by Vastarie

In the early years of the Second Era, two exceptionally able students joined the Psijic Order to study at Artaeum. The first was the passionate, extravagant Vanus Galerion, an Elf to whom magic came as naturally as breathing. The second was the calculating, meticulous Mannimarco. If he lacked Vanus Galerion's gift for spontaneity, he more than made up for it with a diamond-sharp intellect capable of reasoning out theories and possibilities other mages could not even guess at.

Both quickly became leaders among their fellows, gathering followers impressed by their brilliance. One might have expected Mannimarco and Galerion to become bitter rivals in such a situation, but instead a friendship of sorts grew between them. Completely unlike in personality and temperament, each recognized the brilliance of the other. Many times they held the Psijics of Artaeum spellbound as they debated the nature of magicka or the hidden secrets of reality.

This is a record of one such discussion, which came to be known later as their First Dialogue. It began as a debate about the morality of magical alterations.

* * *
Mannimarco: Very well, let us consider the nature of power. What is magicka?

Vanus Galerion: You want me to state it? Fine, although I'm sure I could spend the rest of the afternoon answering and leave you no wiser than you already are. For now, I'll distill it to this: Magicka is the residue of creation in all things, a property intrinsic to all matter and forms of energy. Do I need to go on?

Mannimarco: No, that suffices. However, you are mistaken, my colleague. Magicka is nothing. It does not exist.

Vanus Galerion: Ha! I think I disagree. Look, I just drew upon magicka to turn your robe a vivid green.

Mannimarco: I'll thank you to change it back when we are done. But, to my point, assume that you are correct, and the robe has always harbored some innate potential to change color. Why did it change color now?

Vanus Galerion: I see where you are going with this. I won't bother you with the details of the spell. Let's just say I employed magicka to rewrite that part of its identity governing its natural hue.

Mannimarco: Ah! You employed magicka. You! Could the magicka employ itself?

Vanus Galerion: No. It has no desire or will of its own.

Mannimarco: In other words, it did not exist until you conceived the desire for something in this world to change in accordance with your will. Turning my robe green, in this case.

Vanus Galerion: If you are correct, then any village dyer is as much a mage as I am.

Mannimarco: I think we can both agree you are more of a mage than that. How do we know magicka exists unless a mage makes it do something?

Vanus Galerion: Because we sense its potential in the moment we begin to weave a spell. It is an observable property, just as I can tell that a troll stinks when I catch a whiff of its scent or that the sculpture over there is missing its left arm.

Mannimarco: Perception requires the impetus of will. Those things are nothing to you, until your will, operating through your senses, brings them to your attention. Magicka is simply the exercise of your own will on the world around you. Absent will, it is nothing.

Vanus Galerion: I do not concede that yet. The troll could still exist and rend me limb from limb whether I perceived it or not. Perhaps I was looking in the wrong direction.

Mannimarco: Well, yes, but that is beside the point. We were speaking of the nature of power. Nothing happens absent an act of will—the troll's, I suppose, in your example. The first requirement of power is the will to do something. Which means a mage's true power is derived from and limited by their own force of will. Magicka is nothing more or less than the will of the mage, my colleague. It has no morality and requires no consent. That is the nature of power.

Vanus Galerion: Certainly the individual will can be described as moral or amoral. Or do you care to argue that, too?

Mannimarco: Perhaps I do.