[Mkguild] Two for the Price of One. Part 1 of 4

[Kamau]

Thanks for the input Kit. I'll try to flesh out the part of the story 
more before it goes to the archive as I seem to have missed the mark on 
drawing out certain elements.

Rorlyn is not exactly a rookie mage any more then Jessica was when 
Wessex made her a journeyman.  He is a rookie at being a mage in battle, 
this is true, but in his travels he has defended himself with these 
spells before.  He has also poured over his Master's books for a year 
and a half in a kind of self study that other apprentice mages wouldn't 
have gotten.  In this self study he has also embellished the spells some 
and unknowingly strengthen them.  This is what makes him as powerful as 
he appears.  It is because of this accidental enhancement that he has 
the ability to tap into an additional magic source, something he himself 
does not know he is doing (but will begin to discover later).  That is 
what Master Jesse picks up on when he examine Rorlyn's work in the battle.

His barter or discernment spell is a kind of a lie detector.  Just as a 
good merchant or card player could read the face and body language of an 
opponent so this spell can detect the truthfulness of someone in trade 
or while playing cards.  Thus in his transactions, such as the barter 
for the horses, Rorlyn asks questions or makes statements that will 
invoke a verbal or none verbal response that the spell can read.  From 
this he gets the feel of whether or not the person is being truthful. 
He does come to the Keep with an awareness of the true worth of items 
and this spell only increases his ability to maximize his trade.

His comment to George about being a better merchant then a mage is only 
to try and avoid being sent on patrol and not a statement of his true 
abilities.

Given this information above where would you see this being brought out 
more fully in the story?

Kamau

Kit wrote:
> I like the premise of this story, and I'm actually kind of surprised 
> that more people don't do what you've done to avoid the curse. My only 
> real complaint is that for a rookie mage, this guy seems a lot more 
> powerful than he should be. However this is something just about every 
> person with a mage character is prone to and believe me, I've seen MUCH 
> worse. As such I will only point out the one thing that bothered me 
> most. His barter spell... how does that work? Because the way I 
> understand it, it would require an insane amount of inputted information 
> to know the current going price of any given commodity not to mention 
> any variables to account for condition, quality, and local rates. In 
> order to input that information you'd essentially need to know it anyway 
> and your character is professed to be a better merchant than mage. Why 
> don't you just have him more price savy instead of relying on such a 
> complicated spell? Not only is this less ridiculous and unbelievable, 
> but it seems to fit in more with his character as well.
> 
> Kit
>