the newspapers here all have a lot more bad news in them than the one i usually read back home
then again they have a lot more news to report because there are so many more people here than back home
but in good news this morning's breland ledger mentioned me in an article featured on the front page!
... which sounds impressive but the headline was about merrix's controversial new spell "renewal" and i was only mentioned once some distance after "continued on page 21 column 5"
i'm fine with getting only a small mention – i'm not here to become famous! – but the controversy part wants explaining
there are two aspects to working magic: the "arcane" involves crafting a spell through which magic flows and the "divine" involves asking the gods to help shape it
these aren't mutually exclusive ... but everyone out here thinks they are and always have been
and they insist that only divine magic should ever be used in healing
baffling to me
there's plenty of existing evidence to show otherwise but it's like they pencil in an exception for dragonmarks rather than consider the possibility that they're mistaken
i could fill a book with the ways in which the exclusivity concept is absurd but house jorasco already has and cora greenleaf gave me a copy
all i did was study how they were doing it and work out a more general case solution
all merrix did was clean up after my inexperience
but here this is controversy
then there's the attention zer' has gathered
around midday relic noticed that two of those reidran puppet-people with their symbol-printed veils were sitting on a bench outdoors and watching the h&h
i expected something to come of this
i did not expect bell and zer' to see it as an opportunity to pour the afternoon into pranking them mercilessly
i know they're good people at heart but i do not understand their actions
i'll ask them about it later when everyone's relaxed
i've said little about crucible's campaign to represent the folks in the cogs on city council but here in the h&h it's all around me and it sounds like it's going well!
to help crucible be heard over crowds (especially those trying to drown them out?) bell built a voice amplifier ... into a red hammer! as a play on the name of the gathering-house they help run
also bell is presently working with chromatic on campaign posters
there's determination and positive energy here
on the subject of chromatic
she continues to be stunning and i'm not just talking about her amazing new shell
i love seeing artists work together – she and bell are masterful collaborators!
also i feel she truly understands my concept of the "masterwork"
when you give a name and they ask if that's the name of the work or your own name the response is clear ... "one and the same"
because we are – fact and essence – ourselves becoming ourselves
it's lovely to think about but there are also urgent practical matters
another article in today's paper is about the sewer reclamation project and how the loss of so many workers' lives is calling the city's budget and priorities into question
i'd say their priority one is to reprioritize if they think the budget is the bigger concern here
tomorrow our priority is to go down there to find hollow
... i hope relic can do for them what he did for codex