Ask Luna #86

From: Sam

Hi Luna (should I keep using that name?),

Congrats on passing your journeyman test!

I was just wondering, do you think things between Alex and Caldera will ever improve? And do you think she’s even someone any of the gang would want to work with at this point. She seems like a decent person, but she doesn’t really have the critical thinking skills your adventures need.

Yup, Luna’s fine. Some mages drop their birth name once they graduate, but I decided a long time ago that I didn’t want to do that. I use my mage name for official business and when dealing with other mages, but in the shop and with my friends, it’s just Luna.

As for Caldera . . . eh. I’m less keen on her than Vari and Alex seem to be. It’s nothing to do with thinking skills – she’s smart enough. It’s that she always seems to be on the side of whatever’s legal, and in case you haven’t noticed, the law isn’t all that friendly to anyone who isn’t a Light mage. Maybe she is a decent person, but I’d rather keep her at arm’s length.

From: Gaston de Foix

Hi Luna,

I’m a big admirer: you are one of the bravest people I know.

I had some questions about dragons.

Dragons clearly have powers beyond ordinary mortal powers including prophecy and clairvoyance and have seemingly existed for a very long time.

1. Were dragons sometimes understood by mortals as gods (i.e. Athena)?

2. If dragons can see the future so clearly, and are clearly impelled to protect fellow magical creatures, why are magical creatures well-night extinct?

3. Does the origin of magic have anything to do with dragons?

4. Anything else cool or unusual you can tell me about dragons that I can’t read somewhere else!

Thanks for taking the time.

That’s a nice compliment, thanks. As for your questions:

1) Yes. Given what they can do, ‘god’ actually seems like a pretty good description.

2) They’re not impelled to protect magical creatures, or at least I don’t think they are. This is where it gets tricky – they seem to be under some restrictions, but it’s really hard to understand how they work. There’s a reason they don’t run the world, put it that way. Arachne’s dragon is a special case, or maybe it’s that Arachne is a special case to the dragon.

3) Don’t think so, but no-one really knows what the origin of magic is, so could be.

4) Alex told me once that he has a theory that dragons don’t just see other people’s futures, they also see their own. Which means that for all their power, they have absolutely no freedom. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I’ve always remembered it.

From: Kalias

Hi Luna
I was just wondering, how do elemental mages power their spells? – it seems like magic is still mostly subject to the laws of conservation of energy (e.g. with shield magic), yet elemental / force mages seem to be able to do things that would consume a lot of energy if achieved the normal way without it overly draining them. Are they subject to the law of conservation of energy and if so where does the energy come from?

Okay, so this is getting into ‘theory of magic’ stuff, which I did my best to skip whenever it came up in class. As I understand it, mages don’t create energy, they use what’s out there already. The energy for something like a fire spell doesn’t come from the mage, it comes from turning mass into heat. They can only convert tiny tiny amounts of matter, but apparently that still packs quite a punch. That isn’t how they actually describe it though – you get into concepts, so a fire mage can’t just mess around with energy directly, it has to involve heat or fire in some way. I’m probably not explaining this very well.

From: Dug Devine

Hi Luna…. Just curious, is a “Mage”(some Mages? Magi?) able to develop other magical skills / abilities or is it a case of ” you are what your are born?” 😀

Both. First you have to have the talent, then you have to train it. In practice it takes so long (years and years) to get really good with one magic type that most mages keep working on perfecting that rather than starting over with a new one.

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