Friday, November 12, 2010

Elemental VS Arcane

                "For the fifteenth time, the Elements don't work that way and never will!" He had had this argument before. Many times. Every time a mage asked him to do something they expected a snap of the fingers and the Elements would do his bidding. They just didn't understand the bond a Shaman had to make.

                "But why not? I can command fire, I can create a gust of wind, I can conjure water. Why can't you, a shaman who supposedly have some deep connection with the elements, demand them to do your bidding?"

                "Because. Elemental magic is not the same as twisting the arcane into another elemental force. They are not my lapdogs to do as I see fit, regardless of the outcome. The forces I can use, only because the Elements allow me to, are primal. The very forces that hold our world together. So forgive me, Mr. Woler, if I cannot demand the Earth to tell me what's wrong with Azeroth. I and every other shaman on the planet have been trying."

                The mage seemed put off by Shadoren's comparison of the arcane to a lapdog.

                "Fine. You want proof? Conjure a fire. Either a ball of it, or perhaps, just a campfire. Make it as hot as possible. I shall show you the difference between arcane twisted into elemental powers and what I can do with it."

                And so the mage, Jacob Woler a man who increasingly getting on Shadoren's nerves, conjured the hottest ball of fire he could both muster and stand. There floating between the two men it floated, blazing like a miniature sun, the heat visible as waves radiating outwads.

                "Now watch." Shadoren's eyes and hands started to gently glow with a light green sheen, his lips moving slightly, as if whispering to some unknown force. Slowly his voice grew louder, until it could be heard, "Reth. K von von. Ko ta k reth. Kranu ra brom kel'shae." over and over. As his words grew, so did the greenish sheen in the draenei's eyes and on his hands.

                After what seemed like forever to the mage, though it had been perhaps a minute, the words stopped and the green sheen in the large blue man's eyes and over his hands turned into a fiery red. As he looked at the conjured ball of fire floating in the middle of the room he smiles. Slowly, as though it were some undulating creature the fireball grew. Not in size, but in intensity and heat, until it was almost unbearable to look at, and it was unbearable to be in the room.

                The mage, surprised by the amount of power being put into his fireball, realized he could no longer feel the arcane behind the fire. It was as though the elemental magic of the shaman had burnt the arcane away. And as bright and intense as the ball of fire was, it went out with barely a whisper, and there, where Shadoren had stood strong and proud a moment ago, was a man covered in sweat, down on one knee and panting.

                "Roath von." was all he seemed to be able to get out before looking at the mage with this look of, "Happy? Now you know the difference..."

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