Vignette- A Supplicant of Templeton

“I’m unhappy Lord. I live in a dirty little hut with one change of clothing. I eat bland unseasoned food and I have to work long hours just to survive.

I remember how it was.

I can’t stop thinking about my five bedroom house and multiple cars. About restaurants and the grocery store. Even the boring hours I spent at the office are becoming a dream I long for. Something better than just this back breaking continuous manual labor. It gnaws at me, both waking and sleeping. I had everything and I’m now reduced to this.”

“Even I cannot change the past, I can’t wave my hand and give you back the life you had. But I can soften the memory of it. Do you want to lay your burdens down? These memories haunt you and give you pain, but they are your memories. Choose, is there enough good to outway the bad? Or are they a burden you wish to lay down?“

“I can’t stand it anymore, please help me Lord Bensen!”

“As you have been faithful to me I will do you this in return. Look into my eyes and let the past fade, forget what you were and become who you need to be.”

Chapter 33

A week went by while Timothy kept to his routine. Re-activate the map table at dawn, then spend a few hours on raw creation. Observe the world and find ways to use that knowledge. Then another few hours of humdrum work. Some of the same old same old, carving essence light storage cards or motion wards. Some of it was completely new. The knowledge that his enchanted objects would fade with time had given him a new task. He had to maintain what was already made just as much as he had to create the new.

But how could he preserve them? What was fading? The carved lines in stone did not fade, the magic field around it didn’t fade so what was causing the decay?

It was not hard to track it down once he knew to look for it. Like science the real breaking point was knowing it was possible. Then he just had to find out how.

The how for Magic, at least for his magic, was all about intent. Will made manifest and given a goal. Enchantment, or rune carving, embedded intent into an object. But each time someone used the object their own intent merged imperfectly within. With a perfect merging of intent there would be no wear and tear.

Unfortunately, that meant there would be such wear on any object he didn’t personally use. Long term the problem was likely to become less and less of an issue. As his will strengthened the strength of the intent he could imbed increased. Even over the last Six months he could sense the difference. If his will was potent enough then it would overpower the will of the user to preserve the enchantments lifespan. Of course, that assumes that the users will didn’t grow apace.

It was better to be proactive about the issue. He spent a half hour a day strengthening the embedded intent throughout the hold. The sewage system was the most obvious beneficiary, but the bathhouse and defenses got some attention in turn. He had marathoned making those systems early on, and couldn’t afford for them to fail all at once. Even though they didn’t need it yet, and likely would not for quite some time, it was still worth it to start spacing out the potential failures. It was going to be really awkward when he needed to do the same with the water tanks in each home. He put that off for now.

Another time sink was the commissioning of a new river boat. Traveling back and forth between two settlements as well as providing transport for hunting parties had severely overtaxed the Nellie. Common sense deemed that at least one additional boat was needed if not two. At least if they had to deal with two more settlements added to the network.

Timothy thanked his lucky stars regularly that he had excellent subordinates. They had the new boat assembled and already floating before he thought to ask about it. He just had to carve in the control and defensive runes before it could be put to use. A most of the day down the drain accomplishing that feat and they commissioned the ‘River Bell.’ Finally he had some time in the afternoon to get back to something non-repetitive.

In this particular case he was studying the incense from Templeton.

It was a fascinating thing. Enchantment of a completely different variety then Timothy used himself. The first few days of study revealed very little. Just lying there as an inert sample the spells were wrapped too tightly for him to make sense of. Apparently the same was true for Jenney, she could guess at a few of the plants that made up the base incense but she had no way to understand, much less replicate its preparation method. He wasted another several days fruitlessly studying the plant mixture before pulling his head out of his hind end and abusing his advantages properly!

The sample was not the only lead. If he was not cheating, then he was not trying after all.

And Timothy was trying very hard indeed.

If an inert sample didn’t make much sense then simply observe an active one. Just like he told Regi, and look here, he had a scrying tool of his very own!

He watched the pool carefully, Jenney sitting on a pillow beside him, as a Templeton guardian knelt before the incense loudly preying.

“Lord Benson, bestow on us your blessing of cleanliness and health. You are an elevated being, and as the diseases of this mortal world have no hold on you, cover us in your aura and let them not gain a hold on us.”

As he spoke, belief condensed slowly around him. Chaotic and without direction at first, with every word a specific intent was embedded until the cloud became a dart. A dart that took flight with the prayers finale, igniting the incense and streaking to the statue outside the temple. A connection between the two formed, power stored in the statue, mana pulled from the field encapsulated and given purpose by belief, arched back along the connection and bloomed in a cloud of scent.

Jenney’s face looked like she was sucking on a lemon, the same expression had been on her face since the start of this little play. “So he gave us a dud. This pouch is useless without the statue.”

“Perhaps, then again, perhaps not.” Timothy mused, his eyes glued to the pool, finding in the cloud of belief and magic some forms and familiar shapes. “Some intent is supplied by the guard but supported by the intent encapsulated in the incense, then empowered by the collected magic and belief in the statue.”

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“..Does that mean we can use it without praying to that madman?”

“He is hardly insane, Jenney. If he was nuts he would not be so dangerous. But just maybe we can toke up without his influence.”

“How?”

“The prayer is the key, the poupore the lock. Bensen and his statue are just supplying the power. So we denature the prayer and supply some belief and will of our own and it will probably work.” He looked up sightlessly for a few moments, “Yes, something like ‘Incense of cleanliness and health keep our families safe.’ add in some extra word padding to make it sound more impressive and use twenty people to do it. Bit sloppy and wasteful of people's energy but I think it will work.”

“Again, how? How would that work?”

Timothy scratched his beard in frustration. He didn’t have all the words he needed and his understanding was an unstable construct of observations tied together by best guesses. “I am starting to think that most magic effects can be broken down into two real components. Intent and mana. The window dressing we add is important but it is still just those two components.”

“Window dressing?” Jenney asked, somewhat skeptical but willing to listen.

“Spells, chants, gestures, herbs, runes and the like. Just some tricks we play to guide intent. Spells are mnemonics for that process. Think the abc song. It helps your mind follow down a familiar path, repeatedly and reliably. Herbs are similar. Each herb does something like symbolize love or clot blood. A flower bouquet is as much an alphabet of specific meaning as your medicinal tonics.”

“Ok, assume for a moment that I believe that, and I am not sure I do! Herbs are far more complicated than just one use or meaning brother. And most of my patients don’t know any of the meaning for the herbs in my mixes! People don’t understand what’s going on behind the curtain, but the magick still works. For that matter, the spirit raising they do in Paradise is even weirder.”

“An excellent, though not entirely true, point. Runes, herbs and enchantments seem to shift some of where the intent is coming from. They will work without a full understanding on the part of the user. But you have noticed that the more the user understands, the less willpower it takes to activate right? It seems like it's a combination of person and window dressing that makes any effect work. Your herbs supply the direction for the spell, but not the impetus to make the magic work. The user supplies that impetus to merge the intent and the mana. The more clearly he understands what is going on, the cleaner that merging.”

“The interesting thing is that this incense doesn’t seem to have all of the necessary intent embedded in it.” Timothy stopped, trying to see if his theories were making sense.

She snorted and made a circular gesture with her index finger. “Go on, quit dragging it out brother and don’t think I didn’t notice that you ignored spirit raising entirely.”

“Cut me some slack. It’s not as easy to fit this together as all that, Jenney. I’m figuring it out as I go along just like you. If I split up intent into two more categories it kinda works for our situation. Call it willpower and meaning. With spells the person chanting might supply both the willpower and the meaning at the same time. But runes and your herbal concoctions have the meaning embedded in them just waiting for the willpower. The herbs in that incense have some meaning inside them, but it’s incomplete. The prayer supplies both what's missing and the willpower to turn it into intent.”

“We can get around praying to Bensen by turning that meaning and will into a spell. Add in some vocal elements to encourage belief in the incense itself, instead of its creator. The belief of a group of people will supply the willpower. Like I said, just put twenty people together in a room, assure them this works and make sure they believe it. The combined belief will supply the willpower, then given meaning by a spoken chant will combine with the incense and become the intent we need… probably.”

“Bensen proved this works in Templetown so believe the incense works...rather than believe in Bensen… Huh, I can sort of see it.“

“Just don’t let the people we pick for this hear any doubts. Belief is tied tightly to expectations. If you don’t believe it will work… you get the idea. Any visible failure decreases the chances of it ever working. Belief related magic doesn’t seem to be very forgiving. One fuck up and people start to doubt, and doubt snowballs.” Timothy smiled, that was a fun weapon to use against Templeton if it came to that.

“Fine, fine. So you figured it out, can you make this stuff so we don’t have to keep dealing with this asshole?”

“Nope. Still need to buy it. All we are doing is getting our wanders to activate a magic item, with a bit of help. Strangers can use my runes… but that doesn't mean anyone else can make the runes. Eventually I might be able to work out a way to do the same thing. You could as well if you tried. But do we have the time right now?”

“...I was afraid of that... and yet I am somewhat happy that it's true. “ Jenney looked down, confusion danced in her green eyes.

Timothy shrugged and smiled. He wasn’t sure where she was going with that, but sometimes it was better not to ask. He made with the small talk for a while until Jenney excused herself to go work in her beloved gardens. During it all the previous conversation was doing laps inside his head.

Meaning and willpower to intent. Intent the driver and mana the power. Timothy pondered on it later that day, a portion of his mind moving the scrying pool at Kenney’s direction. The man was an artist when it came to carving topographical maps.

The discussion earlier had helped to settle some outstanding questions in his head. Questions on why he could activate his own runes so much easier than anyone else. On why the first use of a rune by a guardian had a very heavy cost but over time it became easier and easier. On why enchantments could wear out. All things he knew, but placed next to each other they became so much more.

Meaning, willpower, belief, intent, and understanding. They interconnected in ways that still left him scratching his beard. But at the same time a proto-framework for magic was beginning to really form in his mind. It wasn’t something that could be universally applied. The spirit raising in Paradise didn’t fit worth a damn. An artificial (or summoned? But if so from where?) being that could supply willpower to enchantments seemed to completely debunk much of what Timothy assumed he knew. It came back again and again to belief. Things that did not seem possible worked because enough people believed that they would.

Could it really be that simple? There was so much more involved when it came to belief. Timothy was just not sure he even wanted to do the diving. It was a very messy branch of magic. Corrupted from the getgo by the twisted mess of discordant intent. It was inevitable, even when the wording was kept as accurate as possible many people still would argue on the details of a law. It’s why lawyers were a thing. Same words, same basis for an idea, wildly different execution. How the hell could he incorporate the required level of precision in such a field?

He was looking forward more and more to his mandatory lessons. Attempting to teach these disparate factors, and the questions that it would invariably provoke, might help him make sense of it.

He shook the thought from his head, there would be time for that later, for now he needed to get the river charted through the never to be sufficiently damned swamp. The southern village was waiting.

He hoped they would be peaceable.

At least they couldn’t be worse than Templeton!

Knock, knock. He snapped his knuckles on a chunk of wood. He was a damn fool to tempt fate that way… especially as he didn’t know many people who didn’t believe in the consequences of such!

He snickered quietly, just how long before the Demon Murphy was made manifest?

His snickers stopped abruptly. It could happen. And fuck me if we all don’t suffer for it!