GM: No GM
Players: Darius, Elena, Mickey.
Synopsis: A random meet on a meadow in Ostara Park
Date: June 29th 2071
Mikey is running today, running with a full ruck sack and dressed in all his armor. It appears to be some sort of endurance training, though he is moving fairly fast. He almost doesn't notice the rock creature until he is almost upon the both of you. He actually is so surprised he trips and falls down, hitting the ground hard with a loud thud.
Darius is sitting on a rock talking to Goliath. Mikey just faceplanted after being startled by the creature. Darius peers over at the thud, as does the earth elemental. Darius raises his eyebrow. The earth elemental laughs, the sound akin to a rockslide.
Mikey grunts faintly, and pushes himself back to his hands and knees first, then climbs to his feet slowly. He doesn't bother to dust himself off or anything, mainly he watches the large rock elemental. He does though pick up an earbud thats dangling on his chest and place it back in his ear.
Elena arrives in the presence of a much more cuddly creature. She is accompanied by what looks like an unicorn, though the fact that one can look through it's half transparent form. She looks around the place as she comming from the woods and hears someone grunt. "Something happened?", she asks the ork.
Darius shakes his head a bit, amused. "Are you OK there?" He wonders of the guy who fell flat. The earth elemental seems to have thought it was hilarious- preictibly a fan of physical comedy. And then he hears Elena, and glances over her way as well. "Aha, back in robes today, I see." he comments.
Mikey grunts and looks at Elena and her spirit. "What the hell, is this like a convention for spirits and mages or something? Is the park always like this or am I just lucky today?"
"The clue is in the name." Darius informs Mikey. "Besides, Goliath here is a friend, not a spirit I control." he informs him then.
Elena tilts her head, then asks, "What do you expect of an area that's close to one of the mothers holy places. Some people call it power sites or Magical Places. In the end they are part of the Mother.", she says to the ork. "Besides… What's the problem… I just asked a friend from the spiritual world to join me an she was so nice to accept."
Mikey looks at Elenas spirit…"That one…I can take." He then turns and walks over to look closely at Goliath, or up at Goliath. "This one…..I'd have alot of trouble with…..so big guy, does your material form slow you down any or what?"
The earth elemental stops laughing. It's vaguely humanoid head knots into a scowl and it rises up. "Does little green mortal threaten me?" it asks then. Darius places a hand on the creatures back, "Just Bravado, I'm sure." He informs the earth elemental. Darius does seem a little tense, though. After all, the first time he met Goliath he was raging, overturning busses, killing folks, generally being a pain. And Darius had help subduing him that time.
Elena tilts her head, "It's okay, brother of the earth… Some people just have a problem to show the proper respect to their fellow beings. Some sadly even consider only the human shape as the only 'intelligent' lifeform. Please stay calm and ignore this mortal who will be dust when your existence just has passed a few more cycles.", she says
Mikey focuses on Goliath and nods. "Impressive." He looks at the arms for a moment. "Good length, like a troll, makes you dangerous close in." He looks back up at Goliath and grins "I have to say, as far as elementals go, I have to give props to earth for best looking."
The Earth Elemental still scowls at the Ork, "It mocks me." He observes cooly. "I SHOULD CRUSH IT!" it bellows a moment later, but Darius's hand on its stony back remains. "Remember, if you crush mortals, people will send you away. You have to be patient, like the mountain, not impulsive like the quake." He tells the creature then. The creature turns to Darius, then back to the others. "Mortals are foolish and weak. This world should not be theirs." The creature asserts, then, before the rocks making up his form become lifeless, collapsing in a mound on the ground, which eventually solidifies into a single boulder, sapling tree still sprouting from it.
Elena sighs, "Do you really think it a good idea to talk like this to a free earth elemental?", she then asks Mikey. "I mean many of the spiritual dwellers, not too unrightly, consider mankind a plague on the body of the mother…"
Mikey looks a bit surprised when the creature declares its desire to crush him. He watches it turn back to a rock and looks at Darius "What? I was serious, earth elementals are much more impressive than water elementals, who's afraid of a puddle?" He turns anf frowns at Elena "I thought I was complimenting it actually, I guess it lost something in translation."
"I don't know. Drowning is purportedly rathe unpleasent." Darius informs MIkey, with a bit of a smirk. "That particular elemental does not yet have a particularly fluid grasp on human language. He's only had his sentience about a year, and it takes time to adjust. I am trying to help him, because if he goes on another rampage, he will likely be killed."
Mikey shakes his head. "I'm not faulting spirits capabilities, just raw intimidation factor. An earth elemental looks like its going to hurt you, alot. That in itself is an advantage against those that do not understand. I get the whole slavery thing though, elementals gotta be pissed off at thier lot in the universe."
Darius shrugs, "Summoning an elemental shapes formless elemental energy into a creature. A wizard gives an elemental life when he binds it." Darius says then, "Life, but not sentience. A bound elemental is no more a slave than a car. An elementa only gains true life, sentience, when it breaks free."
Elena shakes her head, "Why you hermetics always think that /you/ are the driving force behind magic is a mystery to me. How can a man or a woman at that singlehandedly animate dead matter? It's a gift the mother gives to us. To call forth the living creatures of her realm. You simply ignore the fact that they are alive."
"And sentient on their own…", she adds
Mikey grins and looks between Darius and Elena. "You know, I kinda have to side with the hermetic on this one. Your mother didn't give me squat, I do my magic my own way, without any of your vodoo."
Darius shrugs, "I'm not saying that every elemental was created by mortal mages- there are forces on the planes greater and more ancient than even the great dragons. But when a mortal binds an elemental, he turns raw power and elemental substance into a living being." he informs Elena. "If I were to release one of my bound elementals, it would dissapate back into the raw magic from which it was forged. It ceases to exist in any meaningful sense."
Elena frowns at Mikey. "You're foolish, then. Whose cycle is it that magic lives on? Yours? No. It's the mothers cycle. She has slumbered for an age now and now that she awoke she found her body mistreated by her children, her skin ripped open to build foolish and sometimes even merely egozentric buildings. Nature ravishes all around and those who where called her guardians killed or locked away. It's no wonder the native americans had a willing ally in her when they asked for help after what their people had to endure from the white man. It is this ignorance that will one day be mankinds downfall unless we really reconsider our ways and start to live with the mother instead of against her." She finally stops to talk, muttering, "Ah well, I am most likely just wasting my breath…", she seems to direct most of that towards the ork, but her last words go to the mage, "Well, if you are so wise…Then explain me what the Planes are? Another construct of your mind? I really think you underestimate the wealth of life the mother nourishes. Or will you call dragons too a figment of your brain? I think Hestaby or Lofwyr would maybe amused or maybe they would roast you cross, just to prove a point." She sighs as she stops talking finally after that long monoloque.
Mikey grins at Elena. "Ok, so explain to me blood magic? I kinda hear thats bad stuff, but people can still do it with the mothers permission and all." He then looks at DArius "Ohh, one question, why do elementals try to kill you if they have no sentience? You specificlly, or so I've read."
"I've spoken to Hestaby. Or one of her agents, at any rate, on the Trix." Darius tells Elena. "An interesting dragon. She took intrest of the opression the governments here in Denver sought to enforce of its awakened." He informs her. At the question from Mikey, he shrugs, "They gain sentience the moment they are freed. Perhaps in that moment, they seek to kill their summoner before he can reassert control. But once calmed, it is possible to befriend a raging elemental. Goliath is evidence enough of that."
Elena shrugs, "Blood magic is ripping away the power of a living being and using it for your own purposes. It's simply abusing the gift of life the mother breathes into each and every one of us. And it basically proves that the lifeforce of a living being is the same force that gives power to a mage. Maybe in a more simple form, maybe bound form, but it can be used to power a spell if these evil rituals are performed." She tilts her head, then shrugs, "If you think that something suddenly gains sentience, then you are more simple minded then I thought. Some of them are just not really able to take in this limited for of life we live. They cannot comprehend our ways because theirs are much different."
Mikey shrugs "I don't know, look at totems, why are there no totems that no ones ever heard off? Why is it all totems fit some mythic faith that existed in some form to begin with. Does the totem exist outside of the followers, or is it just a creation of thier own collective minds."
Elena shakes her head, "There is quite incomprehensible totems, or do I have to remind you of the insect spirits? But I think a totem, spiritual guide, idol, however you want to name them, can only get into contact with someone /able/ to comprehend its ways. So it's not the totems limit we're seeing here, but our limits to comprehend them. After all there is totems that are following ways that most people would call sick or even mad."
Mikey frowns slightly. "I got no idea what to think about insects actually, that is one thing that supports the existance of the planes outside our creation."
Darius shrugs a little, "Insects and worse things come from alien, outer planes. Perhaps they are the magic of other worlds. Time and Space are abstract concepts on the metaplanes, and who's to say that a thousand light years might be breached in an instant by a spirit." he says, "Of course, now I'm talking in the realm of pure hypotheticals, but perhaps other worlds have a whole range of Metaplanes of their own, and only a few are close enough to ours for them to pass through- like insects. It would certainly explain why insect spirits require a human host to exist in the material world."
Darius continues, "They require a surrogate aura, so that the earth's own aura does not reject them, as a body might eject bacteria."
Elena tilts her head, "An interesting idea, but then those spirits would merely be the children of their world. Who where created by it's lifeforce as we and many of the spirits here are children of Mother Gaia. I agree that there may be different kinds of origin. But does that make them mere shapes of astral enery? I doubt it. In fact. There have even been sightings of elementals and natures spirits manifesting in our plane 'spontaneously' as it's called. A sure fire sign that they are not created but merely called forth by a mage."
Mikey chuckles faintly, and looks around for somewhere to sit, obviously amused by the hermetic/shamanic debate. "Go on, this is good stuff." He reaches into his pack for a water bottle, then holds one out. "Anyone thirsty?"
Darius takes the offered water bottle, "Thanks." he offers in return. "I never said that every elemental is created by a mage, only that when a mage binds an elemental, he creates it. This is why Hermetic mages require more time, and costly resources to bind an elemental. Shamans call on existing spirits, mages forge them."
Elena shakes her head, "That's damn foolishness to assume. You merely bind them into a shape that they most likely never would assume on their own. But you do not create them. Did it never strike you that despite the differences that all nature spirits adhere to the elements in some way? If you ask me the difference is that you totally and without any chance of refusal enslave them. Which would also explain why nature spirits are less likely to ravage a shaman when they go free. After all if you were a sentient being, how would /you/ feel to be forced to do someone elses every wish. Most shamen at least understand that the spirits deserve respect."
Mikey grabs another water bottle and offers it to Elena, finally getting one for himself and opening it and taking a drink. "I wonder if there is a way to bind a nature spirit? I mean, if its energy is the same as an elemental, why can't a mage make a nature spirit his slave? Why only the elements of earth air fire and water?"
Darius shrugs, "I treat my own elementals with respect- all the respect one should extend to any force of nature, like a forest fire, a surging river, a treacherous mountain, or a violent storm. And when they have served me well, I release them myself. They simply dissapate."
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