Kargos - Assignments

[MrPsion]

(Each post in this thread exists in the game world IC individually as distinct documents. They are being written as part of an IC apprenticeship and I'm posting them here publicly to facilitate passing of the documents around in the event that becomes a thing.)

So the Archmage -- and I will call her that instead of Master because it's a foolish word used by Paladins, slanty-eyed fist fighters and other stuck up people -- wants me to write about the differences between three scrolls scribed by different authors. All three are the same spell: Lesser Orb of Fire. Fire is never lesser but everyone already knows that.

It is best to start by describing the two scrolls that are similar and why that is. They both use the same boring method of carefully scribing runes with expensive inks commingled with even more expensive gem dusts.

What makes them different? One scroll is more powerful than the other. I can feel it especially when using the Detect Magic cantrip. The runes look the same so how does one scroll outpower the other? It's because somehow the mage's power becomes suspended in the crystals that adorn the ink much like herbs on a roast. This is why they must spend coin to scribe the scrolls and why more is spent to scribe more powerful versions of the same spell.

But mine is even more different. The problem with Wizards is that they take the magic out of magic. I would never do that.

I use my own shapes. The runes are replaced by my own designs, how I envision magic. All those pinpoints of light in the night sky they call constellations -- between you and me I always thought they were making it up. I don't see the figures they do. What they see is a mystery to me, what I find meaning in is a mystery to them. Why ruin that? It's magic.

I do not use gems because I want to be rich one day and that's not going to happen wasting coins. My power comes from an ancestor. There's always a special ancestor with our special kind, isn't there? In scribing the boring, expensive Wizard way the soul's power is suspended in the gem fragments. For us to do things their way (and why?) power flows from the blood to the soul to the gem. I save two steps by keeping the power in my blood. My scroll will be stronger than the Elf's in time because he wastes and I do not.

It has been said that magic is the Weave and the Weave is Mystra. All spells, all magic that is taken from the Weave is of Mystra's body. Ignoring this comes at a great price. It is a total failure to understand that magic is at its core a very primal, living thing that is best regarded as such.