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Message: <blockquote data-quote="LostSoul" data-source="post: 5516150" data-attributes="member: 386">Vancian, eh?Turjan of Miir:Turjan fuond a musty portfolio, turned the heavy pages to the spell the Sage had showed him, the Call to the Violent Cloud.  He stared down at the characters and they burned with an urgent power, pressing off the page as if frantic to leave the dark solitude of the book. Turjan closed the book, forcing the spell back into oblivion.  He robed himself with a short blue cape, tucked a blade into his belt, fitted the amulet holding Laccodel's Rune to his wrist.  Then he sat down and from a journal chose the spells he would take with him.  What dangers he might meet he could not know, so he selected three spells of general application: the Excellent Prismatic Spray, Phandaal's Mantle of Stealth, and the Spell of the Slow Hour.Why is Turjan doing this?  So he can speak to Pandelume:"This is my mission, Pandelume," he said.  "For some time I have been striving to create humanity in my vats.  Yet always I fail, from ignorance of the agent that binds and orders the patterns.  This master-matrix must be known to you; therefore I come to you for guidance."And of course Pandelume has "cloning vats":Pandelume's voice was amused.  "I, too," he replied, "have vats where I mold life into varied forms.  This girl T'sais I created, but I wrought carelessly, with a flaw in the synthesis.  So she climbed from the vat with a warp in her brain, in this manner: what we hold to be beautiful seems to her loathsome and ugly, and what we find ugly is to her intolerably vile, in a degree that you and I cannot understand.  She finds the world a bitter place, people with shapes of direst malevolence."Pandelume requests a service, which leads to a magical conflict:"With ready death on my lips," spoke Turjan.  "Turn your back, Kandive, or I speak a spell and run you through with my sword." Kandive made as to obey, but instead shouted the syllables bringing the Omnipotent Sphere about him. "Now I call my guards, Turjan," announced Kandive contemptuously, "and you shall be cast to ithe Deodands in the tank." Kandive did not know the engraved band Turjan wore on his wrist, a most powerful rune, maintaining a field solvent of all magic.  Still guarding his vision against the amulet, Turjan stepped through the Sphere.  Kandive's great blue eyes bulged. "Call the guards," said Turjan.  "They will find your body riddled by lines of fire." "Your body, Turjan!" cried the prince, babbling the spell.  Instantly the blazing wires of the Excellent Prismatic Spray lashed from all directions at Turjan.  Kandive watched the furious rain with a wolfish grin, but his expression changed quickly to consternation.  A finger's breath from Turjan's skin the fire-darts dissolved into a thousand gray puffs of smoke."</blockquote>

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