A Hastily Penned Rebuttal

Valeheart Archivist Note: This appears to be a rebuttal document and therefore should be read after the original treatise On the Nature of Magic by Archmagister Cyran Velathos

To the Esteemed College of Aradest,

Though I hesitate to dignify the egregious affront I have just endured with a response, my conscience compels me to act—for the sake of the Church, the Gods, and the very soul of Fanterath itself. What I have read in this so-called "scholarly work" is nothing short of heresy dressed in the thin robes of intellectual arrogance. That you would publish such sacrilege within the hallowed halls of your institution is a mark of your complicity, nay, your contempt for the divine order.

Let us set aside, for a moment, the self-indulgent smugness of your "senior scholar" (though his refusal to name his adversaries smacks less of grace than of cowardice). This "law of reciprocity" he speaks of—a pathetic attempt to explain miracles and divine works as mere by-products of mortal meddling—undermines the very foundation of the Gods’ eternal and sovereign power! Shall we believe, as this paper suggests, that the mighty deities, the creators and sustainers of our existence, are nothing more than reflections of our own paltry imaginings?

Preposterous! Blasphemous! Laughable! And dangerous, might I add, to the moral fabric of society. What this scholar fails to grasp—blinded, no doubt, by his own hubris—is that the Gods are not confined to his petty, mortal "Aether." They are above it, beyond it, and their will is not to be questioned by the likes of him or his ilk.

And what of his audacity to describe divine miracles as nothing more than "misunderstood magical constructs"? I can hardly keep my pen steady as I write this, so great is my indignation! Would he explain the rising of the sun, the turning of the seasons, and the blessings upon the righteous as "vibratory phenomena"? I shudder to think what arrogance festers within his mind to even suggest such a thing.

In his desperate quest to reduce the Gods to mortal understanding, he has revealed his own emptiness, his refusal to kneel before what cannot be explained, his lack of humility in the face of the infinite. Where is his reverence? Where is his faith? To say nothing of his clear disdain for the Church and its divine mandate. How dare he sit in judgment over truths handed down by the holy word of the Gods themselves?

If this paper is what passes for wisdom at your College, I weep for the generations of students who will be led astray by its poisonous rhetoric. The College of Aradest would do well to remember that knowledge without reverence is the path to ruin. You may call it progress; I call it blasphemy.

May the Gods have mercy on your souls.

---

Father Theofil of the Third Edict

Humble Servant of the Church

Discovered in a buried ruin to the North of Qet, deep in the Frozen Wilds. Folded within the magically protected treatise 'On the Nature of Magic'. This document appears to be a hastily penned rebuttal of the treatise in which it was found. Perhaps delivered to the author and kept within the pages of the original treatise. A testament perhaps to the hubris described in the letter or proof of the original authors commitment to being open to criticism.

Related Documents

On the Nature of Magic

Medium

Paper