Firesign 1 - Wage Slave Rebellion (51 page)

BOOK: Firesign 1 - Wage Slave Rebellion
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16
Mazik sometimes thought that everyone should work a sales job once in their lives, so they would be a little nicer to salespeople, or at least would know when to be rude. It was only later that he began to appreciate the skills it gave him, like a thick skin and a complete lack of social fear.

 

17
They were playing a new drinking game. It was called DRINK. Here are the rules: anytime your opponent/partner says DRINK, you have to drink. That’s it. It wasn’t very inventive, even as far as drinking games go, but it made up for it with brutal effectiveness.

 

18
The Houkian unit of currency was known as the marc. One marc is split into 100 cents. For comparison’s sake, you can get a good burger and a beer for 1Mc, or either for 50c.

 

19
Mazik wasn’t good with names, so he often gave people nicknames that he used in the privacy of his own head. He did this because he didn’t care what their names were, and absolutely not because it would have been embarrassing to ask after having known them for so long.

 

20
Or worse yet, the other patrons came to her aid. Gavi rarely lost, but when she did, it didn’t mean the other side got to win. Or walk under their own power for a few months. If they were lucky.

 

21
Raedren tended to get Mazik-like whenever he got drunk, which probably tells you everything you need to know about Mazik.

 

22
Most conscripts in the Houkian army and navy were required to serve four years, but full casters were only required to serve three. This was based on the logic that they’re a) already mostly trained; b) significantly more powerful than regular soldiers; and c) more capable of draft dodging and getting away with it. The city let them serve one less year as incentive for them to serve at all.

 

23
Though anyone can learn arcane magick, most people don’t get far for the simple reason that it’s really, really hard. Naturally, this meant there was demand for people who could teach magick. While some teachers taught one-on-one, it was inevitable that others would band together and form schools, and that some of those schools would specialize in teaching only the very best, erecting ever more elaborate and baroque institutions around themselves to disguise the fact that they taught pretty much the same things as everyone else, only for a lot more money. One of the biggest, richest, and most respected magickal universities in the Eastern world was Ain & Narouff University.

 

24
Telman University was Houk’s other major magickal university. Closer to a vocational school than an edifice of higher learning, it utilized an accelerated curriculum and a focus on the practical side of magick to educate its students quickly and for a lot less money. Naturally, Telman graduates were highly trained and received almost no respect. Telman (TU) and Ain & Narouff were rivals, though you’d be hard pressed to find an A&N student who would admit it.

 

25
Halvelin are little different from other humans save for their shorter average height, because they
are
humans. Just because they’re shorter doesn’t make them a different species; it just means the footstool industry is particularly strong where a lot of halvelin live
26
.

 

26
Contrary to what many think, the word “halvelin” did not come about because halvelin are half the height of “normal” humans (they’re closer to 60 percent). In fact, it was the other way around—the word halvelin was the chicken to halve’s egg, which was fitting because halvelin aren’t much taller than either one. That’s what some people joked, at any rate, usually right before being punched in the crotch.

 

27
In an effort to attract new worshippers, most gods offered a spell or two that any worshipper can use, regardless of skill or piety. Naturally, people abused this. Now many chose their religion based not on faith or the relative merits of the god’s teachings, but by what divine magick they needed most at the time. Serial conversions were not uncommon.

 

28
With so many gods, there simply weren’t enough priests to go around. But where some saw a problem, others saw an opportunity, and began performing religious services for multiple gods. Traditionally this was frowned upon, but for the smaller religions it was better than nothing. The titular owner of Levi’s God Emporium was the priest for no less than a hundred deities, and she had five other people like her on staff.

 

29
Pointy hats, on the other hand, were strictly frowned upon; most casters felt they made it hard for people to take them seriously. It’s hard to look intimidating when your hat keeps getting knocked off every time you go through a doorway.

 

30
Mazik claimed to have learned this trick from an adventurer friend, though Gavi suspected he picked it up doing shady things back in college. She was right.

 

31
The female version of “Sir.” One of the side effects of magick was a tendency toward gender equality in Aegisian cultures. For some reason, it was harder to discriminate against women when they could study and become just as strong, fast, and capable of terrifying violence as any man. Coupled with the fact that women made up a slight majority of high-level casters, the men in most societies had decided not to press their luck, lest a gender war broke out and they lost.

 

32
This was Rose’s catchphrase of sorts, which he said no less than five times every time he tried to “motivate” his team. It was like nails on a chalkboard to Mazik.

 

33
This magick was known as telephonathy, and it was the reason Stýlori was one of the most powerful deities on Aegis. While many gods still subscribed to the old model of competing for lifelong worshippers with promises of paradise, community, and that everyone else was going to burn in hell, a few enterprising gods had opted for a more transactional approach, creating useful divine magicks that anyone could use, so long as they prayed to the god in question before every use. Stýlori’s telephonathy magick allowed people to send their voice into the mind of anyone they knew, all for the low, low price of a single prayer.

 

34
Every caster has their own personal mana color. For a new caster the color is random, and will sometimes vary wildly from spell to spell, though once they’ve gained more experience they can choose their mana color with an effort of will. Since mana only becomes visible after interaction with the caster, the details are up to them.

 

35
The sense of keen allows humans, orcks, and other higher-order species to perceive ambient mana. All humans can keen, though most don’t realize they’re doing it because it takes large fluctuations in the ambient mana to become noticeable. It takes training to sense more subtle differences. Casters must actively focus to keen away from their bodies.

 

36
One of the benefits of keening was being able to tell who was a caster by sensing their MPB. The technique had limits, though. It’s difficult to gauge someone’s relative power level, and it can be completely defeated by a caster who releases their MPB and mana pool, leaving no mana to be keened.

 

37
From the Traduuvin word “nuku,” which means “to blast with mystic energy.”

 

38
Normally rope wouldn’t have been strong enough to restrain a caster, but since divine casters require spell incantations and/or special movements to use their magick, the addition of a gag reduced them to regular people.

 

39
Mazik was an arcane caster, so he didn’t have to say anything to cast his spells. He just did it sometimes anyway, because he thought it was fun. Mazik was easily amused.

 

40
Aegis’s day had twenty-six hours, with noon falling at 13 o’clock and midnight at 26 o’clock. Have you ever wished there were more hours in the day? Aegis has them, and it’s still not enough.

 

41
Even though both mugs were nearly empty. Mazik knew how to play a crowd, even if it required duplicity.
Especially
if it required duplicity.

 

42
Adventuring guilds thrived because they held a virtual monopoly on the good quests. Every time a non-guild adventurer completed a major quest, it made them look bad. They were not having a happy day.

 

43
Long ago, it was next to impossible to restrain a caster who didn’t want to be held. To Yendendanttus, the God of Flatulence and Tooth Decay, this presented an opportunity. Now Yendendanttus was the Patron God of Restraint, and it was its divine magick that made the creation of enchanted bonds possible, which interfered with the flow of a caster’s mana when wrapped around their wrists, ankles, or neck. Now Yendendanttus was one of the most well-known gods on Aegis, though it was still rather gassy, and watching it smile was no treat.

 

44
The more someone believes in a god, the more power they can obtain, but at the cost of their god acquiring more power over them. Past a certain point the deity begins to warp its most devout followers’ minds, and from there it’s an easy trick to distribute what one sees to the rest of them. It was a magick that by all rights should have been impossible, but gods rarely let that get in the way.

 

45
Some women can giggle. When they laugh, it’s a light, carefree sound, one that conveys both femininity and youthful excitement, and is guaranteed to induce feelings of dread in men when used in packs of four or more. Gavi was not one of those women. The closest she could get was a nervous chortle.

 

46
Unlike in ages past, where gladiators were slaves who fought and died for the pleasure of the crowd, Houk had developed a more civilized system. Now all gladiators were casters, partially because casters were more powerful and could give the crowd more entertaining fights, but also because it kept costs down if you didn’t have to keep training new gladiators every time one got killed. Now gladiator battles were more action theater than blood sport, like professional wrestling with more explosions.

 

47
The Pit was known for more than just caster duels. Some of its most popular events were reenactments of great battles, complete with war animals and siege engines. The animals came from the Kitpicc Stables across the street from the Gladiator School, and entered the arena through Gladiator’s Way. By the smell of the tunnel, some had done so recently.

 

48
In addition to Gladiator’s Way, there were two other major tunnels that were still in use: Worker’s Way, which connected the Catacombs to a warehouse where they stored props, set pieces, and obstacles for the games, and the Path of Shame, which connected the Gate of Shame with a small hospital (formerly a morgue) where injured gladiators were sent for treatment. To receive enough injuries to be sent directly to the hospital was considered disgraceful, so any gladiator going through the Gate of Shame was said to be doing the “walk of shame,” whether they were able to walk or not.

 

49
While it was common for many Aegisians to learn how to ride, for city-dwelling casters like Mazik and Raedren—who could sprint an appreciable percent of a horse’s speed, and for extended periods of time—it was seen as optional or unnecessary. Up until it wasn’t.

 

50
Though it sometimes seems like spells are affected by gravity, they’re not. Casters can choose to act as if they are, though, which can be a useful mental shortcut to help with aiming and control. With casters, believing truly is half the battle, and often far more.

 

51
One of the side effects of enhancement magick was that it actually exercises the muscles it’s used on. That means that on Aegis, it’s possible to study one’s way to a physically fit, attractive body. If there was ever a reason to hate casters, this was it.

 

52
In Mazik’s defense, he was really,
really
drunk at the time. After that night, he vowed to never do shots on a weekday ever again. He even kept his word, for a whole month. Well, most of a month.

 

53
Some scholars suspected the reason for the often arbitrary rules behind major divine magick was that the gods wanted to give mortals a sporting chance. They were partially right.

 

54
While most focus crystals are used to focus and project any spell cast through them, certain focus crystals can be used to amplify specific spells past their usual limits. The Pit used its four barrier crystals to project clear barriers several meters over the top of its inner walls, protecting the spectators from stray spells or projectiles. The focus crystals used in large-scale arrays are always large and heinously expensive, and The Pit’s barrier crystals were no exception.

BOOK: Firesign 1 - Wage Slave Rebellion
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