Peter Bloomfield's Personal Notebook

[Royal Winter]

[A brown leather notebook with a worn and rough exterior, but clean and meticulously kept pages on the inside, the outside leather binding bears the image of a Tree of Life.  The Tree is in the process of transforming from left to right starting with barren branches, into blooming flowers, into fully grown leaves.  The roots are part of the engraved leather image and reach down to the bottom of the binding while the branches reach out and above.]

[The first page of many entries is written in with a fine and controlled hand with precise but practical writing; there are no flourishes to be found in this book.]

While I find having a dedicated spellbook, alchemy notebook, and engineering notebook all useful in their own right I think I need a dedicated space for just personal thoughts, memory, magical theory, non-magical theory.  So on.  It helps to write this out.  There's a lot to write but I'll start simple and personal I think.  At least for now, revisit more arcane and mystical stuff in later entries.

But right now I just need to really process everything I've been through.  Well not everything, but a lot.  I have a Master now, that's something.  A real wizard classically trained (I think?  I never asked but he seems sufficiently educated and arrogant at times to be a traditionally trained wizard) to teach me the ins and outs of magic.  He's really good at it and so am I.  I don't think he's a transmuter like me though, because he is able to cast summoning spells.  I have my suspicion based on the spells he doesn't ever cast but this is only a suspicion and nothing to really write home about.  If I could write home.

What is my approach to magic anyway?  No knowledge is forbidden.  Morally I mean, I'm pretty crap on the Conjuration stuff.  But no knowledge is forbidden; certain applications of that knowledge can be.  Master Gers seems to agree and he treats me like a person and not a fixture or annoyance.  He shows me off a lot too.  I've never had a teacher or employer treat me that way before.  A breath of fresh air to what came before.

I use to work with my hands a lot more.  I love transmutation magic because it still does exactly that but with the fundamentals of the cosmos at your finger tips on top of that so bonus.  But I miss smithing and more controlled forms of engineering and machinery.  Granted I don't miss the context in which I learned it, some errand boy, someone disposable, arrogant and controlling men taking advantage of a refugee wandering from place to place learning far faster than they ever guessed.  I hated it.  I dislike being someone's whipping boy, I dislike being just "hey you", "boy", "punk", or "who are you?" to people all the time, before I came to the Citadel.  Here people respect me when they notice me.  When they notice me.  Write that twice to remind myself.  But I can turn that to my advantage at times.  When you're invisible socially you hardly ever need to be so literally.  Though the literal stuff is still nice to have just in case.

Learning magic from scraps and observations and putting things together here and there was hard but it's paid off finally.  Literally!  Customers lining up some days, though not always, for the brews I can make from my transmutations.  Just need one or two more spells in my book to really nail down every kind of spell a customer could ask for.  The adventuring work also really helps.  It doesn't just pay the bills but it gives me a lot of experience to see magical theory turn into magical practice.  Alchemy and Tinkering aren't really giving me anything spectacular yet but I'm holding out for both to turn out good sooner or later.  Once a proper forge opens up I can access and use I'll be really set.

The people here at the Citadel are not unpleasant to me.  They often look the other way but so far things are neutral to positive.  Being a wizard, brewer, alchemist, apprentice to a Voiced master, these all do me favors.  Which is good, I couldn't talk my way out of a paper bag in a social context.  We'll see.

This journal practice is a great idea, think I'll keep it up, I feel better already.  Note to self, more tinkering tonight.  Try new formula for spring loaded element.

[Royal Winter]

What is transmutation?  I suspect every wizard might say this about their chosen school of magic but none the less I stand by my thoughts, which is to say Transmutation is holy.  Transmutation is Life.  To be living is to change, transform, grow stronger, and weaken.  All things that are or once were became, all things have or will die.  Transmutation is the art of grabbing the levers of the universe and tuning them to your own aims.  Of course I also know fully that not all magicians treat their magic with the holy audacity and respect it deserves, but for me Transmutation is Life and is a sacred art.

What is Life?  I should ask the priestesses of Kula what they believe and teach, I suspect their answers will change my own in time (which is a good thing) but for now Life is anything that can create and that transforms itself, knowingly or unknowingly.  This is why changing my answer is a good thing, because the very definition I use is all about change.  Life comes in seasons, or cycles, or aeons.  It comes in something as small as a seed or as great as a whale.  Life is making choices for dinner, Life is the Wheel of the gods.  It's good to get these words out on paper; almost impossible to get them out with my own voice.

I tell people that Transmutation makes sense to me because it lets me work with my hands.  It is like making alloys or shaping steel or alchemy and all those things.  This is true but ultimately the magic is about Life for me.  What I can work with, what I cannot, and what I use it for.  I suspect again that not all magicians share this value but the purpose of magic, to me anyway, is to embolden or uplift Life and to protect and cherish it when possible.  This doesn't need to be a dour sacred duty, Life is full of humor and absurdity after all, but always with caution and respect I should treat it.  Magic is the tools of the gods by which they made, and make, the world and a magician is anyone who places their hands upon these tools with training or proper confidence.

Hungry now, write more later.