Quoted By:
As talk of the table turned to politics, and similar things of no consequence, for the fifth time this evening, you decide that enough is enough. A change is needed. You decide to shake it up a bit. And one thing that does intrigue you the most from last evening was the talk of sorcery, but also the source of Alejandro's mysterious wealth.
Your attitude on the supernatural can best be described as disappointed cynicism. Papa hired only the very best tutors in the kingdom - more than most would deem necessary even for a noble heir, especially if said hair was regrettably a daughter.
Ever since Neustadt ushered in an era of enlightenment, by publishing Principles of Natural Philosophy in the early 8th century, even the orbits of celestial bodies turned from something inscrutable into a predictable, calculable phenomenon - "as if written in Gods' mathematics", as someone said. Where once we might have sought solace or explanation in the mystical, we now have recourse to the precise and methodical understandings of physical law. The miraculous transformations once attributed to the divine or the arcane are now laid bare before us, subject to rational inquiry and comprehensible to the educated mind. The rainbow's enchanting array of colours, once attributed to magic or divine intervention, now can be understood as the dispersion of light.
It is as if the curtain of superstition has been drawn back, and we are at last permitted to gaze upon the true workings of the universe.
All that doesn't change the fact that the world, as described by the Natural Philosophers, seems dreadfully more *boring* to you than the world from fanciful phantastic novels you used to read in your youth. In these stories, dragons terrorized villages, sorcerers secluded in their studies wielded their jealously guarded secrets. Good stories operated on principles which eluded even the great minds of natural philosophers.
For who can say that he knows all? Before the first hot balloon flight, people said flight was the domain of birds, not humans; whereas now, a 300-tonne ship may fly as easily as it would sail the high seas. Who knows what tomorrow may bring?
And who knows? Maybe there is something valuable to learn here about your mission...
