Miranda Marlin's Journal and Notes

[Miranda Marlin]

Miranda Marlin's Journal and Notes

[a collection of thoughts and notes, some magickal, some mundane. Bird feathers are pressed between some pages or used like bookmarks.]

You can tell a lot about someone by how they treat birds.

You can tell a lot about someone by how they treat you when they don't need you.

You can tell a lot about someone by how they treat people who need help.

You can tell a lot about someone by how they act when they can do anything they want to you.

You can tell a lot and it seems like a lot of the people in charge here and now are... well I don't remember how things were exactly but it feels a lot like that. It's not all bad, though, but not all people are. Have to keep organized. Put my thoughts in a row and shake it all out. What I've seen, what Cawford's seen in the gull dreams. What people say, what people really mean.

Still have a lot of holes in my memories and in my 'me'. Maybe I'll see if I can tell a lot about Miranda Marlin too.

[Miranda Marlin]

[OPPOSED SCHOOL: DIVINATION]

What is it that makes Diviners such creeps though? I think it just attracts a certain type. weird voyeurs and control freaks. You get to have an expectation you can see and predict anything. Eventually it just reorganizes your head too, if you obsess over it enough and wizards and arcanists and mages do get obsessive. Seeing through illusions leads to a contempt for the art, and an inability. Putting aside maybe the most imaginative school can't be healthy, but noone says obsessions are a good thing.

People keep asking if I'm a Nadiri because I have blue robes and I'm not of course. The Nadiri seem nice, Shum seems nice. Ashley seems nice. Even Welly. But it maybe it was good I didn't jump in there with both feet. Their bosses seem weird, erratic, unpleasant or irresponsible. Maybe if Shum had been an Apothar, but I don't think we study the same things so he wouldn't be able to help me with my bird stuff.

Xon is so sick and he needs help and I'm not sure he's getting it. He's a Transmuter, I think, and some kind of Alienist or Illusionist, or maybe his illusionist Apothar has been experimenting on him? He's losing parts of himself, splitting off and they're doing things, bad things and they aren't illusions anymore. A lot of people are treating it like its cute or quirky outwardly and it makes me so anxious. He's going to get killed, maybe his own magic is going to eat him, maybe that mean Janissary dwarf with that big stupid sword who hurt Cawford is going to kill him. Xon seems nice and that makes him being brain-sick even worse because I don't think I can't do anything to really help him.

[Miranda Marlin]

[SPECIALIST SCHOOL: EVOCATION]

Evocations are fun, there is no denying that. That rush of power that goes right to your head when you do it right. Boom! It's heady and no prizes for guessing what usually happens if an Evoker goes crackers. Most of the Evokers I've met here have been pretty nice, though? Level headed? Being a wizard doesn't mean being irresponsible, and it makes a lot of sense that a conscientious Evoker would be real detail-oriented and careful.

Bea seems nice, and real helpful. A little of it might be political, but I think some of it is she's just like that. I don't think she does Conjuration though. A lot of Evokers don't and that's a shame. I guess they figure they can replicate some of the utility through other means. There's always tools with magic even if they aren't the most efficient ones. But she doesn't do Conjurations I think so I don't think she'd be able to help me with my bird stuff.

Still, it's nice to have someone to talk about magic with who seems normal and nice and with their head together. And she's nice to Cawford too.

Elayn is a Torchbearer too. I wonder if she's an Evoker. She did say Evocations were fun and of course I agree. Then turned around and said Transmutations are a necessary evil which is a strange thing to say? But a lot of Conjurers don't like them for whatever reason. Augmenting the self is just real handy, or turning into a bird? Or a lot of other things. So long as you don't get brain-sick about it like maybe Xon might be... Maybe that's what she means, though. Maybe I am overthinking this.

[Miranda Marlin]

ARCANE DEFENSE (EVOCATION)

Ugh ugh UGH! Evokers only ever go two ways! Two ways! Elawyn is an Evoker all right with one too many fireball concussions to the head! Evokers are either REAL CAREFUL or they just drop a storm of ice in a room full of expensive furniture for NO REASON AT ALL! What a mess and now she owes me for those shelves I fixed!! And an ice storm scroll on principle...

...anyway I'm a 'Navigator' now which was real flattering to see on the board! It's nice to feel appreciated. The quartermastering- is that what I'm doing? maybe that is not the word... is going okay and as my book expands so do the things I can do to pitch in so I think that's appreciated...

...and that I'm not blowing up the place like some people...

Also why do harpy feathers summon rats and not birds? Try to figure that out, Miranda.

[Miranda Marlin]

SPELL FOCUS (CONJURATION)

Experimenting with harpy feathers just yields the same results. Rats, rats and more rats. Sometimes the rats are on two legs with a knife but, fundamentally, a wererat is a rat. Are harpies more closely related to bats than birds? More likely whatever weird magic made harpies is just all twisted up and you are never going to get a pure bird out of it. Screech feathers might be a dead end too with its evocation magic.

I could get one of those tomes that conjure ash scavengers but a vomiting vulture isn't... majestic. But it's a start to work from. A conjured aviary should be beautiful! It should strike awe. The sky darkened as feathers and talons descend... piercing avian shrieks... that terrible rush of wings...

...hm. Kind of got carried away there.

[Miranda Marlin]

SPELL FOCUS (DIVINATION)

Getting a divination license turned out to be a pretty miserable experience.

First the Astronomers changed who was in charge of it.

Then he was impossible to find, then he was too busy, then he said write a letter. So I did! I guess not issuing these things must be half the point!

Cosine wanted to know my wizard 'credentials' and I told him about giving testimony on magical matters to the Janissary Ruhonis (who seems like a perfectly good person) and then he asked around to confirm it but he didn't ask Ruhonis I guess and just guards elsewhere mostly Lawcleaver.

I eventually got my license but then Lawcleaver came up to my stall later that day telling me I 'earned' myself a search for citing the thing I did? He's a bully who just likes hurting people and is happy to go along with whatever lets him hurt someone I think. He was going to run off and murder Ast after his exile in the trial, trying to get people to enspell him and only checking his swing when everyone got wind and started asking questions. He shook me down and trumped up some fine on some totem picked off a dead goblin because I was looking for a 'peeping tom' license. The nerve and disrespect! I gave Ruhonis a piece of my mind on all that later but Lawcleaver just seems to reel drunkenly from overreach to overreach just fine I guess.

Day wasn't all bad though. Finally finished that chat with Khalid that got interrupted by a priestess punching out Cosine in the plaza. Went on a little pilgrimage then did a wander-about with Meadow, Zauz and the rest. It's good to know that for all the bullies and monsters in the Well there are friends that have my back and that I got theirs.

[Miranda Marlin]

[a prayer, or maybe a plea, is written]

Warad watch over me and the roads. Help me carry my burdens until I can hold them myself again. Help me find my way until I don't feel so lost again.

I'll try to put something together for your shrine, okay? But for you, okay?

Okay, thanks.

[Miranda Marlin]

METAMAGIC SUBSTITUTION [LIGHTNING]

[bookmarked with a feather that seems perpetually static-clung]

11 ways to conduct electricity...

1- jolt
2- loop
3 -conduction
4- blast
5- cone
6- sphere
7- line
8- orb
9- lotta orbs
10- aura
11- spiral chain

Excessive? Just thorough. A tool for every job~

There is just something satisfying about having such fine control sculpting the elements.