A · Quill, · A · Book, · and · A · Hope

It has happened yet again, dear reader. I visited the Mages' Guild again and I have forgotten about this journal again.

I would not say that I have been lax at gaining more magical skills, as that is most certainly not the case - the Academy has kept me quite busy enough, thank you very much. In fact, enough that I feel like I rarely have had time to go out and enjoy the Kingdom, and that is much a regret in my mind as the winter comes and the world hibernates once again. My waistline has not suffered either, much to my additional chagrin.

( Read more... )

As I sneeze away the pile of dust that has gathered around this diary, let me excuse myself by noting that I have been very very busy.

For most of a year.

But I shant talk about the year now, when I can talk about the day. I woke up this morning to a dark orange glow. I actually set up a Warning Crystal next to the bed, of course, to inform me (gently) just how bad things are at the Academy. Orange, in short, is "there is trouble but it's not worth getting out of bed any earlier than usual to take care of it." So I went back to sleep. Suffice it to say, I normally awaken to a nice gentle blue. But that was not today. Oh no. But in order to explain, dear reader, perhaps it is best that I speak about crystals, lattices, and halls - this might allow for a small bit of enlightenment toward the excruciating suffering I have gone through lately, and quite especially, today.

( A discussion of crystals, and what they're not supposed to do. )

Other News

One of the Great Lords of the Manylands decided to visit the Academy's Great Hall today to speak about "how we could prevent a recurrence of the Dragon Wars by conserving mana for emergencies." I missed the pageantry altogether. What a shame.

Oh well, the tales I hear make me quite certain he is a nincompoop.

I suppose I should update from the frustration last week. Things are better now, thankfully.

The new fellow impressed Delvar. No one impresses Delvar. Last time I checked, in fact, no one gets past the stoat unscathed. The stoat basically tore me apart in my interview and handed my entrails back to me. Except this fellow, Aren the fox. So it looks like he's our shot at extending the Council, assuming he can learn to stave off the impulse to seal off large portions of the Academy grounds. And I should learn to not be hasty in my judgments of people.

It has gotten increasingly clear that the events of January have created a great trouble in my mind. It does not make me particularly happy to be in an environment when I'm blamed for a problem even after it was proven that I really honestly had little to nothing to do with it. This does not bode well for me, and it started eating away at those small wells of confidence I had built inside of myself.

So I went and spoke with my boss, telling him how I felt about the Grand Security Spell of Potentially Massive Insecurity, and frankly how nervous I was that basically if anything went wrong in any particular direction that I was going to take the blame for it, and be tossed out for daring to keep my wards as strong as I can make them in this chaotic environment. "You do realize that the Council had to rebuild all of its Ritual spells about 5 years ago, right?" No, actually, that hadn't quite gotten mentioned in the several months I've been here. There was the mention that there hadn't been problems in 4 years; I had assumed the problem before that had been a previous archival leakage that I had heard of previous... "Oh, no, actually, there was a chain reaction that blew up every Ritual spell we had. People were playing a bit fast with how things were getting set up, didn't complete their symbols properly, added a few things they shouldn't have, didn't close the wards. And they all blew up. ...you might also notice that the people involved in this did not get removed from their places on the Council."

That alone threw everything in perspective. Through all that has passed before, Council membership has been permanent, and all the reasons for the caution half of the rampant caution/incredible speed dichotomy quickly become clear as the (frigid! blustery! why do I need full dress regalia this late in the winter?) early spring skies. There's a desperate need to do things well, and do things fast, but slipups are forgivable. That revelation alone made me feel significantly better, going into my walkabout into the wilds later this week.

Oh, and I finally completed the first run of the Dimensional reweave that I've been practicing performing for more than a year now. I wait an entire year, begging for a chance from the Council for something that took all of two hours to perform, with seemingly no trouble at all in the invocation. The window of time opened for the briefest of moments, and I had to step through and beyond. Hopefully the weave will hold this time; last time I took a shot at it the crystals started deharmonizing in the middle of it, and I cannot describe to you the incredible din that occurred as a result... the ringing in my head took a week to cure.

The rest of the council thought today's fellow for the protection job was great. What exactly makes you concerned, Iili?

Even after we repeatedly told him that we are an open Academy and that will never change, he wanted to force the standard Ritual assumptions of a closed environment down the Academy's throat. And it was quite obvious that the fellow hadn't protected an individual crystal in his life and it had barely occurred to him to do so. (Not that I had either in his place...)

But everyone else loved him. And it wasn't because they knew you didn't.

I'm taking a walkabout into the wilds next week to get lost and get over the Academy and the Council. It can't happen fast enough.

People are courting disaster, I believe. It's time to start planning an escape route from the Council, even if such a plan is never used. Of course, it is entirely possible that I'm completely, utterly wrong here and utterly, completely out of my mind. But would anyone believe me either way at this point?

The fabric of the Academy is starting to tear. I suppose it was rather inevitable after everything that's happened.

I have been weaving and unweaving spells at a massive pace over the last several fortnights; I've quite taken to calling this the Long Winter, as it has been harsh and it has been cold, both inside and outside. No one knows what's going to happen at this point, and there are few signs of hope at this point, no light at the end of the tunnel, nothing but more madness. And the cold is still present, although it has lessened some in the past few days. Still, I shiver in my chair writing this.

It turns out that the Academy lost significant resources in the attack on the Grove. The ramifications are only hitting the Academy in whole this week. They were mostly trying to account for what they had, but they've lost probably a fifth of the wealth that they amassed to the attack. They were far from alone, but that's a fifth of the resources no longer available until some miracle occurs, or the supposed Crusade ever shows up to get the resources back. (Most have written that off, though, and with good reason. We really are on our own.) Everyone must tithe for the sake of the Academy as a whole, and those funds have come at the cost of people in many places it seems - great libraries seeing their caretakers disappear, for one. And the (few) ranks of the High Mages are seeing their ranks dwindle, quite shortly. The Merchant's Guild (thankfully) has avoided that kind of fate, but at this point we consider it inevitable. As Fate would have it, the axe is unlikely to fall this year. But next year, things could start happening that the entire Council could regret. It will remain a phantom over our heads, waiting to strike, for at least the rest of this accursed year.

Yet, we are adding a few more members, as quickly (and as quietly) as we can, before we are told "no more". One fellow (who I have not had the pleasure to meet) is being brought into the Council for overall organization (I have mixed feelings about this; we desperately need organization but I don't personally need another person on the Council yelling at me about unrealistic timelines after last time), another for communication magics (and this the Merchant Guild desperately needs), and, most applicable to my position, someone with experience in protection magics to take over and analyze the Grand Security Spell of Endless Debate, as well as to oversee the general state of affairs Ritual. At this point, I don't care if such a person might supercede me in experience or heft, as long as I'm not the only voice in the Council screaming about making sure our spells aren't flying off into the Aether. I've been in over my head here, and I quite readily have acknowledged this.

I must admit that the first interview, held this morning, for that position went much like my own little gantlet. If anything, Delvar was even more exacting and particular than he ever was with me - but then again, when they hired me they needed a Ritual Generalist (much to my surprise). Now we need a specialist with some ability to improvise generally, so I suppose it makes some sense that we need more particular qualifications. It is unclear, however, whether there is a soul out there (save, perhaps, Delvar himself) who could in fact fit the qualifications. The fellow this morning, however, wasn't that far off in my mind. I would regale you more fully with the discussions therein, but given the recent news my heart isn't terribly into recanting it.

(Although Delvar asked about responses to anchor unraveling on the Grand Security Spell. The fellow this morning suggested the standard response of breaking the troublesome anchor in question and reweaving it, which as far as I am concerned is a perfectly reasonable answer. Oh no, said Delvar. He managed to reseat the anchor by having the other anchors convince it that it was fine. I realize the unstudied may not grasp the audacity of this - it is somewhat akin to navigating the inside of a ship solely by having it tell you where you are. Delvar seemed somewhat offended that the fellow didn't know this incredibly obvious method of enchantment that none of us had ever heard of before.)

The Grand Convocation of Ritual Mages this year will be in the City of the Heavens in a few months. I suspect it will be a somber occasion, both personally and professionally. I suspect I'm not particularly going to enjoy returning to the City so soon after leaving. I also suspect it may be the last Convocation I will be allowed to attend for some time, so I intend to make the best of it.

The winter continues. I am getting increasingly concerned, myself, that events are spiraling out of control. A certain madness has begun to grip the inhabitants of Birya; it's only just showing on the edges right now, but it can be seen if you look hard enough. The public viaducts are getting clogged with snow and ice and mush and their passability is questionable at any given time of the day. No one feels particularly secure anymore. Everyone waits for the next shoe to drop.

In the South, there was a grand accalamation: We will pay the Dragons tribute! This should quell their anger forthwith! Indeed, we shall even had these funds to the mages who upset the dragons in the first place, because there's absolutely no reason we should question their judgment for leading us into this mess in the first place! And who better should receive the largess of the several Kingdoms than the dragons and the incompetents? Certainly the people have no need of such things! Not a call to fortify our defenses (if we could...), not a call to rebuild the destroyed buildings, not a call to hope or inspiration. Only fear, day by day by day.

The winter lifted for one day a few weeks back. Since then, it has been little but sheets of ice and howling winds. I swore that I would have no problem with the snow and the cold here, but it has begun to dwell on me as much as anyone else around here. This morning I slipped and fell on the way to the Grand Court of Northern Birya, where I had been summonsed as a possible trial juror. (Thankfully, I spent the entire day waiting and nursing my leg wound, but nothing of any import occurred.)

At the Academy, people are getting quite edgy. A proclamation went out to the community saying, roughly, "We know tha tthe War has had some impact on our affairs. We are still holding up fairly well, but we ask that all members of the Academy watch our finances to avoid straining the Academy any more in this time of great need." A fairly inoffensive statement, really, but it was carried by all the town criers for a few days afterward. There is no sign of layoffs - not yet, anyway. However, there are dark rumors as to the status of the Academy's grand endowment... In the meanwhile, the word came down to the Merchants' Guild that "all duplication of resources with the Academy should be reduced forthwith." Lest any of us forget, the entire Council of which I am a member could be considered a superfluous duplication of resources. And the Grand Security Spell itself was quite a duplicative extravagance, given the High Mages already have several of their own.

I'm still being blamed for holding up their "little" project 2 fortnights ago. They sent me to the local Ritual Lycaeum of the Mages' Guild to study the best methods of Grand Security Spells, and I returned with the understanding that, if anything, I had been lenient last month. Someone on the council who has no business questioning me about the incident was teasing me about the problem. It took a grand act of will not to explode in their face over it. I'm not in any mood to be generous if my work, however irregular, is going to result in only grief. In any other situation, I would seriously concern myself with taking my leave, but at this point I have nowhere to go. None of us do. At this point I have to bow my head down and try to put up with this. Tomorrow begins the initial discussions on what to do with the Grand Security Spell of Grief. And the preliminary discussions to the initial discussions suggest that everything I thought would happen is indeed happening. None can keep their hands out of the cookie jar for long.

I did see a few friends the other day. They're holding up as best as they can. I must admit I didn't take away a lot of hope from the meeting. "We're happy to see you, Iili," they say, but all I feel is a stone in my own heart.

In order to try to explain the various spheres of magic with with mages work, one has to have a basic understanding of crystal tuning and archival magic, which are the basis of all other disciplines.

( Read more... )

And so we get to discussing the two main methodologies of magic: Runic and Ritual, still known in some particular quarters as High and Low Magic, respectively. My knowledge of the exact evolution of Magic over time, I fear, is a bit sketchy, but I will try to explain this as best as I can for your edification.
( Read more... )

In other news today, the Council had a meeting about the exact future fate of our relations with the High Mages, given the troubles of the Dragon War. And we were told, simply, that we were going to work with the High Mages to ensure that we were all working efficiently together to benefit the Academy. "But what about our Grand Security Spell that we just spent a month arguing over?" I asked (since we had basically entirely turned our noses to the Highs in order to get said Spell done). The response I got was somewhere between utter surprise and a scowl at daring to be audacious.

I think I have a right to know exactly how much care is really being given to our work, to my work, in the Council. The response I got pleased me not at all. But nor was it surprising, since I seem to have become a running joke among certain members of the Council this past month.

There was a request made my one of my correspondents for a primer in local magics for the uninitiated. I realize that this journal spell is multidimensional, and that it is quite possible that magic does not work in your realms quite the same way it does in mine. After a fashion, I suppose it's an honor to introduce my world in this fashion to others; presumably the Advanced Texts in Magic aren't nearly as portable as this spell. (I would, of course, assume that the increase in magical knowledge will eventually make descriptions like mine quite redundant.)

I shall probably write of this quite haphazardly, and I do not claim for a moment to be a master of the Magical Arts, modern or ancient; instead, I shall relate what I know for your edification.

Our practice in magics dates to ahistoric times - there has always been beliefs in gods and monsters, and it is still said in myth that the knowledge of controlling fire was the creation of our modern civilization. But there is a significant difference between the Old Gods and modern times, and the difference isn't particularly subtle. Much of early magical creation (or, for that matter, philosophy) was spent trying to describe and narrow the elements of our natural world to their core elements: air, fire, earth, water, and aether (which was once synonymous with "spirit" but has since diverged). There are several derivations from these elements: mountains, rivers, oceans, life magics, null magics, and so forth. I would not be so naïve as to say that everything can be broken down to any particular arrangement of elements, but this is a general outline of the thought here. And many of these derivations were associated (rightly or wrongly) with specific deities, which arose out of the nature of our kind to categorize and name and personalize.

Unfortunately, study of the Old Ones, for the most part, is considered a bit quaint at best in these times. I hesitate to say that we are less Holy than perhaps we used to be, but our concerns have turned elsewhere. The art of Modern Magic is perhaps two centuries old at best, and many of its origins lay in the same philosophies that once studied and admired the Old Ones. But the main difference between Old Magic and Modern Magic is this: comparatively, we are terrible at Old Magic. In my mind, the old ways carry from emotion and the heart, two things I find rather lacking in my day to day observations of the world. The new ways, in contrast, tend to be very meticulous and logical: if something doesn't make sense, it's not the fault of one's communion with the Gods; instead, it's just one's own fault and it is best that you go clean it up, thank you very much. The mystery has long past; now, life proceeds like the pace of a clock. We are the masters of many things but not of our past, and not of our hearts.

While there are many factors that influenced the development of Modern Magic, none was really quite so helpful as the discovery of the standard crystal. It had been known from ancient time that the purple (well, the most common are purple) crystals found in caves had some sort of power that was innate to them, but it took many many years for anyone to quite discover how to harness that power. They were considered mostly harmless, and generally used as trinkets, jewelry and the like. Until someone had the idea to put a few very large specimens together, and found that they had a sort of resonance that is just detectable to the standard senses, as a sort of vague shiver, perhaps. This is now called modern Aether, and it was soon found that once a connection was made between two crystals, they tended to keep that connection, regardless of distance. And eventually, over a period of time, connections were able to be made with more and more as well as smaller and smaller crystals, until we have even the paw-sized ones of today.

So, having created this resonance, efforts were made to figure out how exactly to control and shape it. And that, dear readers, is how the study of Modern Magic was created. The wonder of our times was born when that power was brought, eventually, to the masses.

The winter is not easing. Already it hasn't been gentle; the auguries, I'm told, are for bitter conditions that Birya hasn't seen for several years, starting tonight. I've mostly had little time to think about the environment around me. And when I did... when I did...

The Academy... I don't know what to think about that place at this point. The Council has been forcing me to do more and more complicated things, layers of forces I've never dealt with before. And I can't go into a technical discussion for fear of losing you, dear Reader, in the complexities of modern Magic. Perhaps instead, I should offer a few vignettes for your perusal.

"We need to reach out to the Merchants' Guild at large," the Council was told. "We need to open up our knowledge of trade to the wider world, in the hopes that our resources will help the Merchants survive this damned War," we were told. This of course is something that we've known about for a long time - we've been debating this question on and off for the entirety of my time at the Academy - whether we can trust the Academy's security spells, whether we should create our own. The Academy, much to its discredit, has a sense of inertia - things do not get done unless and until someone forces the issue. And the Academy's security spells? Let's just say that they proclaim openness while closing themselves off to the world. And they don't like outsiders telling them what they can and can't do. Outsiders like our Council. "Oh, yes, and we need this by Midwinter," the Head of the Guild tells us. At Samhain.

We beg, we plead with the High Mages of the Academy for a month - help us do this. Let us do this, for the greater good. For the good of the Council, too, so we do not tempt the wrath of the Head. The conclusion was one meeting - so difficult to forget it - where the High Mages made us an offer: "We might be willing to commit some of our resources for a short period of time to help you, but it will be at our convenience. And, you will promise us here and now that you will not betray us on this, and make our work for nought, no matter what." "But we have no idea of the quality of your work, nor of its timeframe, nor of whether you will help us look after it!" "Promise us, or there is no deal."

Obviously the Council is of no import to the High Mages or their resources. So we decided we would have to take it all upon ourselves. Which, in essence, feels like mostly myself.

A few weeks later, I'm sitting at our Crystal Lattice, desperately trying to add and tune Crystals to it at a furious rate - at one point it was 8 large crystals at the same time - with mostly only the help of myself and my fellow Ritual Mage. And, at the same time, I'm beginning the Master Security Spell - you may remember it from before, as the thing that took all my effort and concentration to enact the last time - but I don't have the luxury of time or concentration. And, in addition... well, generally such spells are location-bound, correct? Meant to protect a village. Not this one. This is a security spell with no bounds - its range is theoetically infinite. Its border is the world. At one point, I stood on a stepladder, one hand trying to tune a crystal while I desperately attempted to weave the Security Spell with another. I almost fell over and broke myself, the Lattice, and the Security Spell on multiple occasions.

You might ask, if the Security Spell has no physical boundaries, exactly what is it securing and how? That, of course, is an interesting question. The prototype, the function, was quite simple actually - a series of tuned crystals, carried by people of importance in the Merchants' Guild, that could be used to communicate back and forth with the Guild at the Academy. Such a communication would not have to be particularly privileged - of course there would be security, but I would not have to be too concerned if the Spell didn't always quite hold properly - or at least I would not have to be paranoid about a mistake in the casting. Except.

Except.

A certain faction of the Council quickly said, when this was approved, "Oh, wonderful! Now that we have our own security spell, we can free ourselves of the Academy's restrictions! We can bind all sorts of interesting things to this spell - it'll be wonderful! We can put all of our archives, all of our communications, all of our students, all of our vast resources of wealth and power - all under this one neatly tucked spell! This will get rid of all the troubles we've ever had!" This, of course, caused me to violently expel the entire contents of my innards.

This will just be a simple security spell, Iili, they tell me. We're only going to put the entire resources of the Merchant Guild in your hands and your hands alone. Nothing could go wrong with that. We trust you.

Suffice it to say, my work on the Grand Security Spell of Freeing Everyone In the Council From Pain quickly ground to a halt with my fear and paranoia. Where before I could loosely bind the spell to the crystals and expect no issue, instead I have had to trace every segment, every line of the spell around the entire Academy, and in the meanwhile delve through the Libraries I could find to attempt to make sure I knew the best way to secure it, place the anchors, make absolutely sure that if something did go wrong, that the damage would be contained. And this I did, while others in the Council built the small construction of the communication crystals that would be distributed as the (theoretical) only project that would use this Spell.

Which brings my tale to the just-averted catastrophe of yesterday. In which, it was entirely possible that I would be alone in a room with half of the Council yelling at me for delaying the necessary work on their little, tiny, small, easy project, required to be completed by this upcoming week (already delayed over a fortnight from Midwinter). They had already said they could have done their tasks in half the time if I had never been involved. If I had just let the Security Spell alone, not tinkered with it, not looked at it, not gone completely paranoid about every little segment and recognition of the entire fabric. There was every indication that they would curse me for my attention to detail and my paranoia about letting any of them have too much power inside the Spell itself - there was every indication that I would be told that my services were no longer needed, thank you very much, and that I should be on my merry way for preventing them from doing whatever they pleased.

For some reason, though, when the meeting occurred (and my supervisor rushed in from his vacation to try to defend me, which was extraordinary courage on his part), there was not a word of rancor at all. It was as if nothing had gone wrong, no complaint had been made, no problem suffered, no slights at all. It was almost as if they understood that they had dumped the security of the entire Merchants' Guild in my lap without bothering to think it through. Almost.

Yesterday was one afternoon of paradise. It shant last.

In the meanwhile, for Midwinter I had a few moments of solitude to think about my life up to this point. And I'm slowly realizing that I am far, far away from my true points of happiness, and that my stress and constant feeling of burden has slowly been wearing away what contacts I have with the outside world, much like a stone in water. For a few days I felt well and truly alone, with not a friend to be found anywhere. That moment has passed, for now, but it haunts me some in the back of my thoughts. If I do not think too much about the circumstances of my life, I can ignore the illusion of the bigger picture. But for a few days, when I had the time, I gazed upon a mouse I no longer knew anymore, and I could almost do nothing but cry. (The fact that such a point occurred not long after the Council had made known their greater plans for my Security Spell helped matters not at all.)

Another year of my life has passed. I know not what I'm going to do with the rest of my days, to be honest. I had a ceremony at Solstice that pointed one possible direction - reminded me that once, long before I was a failure and nothing but a failure in my own eyes, that I was a poet, if a depressing one. I know not whether I have the spirit to rekindle that flame, but I should make the attempt regardless.

The cold has come to Birya early. And with it, a great chill among the populace of Birya - the cold in men's hearts...

The Dragon War has come. There are all sorts of fabulous tales - The Grove under constant siege, an entire kingdom across the sea ripped apart by dragons... but at least some of the tales are true. The merchants shake their heads around the Academy - there is still the camaraderie, there always is - but there's a sadness starting to show in their eyes. They are safe for now - we are all safe, for now. But for how long...?

How this war got started is still up for debate. But it is quite certain to many that it originated in The Grove, not so far to the south; it looks like wizards there decided to meddle in affairs that should never have been touched. Thankfully, the terrain of Birya is such that the dragons have better prey elsewhere, for the most part. There was one rumor of a dragon hiding in the heart of Birya, waiting, but that has, to date, not been proven. We might not know until far too late, though, if so...

The Academy is still well-defended; I fear the Summer Quarter much less so. I have not seen or heard of a dragon in this area, but a general pall of insanity has grown among the populace - the goods have dried up, the employment has dried up, the money has dried up, the food is... safe, for now, I believe. But there's a growing desperation, and the harder edges of men's souls laid bare where once they were ignored.

This is the first significant War I must admit I have seen with my own eyes. There have been a few skirmishes - and certainly the Great Betrayal of several years back in the Grove should have sparked a War, but instead started a Crusade across the oceans for sacred artifacts... I'm still uncertain what they were searching for. There are rumors of yet another Crusade stirring in the south, a reclamation of our own lands from the Dragons... but we have heard many rumors here. As much as my heart feels a touch of a wish to join those crusaders... my bones are growing old, and I'm not much of one for hope in this day and age.

I dislike the thought of hiding inside the Academy walls - too many memories, perhaps, of days ill-spent there - but it is far safer there for me than the Summer Quarter, or outside of Birya's walls. I have a home, for now, a burrow. I shall try to make of it what I can, but, like my friends the squirrels, it might be time to store some nuts away.

This winter looks like it might be quite long.

...but perhaps I shall write here for now, in bits and pieces. To have a narrative! I'm trying to somehow work out the great turmoil that lies within, and has for many years, since even before I first fled the Academy... I've been slowly retracing my steps since I got back here, and perhaps I have some information now that once was lost. Dear reader, I must apologize is this seems scarce and inscrutable; I believe for a little while, I might use this journal for my own notes.

The Academy is growing even more treacherous... like all wild children, once one problem occurs, several more crop up in perfect harmony to ruin my day... including a recurrence of a great mystery: why is it that when an aligned dimensional crystal lattice cracks, the whole lattice rings disharmonious, yet the dimensional spell continues on its merry way with nothing to stop it? It seems quite odd to have a spell that continues even as its sustaining pieces break. Mysterious ways...

I need a focus, much like a lens needs a point on which to focus its vision... so I return to the Old Ones again; or more properly, the Old Ways, I suppose. The forces that shape existence, that few seem to question these days... it is a small solace to me, and perhaps it is time that I paid more attention to it, given I need shelter from my own chaos. So I shall see about studying the Old Ways again... It is quite hilarious that I cannot study texts about quintessence for more than about 15 pages before I must stop and write something down and scitter something else down that I forget about the next day - thus the reason I write this now, somewhere I can find it later! And thus the reason that perhaps this might become inscrutable - to write what I know, to write what I've seen, requires a certain understanding that even I strain to have about myself. So, once more, I apologize.

The great fact is, I have been constructing a small temple within my abode, as I have been for several fortnights now. The problem is, the temple is outlasting my patience in trying to put it together. Yet it did consecrate itself, almost, when I consulted it (difficult forces to explain, although Time is quite a prankster Mistress) - So I know the resonances are correct. But the problem is that to my magician's thoughts, the Old Ways are a stark contrast to the newer ones. Controlled and shaped in quite a different manner, although I suppose this makes sense when the ultimate artifice is Terra itself, rather than the structures of man and beast kept within.

Samhain is coming, at the end of the week. I'm quite uncertain what I shall do for it even now. Although it did point the way last year - I am building a religion, brick by brick, if I am only willing to see it through - I do not know my Question this year. And I shy from the thought, however possible, that I could share that moment of breakthrough with others... not yet, not now. The last thing I want is that one Samhain, many years back, when I felt true unity, only to feel it completely collapse the second I left its embrace... simpler for now to be quiet and alone. Perhaps I'll be willing to rejoin the betterment of the world later.

Oh, I must stop my coughing from blowing the accumulated dust off of this journal. It has been some time, dear reader, and I have been loathe to open this journal again, as it seems to be more a chronicle of my frustrations rather than my success in life and love. Instead, it seems to be where to keep my thoughts of anguish. And that, of course, is why I am writing in it once more.

But I should attempt to fill in the details of the happenings since the previous entry, before I continue on with chronicling the insanity that seems to occur only within my own mind.

My employment at the Academy continues apace. If anything, I seem to have grown to be a valuable member of the Council, having been complimented several times over recently for my work done in furthering the Merchant Guild’s facilities. Unfortunately I can’t take much of these compliments to heart; honestly, it feels like I have done nothing extraordinary at all, just my usual functions and activities. But I already know I have difficulties with perceiving what is, so I just accept it and move on.

My training in magics continues apace. I traveled to yet another Convocation, this one for Dimensional Magic, in the vast desert of the West, at the Temple of Light. (These Convocations always seem to be in the most remote of locations – although I hear that this is not always the case, so far it feels like journeying into the wilds…) I must admit, the Temple of Light was rather… an eye opener. I thought that I had seen corruption and darkness and evil things in the Holy City, but obviously this held nothing on the Temple of Light, whose desolation seems to have driven many of its inhabitants to madness. I must admit the advances in Dimensional Magic over the past few years have proven quite incredible – now they speak of incorporating Aether into their practices, making even the physical crystals on which magic has been based completely unnecessary… and we should not speak too much of the Metamagics being studied as well – spells that encapsulate spells that spawn more or fewer spells as the energy is taken or used – such things are madness indeed to the uninitiated, and astounding to those that are. I'm rather uncertain that castings have been adapted to have them rewrite themselves as necessary... it sounds quite dangerous to me, actually.

I did learn some rudimentary Archival Magic, more useful than that used to store larders, that is quite certain. Regardless, though, the knowledge has been put more to use with Dimensional Magic, refining how crystals are used in a lattice to perform magics… it is not my specialty (and perhaps should be), but I have honestly been drawn recently into performing quite a bit of complicated Connection Magics (thankfully even a farming village had need of that!), and there is only so much time in a life. However, if you have Metamagic now creating other magics at its own will, it’s quite obvious I need to study Summoning, and soon – I will need spirits to help look over all of this, lest it get completely out of hand – and it already is threatening to, even now.

I moved into a residence in the Summer Quarter of Birya proper over, quite appropriately, midsummer. The new den is quite lavish compared to previous quarters, especially those in the West; although some of the neighbors are, shall we say, slightly on the seedy side, the area is well-maintained and feels like a true part of Birya. I have been wishing to write a Gazetteer of Birya for the uninitiated, but have not gotten around to it; suffice it to say, the Summer Quarter borders the Scholar’s Quarter where the Academy is located, such that a single viaduct leads me on my daily travel to and from the Academy. Although, of course, the Summer Quarter is much more of a working man’s quarter than the tall spires of the Scholar’s Quarter. But at least I now avoid navigating the labyrinthine paths of the Merchant’s Quarter on a daily basis, as was the case previously…

Another great Dragon War has broken out. Or at least, rumors of a great Dragon War have broken out. Tales of shipping lanes wrecked, large armies being prepared to fight the Dragons, (tales of corruption preventing those large armies from being used effectively…) – it is impossible to quite verify the tales, as it honestly seems at first glance that Birya hasn’t been affected at all. Many people worry, but everyday life has not been changed significantly, as far as one can tell. The Academy sent out a missive saying, roughly, “Please remember that if Dragons do attack, the Academy is well-defended, and is unlikely to have difficulties in these harsh times.” I must admit that such a message seems oddly out of place when nothing seems to be wrong at all. But I suppose that we shall see.

(Of course, the Merchant’s Guild has been up in arms about this War – or the rumors of this War – and I wonder at times whether they aren’t, perhaps, encouraging this War a bit too forcefully, if you catch my meaning. Although I must admit I revel a bit in their tales of incredible loss and destruction – I doubt that they know they have a traitor in their midst, and I intend to never let that be known…)

Fall has come, and with the change of seasons comes a returned sense that I am wasting my time away. Although I admit that what I sought first and foremost was safety and the ability to learn and help, and those have seemingly achieved at this point. But it is quite obvious that my heart still turns to love, as if being a cloistered monk performing his studies is not enough to give a mouse satisfaction (Gods forbid!). I need peace, but peace is loneliness, and loneliness is the last thing I want for myself. So I have, in fits, tried to seek out others... There were the embers of a relationship glowing at one point a little while back, which perhaps distracted me more from this journal than it should. But I have been reminded that love is fleeting at best and impossible at worst, and that someone of my stature and rank should not expect a miracle to occur. I’ve had to make do for so long that my mind sits agog at the thought that I could reach a point where I could do more than just make do. That, however, seems unlikely, and my feelings still are trapped in the past - deep, dark feelings that I can’t cajole or comfort or inspire to greater things. I am caught in the fact that somehow I no longer can shape the way I feel, only ignore all the streams of hate and disgust that filter through my thoughts on a regular basis. So for now, I shall bide my time, and remain cloistered. I don’t feel particularly motivated to do much else anymore – this is my life, and while it is unlikely to get worse anymore, I see few paths in which it could soon get better either. For now, this will have to be enough; study and reflection and a nice place to hang my cloak at the end of the windstrewn day.