From: Benjamin Goldberg <goldbb2@earthlink.net>
To: Disruptor <mathews1@gte.net>
CC: FFML <ffml@anifics.com>
Subject: [FFML] Re: [FFML][Slayers] Shadowed Magic chapter 01<Revised>
Date: Sat, 07 Dec 2002 00:49:10 -0500


Disruptor wrote:

 The auburn haired sorceress known as Lina Inverse looked out over the
bay she had chosen, raised her arms and started reciting, "Darkness
beyond blackest pitch.  Deeper than the deepest night...."

 Suddenly the fourteen year old girl stopped and slumped to her knees,
"What good is a more powerful spell if the being I cast it at
teleports out of the way?"

What made her so thoughtful?

good question.

 Lina smirked a bit as she went through the spells in her mind. 'The
Giga-Slave would be nice, but I think a Lord of Nightmare powered
versions of Rune Breaker and Bram Blazer will be a lot more useful.
At least I won't run the risk of being consumed by darkness.'

Right.  Instead, you run the risk of destroying the entire world.  Much
safer.

Run the risk either way, though it's probably less dangerous using the 
smaller spells.  Like Ragnablade.

 Lina stood up and looked at the bay with renewed vigor, as she
mentally went through the chaos words for her two new spells.

 "If these work, maybe I'll see if I can recast some of the other
spells with the Lord of Nightmares as their source.  Maybe a defensive
barrier or something."

Or better yet, an L-sama powered healing spell.  Maybe something like
that would cure Zelgadis?  True, she hasn't met him yet, but an uber
healing spell would be deadly against mazoku.  The only question is,
would it be faster than Resurrection, and what side-effects would there
be?

Don't think that would be a healing spell, but a transformation, or remove 
curse/transformation spell.

Though, something like a Nightmare healing spell would be powerful enough to 
do all three at once.  Sort of like Sailor Moon's Moon Healing Escalation.

Perhaps it's simply because she doens't have enough experience with high 
level White Magic that she didn't develop one on her own.

 "Even though I can't cast it unassisted, I'll learn the Ragna Blade."

wonder how she developed the spell without a Claire Bible.

 Lina closed the book and turned it over in her hands.  She smiled as
she looked at it.

 "The Powers of the Dark and the Light.  A book detailing the greater
powers of the four worlds and the spells that can be called from each
of them.  It's hopelessly out of date and mostly useless but still fun
to read."

If it contains the Giga-slave, how "mostly useless" is it?

Probably doesn't contain it, but rather info on L-sama, which Lina used to 
change the Dragonslave into Gigaslave.

Supposedly, in canon, that's how Lina developed Gigaslave in the first 
place.

 To try to take her mind off of the horror she was witnessing, she
held up her dagger and stared into the eyes of the eel pommel. As she
stared, she could hear the words from when she recieved it.

 'Lina!! Take this!! The staff holds the last of my power!!'

 Breaking out of her reverie, she shook her head and thought, 'All
that was left of the staff was that eel shaped talisman that I made
into a pommel.  The Astral Dagger might not be the Sword of Light, but

If she knows of the Sword of Light, then she's met Gourry, right?

No.
The Sword of Light is a legendary magical artifact of great power.
Also, Lina met a previous owner of it (see the Slayers Movie.)

How many spells can she keep going at once?  Won't the Breaker spell
dissapate when she starts on this one?

depends.
While most mages, even powerful ones like Lina, cannot have a spell active, 
while casting a second one, it can be done.  Just very difficult unless 
using minor spells.

 "Dagger formed from a temporal splinter."
 "Let thine energies flow into my body."
 "And add thy mystic strength to my own."

 Feeling the Astral Dagger boost her powers,

And it's not so ephemeral a spell as soul-clever, as the Astral Dagger
remains in effect for some time.  So she's maintaining *two* spells
simultaneously; Nightmare Breaker and Astral Dagger.

The Astral Dagger is 'not' a spell.  It is a magical artifact Lina created 
from Roddy's staff.  Think of it as a weaker version of the Demonblood 
Talismans.

Oh, and casting a spell *uses* magical power; presumably, Astral Dagger
increases her spiritual strength, giving her greater control over the
sword of light (it's controlled by one's will, after all), and making it
more difficult for spirits (like mazoku) to hurt her by "physical"
contact, but it doesn't give her more magic.

If it *did* give the caster more magic -- what would keep someone from
casting it again and again and again?

see my above answer.

Now she's casting *another* spell, while she has *two* spells active.

only one spell, and it is possible that the Nightmare Breaker is self 
sustaining.

When/where did she create a body?

good quesiton

OTOH, the Nightmare spells should be kept a secret.

most of them seem to be Nightmare spells.

Then why doesn't he offer to try and figure out how?

too ashamed. Doesn't think Zel trusts him enough to do so.

 Lina grimaced a bit as she recalled rejecting the spell from when she
was in school.  It wasn't flashy enough and she wasn't sure if she
could put enough power behind it to make it effective.

If she can put enough power in to make it work at all, then it will be
enough to destroy most mazoku.

at least minor ones.

 "I don't know Ra Tilt,"  Lina reluctantly admitted.  "My chosen
profession is to kill bandits.  How many times am I going to encounter
Monsters with a bunch of bandits?"

though she can recognise the incantation enough to tell when it's being 
cast.

 "Learning spells cost money.

Why?  Is parchment all that expensive that she can't just hire a
scivener to copy a book containing it?  Or do magic spells need to be
taught by another mage?  In which case, owning the book "The Powers of
the Dark and the Light" is fairly useless without someone to teach the
spells.

Probably because you have to pay to either have it taught, or be given a 
copy of the spell for your own use.

Hiring a scrivener shouldn't be too costly -- or if you're really
cheap... well, if you can read, you can write, so just copy the book
yourself (binding it can be a problem, but you could just keep the pages
loose in a book-shaped box).

cost/hassel is likely getting a copy of the spell, and getting permission to 
copy it.

If you have the goodwill of the ruler of the city, you can certainly
avoid paying the book's owner to allow you to copy it.

depends on who owns the spellbook.



_________________________________________________________________
MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months FREE* 
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus


             .---Anime/Manga Fanfiction Mailing List----.
             | Administrators - ffml-admins@anifics.com |
             | Unsubscribing - ffml-request@anifics.com |
             |     Put 'unsubscribe' in the subject     |
             `---- http://ffml.anifics.com/faq.txt -----'