Earth Bond, chapter 8 discussion [Spoilers]

[expedient]

Well things are moving faster than I expected.

Jenny is wrong. Sea Salt is still mostly sodium chloride and is made by evaporating sea water is various ways. Salt mined from land sources, Rock Salt, is often formed from dried sea beds. Table Salt is a purer / more refined product but is often regarded as less tasty than Sea Salt.

It seems to me that with a modern human education many of the limitations indicated in the primer could be overcome. Emotions could be created or altered by conditioning the victim by blasting their body with the relevant chemicals / hormones. More advanced models of mathematics, materials and quantum mechanics could help produce better / more efficient magical devices. Computer modelling of these magical "tides" might offer advantages for predicting and maximizing their potential. A greater understanding of genes could help humans "improve" themselves magically.

[Mad Monk]

Well, for a start Jenny is going to need a copy of "On Divers Arts" by Theophilus

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Divers-Arts-Dov ... 0486237842

Most of it is very readable, and the techniques are recognizable to any artist or craftsperson today, as long as you avoid gem carving and goats. The bit about the urine of red-heads is actually true, by the way.

[crxbnt]

Great post Fel. Trouble is, your evilness has opened so many possibilities that my mind boggles. And I suspect that Gaia will still shake up all of the drogonkind, and the humans are likely to be totally shocked in the process. Even the air dragons are going to find dissent within their ranks. Now if we coulod see the next 3 chapters by the end of this week we might actually have some idea of where Fel is going with this. In the meantime, we will all go crazy with anticipation!

[SYED]

SO we finally have info on magic, scope and limitations. It sounds like for humans it would be a group or collective effort to use magic, so potentially leading to a Wizards Guild to represent and aid human wizards. Once it becomes public knowledge, I can see many people attempt to learn magic or get tested for potential. If the primer is leaked, it will be copied by thousands. THere are plenty of people who believe, practise or want magic, so eager for the opportunity. The whole group of magicians that perform, would all attemp to learn true magic. This could create a huge industry. I bet wizards give off energy naturally, and things built by them by hand aborb it. We know that spells last longer than the caster who makes it, the warded chamber.

DUe to the limitation of distance on magic, scion will never get large scale production but still capabple of being very valuable. WHile a negative effect on tech, if properly shielded and deactivated technology could safely pass through. SAy they could only make 5 scions, if each was in one of the busyiests airports in the world, a simple toll would create a fortune over the years. I have an idea to help make Scions magicly cheaper, but would only work if they are scions are dependant on what they are placed on, not where. Say the dragons make special door ways on the island, to act as Scion holder, linked to each other. So both ends would be enchanted and the distance could be greatly reduced so les magic would be needed, but still always linked. They could then be shipped to chosen locations around the world. If the dragons aranged for one to be on the ISS, then supplies and logistics would be greaterly eased, more people could visit space, and astronauts could avoid the long term consequences of zero gravity. Do we know if any scion portal can be linked to any other scion portal, or are two scion only ever paired together, so that one is useless if the other is inoperable?

I was wondering just why CHromatics were the dragon species with the most wizards, if ED are the most gifted? We do know that the CD believe they are the magical element dragon. THe thing is FEL has said the reason why the CD only have one Council vote is that over the years the chromatic Drakes and Wyrms have all inter breed till they are only simply one species. I wonder if this mingling of the Chromatic subspecies led to the huge increase in magical ability. SAy magic was a sort of recessive ability in dragon or something, the inter breeding allowed it to become a dominant part of their nature.

Crystals can channel and store energy, and ED can grow them increadibly easily. I wonder if they are considered more magical if some of the laws are less firmly impossed on them than other dragons. They can eat stones and metals, so what happens if young ED are fed a diet rich in magical conductive materiials. The ED consume vulcanic rock which is said to inhibit magic, so lends support to the anti magic idea. These tail spikes are organic in nature so seem tovery good for magic.

I wonder if the magics that people practise, may infact work and be stronger when used by a wizard. Some humans may have stumbled on to some magics, even if they didnt realise the difference. I wonder if human imagination could help create new magics. So we have orichalcum, I wonde what other mythalogical things will apear to be true. Could we see real Mythril?

I have a solution to the Distance issue. Say you want to scry an area, would it help if a magical talisman was there already to focus on, or for the wizard to act through. In one magic series I enjoyed, the witches can spell by planting hex bags in locations they knew the target would be in. Also, they use a piece of them say hair, blood, nail to target. So while distance is an issue stil, there are ways around it. When they had that dragon scale, they could have tracked it to it owner or used blood to do so. Imagine a talisman when exposed to blood or hair, would allow their owners to be discovered.
So magic can only affect what is real, but certain chemicals and substances added or removed from a body can alter their behavior so potential there.

So fire, water and earth are all against the chromatic, so why dont they make thei own dragon council. It will be hard for the CD, they lost a magority of the dragon population. Though it will increase how long supplies will last, and ease the demand on sky dragon hunting. Infact, the humans can use this as a way to hide their aid to ED, by simply openly feeding FD.

So dragons knew of atlantis and camelot. Can they lead archeologists to those sites? It would be a scholars dream to be allowed access to the dragon libaries, journals, books, map, even artifacts from hundreds or thousands of years old.

[ANTIcarrot]

Jenny found something that disagrees with her religion? Quite frankly, as an athiest, Walk it off you pussy. If she can't, then however suited she is to use magic, she's completely unsuited to understand it. I think she's making a bit of a mountain out of a molehill over a lot of this.

I suspect when actual scientists gets ahold of this document, and more to the point test some of the claims, they'll find a lot of nonsense. The science equivolent of, "Well of course not all dragons breath fire! Don't be so stupid!" A Pagan blacksmith may know how to make very good swords, and might even know a forgotten secret (Damocles steel springs to mind) but a modern metalurgist simply knows better in almost every area and simply has better tools. The modern metalurgist knows that praying to the gods doesn't make your forge hotter; no matter how much the black smith believes and writes down otherwise.

The best application for this knowledge will be as yet another steping stone to help science better understand reality. Even if a virus has a soul (and I can see biologists being exceptionally skeptical about that) that still doesn't tell you what a 'soul' is, or what 'life' is, or what they're made from, and what's the difference between that and dead stuff. Answer those questions and you probably won't need magic any more. In the same way an electric fire doesn't need flame to make heat.

SO we finally have info on magic, scope and limitations. It sounds like for humans it would be a group or collective effort to use magic, so potentially leading to a Wizards Guild to represent and aid human wizards.

Why a guild? We hardly use them any more, and for good reason. They almost always end badly.

[SYED]

If the ability to do magic is inherited then there could potential many that could be taught. We know that the dragon last contact with humans was over a millenium. Say only one wizard survived, he had two kids. Each child had 2 kids of their own and this happened every 40 years, so 25 generations has passed. So potentially there are over 33 million with the potential. Thats a rough estimate but there could still be millions out there. So there are more potential wizards than dragons.
The church hunted out magicians, so what about those far away from the church in distant lands, could they not passed down magic. The vatican is rumored to contain all sorts of artifacts, any one wanna bet they have dragon vaults of all the magical and magical thought items. I wonder if they have crystals that react to magic. Say the dragons make a crystal to tell if the holder can use magic, great way to find student.
Earth dragons cant be hurt by metal, but what about magicly enhanced metals. Wanna bet there are a few weapons hidden away.
The dragons while encouraging magic in humans, as they likly seethose magical humans as most dragon like, they wont want just any one using magic irresposibly. So if you want a recognised magical education, or use your skills commercially, then youmust be dragon taught and officially registered. Using modern tech, would be easy to make contacts and partners, so helping each other out in magic.
I didnt mean a guild like the historical ones. Has any one read the anne mccaffrey books, the ones involving the adventure of humans with mental gifts. The talented gathered together, to teach and train each other. this allowed them to offer their services as a business and recieve legal protection. We all know there will be many interested in magical gifts and objects, as well as those harshly opposed. Having a group dedicating to protecting, caring, teaching and ensuring no one crosses the line would be a good thing. Also, would be a great way for dragon to gain a source of revenue, would you hire some one claiming to be a wizard or a dragon taught one holding an actual deploma. Many countries would pay to have their own wizards, it would be a magical arms race.
So magical items last as long as they remain intact. Also, they are built to meet a need or to show capability. I wonder if an object is made when that spell is at its strength, does the object retain that level of power no matter the time. So not always have a spell at the ready but its most powerful point.

Any one wanna bet that magic will lead to the many aspects of science for a long time riddiculed will become the focus of the world.
Magic allows a dragon to fly, so if in orbit, they could mover under their own power. Dragons in space would be awesome. They could harvest all the debris and junk they want up there. If they can make a scion to washington, they can reach orbit. all they need is a space suit. can sky dragons reach orbit? Could they one day make an under ground habitat on the moon.
I wonder will either side push the envolope by making the public aware of dragons. Will sky dragons get filmed stealling cattle?

[ANTIcarrot]

The church hunted out magicians, so what about those far away from the church in distant lands, could they not passed down magic.

And as magic got rarer, the inquisition would have started to resemble the OTL one more and more - which was about stealing land and money and killing minoroties more than trying to find actual wizards.

Earth dragons cant be hurt by metal, but what about magicly enhanced metals. Wanna bet there are a few weapons hidden away.

Earth Dragons *believe* they can't be hurt by 'things of the earth'. But in practice even a lowly .50 calibre bullet causes a local 'stun' effect. Larger weapons will probably produce more excessive results. Earth dragons know more than most what a Tank is, and they have no tempt fate by getting shot at by one. But that aside, I can think of a rather famous layer of Iridium, or just plain old meteoric iron, may serve as a classic loophole. "McDuff was from his mother's womb untimely ripped!"

Has any one read the anne mccaffrey books, the ones involving the adventure of humans with mental gifts.

Er, yeah. I would hardly considder those shining examples of functional guilds. Or functional societies. Or functional plots with functional characters.

Any one wanna bet that magic will lead to the many aspects of science for a long time riddiculed will become the focus of the world.

I'll take that bet! Because even if a Nigerian Prince really did leave you millions of dollars - that wouldn't mean that *every* Nigerian Royalty story was instantly true; and that all sane people were wrong to pour scorn on them.

Ground to Orbit or Planet to Planet very quickly run into Conservation of Energy / Perpetual Motion problems. Logicaly if the portals are at differnt gravitational potentials (~ height above Earth's core) then they would impart an acceleration in one direction. Beyond a certain height difference, you'd simply bouce off the lower portal, as you'd need to be going at hypersonic speeds to get through.

[Greymist]

Completely random thought. The chapter said that magic items had to be hand crafted by a magic user, although I don't recall if it said it had to be one magic user. Which brings me to my thought:

Can items crafted by Earth Dragons be magically imbued.

[Fel]

Yes.

This actually becomes something of a plot point later in the story.

***actually, I guess this deserves a little more than just a "yes."

Okay...yes. As Gaia hinted in the prior chapter, earth dragons do in fact have magic. I stated that it's a very subtle kind of magic, not something that you see, but it's there. Well, the fact that earth dragons can craft items that qualify as "crafted by a magical hand" is one of the ways that their magic works.

In fact, back in the day, human magicians would go far, far out of their way to track down an earth dragon village to have them make things they intended to enchant. The modern earth dragons can hand-craft intricate pieces of machinery like gears free-handed, "sculpting" the metal into the desired shape. Much like dwarves in most fantasy stories, the earth dragons pre-island were known as the most skilled builders, engineers, and craftsmen of their day. But, actually GETTING an earth dragon to do something for you, well, that wasn't exactly easy. Earth dragons then and now are not avaricious and are very much attached to farm, family, and community. Back in the day, kings and magicians alike would travel great distances and all but beg an earth dragon village to come do something for them, in return for what they did care about. Food, as well as access to new plants to add to their farms to expand their diet.

Dropping a chest of gold in front of an earth dragon you were trying to entice into forging a sword you wanted to enchant would earn you a dirty look, but handing over a couple dozen apple tree saplings when no dragons around had apple orchards, well, that just might do it.

There were two rare instances of earth dragons actually congregating to build a city, Camelot and Atlantis. In both cases, the cities were destroyed...by the very earth dragons that built them.

Atlantis was built by the earth dragons at the request of the chromatics in what is now southern Spain around 2,000 BC. It was THE city of magic in its prime, where humans from all over the world came to study under the chromatics, and it endured for nearly 1,500 years. The city was hit by an earthquake and a resulting tsunami that wiped out the entire population and swept everything but the buildings away. Instead of seeing the Gaulish tribes fight over the city and its treasures, defiling the memory of the city and all it stood for, the earth dragons instead fell upon the place and destroyed it. When they were done, there weren't even foundations left. They didn't destroy the city so much as dismantle it to the last paved stone, most of which ended up in the construction of Gaulish houses, walls, and keeps.

Camelot was destroyed upon the death of King Arthur, which was exactly the conditions set forth by the earth dragons when Arthur formed the compact with them, providing that service to him in repayment for him granting a displaced village of earth dragons fertile farmlands to cultivate and a promise that they would be left alone. This act formed a formidable alliance between Arthur and the dragons as a whole; back then the other dragons were actually somewhat protective over their earth dragon cousins, who saw them as vulnerable to human aggression. Camelot would survive only so long the line of Arthur held the throne, for the alliance was between the dragons and Arthur, not the dragons and Camelot. When he was assassinated by a Moorish houri (female assassin adept in the use of poisons) hired by Morgan Le Fay, Lancelot murdered Arthur's son and daughter and by treachery took the throne. When that happened, the earth dragons fell upon Camelot and razed it to the ground, killed Lancelot, killed Le Fay and her bastard son, slaughtered the knights that were loyal to them, and scattered the gold and treasures of Camelot among the peasants and serfs in a Robin Hood-style redistribution of wealth.

When earth dragons destroy something, they don't do it half-assed.

It was the only time the humans EVER saw the earth dragons act in a violent manner, and it sent shockwaves through Europe...and further hardened the Catholic Church against the dragons. To see the gentle, pacifistic earth dragons attack and destroy Camelot, in the church's eyes, it only proved the insidious evil of the species.

Yes, I know it's not the original legend of Arthur and Camelot, but it's my story, so I took certain creative liberties. So nyah.

[Javna]

Ty and you are evil to give so much more to speculate on what might happen in the up coming chapters.
Ah the plots and ideas keep popping up in my head....
As I said, you good sir are EVIL.

Cant wait for next chapter

PS . are u still suffering from the evil virus of creating ??? and can we wait us to see another chapter tomorrow?

[SYED]

SO if anything built by Dragon counts as suitable for enchanting, then all the tech and city are able to enchant. The water dragons salvage the metal correct, which the ED melt down and reshape, so in the beginning they made simple tools to make more complex ones. SO everything is ready to enchant. So the factories and other tech of the ED would allow far easier creation on magical items. The earth dragons could create fully modern workshops, so to allow easier production. Do they know if a tool made according to the magic rules, but powered by electricity works, is that allowed? I bet ED will be asked to be builders again as having magical buildings will appeal to many.
Once it is known they have magic, I bet they will all be eager to practise as much of it as they can. THey would each want one magical item even if it is silly as it would be theirs.

They know where those famed cities once rested, and who wants to bet as they were built by dragons, they are still copies of maps or plans of them in records. So they took back everything they could. I bet everything that remained in the area of camelot was secretly absorbed by the church. Did the Dragons make excaliber, and did they give it to the people or simple kept it? If they gave some items from camelot, to the royal family especially that sword, they would have the undying loyalty of every english man in the world. Arthur was said to have three children apart from mordred, so his line could have continued. Atlantis was famed for being built with orichaleum so did the dragons take it, or was it fought over by the gauls. As they were sonquered by the romans, wanna bet the church has some of this magic metal. I wonder if they kept some magical tools so to alter the material in to weapons.

I wonder if rome was at all built by Dragons, does any of their work yet remain. The church has likly hidden or removed anything big. SO they hunted the wizards, did they destroy everything, or did they also rob their victims for the tools to hunt others. TO be a wizard sounds like alot of reading is involved, I wonder how many books they took, were they simply destroyed or were they kept as trophies. THe magical items likly helped their hunters do their duties better. THeir use was allowed because it was for the good of the church.

When dragons retreated from humanity, did they attempt to remove all presence of dragons or magic from the world, or did the church simply did that for them?
COuld the treatment of EArth dragons stem from the other races blaming them for apparently turning humans against them.

DO the dragons have a museum, or vaults to keep artifacts. I bet talismans are a way to show off, between wizards, simply owning one due to inheritance, or being able to make one. It doesnt matter if they dont need it, other know they have it. How much have they preserved and recorded their history?

[ANTIcarrot]

Moorish houri? Um, you know that can translate to some very unfortunate meanings? <joke> So you've had the Greatest King In English History killed off by an evil african hooker? Hmm... </joke>

Moor seriously...

Have the cities of Atlantis and Canterlot (sorry) Camelot actually been found by archaeologists? (Even if they might not realise exactly which cities they have found.) From your post, the EDs wouldn't have touched the roads, midden heap, and possibly any actual landscaping itself. Even if you dismantle a building, and remove the foundations, the earth has still been compressed for decades, and that will show up on a modern ground survey or arial photograph.

And thinking of more recent history, what got the EDs interested in consumer electronic in the first place? Did something fundimentally change in the Earth Dragons, or was it simply the case that unlike a pot of gold, modern technology is actually good for something?

[SYED]

I have an epic idea.

The dragons discover that that the church has vaults of dragon stuff hidden away, so they plan an operation to take it all back. Its all ancient artifacts they aquired and stole when they hunted out magic. The property of wizards that they took as they murdered them.
The first solution is simply a scion to get into the vaults. The other is to get an ED to infiltrate the area. To either create a scion there, or arrange for the church to unknowing deliever it to their hands.
I though about digging in a tunnel, but most vaults have vibration sensors. But it could be possible.

Earth dragons were all about tech as it gave them their own magic. Also, modern facilities allowed them luxuries, and limited contact on the internet to humans. Who wants to bet there are some major internet gamers on that island?

[Fel]

Have the cities of Atlantis and Canterlot (sorry) Camelot actually been found by archaeologists? (Even if they might not realise exactly which cities they have found.) From your post, the EDs wouldn't have touched the roads, midden heap, and possibly any actual landscaping itself. Even if you dismantle a building, and remove the foundations, the earth has still been compressed for decades, and that will show up on a modern ground survey or arial photograph.

And thinking of more recent history, what got the EDs interested in consumer electronic in the first place? Did something fundimentally change in the Earth Dragons, or was it simply the case that unlike a pot of gold, modern technology is actually good for something?

In both the story and in actual reality, there's substantial and persuasive evidence that Atlantis has indeed been found. There's a location on the coast of southern Spain buried under a wetlands that EXACTLY matches the topology of the city according to tales and legend. Since the evidence was so compelling, I placed Atlantis there to pay homage to the archaeologist that found the site. Camelot hasn't been found because someone went and built the city of Leeds on top of where it used to be.

Darn inconsiderate people.

As far as the earth dragons embracing technology, it's them finding something that's good for something. They embrace any knowledge that advances them, and technology has made them better farmers, as well as allowed them to improve themselves in a way that doesn't require magic.

As for the houri...kudos to you for actually knowing that word, you're a rare bean nowadays. And yes, while it can be translated as "hooker," and they seem to have engaged in certain activities along those lines, the houris were deadly assassins who used their, *ahem*, assets to get close to their targets.

[SYED]

As soon as you said it was beneath leeds, my first thought was that the ED could recreate the city underground.

Could they help drain the wet lands so atlantis can be remade? Having magical cities would be a great way to work with humans.