Quoted By:
<span class="mu-i">In Sareth Far
They sought a song
and found a Star
And plucked the Music from on high
And pulled it here, to you and I
And in Sareth Grand, in Sareth Far
They knew the words
to sing to stars
In Sareth Grand
What was There
reached Here</span>
... And it's been NO end of trouble ever since. All those <span class="mu-s">sigils</span> the Scourges do? It's . . . I'm not an expert, okay, so trust me when I say this is my bad retelling of a bad retelling. But the Theurges would note (And most modern Free college professors do verify this) that Sigils are loops of Intention forced on the world.
It twists What Is into what Should or Could be. We're Here, in the real world, of physics and logic and laws and on the Other side, in the <span class="mu-i">Other</span>, is the place of ... Not all that. Everything? The thing that could be? It gets theologically confused. You'd forensic theologist to split the finer hairs.
Anyway, a Sigil is really an intention loop that bridges the gap between Here and the Other. In the old days, when you had hedge mages and elementalists they'd talk about Father Earth and Mother Fire, or maybe someone would do a raindance and if they got it just right, then it would rain. And the world kind of worked?
The issue is that it . . . Doesn't . . . Quite any more. Accident of understanding. It turns out, if we all know how things are <span class="mu-s">meant</span> to work and then it suddenly <span class="mu-s">doesn't</span>, the Universe starts apparently noticing too? This is the Free college version, not the Theurge version.
Ah Void, I'm getting it all confused. Let me try again.
There is a way the world is meant to work.
But in your dreams, maybe you think it should be different? And . . . Sometimes, Sigildrists - Iconographers - Magelings, Scourges, those people - they can twist the world into being like how it could be if things were different. But the world isn't different. It's like it always has been. Just, for a moment, in the moment, a Scourge or a Sigildrists <span class="mu-s">twists the link between Here and Other and maintains the imbalance of the world. Fire eats warmth, blood turns to butterflies, effects have causes, steel melts, air becomes solid.
But that's not how things work. So long as the Sigildrist maintains focus, maybe it does, for a little while, but the world knows what shape its meant to be in. It resists the grand con. If you push, it pushes back - Strain builds. Because once the world loses form, it can be . . . Anything? You start unplugging the precise boiling point of water, but that leads to a thousand other complications. And if "heat" isn't "heat" then is up even up or down down?
Ah, sorry, Rion. Point is . . .
Oh, oh oh, I know! I know!
Once the Other is closer, the world becomes more malleable. Strain is the conflict between the Rules that are and the Potential that could be. The more freedom a Sigildrist gently tries to apply, the greater the odds of something in the fine structure snapping.</span>
