Journal Seretha's Guide to Making Friends

[Seretha ibnat Rezhe]

If anyone reads this, I must make clear that we all have different abilities, different strengths and weaknesses. I can only truly speak from my own experience but I assure you that my experience is long, earned, and provided to you with the utmost of sincerity. Failure to follow any advice may lead to an earlier death and for that I will offer no sympathy; I've already offered you everything I can.

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358 Topaz 16

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You are in the desert.

You come across an abandoned wagon.

A wagon left to the sandstorm serves no purpose for anyone. It will likely save no lives and it certainly is not fulfilling its purpose in the world. Abandoned wagons exist as scrap which will eventually be lost to the sands forever. You can use it, I think most would agree.

What is the moral rightness of leaving it there to be destroyed by nature? What is the moral rightness of perhaps moving the sands yourself to cover it forever?

I don't think there is any. I don't concern myself much with moral rightness since one is always wrong to another but I do take issue when one insists that the moral path is to leave others to brave the sandstorm alone because you refused to right any wagons left behind by others.

If there is a need for a wagon, restoring a broken one is just as viable of an option as using a new one. The broken will never be the same maybe, never be as good, and perhaps it doesn't move properly or carry weight like it used to. But it is there, and a new wagon is not.

It is entirely up to you to put in the work to get it going again, of course. One does not simply leave behind a wagon forever while it remains in motion and still has the camel attached, so you do not have a previous owner to expend their strength instead of your own. If the owner did do such a thing though, abandoning a wagon in motion, then the situation is drastically more complicated and dangerous and perhaps one might consider not attempting to make use of this wagon. Can you even consider it abandoned at this point? If there are any other options, consider those first instead.

Perhaps you can speak to the previous owner, perhaps like me you cannot. Focus on the wagon stuck in the sand for which no one has any further use. They are gone, you are certain, one way or another. These are the wagons you can most safely rebuild for your own purposes.

Remember that wagons do not need a spark of elfen life nor anything akin to it. A dune shifts because of the wind, not because an intelligence is acting within it. It needs power and the sands get that from gods of nature without any need for worship. Consider this when rebuilding the wagon. If you harness the energies around the wagon to get it moving again, you put less of yourself into it. Remember too that base animals are what draw them best, and the toll taken on an animal is worth consideration yes but is ultimately the better creature over yourself or others like you.

A note, because I have met other wagon reclaimers: if you put too much of yourself into salvaging the wagon, you may fall beneath its wheels and be crushed. If you do not attempt to put anything into the wagon reclamation, and it somehow happens anyway, then be wary of what is around you that made it work. You may owe somebody a great debt and not everybody is polite about being owed.

If you've ever owed someone of potential power over you, then perhaps you know what it is like to be pursued for repayment or perhaps even be indentured to them and forced to do their will. This is not a situation anybody would want to be in, so don't end up there. And remember that if you commit acts that others deplore in service of your master, it is most likely that you will pay with your life and your master will not.

Remember:

No debts.

No masters.

 

[Seretha ibnat Rezhe]

If anyone reads this, I must make clear that we all have different abilities, different strengths and weaknesses. I can only truly speak from my own experience but I assure you that my experience is long, earned, and provided to you with the utmost of sincerity. Failure to follow any advice may lead to an earlier death and for that I will offer no sympathy; I've already offered you everything I can.

---

359 Diamant 2

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Let's say you run a caravan route between Vel Anir, Annuakat, and Elbion. Your work can surely make you wealthy and wealth is power. That's all well and good.

However, you must be careful how to run this caravan. A caravan master well-versed in trade may certainly be extremely talented but she may also have some shortcomings. What if she lacks the foresight to see the consequences of her own actions beyond pure coin?

If you were this person you might decide to attempt to shackle your wagon drivers to their wagons. That alone might be trouble enough, but say you also went the extra step and you forcibly drafted these drivers into your service before shackling them to their wagons. What do you suppose the eventual outcome of this will be?

You might think you're safe because those shackles are of the highest quality. You inspected them yourself, perhaps you even made them with your own two talented hands. Perhaps you even make sure they're well-fed and watered so they have nothing to complain about. No matter what you do, though, the fact will remain that you have taken their lives as your property and no matter how well you treat your property they will know that is all they are. They will want out eventually.

It is better not to resist them in this. Contracts exist for a reason, so maybe you consider that instead of shackling their bodies, you instead build fetters of the mind and spirit. You manacle them before the gods and the law of the people. Slaves are not happy with their lot, but those serving you for a discrete period of time can be, especially if well-treated to their expectations. Meet their expectations (if you hire your workers carefully, you can keep this low) and tell them it is only for six months or a year and after that they may leave your wagons behind forever. They may then choose to just wait this out, and you should remain safe as caravan master.

Of course, better still would be to eliminate the risk of uprising at all. Why hire employees when your workers can be base animals? You train the camel to pull the wagon, to move and stop on command, and other simple actions. You specialize it toward the single task you're using it for, and it will efficiently carry out that task with little issue. You needn't a spark of higher life for accomplish this, and indeed that spark may be counterproductive in the end.

Consider your workers - your animals - like tools. A carpenter does not need a saw which also functions as an adz and as a hammer. Those three tools separately will be far more effective in their assigned tasks than any attempted combination of all three of them, and the use of any of them will cost the carpenter less of her time and energy. Moreover, consider how easily she might harm herself with the saw while attempting to hammer the nail. If she were careless, she might injure herself with the single hammer but that is far less likely and it is far more predictable in its outcome.

So too do you not need a camel which can both pull a cart and also fight a battle. The Abtati keep these separate, fighting from horseback whenever possible. That is the wisdom of the sands and just as applicable in other aspects of life. A camel with its single task is more focused, more efficient, and easier to replace when inevitably lost.

The best part of an animal, though? You can lie to it and it won't care. A living, breathing worker may take great issue with it especially if the lie harms them. But a creature that cannot truly think is immune to this concept.

Remember: a tool does not need intelligence to function at its best in its intended task.

 

[Seretha ibnat Rezhe]

If anyone reads this, I must make clear that we all have different abilities, different strengths and weaknesses. I can only truly speak from my own experience but I assure you that my experience is long, earned, and provided to you with the utmost of sincerity. Failure to follow any advice may lead to an earlier death and for that I will offer no sympathy; I've already offered you everything I can.

---

359 Safir 28

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This is a more specific kind wisdom, and I don't think contains any great universal truths. No scholars will ever quote me unless business becomes a scholarly pursuit, which frankly seems ridiculous to me.

However.

Running a business is difficult and maintaining a customer base can be trying, especially if you either have a lot of competition or your market is just that small. I mostly deal in small markets with my business, selling magic wares at a premium. What I've discovered is that most buyers have no idea what they're actually dealing with and it is very simple to confuse them into accepting something they would never consider for the everyday good.

For example, say they buy a horse. Now they have a horse and yes they do have to feed it and stable it, basic maintenance, but otherwise their cost to you is final. You the horsemonger are now out of their lives unless they need to expand their herd or something happens to the horse.

Ideally, of course, they will expand their herd endlessly, but few are that rich and those that are may just end up getting into horsebreeding themselves. So how you do obtain further business from these lowly farmers and others of the peasant classes?

If you can convince them that it is perfectly normal to sell a horse that will only work for them for one year before reverting back to its previous state, then you can sell them the same horse every year. If they have no access to trusted horsemongers who may break that illusion, then they have no other option. Their ignorance on the subject is your strength here.

Don't succumb to mindless greed, however. If you are needlessly tyrannical in your policy then you may end up bleeding them dry in the short term, ending that business relationship forever, if you could even start it to begin with. A more guaranteed revenue stream over many years, even decades, is always the better approach unless you expect to be dead sooner rather than later. But then if you do expect that, what need have you truly of the extra coin? Indeed, your expectations may just end up self-fulfilling one day when you return to renew their lease.

Remember: no one likes the uncaring taxman.

That man gets strung up by an angry mob eventually if he's not careful.

 

[Seretha ibnat Rezhe]

I've lost some of my older pages which I'd preserved, and one in particular I saved part of from the fire. I'll try to transcribe what I can here along with notes.

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319 Akvamarin 4 [359: I was at most 15 at the time]

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Something in me is broken I think. I don't have any trouble making [new tools] but when I try to see their [innate being] there's just [...] lines of light like blue fire reaching out from [the raw material] out into nothingness. Baba says I should stop trying because my eyes dim like [never you mind what like] and it scares him and the tribe to see it.

[359: This is still a problem that I have to this day. I... think I'm still broken but I've learned to deal with it. The blue fire remains, trailing off into nothingness. It is warm to the touch but still spectral. I can interact with it somewhat, largely passing my hand through it which seems to have short ill-effects on the raw material if it hasn't entirely settled yet.]

[359: I know there's a material which would accommodate me in this but it's said to be quite dangerous if I could find such a thing at all.]

Do other [blacksmiths] do this? Can they see the [innate being of the hammer and saw] by themselves? I want to see them. I want to talk to them. What do they have to say?

[359: They have nothing worth saying, little Sere. Raw materials are raw materials and nothing more. If the line is thin then sever it permanently and move on. ]

The blue light hurts my eyes but they're not like my real eyes. They're some sort of [extra] eyes almost. I can't look at it for very long. [Yes, that never goes away, child.] I almost feel like it's calling to me though. Like if I just try a little harder I could see what's at the end of it. It's a rope tying [two things] together and ropes can be pulled if you need to bring something closer. So why not this? Maybe I can find a way to hold the line and draw things back together.

[359: No, Sere, even if you could you don't want to. It's simply unwise. "Why?" Just listen to me you little idiot. Read my maxims, they'll save your life.]

Anyway they're making me try water divination again even though we know it won't work. The tribe needs people with the skill they say and that it's the best thing I could contribute but we know that's not true. I could commit to [blacksmithing] and we'd all be better off for it.

 

[Seretha ibnat Rezhe]

If anyone reads this, I must make clear that we all have different abilities, different strengths and weaknesses. I can only truly speak from my own experience but I assure you that my experience is long, earned, and provided to you with the utmost of sincerity. Failure to follow any advice may lead to an earlier death and for that I will offer no sympathy; I've already offered you everything I can.

---

359 Turkis 13

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Imagine that you are a healer, and very skilled in the healing arts and magics. You fix damage done to a being's form, perhaps even damage done to their innate selves. You are tasked with some of the most difficult cases your people know and you always succeed. You can, of course, do anything; you are practically god-like in this sense.

Of course, you know better than to let that go your head. That's how you've gotten this far in life to begin with. Being god-like in one matter is not like being god-like in all matters, and gods have more than the skill of one mortal. But over time, you push the envelope more and more. You heal entire armies on the battlefield, restoring their bodies and faculties and making them fresh again. They carry the day easily.

It's very simple to forget that you are just one person and that you have limits.

And so when you are approached by the king's advisor and asked to save the king's life, you of course go to him without delay. However, he is too far gone by the time you arrive.

Too far for someone else, maybe. You, however, are different; you are special. And so you look into the great world beyond, you find the king's fading spirit and thrust it back into its former shell.

Most who are aware of these things know this is likely to end in your death, but you survive. You of all people who ever done this have survived and the king has returned.

But, you notice, the king's spirit seems intent on severing its connection to his earthly vessel. The line grows so thin you could easily split it with, hypothetically, a fine piece of obsidian in the living realm, if only you knew where to look. He is dying, and will forever be dying no matter how many times you bring him back from the precipice or just over it.

So, there is a simple solution. So simple that anyone approaching your skill could do it.

You bind his soul to his vessel with unbreakable fetters. Neither time nor mortal injury can free it. Doubtless, this kills you. But that is not what this lesson is about.

What good has come of permanently binding the king's soul to his body? In what manner have you helped the world to become a better place? Perhaps the king is a good king and rules well, but all people have their limits and shortcomings, and some of them remain quiet while they feel risk of loss. This king no longer has that. He is now free to do as he pleases, and as he lives years, decades, and centuries more those pleasures becomes more and more erratic and perhaps even obscene, as he continually seeks new experiences and to drown out the pain of constant, unending loss and isolation.

Let me tell you here that you have wrought great evil in this act, regardless of the price you have paid for it. And that you cannot fix it because you have ceased to be means that your own soul is now damned to this fate.

You, in your essence, are now the second greatest evil the world has seen matched only by your own creation.

So, heed me on this. Even if you could grant a soul immortality within its vessel, even if you do so for the best example of a moral paragon you could find, eventually - and not that far into the future were I to guess - corruption will overtake it.

Remember:

A departed soul has departed.

That is where it deserves to be.

Whatever it leaves behind is of no further relevance to it.

 

[Seretha ibnat Rezhe]

If anyone reads this, I must make clear that we all have different abilities, different strengths and weaknesses. I can only truly speak from my own experience but I assure you that my experience is long, earned, and provided to you with the utmost of sincerity. Failure to follow any advice may lead to an earlier death and for that I will offer no sympathy; I've already offered you everything I can.

---

360 Diamant 24

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There are many truths to how the world, how various societies work. The most basic revolves around the order "do not murder." This is a basic social contract, and one that keeps most people safe. But what defines murder? This of course various from place to place and even between classes of people in singular locales.

Is it a soldier's job to commit murder? No, that kind of killing is exempted generally from violating the contract. Does an executioner commit murder? In the course of his duties, no, he is exempted from such judgments. Does the victim of a violent assault commit murder should she kill her attacker in defense of her life? Usually not the case by any who are not irrationally fanatical.

What about theft? Is it theft to take another's coin without their permission. Is the tax man then committing theft by doing his job? Is the merchant committing theft by calling in a loan? Of course, some will always say yes most typically because they feel themselves are above having to deal with such things, but they usually care not if this is inflicted upon others. Societies as a whole view this as reasonable and rational, in fact.

Then we come to magic. An ever-present natural force in our world, there are none who truly believe magic is by its nature criminal or evil. Those whose temples exist to suppress magical ability themselves make use of all kinds of magics. "The good magics," they may tell themselves, but they are magics all the same. There are no universal truths - everything is a gradient.

Properly applied, any magic can commit great pain, suffering, and violence all of which leading potentially to death on a massive scale. But no one in this world says that the control of water is evil because it is often used to drown people and sink ships. Fire magic is not evil because people burn to death.

But then, properly applied simple charismatic force of will can also destroy cities and kill thousands. And no one considers influential rhetoric to be evil in and of itself.

Nothing is, on its own, evil. Rational people know this, and you too should seek to be rational in your approach to your studies. Even irrational people know this, and most typically apply their two-sided view only when it benefits them. But selfishness, bigotry, and a desire to hate and cause harm are the closest that come to pure evil in this world - that is the thing to avoid, not whatever skills or abilities you might have or obtain.

A person is themselves at fault for the evil that they have wrought.

Their methods, their magics, their skills - those are simply tools, and a tool cannot be evil.

Remember:

A tool and the means of its creation have no morality one way or another.

 

[Seretha ibnat Rezhe]

If anyone reads this, I must make clear that we all have different abilities, different strengths and weaknesses. I can only truly speak from my own experience but I assure you that my experience is long, earned, and provided to you with the utmost of sincerity. Failure to follow any advice may lead to an earlier death and for that I will offer no sympathy; I've already offered you everything I can.

---

360 Akvamarin 5

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If you are not planning on killing, then there is no reason to raise an army. The very fact that you have an army far larger than you would ever need to merely defend yourself speaks volumes about your desire to dominate. That is the reason, after all, that Vel Anir maintains a state of martial tyranny over its population.

Every soldier that you have is a threat to others, a promise of harm either now or in the future. But not all people need to be soldiers. Most societies operate under the assumption that soldiers are amongst the least important roles, to the point where in many places they do not exist as the sole profession of nearly anybody. People are more often farmers, carpenters, and smiths and none of society would be possible without them.

But in a world where Vel Anir and states like it are well known for their fight-first approach to life, why do we not assume that all states are and must be like this? We have clear examples that we can point out; that is what states do. They conquer, they kill, they destroy.

Sometimes, one might say, but that is not the way things always have to be. Indeed, maybe if it wasn't for others being threats to a state, then perhaps the state could simply practice its politics and civics and be left to its own devices.

Consider, then, that the very act of villifying a state and assuming its goal is to harm is what creates the villain state and causes it to harm.

 

[Seretha ibnat Rezhe]

If anyone reads this, I must make clear that we all have different abilities, different strengths and weaknesses. I can only truly speak from my own experience but I assure you that my experience is long, earned, and provided to you with the utmost of sincerity. Failure to follow any advice may lead to an earlier death and for that I will offer no sympathy; I've already offered you everything I can.

---

360 Rubin 26

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I am a scholar of history, though I have no connection to any college of note. Those who do work for the colleges and universities and libraries may go all over the world investigating stone relief, magical artifacts, and the mummified remains of ancient kings from a bygone age. It is, of course, a normal thing for them to do. They may find a tomb and delve deep into it, retrieving items of note and perhaps withdrawing from its very center the hosted lord.

So this is graverobbing, correct? They would say no, of course. It is for the sake of knowledge, not profit, and besides how can a lauded historian and archivist of the great races of the last age be wrong to pursue knowledge?

Indeed, yes, we have now determined that breaking into the place where a former person's remains lay is acceptable under some circumstances. We have now determined that using what we find there for the benefit of our knowledge and the greater good is acceptable.

Our most prestigious institutions of magical and mundane learning have decided: if you have a really good reason, you can use whatever you find in a place of burial for your own purposes.

Remember: ethics are relative.

 

[Seretha ibnat Rezhe]

If anyone reads this, I must make clear that we all have different abilities, different strengths and weaknesses. I can only truly speak from my own experience but I assure you that my experience is long, earned, and provided to you with the utmost of sincerity. Failure to follow any advice may lead to an earlier death and for that I will offer no sympathy; I've already offered you everything I can.

---

362 Safir 17

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You hear in many circles either mutterings or loud public pronouncements regarding the "sanctity of life" and those who "disrespect" it, who befoul it. Who, though, is responsible for sanctifying life? From which divine authority is this holiness derived? Is it specific to a certain god or religion? No, it couldn't be - the idea is far too widespread to be a mandate from any particular heaven.

Is it, then, a natural force? Is life sacred, bestowed with inviolability, by the very power of nature and the world itself?

Well, we know it not to be inviolable. Such circles speak of profanation and corruption of life regularly, especially in regards to certain practices.

So what violates the so-called sanctity of life? Many would say the undead certainly do. In fact there are libraries and temples full of warnings regarding the undead and their very existence being disrespectful of life. But what of murder? Are murderers disrespecters of life? Are soldiers, when they kill and pillage and raze entire cities to the ground?

You are a predator. Is life no longer sacred because you do not recognize it? Because the concept means nothing to you? Are you free to kill and eat what - and who - you will because you have no care for what this sanctity of life thing even is? Is the key releasing you from this moral prison the fact that you are not intelligent enough to understand? Or simply that you do not?

You are lost in the wilderness, lacking in food and water. You will die soon. One of your party has already fallen. Are you disrespecting life by choosing to eat of your companion's flesh and drink of his blood to keep yourself and your party alive? Or are you violating it by purposefully, knowingly, discarding your own lives by wasting away when you could have saved yourselves? Is there no moral course of action here and you are now damned either way?

You are an herbalist and a researcher of nature and life. You breed plants to bring out their best traits, and are as such forcing your will onto the nature. By so doing, you may save many lives. Are you befouling life by defying the natural order of things? Or is this the pinnacle of respect such that those who have no desire to do the same are themselves faulty, perhaps not themselves entirely immoral but certainly not on the right and just side of things either?

Where is the line? I would posit not that it is arbitrary, but that it doesn't exist. Life is not by itself sacred. The entire world and all societies have settled this, regardless of what certain pious peoples like to proclaim. Life is only to be respected when it is convenient, when it does not get in the way of their goals. Those so-called holy people merely want control, they want power, and that is it. They have no care for life and will destroy it whenever it suits their ends. Their claims otherwise are a facade, a mask, merely fine drapery to hide the fact that they are hollow and empty shells of people. Else they are peons easily manipulated by such people.

Life is indeed precious. Existence is valuable. I would not, however, claim any universal truth regarding life being worthy of holding up high above all things - we, the people of the world, destroy the pillars beneath it regularly enough after all. But life brings riches and so it is to be cherished.

But value is not holiness. We do not worship diamonds and gold.

 

[Seretha ibnat Rezhe]

If anyone reads this, I must make clear that we all have different abilities, different strengths and weaknesses. I can only truly speak from my own experience but I assure you that my experience is long, earned, and provided to you with the utmost of sincerity. Failure to follow any advice may lead to an earlier death and for that I will offer no sympathy; I've already offered you everything I can.

---

362 Turkis 8

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I met with another toolmaker today, prearranged last week. The details from that entry are... probably not worth keeping. Suffice to say that they were eager to meet with a toolmaker of similar skill and who was not in competition with them. As I always say, making tools need not be a battle between artisans nor with moral authorities, even if the latter insists upon it.

This artisan owned a castle, though I suspect he wasn't the original owner. It was not quite decrepit but certainly not well-kept. This master of art had turned much too far inward, developing an obsession with our shared craft. Truth be told, I found him to be unstable and wretched, and yet he maintained some potential value to my future.

It did not, however, take long for it to become clear that his only true interest was in tools of war. This included deception on his part to lure me into his workshop when I would have otherwise rejected any overtures. This was not a meeting about my projects but solely one of his. His were the kind which might bring the ire of those moral authorities.

Blinded by his schemes and a clear assumption that his path was the only reasonable path with the creation of tools, he was much invested in convincing me to his way of thinking. He wouldn't listen to a single argument I had to offer. He eventually grew angry, and attempted to sway me with force of arms.

In any event, my stock of artifacts has been refreshed and I should spend some time in the trade. There is also an abandoned castle near the river Savye. It is much too far from any stone for my liking, though perhaps it is not for someone else. A treasury lies there still: the gold was too heavy for my horse.

I suppose I normally end these with some kind of wisdom. Nothing quippy comes to mind, though. Does "do not raise a colleague's hopes and then dash them" work?