The Surge Part One

The Surge, Part One

Copyright snakeappletree 2014

The rationale goes like this:

Technology progresses. Science progresses. It is the nature of evolution to be progressive. Magick should progress. After all, we call this thing magick, it is all that is elevated to beyond normal status. It does not simply progress, it progresses magickally (for want of a more appropriate adjective).

It is not only the individual spellcasters ability and understanding of what it is he or she or it is dealing with, which develops. The thing itself is evolving.

"What," asked the wizard on the first day of the apprentices tuition, "is magick? You will be asking this question for the rest of your lives."

"I won't." Replied the smartarse kid. "It's magick sir, it will reveal its answer to me by lunchtime."
The wizard chuckled. Being a wizard, chuckling had become a necessity more than a defining characteristic.

The group regathered after lunch. "So, my girl." Naturally the smartarse kid is female. Women are known for being the more magickal of the genders. "Have you an answer to The Great Question?"
She smiled. Bare in mind that only the most gifted of children are approached and recruited to be students at the School of Magick. Everybody here has some level of their own personal and unique ability which sets them aside from the mundane and normal everyday folk who have forgotten that the whole world and everything in it is made of magick, that our very lives are the result of the polar forces of magick and waning, that very same entropic entity which lends its name to a magicians tool through which the magickal energies are bound into a focus and emitted.

"I had a think about it, and I felt about it, and I concluded that everything is about to get rather strange." Replied the girl. "I believe that I have tapped into something, you see. It occurred to me that if the Principle of Perpetual Entropy is correct..."

The wizard interrupted. "Could you kindly explain that theorum in simple terms for the newbies to digest?"

"Well, since everything is in a state of motion toward a state of balance, a state which can never be achieved because there are an odd number of motes in the universe and as they all change combinations trying to find their perfect balance, yet none can, and so they keep moving. This is the first law, the law of perpetuation. The second law is the law of entropy, that the process of their motion uses up energy however by combining themselves into different arrangements, these arrangements are responsible for the creation of new energy..."

"So it is a mechanical universe, like clockwork machines?" I asked.

"It seems so. There is a third law in addition to this. The law of flowing, and that is the magickal one. The combinations and energies, we call them essences, of the second law are more like gates through which energy flows by causing the more mundane things around it to vibrate, the vibration is unique to that particular combination of motes."

"And it is these essences, which flow as streams, that we harness for working our magick." The wizard interrupted her and finished her explaination. "Each individual has a connection with a particular spectrum of essences which defines his or her or its magickal ability. My young lady you most certainly are top of your class, I must say."

"You won't be saying that in a moment, i figured out a way to change the whole superstructure of it while you were eating your chocolate coated banana."

"Eh, what?"

"Watch this." She shut down the harmonizer with a snap of her fingers. Overhead, a crystal dimmed in its glow. With the schools magickal defenses deactivated, the grid emitted by the crystal no longer streamlined all of the wild energies surrounding the students and teachers, and the vast collection of enchanted items, collected together at the school. As soon as this happened, all of those energies began talking with one another; blending, merging, creating new forms. It is well known that when a lot of highly powered magickal items and people are gathered together that an event known as the Surge naturally occurs, which results in either one of two outcomes; the energy disperses, rendering the items mundane and disempowering the magicians in the area, an effect known as the waning; or there is a highly charged magickal storm, a vortex in which new combinations of magickal streams are created and earth themselves by creating mutated and bizzarre results, in an area surrounding the eye of the storm, the vortex itself. These objects enable their users to tap into previously unknown spectrums. The vortex will close itself once it has sucked up enough essence from the world into itself. There are legends that the worst of these surges leave behind an item known as a surge crystal, the qualities of which are undisclosed by those who are reputed to have them.

I have one. I have a surge crystal and that is the secret source of my magickal power. Without it I would be just like any other mundane normal person unable to perform acts of magick. So far, if any of the wizards, warlocks, witches, wyrds and wowflings I have met have recognised that i carry a surge crystal, they have not mentioned it. I seriously do not believe that it is detectable. I will tell you another time how I came to have it. At this moment, with a crazy girl shutting down the worlds heart crystal, the panic in the room was rising fast. Panic of course is itself an essence, an energy, to be harnessed by those who know how.

To be continued...