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Annie is on her trike on her way to school.
This van labeled HAZARDOUS MATERIALS is also on its way to school.
The van hits a patch of black ice. It goes spinning, it turns over, it slices itself open on a wrought-iron fence with spikes, and it disgorges boxes which smash open on the pavement. Some of them skitter clear into the slush.
Some of them - along with most of the van - land on Annie.
There is a whirl of bewildering pain and confusion -
- and she falls to the ground, injured and in more kinds of discomfort beyond that and moaning.
She slowly starts to heal before the eyes of her sole witness.
six artifact pileup annie in thedas
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keep_busy
iwillgetyou
"I know of someone who did it recently to rescue a child from demonic possession, although that's hardly the everyday use case. I might do it to find out whether your spirit enters the Fade when you dream. I've done it to consult with spirits - the spirits that inhabit the Fade naturally, that is, not the spirits of nearby sleeping people. There are other uses but I'd have a hard time explaining them to someone who's not a mage."
keep_busy
"I haven't even heard of spirits before, what are those?"
iwillgetyou
"Entities - people, really - that exist naturally in the Fade. A spirit tends to organize themselves around a specific concept or archetype, like justice, wisdom, compassion, or faith. Like other things in the Fade, their nature and appearance can be influenced by the perceptions and expectations of people around them; forming themselves around a concept helps them to keep a consistent sense of self and resist the pressure of expectations. Demons are a kind of spirit, organized around hostile or destructive concepts and attempting to experience or interfere with the material world."
"Attempting to experience the material world doesn't sound so bad," says Dagna.
"It's bad when you're an embodiment of the concept of anger," says Metella.
"I guess I can see that."
"And there can be subtler problems. I recently met a desire demon who wanted to experience love, and decided to pursue that goal by using her magic to immerse a human man's waking mind in a dream of a false life where she was a human woman and they were married and had three children."
"Attempting to experience the material world doesn't sound so bad," says Dagna.
"It's bad when you're an embodiment of the concept of anger," says Metella.
"I guess I can see that."
"And there can be subtler problems. I recently met a desire demon who wanted to experience love, and decided to pursue that goal by using her magic to immerse a human man's waking mind in a dream of a false life where she was a human woman and they were married and had three children."
keep_busy
"Oh dear. Couldn't just... find another desire demon with compatible interests, huh?"
iwillgetyou
"It wouldn't work as well. It would be like... a child without any books trying to learn to read by asking for help from another child who didn't have any either," says Metella. "The concepts that spirits use, the experiences that demons yearn for, come ultimately from the minds of people in the material world."
"That's so weird," says Dagna.
"I suppose it is. Anyway, I wish I'd been able to suggest that she try making friends or pursuing romance without the use of mind control, but she wasn't interested in rethinking her choices and there weren't very many good prospects available even if she had been. I ended up having to destroy her."
"That's so weird," says Dagna.
"I suppose it is. Anyway, I wish I'd been able to suggest that she try making friends or pursuing romance without the use of mind control, but she wasn't interested in rethinking her choices and there weren't very many good prospects available even if she had been. I ended up having to destroy her."
keep_busy
Nod, nod. "Where do demons and spirits come from originally?"
iwillgetyou
"Well, they originate in the Fade, but it doesn't sound like that's quite what you mean..."
keep_busy
"I mean, apparently they don't do the whole romance-and-children thing in a recognizably human way, so do they just appear occasionally, are they adults when they start out..."
iwillgetyou
"They don't remember the very beginnings of their lives any better than humans do. People have sometimes seen things that looked like they might have been unformed spirits, but the trouble with seeing an unformed spirit is that if it doesn't have a strong sense of self yet, it can be shaped so thoroughly by your observation that whatever you happen to believe about it can become effectively true. Maybe even to the point of altering its memories. It makes it hard to ask them where they came from."
keep_busy
"Sounds like it. But I remember being six, do spirits remember being six-ish?"
keep_busy
"Do they have periods of early life where they're still developing that they can remember and report on."
iwillgetyou
"I've never heard of one who did. I think it would be hard for them to remember something like that. But maybe someday I'll find a spirit of memory and I can ask them."
iwillgetyou
"I don't know. That seems like the sort of thing it would be hard for them to remember, since they'd have to have made that choice before they became a spirit of whatever it is, and their self-concept would obviously have been less coherent then..."
keep_busy
"Are demons and spirits different basic things or do the ones with antisocial concepts just get called 'demons'?"
iwillgetyou
"Demons and spirits are... hmm. I would say that demons are a type of spirit that works in most of the same ways as other spirits, but with some important differences in... I could call it their approach or their powers or their nature; those things are somewhat interchangeable when dealing with spirits."
keep_busy
Nod. "They sound really interesting. ...Is dreaming hazardous, if it sends people to where demons live?"
iwillgetyou
"Only mages are traditionally susceptible to demonic possession," says Metella. "I've never heard of a case where someone other than a mage was harmed by their spirit's presence in the Fade more significantly than simply having a nightmare, which can be upsetting but isn't harmful beyond that."
keep_busy
"Was that fellow who had the desire demon feeding him that fantasy possessed or something else?"
iwillgetyou
"Something else. The demon was present in the material world, because some people made some very bad decisions."
keep_busy
"Oh dear. And how often do people make those decisions?"
iwillgetyou
"Very infrequently."
"Isn't that what templars are for?" says Dagna.
"Yes. There is an order of knights specifically dedicated to making sure that mages don't use blood magic or summon demons. They're not without problems of their own, but they do mostly succeed at their job."
"Isn't that what templars are for?" says Dagna.
"Yes. There is an order of knights specifically dedicated to making sure that mages don't use blood magic or summon demons. They're not without problems of their own, but they do mostly succeed at their job."
keep_busy
"Tev mentioned blood magic but didn't know much about it except that it involved the presence of blood, which sounds more gross than dangerous."
iwillgetyou
"So, there are two primary sources of magical power beyond what a mage can personally generate, which often isn't much," Metella explains. "Lyrium, and blood. They're nearly always interchangeable for practical purposes, but while blood is often easier to access, it's much less efficient. An unscrupulous mage who doesn't have enough lyrium to accomplish what they want to do might decide to kill several people for the same result. This is obviously something that everyone besides blood mages would rather discourage. And although technically blood isn't required to accomplish most of them, a lot of other forbidden magics get categorized as 'blood magic' because they're the sort of thing you're only likely to try if you're also the sort of person who would use blood to power spells."
"Ick," says Dagna.
"Yes," says Metella.
"Ick," says Dagna.
"Yes," says Metella.