#mod teslas

ok so i have had A DAY. but!! i have good news and i have bad news, and its all in the form of the "bad news" you're reading now. as in. the article. that is written poorly. for those who do not know me, hello! a pleasure to have your attention. you may call me Teslas. i hope to deliver information to you again, eventually.

i was writing an article on the University, specifically the anti-magic department. im sure most people who attended actually got through the required unit of anti studies, at least. you know, you took apart stage magician's wands over the course of the semester and made them fancy sticks by the end, barely able to produce a single petal, let alone a full bouquet. you saw what made them tick. you got bored and never took another class over there again unless you had to.

me too! so relatable.

still, i did work at the library one semester, so i knew how to coax the cats to fetch me the most promising tomes containing the most promising theories to discuss with Professor John F. W. Herschel, head of the AM department. my goal was to wrap my head around how anti-magic worked, or just... maybe how it worked, if the academics hadn't gotten to definitive statements yet. its okay.

we all struggle with self-confidence sometimes, and that includes fields of study.

anyways, i found a book with a theory that i really liked. the book was 50 pounds so i just copied down the singular page the particular theory was written on. said theory was that magic was not unlike a soundwave, just rippling the aether. it stands to reason that if magic works like a wave, the exact opposite waveform would cause destructive interference and produce something like what we see with anti-magic fields, curses and the like.

that was the good news, that i found that.

the bad news is that this is where my good luck ended.

i was so planning on talking to Prof J. F. W. Herschel, but on the way to his office there are the herbology gardens and The Hedge. Any self-respecting student would know to turn right, lest you be taken by The Hedge for turning left at the first crossroad. dear reader, once upon a time, i was taken by The Hedge. for a while i lived there, eating berries that aged my soul and greyed a single hair for each one i swallowed. i heard the voice of my sibling, referring to me as... my full, legal name. i knew not to listen, as they were gone, and whatever this thing was was not my beloved Steve, as Steve called me... not my full legal name.

but my friends, despite my reluctance to approach the entrance to the garden, even if i was to pass it, i trekked on. and i trekked closer. and then I stopped at the gate, to look at my one-time prison, ever verdant through the work of the Groundskeeper, my savior, my warden.

It called to me. The Hedge called to me. It wanted me back. It missed me, and I missed it. I missed falling asleep to the thought of not knowing which twists and turns I'd take on the morrow, that I was exploring depths to which no mortal had ever seen or would ever see again, Divines willing. The beast that called my name, that mournfully yearned for my embrace, or so it said—I wanted to answer its call once and for all, to know the face of the one who wanted me to a greater and grander extent than any creature ever did and ever will.

My hand touched the gate. I began to undo the latch, ready to hear its endearing welcoming screech one last time. But then I remembered, I had to deliver my article to Straw. The Hedge's call did not supersede my duties to my friend and my wider community. Not right now.

Weary mages, while our books may be downtrodden and hoofprints have been indelibly stamped into them, hopefully most of us aren't and haven't. While the collection is a shell of its former self, I've been mending up a storm and salvaging what most would think would be unsalvageable. We here at the Anti-Anti-Wizard Council have this big ol' empty warehouse we're squatting in we've purchased legally and definitely own, have plenty of space to rehome and rebuild this collection. A few words of caution, a telling of tales of note, why we will not accept visitors or borrowers at this current moment, and what exactly I'm doing. In no particular order.

None of the library cats have been coaxed into coming along with the remains of the collection, so I'm doing all the organizing and cataloging myself.

Luckily, I did this sort of thing at university as a teaching assistant so I'm quite practiced at retrieving books with the Ye Olde Google spell- I haven't accidentally caused a book to burst into flame in years! Ask me a question and if the answer is in our collection I relay to you the information I find, complete with citations where possible. Perhaps a few fun facts and interesting rabbit holes to follow.

Unfortunately, none of the library cats came along, but it seems all of the ghosts did? Lots of cold spots in the Council Building lemme tell you. Our heating just got a lot more expensive.

While searching through the rubble, I met a nice fella on horseback, looking for a book on what comes next. After, you know. This. What comes next. A question we've all pondered. I found a relevant book for them, The End of Everything and the Start of Something New by Faye Mïn. They said they remembered this book, and pointed at a five-star review. It was by someone calling themselves Ares. They said they wrote it. I looked up, finally meeting their gaze and experienced the Trojan War in its entirety. Less condoms than you'd think, not even Durexes. Ares, War, thanked me for the book and told me they'd return it within a fortnight. I told them to take their time and returned to my work. Visitors are not allowed because there are wards set up around the Building to ward off True Disasters, so, no one is allowed to come visit for the time being. If an anti-wizard such as one Watts Millenis would come within proximity of said wards, terrible things may or may not happen. For this reason, we encourage everyone to stay away and meet with our members off the premises, in order to make sure any approaching anti-wizard is easily detectable. That being said, any known anti-wizard approaching the building will, on sight, be terminated with extreme prejudice.

Borrowers are not allowed because the collection is at incredible risk at the moment, with multiple different groups preying on its complete and utter destruction. Risky for the books, you see.