Hmm, I was intending to have the lecture reach a debate stage, but that never actually happened and I've written rather a lot already. So, this was inspired by the prompt, but doesn't really satisfy it very well -- sorry.
Good work on the comments, and I hope you can find the missing part of the next post you reach. I know I posted it, just not what happened to it (or why).
Debatable Fabian missed some of the next part of the lecture as he was sitting back in his chair, ignoring the creaking that suggested it was built for someone a little lighter than him, and wondering about the idea that there was still a lot to learn about magic. Dread never gave him that impression, though he supposed that he'd never really asked what the College of Mages did. Or, now he was thinking about it, why there were so few mages in the Empire and why they'd all be gathered in one place. The idea that they were desperately trying to figure magic out before someone used it to do something terrible made sense. Unpleasant sense, but sense nonetheless. Surely though, it wasn't as bad as that? Maybe it was less about averting disaster and more about discovering what could be done. He knew from experience with the museum staff that getting the right minds together in the same room (and getting the Maestro to shut up for ten minutes) could be more effective than six weeks of individual research effort. Maybe, since there weren't many mages, there wasn't a lot of choice about where to put them if you wanted to advance magic. And what on earth was an Illithid? Or a Forest of Sorrows?
Fabian stopped listening again while he thought about that. It sounded like the speaker didn't know what the key was, although maybe he just wasn't telling people to stop them deciding to try and find a Staff of Five Elements for themselves. But he wondered if the speaker would be pleased if Fabian raised his own hand and told him that he thought the Assessors were trying to make a key in order to open the Halls again. His gut feeling was that this news would not go down well. "...is all we have time for today. Next lecture will be on Tuesday, and we will be looking at the Mage wars and how they led to the founding of the Second Kingdom." The speaker stepped back from the front of the stage and turned to talk to the other two people on the stage with him, and a general hubbub gradually arose as the people attending the lecture stood, stretched, and started talking to their neighbours and friends. "Forest of Sorrows," muttered Fabian under his breath, looking for the door. Outside he looked around for the spider-elf who'd shown him in and offered to answer questions, but there was no sign on her. As the corridor started to fill up with more people from the lecture he realised that he had little hope of finding her and decided to head back home instead.
3 comments:
Hmm, I was intending to have the lecture reach a debate stage, but that never actually happened and I've written rather a lot already. So, this was inspired by the prompt, but doesn't really satisfy it very well -- sorry.
Good work on the comments, and I hope you can find the missing part of the next post you reach. I know I posted it, just not what happened to it (or why).
Debatable
Fabian missed some of the next part of the lecture as he was sitting back in his chair, ignoring the creaking that suggested it was built for someone a little lighter than him, and wondering about the idea that there was still a lot to learn about magic. Dread never gave him that impression, though he supposed that he'd never really asked what the College of Mages did. Or, now he was thinking about it, why there were so few mages in the Empire and why they'd all be gathered in one place. The idea that they were desperately trying to figure magic out before someone used it to do something terrible made sense. Unpleasant sense, but sense nonetheless.
Surely though, it wasn't as bad as that? Maybe it was less about averting disaster and more about discovering what could be done. He knew from experience with the museum staff that getting the right minds together in the same room (and getting the Maestro to shut up for ten minutes) could be more effective than six weeks of individual research effort. Maybe, since there weren't many mages, there wasn't a lot of choice about where to put them if you wanted to advance magic.
And what on earth was an Illithid? Or a Forest of Sorrows?
"...affinities for natural things," the speaker was saying now. "Elves seem to prefer Elvish magic but as I mentioned earlier, the lost schattenalfen have left us records and artefacts that suggest that they used cthonic magic much more. Whether that was out of choice or necessity we cannot know with the current state of affairs. There is also reference in their work to a caste, or perhaps now-extinct race, called the Ombrefé, who seem to have had a much more intimate connection with cthonic magic.
However, for the present, cthonic magic is not much studied by elves, and the humans seem to restrict themselves to specific areas with historical significance to them."
A hand raised in the audience, though Fabian was too far back to see who it belonged to.
"Yes?" said the speaker. Then, before the hand-raiser could speak, "Ideally we would prefer that questions be kept till the end, but if the relevance of the question is obvious, then please ask at the right point."
The hand-raiser's hand wavered, but then a reedy, piping voice asked, "What of the shadow artefacts?"
"Ah," said the speaker. "Well yes, they might tell us a lot. However they were placed in the Halls of Sunset along with many other pre-Imperial artefacts. This was felt at the time to be a wise decision, and the arguments made then still hold today. The idea behind it was sound, and what was done was sensible. I don't think anyone expected that the doors would be locked and the key would be lost.
"It would obviously be very useful to be able to study the artefacts, but the Halls of Sunset were built to be secure and safe, and we elves participated in that. To date, though there have been a few proposals of how we might gain entry, none of them are considered sound or safe enough to be worth trying. Rather, we hope that the key will be found again, or at least a new one forged."
Fabian stopped listening again while he thought about that. It sounded like the speaker didn't know what the key was, although maybe he just wasn't telling people to stop them deciding to try and find a Staff of Five Elements for themselves. But he wondered if the speaker would be pleased if Fabian raised his own hand and told him that he thought the Assessors were trying to make a key in order to open the Halls again. His gut feeling was that this news would not go down well.
"...is all we have time for today. Next lecture will be on Tuesday, and we will be looking at the Mage wars and how they led to the founding of the Second Kingdom."
The speaker stepped back from the front of the stage and turned to talk to the other two people on the stage with him, and a general hubbub gradually arose as the people attending the lecture stood, stretched, and started talking to their neighbours and friends.
"Forest of Sorrows," muttered Fabian under his breath, looking for the door. Outside he looked around for the spider-elf who'd shown him in and offered to answer questions, but there was no sign on her. As the corridor started to fill up with more people from the lecture he realised that he had little hope of finding her and decided to head back home instead.
Greg - found it, still don't know why you're getting flag as spam. Very annoying.
More interesting details emerging. Enjoying learning things alongside Fabian :)
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