Vive La Liberte: for Truth, Freedom, and Life.
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Note to self: Should make good reading when all of this is over. Maybe sell to publisher for a pension in old age. Here's looking at you from the past!
(Thoughts on entries from diaries #102, 103)
Not being able to graduate from the Academy is bad enough, but to be expelled as a wayward student is far worse. Feelings on that day can hardly be described - still remember the indignity of hearing the result of the inquiry before the panel and all those assembled, like a criminal.
Oddly, didn't regret at all. Mostly because I believed that what I did was the right thing. Just a little disappointed and angry, because I knew I didn't even have a chance of proving my case or that no one would believe what I said. It's like a fight one can't win but one just fights regardless.
Forsaking a bright future - didn't believe in that either. I bet most of the professors were eager to see me go, or a few of the students. But that's what happens when you're not mainstream. Even if I was a graduate, I would have loathed being constrained by preconceptions and blind adherence of their "society". Maybe they were jealous, but it's being haughty to say that. I didn't get very good grades from the mentors, that's for sure.
At least I know were my truest friends, those that stand by you in need. Even if one of them caused the trouble in the first place. But after recent experiences I'd say I was right to take this path. Couldn't live with myself otherwise. The only way I can make myself feel better about the whole thing is to foil the Playmakers' attempts, or even better, bring them down. It isn't a vendetta but it comes close. It's more about for truth and freedom of choice.
The thing I can't understand is opposition to new ideas. Is the old school so firmly entrenched in classical thought that it can't innovate itself? Granted, I came up with some radical ideas, but at least they deserve a mediocrum of respect. That's what education is about.
I mean, yes, the Art has to be responsibily practiced. But that does not discount the fact how many use the Art for devious purposes, including lichdom. But that's a fallacy of the practicioner, not the Art itself.
So what's wrong with coming up with some inventions, some ideas, that would function in the absence of a weave? Did such situations not occur, even if rarely? But the thing is that we as a society are too arrogant. If you compare the spells that we create or learn, there are more of them that are destructive than those purely utility in nature.
There can't be anything wrong with empowering the commoners with lay inventions that might help address their issues. But no, the reasoning is that they might use those things to turn against us. Or that the inventions might interfere with the practice of the Art. I say all of that is rubbish, especially when some degree of the Art is involved in their operation. Once again, the fallacy is in the user, not the creator.
Proper information. I submitted a treatise on it, and at least that was treated with some respect. Information is like the Art; it can destroy, or it can create. It is up to the user. But we keep our secrets so tightly locked up, all the power is concentrated in the province of the few instead of for the benefit of majority. It's like a repression.
I guess they didn't know all the facts (or more likely the Playmakers were pulling their strings here) about that night. It galls me to think of that the Playmakers made off with their prize and stuck me with a trapped invention that had to go off. Of course it was my incompetence in such things (but there it goes to show the rationale of proper information, qoud erat demonstratum). Anyway, one must fight fire with fire…
I am going to miss those times when I had to defend my point against the hostile views of others. Even Zimmermann. Of course we had our rivalry but that's not the point, he was a genius.
But here I am, now thrown into a struggle between an incomprehensibly large entity the likes of I've only suspected of and faintly detected previously. It may be a battle I'm going to lose again, but it's now not for me but the freedom of the people.
Somehow it's a familiar feeling...
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They stood in the cavernous hall, brushing the snow off their garments and looking around.
"So…how do we even know She is around? It's quiet enough to hear your own heart beating."
"We just wait, I guess. I'm not keen to get lost in this place myself." Dick set Tomi on the couch and rubbed his hands. Then he looked up. For some inexplicable reason, up at the glass-domed ceiling, expecting to see the sight that captivated him previously, but also bringing along with it an unknown sense of dread...
An overcast sky with grey clumps of clouds drifting past - but also with a hint of some ethereal light behind them, glimmering when it should be obscured by the clouds - and that hint of blue beyond…
Harry came over. "You feel it too, huh? I can't get my mind off it… the anomaly suggests evidence of a bigger world out there, something beyond the senses, waiting..."
Dick glanced around the deserted hall, with its crumbling staircase, stained glass windows, towering pillars, and cracked tiles. The place eerily resembled someplace out of his memory, his dreams...he could not recall where or when he saw it, but the sense of deja vu was palpable.
"Once I fell asleep, and dreamt I was a butterfly. It was a wonderful feeling. But when I awoke, I could not be sure if it was me dreaming the butterfly, or the butterfly dreaming me..."
Harry gave Dick a look. "Are you trying to fill in for Tomi's far eastern mystic philosophism?"
"I just felt like saying it. Don't forget you're also a suscriber to that school of thought."
There was a faint sound of footsteps, and the duo turned to face the staircase in the middle of the hall.
And there it was, seemingly materialised out of the very air, in front of the painting. No word could describe the aura of mystery that it wore like a cloak, as it glided down gracefully towards them.
Dickson thought he could catch a glimpse of emerald-green eyes behind the veil as the white-clad figure stopped several paces in front of them.
"You have arrived."
Dick cleared his throat. "Erm..that's right…you see, Tomi, she ah..." But the figure in white had already turned to the couch. Dick looked at Harry, who shrugged.
"She was expecting us?" He mouthed.
"Well, that contact of yours, what was his name, 'Rev'?...since he knows Her... It doesn't take magic to figure that out!"
The figure in white turned towards them. "She is not suffering from any drug or poison. The affliction is of the mind, not the body."
Harry broke in. "Does that mean she can't be cured?"
The figure in white shook its head. "Not here. Carry her and follow me."
Candles bathed the room in their yellow glow, and a sweet fragrance of dried flowers suffused the air. On a carpet in the middle of the room, the two of them sat, immobile, the signs of life only their periodic breathing motion. Suddenly, one of them began to twitch with increasing violentness.
"Hold- hold her!" Dick exclaimed as he caught hold of one Tomi's flailing arms. Harry tried to do the same on his side and grunted in pain as the hand punched him in the stomach. Meanwhile, the figure had not moved, still staring intently into Tomi's eyes, but they lacked the spark of life.
"Damn crazy bitch!" Harry yelled as Tomi's leg lashed out now and tripped him up, causing him to land heavily on his backside. Dick was too busy holding on to Tomi and avoid the jerking legs to make a reply. The violent motions continued for a while, and ceased as the figure visibly sighed and removed its hands from Tomi's head.
"It's over?" Dick asked even as Tomi blinked.
For an answer the figure merely stood up unsteadily and brushed herself off, moving towards the balcony. Dick and Harry released Tomi. "You okay, kiddo?" Dick bent down to look into her eyes as Harry rubbed his stomach and behind.
"H-Hai…I think...that was very long bad dream..." Tomi shivered a little.
"Well, it wasn't exactly a honeymoon for us either!" Harry shot back grumpily. Tomi suddenly grinned and hugged both him and Dickson. "Hey- what's that for? You're acting all strange again!"
"Iie...that was for happy feeling, I happy to see you both again!"
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Stretching as far as the eye can see, an expense of white and blue, a plane void of all features. This is the Great Glacier. Harsh winds ravaging a snow-covered landscape, where the endless celurean blue of the sky overhead melded into the glittering ice on the ground…
"She ain't heavy, she's my sister…"
"Will you please stop singing?" Harry grumbled as he shifted the bag around on his shoulders - the one that Tomi was sleeping peacefully in, her head, covered in a hood, poking out of the top flap.
Dick stopped, just for a moment, to regard his companion, the only source of humanity - and complaints - for a hundred miles in every which direction.
"What's wrong? It's not like there's anyone here to throw rotten eggs at you." Dick sniffed and tucked his mitt-covered hands deeper into his fur cloak. "Besides it's a great way to pass the time."
"It's cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey, and I don't need further encouragements to give me goosebumps!" The turbaned-covered head of Harry swivelled in his direction and barked.
"Aha, the green-eyed monster doth speaketh! Anyway, I remain unruffled by your belligerent display of non-acceptance!" Dick began to do a little dance routine, which was amazing to behold, since he was swathed in thick folds of warm fur. From a distance it was a bizarrely sinister sight - like a carpet dancing.
"I find your dogged optimism incongruous in the light of our present situation!" Harry shot back. Take that, you bombastic bard! he thought. He brought his left hand up to his goggles; the compass strapped to his wrist told him they were still headed the right way.
"You think the letter reached them?" Harry ventured.
"Should be, by now. The letter should have travelled through ten over different locales - let the LMAO try to trace that, if they can!" Dick exclaimed proudly.
"No wonder the insanity rate among letter-bearers keep going up..."
"You mean the other time?" The other time referred to that time when their regular letter-bearer had turned up on the doorstep with alchemist's fire flasks rigged to his entire body, screaming something about the monotony and lack of advancement in his job. It had taken four hours to talk the person out of it.
"Frankly, I wonder why we even get involved in all this nonsense. Makes you think, if there isn't some higher power out there making you trudge through all this situations for their own entertainment..."
"My turn....stop that philosophical drivel!"
"No, I mean seriously. Take for instance....where do all the monsters get their loot from?"
"Don't get started. My turn to carry Tomi." Dick began to help Harry unstrap the backpack. "Good thing you thought of the magic bag. It sure saved having to carry a lot of weight."
"It didn't come cheap, idiot...I spent the whole month making toys - toys! - just to earn money to get that bag from the daylight robbing merchant in the Peltarch market. It was a gratitious waste of my skills to pander to - children! Do you think they can appreciate the structural complexity of those mechanical ducks?" Harry sounded genuinely offended.
"You forgot, "we"…I had to sing and strum in the streets too to raise that gold! With audiences that sometimes jeered and stink of beer, or laugh derisively and never pay a penny! And stop complaining, where was it written that all the heroes have some kind of fortune or needn't pay for their next meal in a tavern? That only happens in books! Or did you think we are exceptions?"
"Guess you're right." Harry sighed and stretched himself with a groan. "How much further is it to the mountain?"
"Should be there at daybreak. Anyone following us?" Dick surveyed the desolate landscape.
Harry took out a tube that was glowing green in the middle, shook it, and then his head. Good. It meant that they didn't have to worry about any of those flying sentinels. Harry privately wondered if they even functioned in the cold climate. Just to be sure, he patted the orbs in his pocket. Insurance against a trip to the fugue.
"Why does She have to stay in such a remote place? It's like some kind of hermit retreat..."
"Beats me, you can ask Her yourself. I mean, if I were all-powerful and knowing I would do the same."
"You sound like a book with bad cliches."
"It's for Tomi's sake, mind you. I think She is the only one with the power to cure whatever's done to her."
"I think, you thought, who confirms? If we've been walking a thousand miles for nothing...."
And they plodded on, into the snowy wastes, each step bringing they closer to their destination.
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Rustle and shuffle
_Hai, I am from foreign land.
They? They are very good friend. They help me so I help them.
laughs One of them, very very smart, always talk about variables and things I do not understand. The other, he always talking about freedom and I think air is in his head, but he nice man.
Myself, I am, what you call, locker-smithu? Runs in family. Not nice but I have to eat. I go into trouble once, twice, many times. But I live!
It happen one night. Dick-san, he come and say he need my help. He save my life before, so I agree. I ask what is happen, he say someone trying to break into tower to steal things for Play-makeku.
I ask him, why he want to steal something too, he say it's not for himself. The whole world may end. I hear many story about world end everytime but he my friend, so I keep quiet and smile.
We go to tower, there we meet Harry-san. He tell Dick-san if this is prank, he will turn him into woman. I think Dick-san makes poor woman. Harry-san say the invention room is locked with com-pli-catu gear, no magic or he can open already. So I take out tools and we three sneak inside tower.
Dick-san got lost and Harry-san too. I think, how can one man with map and one man who study in place get lost, but place is big. We find the way after some time. There is magic portal but is nothing for Harry-san. Then we come to door.
Door made of strong metal, and have funny device on it. So I take tool and try. I try and try and after a long time, open it.
We see room full of things Harry-san call inventions. He points and we see what look like two men carrying an invention. Harry-san tries to stop them with spell but did not work on them. They open door in air, and poof! They gone.
Dick-san rush over to an invention and says that it not real. He touch it and suddenly the door slam shut, loud sound wa-wah come on and light come on. I feel like naked without shadow and Harry-san look like he want to die.
Several guards come in with one old man that look like he never have wife and say we intruders. Old man cast us a spell that make us cannot move and guards move us into a room.
Next day, we were moved to room that look like judge court. Old man and guards say a lot of things like how Harry-san caught bringing outsider into tower and try to spoil invention. Dick-san was trying to explain but old man tell him to shut up. I lucky I not Harry-san but I feel sorry for him. Dick-san look like he sorry too. Harry-san look like he want to kill both of us and die at the same time.
One man, Harry-san's sensei, talk on his behalf. In the end we were release but Harry-san was carrying a bag with all his things inside. I want one magic bag like that, can carry a lot of goodies, one day. Dick-san apologise but Harry-san was quiet. Then he smile and he was not angry. In my land we know people who do like that will revenge later, so I walk far far away. But we three still very good friend. No one revenge.
Hai, that is what happen._