Ask Luna #115

From: zane ferraioli

What does Arachne eat?

Meat. Some of it is cows. At least, I’m pretty sure they’re cows. The rest is . . . other stuff. I asked about it once, and Arachne was just vague enough to make me feel that I probably didn’t want to know.

From: selendra

Hello Luna,

Landis has been very helpful. What is the balance of favours between Alex and Landis? Did Landis ever ask something from Alex?

What is Talisid’s magic type? Does he have any apprentices? Did he ascend the ranks since Alex first met him?

How do communication devices work? Can you dial a number/name of mage like a phone or do you need to connect devices?

Is it possible to shield your thoughts from a mind mage? How? Are there any passive foci to do it for you?

How does a shroud work? How are shrouds created? Are they difficult to create? How common are they? Do they work against divination too?

Alex has helped Landis out once or twice, but I’m pretty sure the balance of favours is heavily in Landis’s credit. Landis is a bit weird by mage standards, though (okay, more than a bit) – he doesn’t seem super concerned about collecting on debts. I’m kind of curious as to what he is concerned about.

Talisid’s a mind mage. He doesn’t have any apprentices or family that I know about – seems to be one of those married-to-the-job types. Don’t know whether his rank/influence has gone up but it feels like it might have done.

Comms devices vary. The Council have an integrated system, other mages use home-made sets. You can’t dial a number or anything like that – you need to have the right frequency/be on the same circuit, which honestly means that for casual use, a phone is a lot more convenient.

Yes, you can shield your thoughts from a mind mage, and yes, there are foci that help. It’s a big complicated subject.

Shrouds are specifically designed to prevent against time and space detection magic (so, timesight and scrying). Apparently the two magic types are linked in some way so that if you’re shielding against one it’s really easy to shield against both. The mechanisms vary – lower-end ones are active, higher-end ones are passive, really high-grade ones can do both. Shrouds don’t work well against divination at all – I don’t really understand the theory behind it, but for whatever reason blocking divination is a totally different thing from blocking timesight (even though you’d think they’d be similar).

From: Alex Verus

Luna be a good girl and admit I am at least a nine out of ten you think Anne would go for anything that is not above average? Also how would you rate Vari and Sonder I know the answer, I just want to know if you do.

I could give you at least five reasons why I know you’re not Alex, but I’ll just stick with the fact that Alex is a lot better at punctuation.

From: Erin

Hey Luna!

You are now running Arcana Emporium Mark 2 (Alex likes to call it that, fyi) and I think it’s awesome. For the 1%!

I have read quite a few questions about Mage Drakh and personally, I agree with Alex that he might also be a Diviner.

I was looking for clues regarding his magic type, and maybe I wasn’t really paying attention but all I got was that in the past, Richard never did overt magic and always knew when an apprentice is planning something. Of course, we can say that it might be because he is perceptive but I don’t really buy that.

As Archon, he used this unidentified magic type during the battle at the Vault. Also, he never got hit in the Vault Battle; he tried bluster first against Jarnaff instead of just overpowering him immediately like any other Dark mage (maybe because he wants to keep his magic type a secret but he’s going to kill everyone anyway); his laser thing had four different types of magic interwoven and it bypassed Jarnaff’s shield (first time I learned it can be done! Honestly, Richard is unbelievably intelligent.); he came from another world just before he returned to London, and maybe, that’s where he picked up his magic.

Or maybe (Occam’s Razor haha I’m full of guesses) as a Diviner, he can use his divination to full effect and, like Alex in Marked, divined what he needed (imbued items etc) and how to use them to full extent.

Anyway, oh my this is getting long, weren’t Landis wondering how had Alex got inside his head (like a mind mage) to warn him off? (It’s amazing how Diviners can have weird powers when they have mastered an imbued item.) ^__^

Thank you and take care!

P.S. I love Hermes, please give him a rasher of bacon from me pretty please…

Yeah, the diviner theory is still the one I personally think makes the most sense. Alex seems dubious about it, though – he just doesn’t think that Richard’s way of acting feels very diviner-like. And, well, he’d know.

I doubt Landis wondered much about how Alex could talk to him mentally – there are a lot of weird specific foci out there, so I guess he just assumed Alex had picked up a telepathy focus from somewhere? Though Landis does seem to pick up on a lot more than he lets on, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d guessed it was more than that.

And yeah, I like Hermes too, but honestly, I think he’s the last creature on Earth who needs help getting food. I think he just likes being fed for the attention as much as anything.

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