Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 6292839" data-attributes="member: 2067">The man in the gleaming armor spat in disgust. "Magic! Bah! It's a taint on our world, a corruption of what it means to be human. It's slavery is what it is! Those warlocks and priests out makin' pacts with gods and fiends and fey and dragons and nature spirits and everythin' else. Like this world ain't good enough for 'em, like they wanna escape. They ain't happy just being real, they gotta be more. The egos on these fools..." He shook his head at their ignorance. "They're slowly killin' this world, but the power's too much for most of 'em to resist. Listen: your soul is YOURS. It ain't the gods', it ain't the devils', it ain't the Far Realm's. It don't belong to no one else. If you wanna be like them magicians and give it up, it's like you're giving them a gift, a payment. Sure, doesn't seem like much right now, but when you're kaput, it'll go to whoever or whatever you pledged it to. It'll further some god's petty holy war, or some demon's plot or some nature spirit's babbling brook or whatever. You're giving it up! You can't decide how to use it, THEY get to decide how to use it. It's nonsense. You give up your eternal soul for some momentary sparkling lights." I stare at my mug of warm, watery ale as the foam atop it slowly bursts, and ask him of Sorcery. The mug shakes and spills as he strikes the table. "That's what we get! Pheh! Those so-called nobles in their high-falutin' palaces pretending to be better than everyone else because of their blood. They got no right to rule us! They're corrupted. Those are tainted souls, coming back to us. Every single one of those bastard bloodlines is born of something wanting to carve up our world and eat it. Y'know the king of this land, Rufus? You know how he can shine that halo out of his head? That arrogant knob's blood goes back to a celestial, his soul isn't of this world, it's of the heavens. Oh sure, he acts like he looks out for the little people, but that's just trickery -- if he seems like a good bloke, everyone'll want to be like him, and the celestials will get more pacts, and more souls will be ripped from the people who own them by rights. Look, I'm sure he's a good chap who loves his momma and treats everyone right, but sod it all, he's playing right into the plans of those angels, and he's making this world die while he's doing it!" I look up from the ale soaking into the aged wood of the table, and into his ice-blue eyes, wide with fury. I tell him my title, who I represent. I tell him our philosophy: "know thy enemy." The Tower isn't just a cabal of academics, after all. We know that magic is not of this world, is a taint on our natural beauty, and is being offered to our people in exchange for their souls. We know what's possible when you ignore the lure of magic, and practice your own arts. We have warriors and monks and naturalists and thieves the world over searching for people like the man in front of me. He called himself "Murdor the Mage-Slayer," and the corpses he had made of the Sacrificed, those who have given their souls to Outsiders, was impressive. He clearly understood the risk they posed to the land. I hand him a scroll, carefully drawn in the hand of a master monk, who practiced cartography as meditation. I tell him to follow it, if he wants to see the magicians' reign end. He stares at it, mouth agape. "I thought you guys was a myth..." I stand and wrap my cloak tightly around me. It feels safer, though I know Rufus's diviners are probably tapping the piercing gazes of the celestials as we spoke. A cloak won't stop their divine eyes. Murdor's reputation preceded him, and he had been watched for eight weeks now. If we hadn't acted, they would've. He's still staring at the scroll as I don my pack. I don't know why, but I feel some pity for this man. He reminds me a bit of my son. Reckless. Stupid. Passionate. "Far from it," I say. "The gods, the faeries, the demons, the angels. Those are the myths. What's true in this world is you and I. Our souls are ours, not theirs. What the Tower is doing is protecting people from the myths." As I left him there, I failed to notice the glow of the eyes of the man in the corner, or how his gaze followed me as I left. Damn celestial-pact warlocks. How's a person supposed to know you're calling on angels if you're not praying? </blockquote>

Verification