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A crazy thought occurred to me while re-reading this last chapter... Could David & Joe have gotten away from the weres if David had morphed Joe into a statue, stored it in his CR, and escaped into Haven?
And the corollary to that: Can someone who's been seriously injured be morphed into an inanimate object as a "sustaining" mechanism? to keep their condition from deteriorating either while being transported to more advanced healing facilites, or to give healers more time to develop/prepare a cure?
(posted from Chapter 12: May)
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As David had to concentrate to turn Professor Phillips into a juvenile dragon during his exam, I would probably surmise that changing Joe into a statue small enough and to quickly put into his CR would not be something he would risk in the middle of a highly stressful chase, and David going into Haven would be disobeying orders; or at least I think it would.
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As it relates to disobeying orders, changing Joe into something that was incapable of witnessing what was going on would be a violation... though I think it would be overlooked in the interest of getting troops home safely. You'll recall that David was ordered to take Joe "with him". Being inside his CR, "unconscious" probably does not constitute "with him" for purposes of his orders. Traveling through Haven would not, by itself, violate David's orders, except insofar as Joe could not accompany him.
The problem is, as surmised, that David is not a good enough morpher to pull this off under duress. The statue could have remained "life size" and still fit in his CR, but this is not an easy morph to do: consider how nervous he was doing it to Jailla the first time, and Jailla is a bird, which is a slightly simpler form of animal than a mammal.
As to using morphing to sustain someone until help can arrive, or medical treatment can be implemented: if we're going that far, why couldn't you just use morphing to heal them back to their original form? The answer has to be simply that you can't because it doesn't work. Something about a person being injured must prevent either of these techniques from working, otherwise no one would ever die from injury, so long as they were in the presence of someone who could morph. Can I give you a "physics reason" that it doesn't work? No. I'm just stating in my "it's my universe, so I'm God" way that it doesn't.
Eric Storm
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Eric Storm wrote:
Can I give you a "physics reason" that it doesn't work? No. I'm just stating in my "it's my universe, so I'm God" way that it doesn't.
Eric Storm
If you're looking for a "physics-ish" reason, one that occurred to me while I was trying to think this through was: It's the "nature" of magic that "life forces" and "living processes" continue at their natural rate, regardless of their physical form... You can't morph someone into an inanimate object for 300 years, and then "unmorph" them, and expect other than that they've continued to age... They would "unmorph" as a pile of dusty bones... Same for injury and illness... The natural processes would continue, despite the physical form magic allows the being to take...
...or something like that...
Feel free to disregard any of that if it doesn't fit into your God's View... rofl
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Sounds logical-ish enough to me...
Eric Storm
PS: Though I think a demorphed 300-year-old body would be just that: a corpse, not a pile of dust. Reason: Decay requires the onset of new processes that aren't in existence at the time of morphing. (New bacteria, insects, etc.)
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One way to have avoided the outcome of that battle would have been Gelert Potion and THEN morph Joe into a statue.
However, David didn't have that potion, and he would have still had the stress of being comfortable with the morph to contend with.
A secondary issue is that David COULDN'T simply fade into Haven to escape pursuit as the weres would then know that their encampment was compromised.
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Even more importantly, they would have known that David was a demighost, and as he was operating for the Callamandian military, they would know that the opposition had a demighost operative, they would take the necessary precautions, and David's usefulness would be ended.
Eric Storm
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When will you post the next chapter?
(posted from the Item Information Page)
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Eventually.*
Eric Storm
* "Eventually" and the apathy tone are (SM) Servicemarks of Black Rose. Used with permission.
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Just wanted to drop a quick note, Eric. Absolutely LOVE the Woodward Academy stories!!! I can hardly wait to see what comes next! Really, really, REALLY good tale!!!
(posted from the Item Information Page)
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Glad you're enjoying it. Thanks for the kind words.
Eric Storm
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Once again fabulous work. I can not wait for the whole chapter to be released.
(posted from Chapter 7: December)
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... This comment confuses me. I get that you might have accidentally said "chapter" instead of "story", but you posted this comment from December, which is a PRM chapter, currently. If you have access to December, you already have the ability to read the entire book, so...
Huh???
Eric Storm
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I apologize for the confusion, I was not aware that the PRM was a full chapter. I was under the impression that PRM was just a preview of the chapter, not the actual chapter. So if I was wrong then I should have said I can't wait for the next year of the story to be released.
Last edited by Soulless0311 (2018-08-13 02:30:56)
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*squints eyes* Ow....
Okay, so, you've read 6 chapters of PRM material...
...
And you thought something was missing?
Eric Storm
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Wouldn't Joe become a demi ghost as he is the first person to die in David's presence and isn't that how they come about.
(posted from the Item Information Page)
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No calin225, assuming I recall correctly, demighosts are created via curses. David became one because of an extra effect of the curse that imprisoned Jacob. Had Dailey managed to complete the spells that would have imprisoned David then yes, the first person to die in his presence would have become a demighost.
All of this is assuming I remember correctly, my brain has been fairly jumbled of late
I am sure that others will correct me if I am mistaken.
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Even a broken clock is right twice a day* as they say...
Desgi is correct. David's transformation was due to the curse on Jacob. That curse was not successfully applied to David, thus Joe died normally like anyone else.
Eric Storm
* This aphorism refers to an ANALOG clock. If you're too young to know what an analog clock is, first, FUCK YOU! and second, look it up.
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I think I remember those things. That's the one where you use the position of the sun and a shadow to tell what time it was, right?
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That is a sundial, you whipper-snapper!
*grumbles* Young punks think they're so fuckin' funny....
Eric Storm
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.... And stay off his grass!!!!
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I noticed that, when David entered the Potions Guild, he entered as a Master "Second Class." But, when he petitioned for advancement, he was introduced as "Master, Level 2." Are those intended to be synonymous? or is one a typo that you'd eventually like to get edited/corrected?
Also, I noticed that, in most guilds, "Level 1" is ranked "higher" than "Level 2," except for Conjuring... There, "Level 1" seems to represent the lowest rank of mastery. Do you think you'd like to resolve that inconsistency somehow? or do you consider that "inconsequential" enough that it will likely remain as written?
In case I've never mentioned it before: I really do love your writing!! Thanks for all the work you put in to make your stories available.
(posted from Chapter 1: June)
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shadowlord wrote:
I noticed that, when David entered the Potions Guild, he entered as a Master "Second Class." But, when he petitioned for advancement, he was introduced as "Master, Level 2." Are those intended to be synonymous? or is one a typo that you'd eventually like to get edited/corrected?
*shrugs* I'm not terribly concerned about it. I'm sure I'll "fix" it at some point.
Also, I noticed that, in most guilds, "Level 1" is ranked "higher" than "Level 2," except for Conjuring... There, "Level 1" seems to represent the lowest rank of mastery. Do you think you'd like to resolve that inconsistency somehow? or do you consider that "inconsequential" enough that it will likely remain as written?
I consider this neither inconsistent, nor inconsequential. I consider this "realism". The guilds are not controlled by the same group of people, nor is there any set of laws governing the terminology. As a real-world example, a 1st Lieutenant is higher-ranked than a 2nd Lieutenant, but a GS-1 is a lower-level government employee than a GS-2. This is simply the way life actually works: different scales often move in different directions. The Conjuring and divination trades have chosen an ascending scale, while the others have chosen a descending scale. *shrugs* That's life. The decision was entirely intentional on my part.
In case I've never mentioned it before: I really do love your writing!! Thanks for all the work you put in to make your stories available.
Glad you 're enjoying the stories.
Eric Storm
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Thanks. I've really enjoyed the series. When will there be more!?
(posted from Chapter 12: May)
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Go visit my writing status thread for the answer to this and other Storm-related questions.
Eric Storm
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