know what it actually is! Is it a fluid that permeates the world, easing and oiling, that we influence like we can change the flow of water? Prestimus thought so and she wrote two books on the subject. Is it a gas, like the air we breathe, that saturates us until the point where we can't hold any more and have to use it before it starts leaking out and doing uncontrolled things? That was the view of Aricarten and he wrote a book on it too. Though since a lot of what he suggested had never been seen, we think it's likely that if he's right then it behaves differently to how he conjectured. And of course, there is the current prevailing theory that magic is like magnetism, unseen and unseeable and capable of acting a distance, but only if you have the right things -- metals or otherwise -- in place first.
"It is also important to note that there are three major branches of magic. Every kind of magic we know about can be classified into one of these branches, and while there are still discoveries being made, so far no-one has made a convincing case for a fourth branch or for combining two of the three we already have.
There is magic the way humans use it, which we call human magic. It's not a very good term because you don't have to be human to do magic this way, but it's been in use for a few centuries now, and there was a time when it was thought that only humans could do that. This is shaping magic, it can be crude but powerful, and it can be subtle and dangerous. An example of a creature that uses human magic would be the illithid, the mind-flayer." There were several gasps from the audience at this point which made Fabian feel remarkably stupid: children knew what an illithid was and he didn't! He made a note to himself to demand that Dread explain this as soon as possible.
"Elf-magic is again a misnomer, for the same reasons," continued the speaker, "but again, it has several centuries of use that will not be overturned in a night. This is guiding magic; it supports and promotes, it works with whatever is already there and encourages growth. Like human magic this can be dangerous; you all know the tale of the Forest of Sorrows."
Fabian made another mental note, though he suspected he might to have to ask the spider-elf woman outside about this.
"And lastly there is cthonic magic," said the speaker. "This is the magic used by creatures of the dark, like the Umber Hulk and the duer'gar. The lost schattenalfen reportedly used cthonic magic as well, and there are a few texts surviving from the ruins of their cities that describe these things. Cthonic magic appears to be more primitive, and there is a school of thought that says that human and elf magic is just cthonic magic refined to a point where we have actual control. Necromancy is cthonic magic and many artefacts from the age before the Empire appear to have been constructed using cthonic magic. There is much to study there, and we currently have few answers."
Greg - good luck on your travels! I hope you have fun, when fun is an option to be had :)
I am enjoying this lecture and feel ready to take notes, like Fabian. Also: the setup for his being deposited in that room could have easily resulted in something more sinister happening to poor Fabian. I'm glad you didn't go that route :)
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