Ask Luna #103

From: Andy deal

Now that some time has passed what has alex found that he can do with the dreamstones. Or his in particular. And it sounds like they might have different qualities depending on the stone hence alex ‘s pick of the one less geared towards compulsion. what are the strong points of his crystal. Very curious about this new avenue of magic. Thanks so much.

Alex has mostly been working on the communication aspects of his dreamstone, I think. He can use it to talk to any of us now at pretty much any range. The Elsewhere abilities are a bit murkier. The top-level ability is supposed to be to enter Elsewhere physically, but I don’t think he’s actually tried it yet, since Arachne has warned him that it’s horrendously dangerous.

From: Jack

Hi, Mage Vesta. I was wondering if you could grant a request/answer a few questions?

1/ We haven’t had an encyclopaedia article in almost four years! Could we get one? Maybe one on Illusion magic, or plant/nature magic, or a series on Adepts.
2/How true is the myth of Arachne and Athena in regards to the huge spider we all know and love?
3/I’m not sure if you’ve answered this before, but can Adepts use focus items? Although they are limited in their breadth of power, I would’ve thought they could channel their energy into a focus.
4/In the recounts of your ‘adventures’ with Alex, for lack of a better term, have you met any other magical creatures we don’t know about? Could you give us a little information on the most common magical creatures native to the British Isles?

All the best,

Jack

1. Honestly, I’ve been kind of enjoying not having to hit the study books any more. I guess I could look one up . . .

2. Good question. My guess is that it’s one of those things that was based on a true story but which has gotten changed a lot over the years. The obvious way to find out would be to ask her, but Arachne doesn’t seem at all keen on talking about her past. I’ve got a feeling there’s something going on there, but she doesn’t make it easy to find out what.

3. Most can’t. I can. I don’t know if that’s because I’m more powerful than average, but I think it’s more to do with practice and opportunity. I spent a lot of time around Alex and his shop, which meant I got to spend a lot of time trying out different focus items and fiddling around with them. It did take a lot of trial and error, though.

4. I’m not sure if there are very many common ones any more. The ones that are numerous enough that you’re likely to ever see more than one are the ones like blink foxes, that can blend into the background and stay out of trouble.

From: toniaraem

Hi Luna,
I was wondering, can life mages heal animals and plants? If yes, do they need special training for things like that?

Yes, they can, and apparently it’s pretty easy. According to Anne the basic techniques for healing a dog or a cat are exactly the same as the ones you’d use for healing a human. It only gets difficult once you try to work on ones with really different physiologies (so you might need some pointers to figure out how to do reptiles, for instance).

From: Jim

Hi Luna,

I have two things I wanted to address.

First back to my last missive, your point that there was some bribery possible to get Anne to remain under a threat of death. I thought a lot about this and see it in two steps. First, Alex and all his dependents were put on the list. This required one of 4 people to create the threat. The way out for yourself (as an example) but not Anne required a separate effort. If Levistus was only concerned with Alex, then why put the dependents under the threat of death at all. Again, this points to influence at the start of the process as well as the end. If we assume that Levistus did not talk directly to Morden about this, then somebody probably suggested it. Some Light Mage who knows Alex and has some influence. I am thinking directly here about Lyle. If there is a go between, he seems perfect for the role.

Second, I was thinking a lot about the Light Council and its view of everyone else. And it seems to me to be prototypically British – having a distinct and clear class system that people can not escape. I am wondering if the shape of relationships between particularly Adepts and Mages in other countries is different, based around the culture of those countries.

It’s . . . possible. I don’t like thinking about this stuff because it makes me paranoid, but it could have happened, yeah. It’s so hard to figure out who to blame with stuff like this, though, just because there are so many mages out there who’d be willing to do it. It’s one thing to keep track of enemies, but once you expand that to ‘anyone who can be pushed around or bribed’ then it feels like that’s half the Council.

As for the second . . . well, I’m afraid that the mage/adept/everyone else class distinction is pretty much exactly the same in every other part of the world that I’ve been to. The conventions are different and the flavour is different, but I don’t know a single country where adepts don’t get treated differently to mages.

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