Ask Luna #167

From: Mr McB

Hi Luna,
Thanks for answering these for all these years. Couple of quick, personal-but-hopefully-not-too-personal questions.
1). Do you ever see Chalice anymore? Were you ever friends, or more like the high school teacher you get along with but never see outside class? Any other dark mages you get on with?
2). Has… uh, “New Anne” been in touch with you? Or vice versa? She said she’d want a call from you when she talked to Alex. She seems to have no desire to hurt him, so I’d assume you’d be in the same boat. Might help her to be reminded about the people who still care about her, and she might be… well, entertaining if you’re not on her murdery side.
3). So you and the rest of the Arcana Emporium crew seem not to be too happy with the existing magical world order (except Vari, who’s kinda inside it now); had you ever thought about what you’d like it to look like if you had a the choice? More rights and protections for adepts/sensitives? Losing that distinction with mages? Dropping the secrecy clause of the Concord altogether?

1. Still see her fairly often, though a bit less at the moment with all the chaos. She’s less like a high school teacher and more like a coach. I don’t get regular lessons, but I’ll go to her if there’s something I’m having trouble with.

2. Yes. She’s a lot less ‘entertaining’ when you’re alone in a room with her out of earshot of anyone who could help.

3. Man, that’s a big question. I don’t know. The biggest thing would be levelling out the laws between mages and adepts/sensitives. I know they’d still treat us differently, I’m not stupid, but it would be a really good start.

From: Dakota

We’ve heard that your curse is less effective on inanimate objects, but it can still cause issues if the dose gets high enough. How often do you have to replace frequently-used objects (like clothing or bed sheets)?

I do go through clothing really fast. Never been completely sure whether to blame it on the curse or just my lifestyle, but it’s really annoying when other people can wear their favourite top for years when yours seems to get worn out or torn up in a couple of months. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a big deal if I enjoyed clothes shopping as much as some girls, but I don’t.

From: James

Has the war between Richard’s cabal and the Light Council changed after Alex thwarted his plans with Anne? I got the impression that Richard was playing a long game and had the Light Council where he wanted, but now it seems he might be vulnerable especially with Morden and Vihaela I can’t imagine they are happy with him losing the strongest Jinn ever. Or is the Light Council wasting their time going after Alex that Richard is still able to survive?

From all we can tell, it threw a wrench into things in a big way. A couple of major operations he’d been planning for a while got cancelled. And yeah, the Council’s doing exactly that, but even if they weren’t Richard’s cabal seems to have mostly gone to ground for now.

From: John

Hey Luna, I was just concerned of how you’re handling everything. I know things are tough now. How are you holding up?

Keep up the good work. You’re helping a lot of people.

Thanks. Nice to know some people think so!

Things aren’t great. I’m hoping they’ll get better, but right now there are some really powerful people circling around me and they’re starting to focus more on me and less on Alex. If they decide to do something then there isn’t much I can do to stop them, and that’s a pretty scary feeling.

From: Aaron

Hey Luna I was looking at the Alex Verus reddit page the other day and the topic of Richard’s mage name came up, and a theory was that he was using the Dragons divination powers as a statement saying he was power incarnate.

Now at first I couldn’t believe he would have his magic type in the open, but then it struck most people couldn’t believe that a diviner could be that powerful. On another note a lot of people have a lot of theories on why Richard acts the way he does. “Richard always intended for Alex to be his true Chosen.”, “Richard kept Alex on the Light Council as a way to destabilize them from within.” and “Richard isn’t actually a mage he just uses imbued items and cons his way with audacity.” Even the Light Council seemed to think Alex was some sort of Trojan Horse despite the fact he was the only one offering any effective opposition to him.

My question is do you think a lot of the fans and Light Council develop wild theories about Richard because they can’t believe someone would state their motives/powers outright and that Richard’s actions towards Alex and Anne aren’t some overly complicated plan, just that he is very patient and reacts to a situation when he think it works best for him?

I don’t really know what’s going on with all the questions and theories I get about Richard, honestly. For a while I felt like every third question was about the guy. If I had to guess I’d say your last guess is probably pretty close to the truth, he isn’t some dragon-fate-mage-superman, he’s just patient and good at using people to do what he wants. It feels like the time he’s told Alex what he wants, he’s been pretty damn straightforward, but maybe people just haven’t registered that yet?

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