Audio; UN: username

[fuelingfire]

For those that might be interested, I have through considerable effort figured out how to tweak these devices into allowing the display of color video and images beyond sepia.

[There is a steady tap tap tap, like a claw on metal.]

Which I would demonstrate, save that this is a physical change to the device and requires me to put in several very small items to function. Thus if you have interest in seeing each other in color, I can be found at the Second Time's The Charm shop, which sells these communicators, for the next several days. Make an appointment. As I am generous, I will not charge for my considerable time and efforts in this, though I will not refuse donations. You will have to turn your device over to me for a bell or so, there's no way around it. If you refuse, you may purchase another, I can update that one, and you may turn in your old one for recycling.

Technically I can't refuse anyone who asks for my aid. But if you are rude, violent, or otherwise not on good behavior something unpleasant may happen to your device while my talons are in its guts. Try to at least feign civility.




[OOC: The first watch update is here, IN LIVING COLOR. Lahabrea absolutely must get his hands on a watch in order to upgrade it. While this interaction can be handwaved!! you may also come visit Lahabrea and have it done in person for delicious CR! He won't refuse anyone, and he'll take into account rude people at least making an effort at being polite. Upgrades are freeeee! Make an appointment (in this thread or inboxes or etc I don't mind~) and come get your color upgrade!

Although he didn't mention it in this notice, he's willing to teach others how to do this as well, so other people can do upgrades! If you're interested, find an excuse to ask him! I welcome any and all assistance; the more hands I get the faster I can do future upgrades too!]

Comments

[fuelingfire]

Know because you have been told so, or know because you have actively observed it? Felt its true long-term effects, instead of the works of the cruel and small-minded?

[That's a tiny, tiny wrench that is waggled, but Myr can't see it to know it's being waggled at him.

But it is.]

Power is power, and cannot be inherently evil by its nature. The flawed nature of mortals, however, can turn even a hearthfire into an all-consuming inferno. Would your god truly deliberately create something malignant, just for ... what, entertainment? Blood is natural and shaped by your divinity, magic is natural and likewise. I do not say use it yourself! But call a volcano or windstorm evil as quickly, for proper comparisons.

[There's a brief pause, and his tone turns doubtful.]

Mm, no, then again your god did create an entire race and then condemn them for not doing something He never asked them to do, so mayhap He did create tainted power and turn it loose in the world just to see what would happen. In which case, I do apologize.

[faithlikeaseed]

I've felt what a death does to the Veil, messere. I can believe those who say blood magic causes it greater damage still--even if I'd never the misfortune to meet a blood mage myself.

[Was it nevertheless possible that blood magic really didn't do any of the things attributed to it? Myr at least isn't visibly horrified by the intimation. He can entertain the idea in the abstract, even while not doubting the evidence of his own experience in the least.

A thoughtful little noise meets Lahabrea's analogy to nature, and Myr holds up a finger as if he'd interject-- Only to give a huffing little laugh at what, probably, he should consider blasphemy but he's merely come to expect in their conversations.]

I don't believe He did, at that--create spirits simply for the sake of condemning them, though I auger I won't know what the story should be until I meet Him. [Which a small clamoring part of worries he will not ever, doomed to whatever passes for an afterlife in Aefenglom. But let it bide.] But as regards blood magic--you've a point, I think, that the power residing in our blood must be a natural thing the Maker intended.

But just as a man might utter blasphemy with the tongue the Maker's given him, or murder the innocent with his hands, he sins when he spills blood for magic. And, maybe--[he's wise enough to sense the natural objection,] that means there is a way that He intended us to use it rightly, but the Chant and the Chantry alike say nothing of it now.

[fuelingfire]

The Chant and Chantry neglect much, from what little I have heard of it. The decrees written by those who measure their lives in a mere sixty to eighty decades must by necessity be shaped by their very narrow views. Even putting their thoughts to writing immediately subjects it all to interpretation, and when it is used as a method to control a populace, the most powerful have every reason to create restrictions.

[He works on. There's sounds to mark it, little taps and clicks and occasional static zaps, the faint smell of ozone and more. This isn't a subject he is so deeply invested in that it draws his attention from what he's doing, it seems.

Which may, or may not, be for the best.]

Supposing such methods as using the aether in blood for varying purposes, you do have naught but the say-so of others, others invested in maintaining their control, mind you, that it must be inherently sinful. Surely they would be invested in keeping such secrets to themselves. Few mortals indeed have true altruism at their hearts, and fewer yet if they hold power over others. Tis a problem children have, that oft outgrow by their third or fourth century.

[Mortals simply didn't have the time.]

Mind you, I did not say your Creator shaped a peoples specifically TO condemn them, merely that He shaped them, then condemned them.

[faithlikeaseed]

[This is enough like discussing (arguing, really) the Chant with Vandelin that it gets a weird, nostalgic little smile out of Myr.]

All that you say is true, messere, and the Chantry's motive behind the ban could have nothing to do with blood magic being harmful per se. Although I will say it is not only through their graces that we know about it; even in my lifetime, two Circles were riven by its use, and we heard from their survivors through our own channels that are less--mm--subject to Chantry censors.

[Defensive as he was of his faith, Myr does not see it as beyond reproach; he's scholar enough that the penchant for censorship and alteration of texts was tiresome and offensive to his sensibilities. Bless the College of Enchanters for having their own aways of working around the Chantry's restrictions.]

Whether the blood mages of the Gallows and Kinloch Hold sinned or not in their actions, they did unleash horrors on the world--whatever their intent. That gives me reason for caution about it even beyond my religious scruples. [Really, blood magic being awful was one of the very few things he and his staunchly atheist cousin were wholly agreed on, which did say something.

He then tips out a hand in gracious acknowledgment of the Ascian's correction.]

Forgive me--you did make that distinction, and I elided it in my haste. Regardless, as you have amply explained, I do have every reason to suspect the texts that said He did as such.

Which raises an interesting point: Why are you willing to take that particular negative depiction of my Creator as undistorted by mortal ambition or misunderstandings, but challenge the idea that His word on blood magic is authoritative?

[fuelingfire]

Because unless I have been misled, He did not hand out the book as writ by His hand directly, and go from village to town to city speaking directly what He desired, for He communicates not with anyone at all. All of it is by mortal hand claiming divine inspiration - and there is no true knowing if it is genuinely so, or not.

[There is a quiet tiny sproing of something popping loose and clattering across the table in tiny clinks.

Lahabrea fetches it back promptly.]

I know the word of my God and His wishes because He has given His direction quite directly to us, not through any other medium. We need not guess, nor assume, nor hope that our ancestors wrote it down fairly and clearly, leaving naught to interpretation. We are in that respect rather spoiled, for what need is there of faith when you have certainty? But time and again I have seen how mortals put their Gods to translation and question and interpretation; if there were ever direct conversation, it is long divorced from modern faith.

[There is a lapse then - Myr may well respond and it will certainly be heard and responded to in turn. But not for several minutes. Delicate bits require his full attention, and listening doesn't mean devoting the resources to a verbal response, not immediately.]