Hjolnai

Third eye of a two-tongued lizard, seven candles of eldritch theme. Then seek a red-haired wizard for a spellwrought parchment ream. Three times draw Savador's rune in beeswax with orange dye. Scrape the floor with a bent spoon and neglect not a touch of lye. When the ritual is done the spell shall fade with touch of sun. This rhyme was found in a half-rotted tome hidden in a hollow flagstone, in one of the underground sections of the Keep. Sadly, Savador's rune could not be found within, as the page so titled was almost unrecognisable. The "third eye of a two-tongued lizard" is undoubtedly the most difficult other component to find; while some lizard species have a third eye with poorer function than the first two, I know of none which naturally have two tongues as well.

With the scrape of stone, the final block was replaced. It was clumsily made, for work in steel does not immediately lead to perfect masonry, but still much better than the half-disintegrated block which had just been removed. Taking a step back to review his work, Ordolar saw that already the first stones he had made were beginning to crumble. Looking around, he saw the whole room was in worse shape still. He had been so intent on repairing the first wall that he had not noticed the disrepair of the Keep as a whole in all the weeks of work it had taken. Now it was clear; this was a fool's task, and the rot could only be treated at its source. Ordolar turned, made his way back to his forge, and put on his armour.

The rain had been bitterly cold, and she found herself warming her feet in a bucket of hot water mixed with lemon balm. The balm had been a gift she did not know what to do with, left on her doorstep by who knew who. It might almost have been flattering to have a secret admirer if it weren't so worrying; all the more so because it was a complication she did not need so soon after the stress of travel, preparation and presentation at the recent astrophysics conference. Discarding the thought, she turned her mind to simpler, happier days of bright sunlight and idle chatter. Orange, drinkbottle, thorough.

Corid cleared the rise which had hidden the roof, and found that his first view had been deceiving. Before him stood a large clearing, with a broad palisade spread ahead of him. The roof he had seen was clearly larger than a peasant's house, and was perhaps a hall or church, on a hill just ahead where it was raised into view. Knowing he would soon be seen, Corid mounted his horse - best to make the strongest impression he could, and show no fear. He could see no gate straight ahead, but he saw only a small section of the walls from his viewpoint. The ground was also firm and clear enough to safely ride, which he proceeded to do. Reaching the wall, Corid found the ground was mostly smooth around it. Passing along this flatter ground, he made his way to the left, quickly coming to a large door. Raising his voice, he called to the guard watching from above, who gripped a spear with obvious nervousness. "Hail, good fellow, will you not open your gates for a knight on a quest of honour?"

As afternoon passed into evening, Corid saw a plume of smoke ahead. It brought a touch of fear - most of the people in the mountains would be dangerous, perhaps bandits, perhaps merely hunters wary of strangers, but all ready for violence. While Corid was as well trained as a young knight could expect to be, and armoured beyond what mere bandits could afford, numbers could easily overwhelm any warrior alone - if they were willing to accept some deaths in return. Still, he had no choice in his current desperation. Passing the few thin flows which formed the source of the stream, Corid made his way toward the smoke. The ground flattened out, and he saw a thatched roof coming into sight. Perhaps it was the home of a mere hermit, willing to offer a meal and place of rest to travellers. Corid shook his head. No, with his luck it was more likely a witch, waiting to lure and kill unwary travellers.

Choosing two mountains to pass between, Corid found his path more difficult than he had expected. It was too steep for his horse to walk straight up whether he led it or rode, and the slope would have been difficult even on his own. He was forced to seek flatter paths, passing from side to side more often than moving further North. He soon removed his armour - the cold was passing, and he tired quickly while carrying the weight. His horse could bear the burden more easily, perhaps. Eventually, after some hours, he found a stream which had mostly flat ground alongside it. It was still difficult going - mud covered the banks of the rain-swelled stream, and tributaries blocked the path with some regularity. The tough vegetation held the ground together, but made passage even more difficult. Corid found himself drawing his sword more than once to cut a path, and it was rare when enough overhead space opened for him to mount up and rest as his horse forged on. With the noon past, Corid almost felt he was beginning to enjoy himself despite everything. The sunlight brought vibrance to the green hills, and the stream was pleasant enough as it shrank on the upstream route. If he pushed away his hunger, and forgot for a moment his desperate state, it almost could have been one of the times he had travelled to some of the family's more isolated holdings with his father, Sodryn, Lord Steelblood, whose title had fallen to Corid... but that memory also was quickly pushed away.

Well, exams are coming up at the moment, but maybe after that I'll have time to write more. I wouldn't expect many pages worth of writing though...

The dawn was frigid, so cold that the mud was frozen solid. Beneath the layers of thick cloth needed for armour padding, and the windproof steel, Corid was not suffering badly even when soaked, but the cold brought other problems. While he could no longer risk travelling on the road, larger groups of pursuers and trackers could make use of it and find him in the woods, where the advance scout must have failed. With no easy way to get far from the road, through dense forest or dangerously inhabited mountains, he was running out of options, out of time, out of food and out of resolve. Adding to the fear was the waiting - he had no food left for his horse, so he had to allow it to forage for itself. Using that time as best he could, he came to a decision - he would risk the mountains, and trust in the fact that he at least was not expected by the inhabitants.

In Corid's stiffened condition, every footfall of his horse brought another stab of pain. The sky grew cloudy as the day went on, and he knew the road would soon be deeper in mud than the lands around it, if the promise of the angry heavens was fulfilled. Still he continued Eastward, at as great a pace as he dared, for he knew that outriders would soon seek him. With the noon long past, Corid thought he could see someone riding quickly, in the distance behind him. Pushing his horse harder still, he continued onward until the storm finally broke. In the sudden, driving rain, he turned North from the road, hidden by walls of water from any pursuers behind. He dismounted and led his horse until he found a short cliff, where they sheltered under a shallow overhang; not the safest of places to hide, but at least cutting some of the wind and rain. Searching the saddlebags, he found some dried meat which he must have forgotten stashing before his failed coup led to the flight of the last day; it already seemed a far distant time, but he was glad of that past moment's thought which at least partially satisfied his hunger. The storm continued into the evening, and Corid removed his armour. He tried to keep it dry enough to help with rust, and was pleased to note that not all the beeswax protecting it had come off, but he knew it would not last if he was not careful with it. The greathelm, having stayed in a saddlebag, was no doubt safe, but the various other pieces could not be left wet for too long or they would easily rust. He was particularly worried about his gauntlets, which were expensive, intricate and difficult to clean, but he knew all his equipment could be at risk if he was unable to dry it, or in the longer term if he could. That last thought hit him - he had no idea how long he would be away from civilization. He could not go back home. He would have to wait, visiting villages perhaps, but no towns for some time, and he would have to be careful not to be recognised even then. His thoughts passing into misery matched by the outside world, he lay down and waited. Sleep was a long time in coming.

A number of good points here, showing that I made some mistakes and bringing up things I needed to consider. This should just be a short post, addressing some of what you brought up, mostly so that I'm still invested enough in the thread that it doesn't drop completely out of my awareness. Clearly, you're right about the rural population costs - if it contributes at all, it's probably not a significant factor in the difference in cost of living. You are making a mistake here - the GDP figures you're using are already based on purchasing power parity; that is to say, the difference in GDP is not extended by cost of living because that's already factored in (so "Add the fact that..." is inaccurate). With regard to taxation, that moves into another area of economic discussion which could go into just as much depth - how high should taxes be? The current situation suggests that US taxes are too low as a portion of GDP (I suspect that if you added up the cost of what either major party considers core, it would outweigh the current revenue at 15% - but I'll have to look into that more deeply and now probably isn't the best time for that). If the low taxes are not sustainable, then the short-term economic situation is artificially improved to long-term loss. This would mean that the cost of living in the US is lower than its sustainable value, because of the same flow-on effects through businesses that you mentioned. With regard to this: The problem with the Australian measure here is that it refers to events in 1994. I don't have the time right now to do research on it, but I've seen at least one chart ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gini_since_WWII.svg ) which suggests that something caused inequality to spike in Australia at around that time. Another consideration is that the bottom 20% of household incomes almost certainly includes a significant portion of retirees, the unemployed, and the underemployed (and as such it could mean that Australian low-income households have more free time, because they're working less for the same cut of GDP).The Gini coefficient numbers from your source are more recent: Australia: Distribution of family income - Gini index: 30.5 (2006) country comparison to the world: 115 35.2 (1994) US: Distribution of family income - Gini index: 45 (2007) country comparison to the world: 40 40.8 (1997) (Higher number means more inequality - at 0 everyone has the same income, at 100 one person has all the income). The Gini index is a measure across more demographics, which means that the bottom could still be about the same if the Australian middle class is relatively high-earning compared to the top earners. I may look into this possibility later. This suggests that incomes in Australia are significantly more equal, most likely at least partially as a result of the high minimum wage. Here you're suggesting that a lower population makes distribution of goods more cost effective. This is not the case - economies of scale apply even when the lower bound is Australia. If you're going to import a significant amount of goods to a country (a single cargo ship can potentially carry around 200 000 tonnes), it's better if the economy will absorb fifty and a half standardised shipping containers than five and a half (as in the first, you're spending around 1% of freight costs on empty space, whereas the second has nearly 10% lost). Warehousing to deal with this also costs money, and the shipping company itself will probably want relatively more money for smaller cargoes (as it costs them more to transport goods for 10 different companies than 2, in managing the loading of 10 sections of cargo and various other costs). Furthermore, a larger market means more room to expand if you are successful.At the moment, importing goods to Australia is very effective because of the high dollar. Buyers have to pay less local currency for the sellers to get the same amount of their currency. Furthermore, shipping from Asia is a much shorter distance, which also lowers costs, and I suspect costs are also lowered by the number of ships carrying iron ore outward which would otherwise come back empty (so the cost of carrying cargo back is less). We do have significant red tape there - customs for goods has to be strict to protect crops from introduced pests, and other goods do have to conform to some standards, I believe - but I suspect this would not be significantly more troublesome than for the US, and it may actually involve less red tape (but more taxes). In any case, the low cost of importing at current exchange rates would no doubt lower the cost of living if it were sustained - but in the short term companies will just take the extra profits, and more competition won't spring up to exploit this because the high dollar will not last, so it's too much of a risk (it won't be that long before the high iron ore price drops, and with it our dollar). A major factor in our cost of living which I should have addressed in more detail and emphasised more before: the cost of property. As I mentioned before, Australia is one of the most unaffordable countries in the world to buy houses in. This is itself due to a number of factors. The cost of land in our cities is very high, because the supply is controlled (keeping the green spaces open, and controlling the city's outward growth). The cost of construction workers is high, because trade contractors' wages are high (which is where the minimum wage comes in again - while they don't get paid minimum wage, it would factor significantly in how much they expect to be paid). In fact, despite their high price, houses in many places are cheaper than their replacement cost - it's much cheaper to buy than to build. Finally, after taking out a much larger loan to buy property, you also pay much higher interest rates (From your source, the CIA factbook: Australia: commercial bank prime lending rate 7.279% (31 December 2010 est.). US: 3.25% (31 December 2010 est.)). This all combines to mean that any real estate is extremely expensive to hold, whether buying or renting. That then puts tremendous costs on businesses; (non-researched example) I would estimate that a large supermarket would cost somewhere between 5 and 15 million dollars to build in central Sydney. At the above rate, a $10M building is costing $730k per year in interest alone (ignoring the fact that it could only really be up to 80% loan, 20% investment). Even if a building cost the same in New York or whatever other city in the US, the lower interest rate would drastically reduce the cost to $330k - saving $400 000 per year. If this does not outweigh the higher wage costs, it must at least come close to matching them. I might add more later, but that's it for now I think - I should probably get some sleep.

A minor correction: The employment-to-population ratios are actually closer than your numbers show. Australia has 11.4 million people employed ( http://www.abs.gov.a...@.nsf/mf/6202.0 ), while the US population is at 313 million ( http://en.wikipedia....ulation_density ). I can't find an updated number of US people employed, though, so the employment-population ratios may still be sufficiently different to make your point. With regard to your point about high minimum wages discouraging working toward higher positions, this is indeed a serious issue. With modern society requiring more and more skilled and specialised workers, and less unskilled workers, it is important to encourage people to work harder at school and aim for a degree. The problem of finding some incentive for people to become more educated when they can easily get by on minimum wage is a difficult one. However, a low minimum wage can also make it difficult to aim for higher education. In a family which does not have a high income earner, it is very difficult to support a student in a University (with the cost of expensive books, and possibly accommodation if the family doesn't live nearby, or transport if they do). With a high minimum wage, it is much easier for a full-time student to contribute to paying the costs of their education, and potentially even support themselves fully, without working so many hours that study is impractical. With a low minimum wage, low-income families cannot afford to educate their children enough to become high-income families. The rich stay rich, the middle class can become rich, but the lower income demographics have little chance to get out even in the long term. If there is a point for the minimum wage which both provides the money needed to seek higher education and provides incentive to aim higher, then that would be a very good way of choosing the minimum wage which should be set. However, I doubt that such a point exists. Two options exist to resolve this: We can take a low minimum wage, but offer enormous government support for University students, or we can take a high minimum wage and use other methods to encourage learning, such as building a social perception which supports it or makes long-term minimum wage employment less "accepted". If that's what it read like, then I didn't put it quite right. What I meant to say was that IF a business can gain from cutting back on quality, that business should already be doing so. Thus, a business which has not yet cut back on quality would probably fail if they did lower the quality of their products - if it was likely to succeed, they would already have done it. Say the government lowers the tax rate on car manufacturers by 10%. Is this not a subsidy? It's effectively increasing the amount they earn after tax, the same as if the government chose instead to give them $100 for each car sold (although the value of that subsidy would be different).A tax break like this is an effective subsidy on construction and engineering firms, among many others, because they don't lose anything by paying above minimum wage (because they already wouldn't). The other way of seeing it is a tax on service industries (and some others), because the majority of their workers are likely to be at the minimum wage, so either they pay more tax or they pay more wages. The other thing is that there are two possibilities for incentives like this: 1) the incentive is lower value than the benefits of not taking it, in which case it won't be taken, or 2) the incentive is of greater value than the costs of the higher wages, in which case you've effectively just increased the minimum wage anyway (for that business). There may be some benefit to the selection process, making some companies pay workers more while others don't need to, and a more carefully developed incentive (because legislation should be made a lot more rigorously than simple suggestions for a discussion like this) might choose the businesses which "should" pay more as those which will. However, I do not think that this is the most effective approach to take. This is an interesting point, probably the most important point to consider in a comparison between the countries when focusing on the issue of minimum wages.I would say that, yes, the higher minimum wage is responsible for part of the higher cost of living. However, there are a number of factors which I think are more significant. Firstly, the issue of population density. The US has a population density of 32 people per square kilometer, while Australia's is merely 3 people per square kilometre. It is a lot more expensive to distribute goods to customers who are further away from each other. Admittedly there are large areas of practically uninhabited land in Australia, but even discounting those areas, I would estimate there are only about 1/5 as many people in an area of Australia as there are in the US (cities excluded). But these people still need powerlines, water supplies, petrol stations, grocery stores, and all the infrastructure that entails. With less people using a structure costing almost the same amount (or much more in the case of roads, powerlines, water, etc, where the structure must stretch over a longer distance), they must pay more. However, Australia's rate of urbanisation is at 89%, so this cost only applies to supplies for 11% of the population. Possibly the most important factor is the cost of land (and structures on it). Sydney is "the third least affordable city... after Hong Kong and Vancouver" ( http://www.abc.net.a...ity-twt/3788114 ), with a median house price 9.2 times the median household income. The study linked above found that Australia was second as a country only to Hong Kong in this measure (the study looked at metropolitan areas only). Also, when the cost of property is high, this drives up the cost of most goods (probably much further than the high minimum wage does) - a shop worth $2 million is paying about $150 000 in interest each year (and in Sydney, that would be a very small shop, unlikely to have more than a couple of workers). In fact, I think there would be very few places paying minimum wage even at its high current rate in Sydney - no one could afford to live there on it, except in the Western suburbs (which are much cheaper than central Sydney). I suspect that the high cost of land in cities is the main contributor to Australia's high cost of living, while the high minimum wage is a relatively small contribution. It's also noteworthy that digital material is more costly here than the US despite the fact that the cost of supplying it is not that much higher. Right now, Steam has Skyrim for $90 US (about AUD$87), which I expect is significantly higher than the cost in the US. While Steam does have servers in Australia for that purpose, those servers would see just as much traffic (less servers, and Australia's density of gamers is high). Also, they do not need to be in cities, avoiding the higher land cost, and while internet costs are higher, it should not be by that much (or they couldn't make a profit on $5-$15 games). Perhaps the reason that the cost of some goods is so high, is because businesses can get away with it. Oh, and I missed a couple of things to mention: In Australia, our standard annual leave entitlement is 4 weeks per year (as a legal minimum, I think), and most businesses provide 10 days sick leave and 1-2 days compassionate leave; on top of that, most businesses choose to provide long service leave to encourage employees to stay long-term (at one week per 60 weeks worked, becoming available after 10-15 years - apparently 13 weeks after 15 years). ( http://www.workingin-australia.com/jobs/job-tools/annual-leave ). In addition, casual workers (who do not get paid leave) have a significantly higher minimum wage to counter the fact that they don't get leave.

Not having looked into either the philosophy or the physics dealing with time, I'm not too sure what to think about it (outside the fact that if it exists, it's more complicated than most people seem to think - with black holes and relativistic speeds distorting it significantly, it's quite difficult to deal with). However, there is a point here which I would like to address: The problem with this is, I can give the same argument for most objects. You cannot show me a brick. You can show several different representations - the sight, texture, weight, taste, smell (minimal), and the sound it makes when colliding with another brick, but all those sensations are actually electrical signals in the brain (which can be fooled in a number of ways, notably in holding the assumption that objects exist). All these meet our ideas of what a brick is, but in fact there is no such thing as a brick. On a small scale, there is a large set of atoms "connected" to each other, which sort of makes sense to count as a single object. On an even smaller scale, however, there is a probability cloud of electrons and a bunch of nuclei. At this scale it makes no sense to say that the subatomic particles classed as "brick" are any different from the adjacent ones classed as "dirt" or "air" - there are just areas where the probability of an electron being present are higher, increasing the tendency of some nuclei to stay close to each other. There are ways of looking even closer, but those go beyond my knowledge. To quote (yes, the source is fiction, fanfiction even, but it was specifically written to use real science - although it should be noted here that the science here is not "settled" completely): (Eliezer Yudkowsky, http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/28/Harry_Potter_and_the_Methods_of_Rationality - I highly recommend reading it, the normally poor reputation of fanfic is undeserved here) Thus, the number 1 has just as much existence as a brick does - both are concepts without exact reality.

Note: Extremely long post, more so than I expected when I wrote it. Sorry about this! This is an interesting approach, but I do have a concern with it: If the incentive is lower than the savings from keeping a lower wage, the company will stick to the lower wage. If, however, the incentive is higher than the saved wages, then the government is significantly subsidising businesses (with corresponding costs), including some businesses which only employ skilled workers anyway. There are, however, other ways to get around the problem of giving workers the chance for work experience and on-the-job training. In Australia, our minimum wage is quite high: Australia's minimum wage is $15.51 per hour or $589.30 per week. ( http://www.fairwork....es/default.aspx ). However, there are a number of ways in which first jobs and training are made less expensive for companies: If you are less than 21, the minimum wage is lower, on a gradient from $5.71 per hour for workers under 16 to $15.15 for workers at age 20. This provides most people with the opportunity to gain work experience for their resume and pick up necessary skills before the point where it becomes too expensive for companies to take the risk of hiring you. Apprentices have their hourly pay rates on a scale based on the year of their apprenticeships, from $9.93 in the first year to $17.16 (notably more than the normal minimum) in the fourth year. I don't particularly wish to delve into the trainee pay rates at the moment. These also provide a chance for people to get started in the work force and be trained without imposing potentially prohibitive costs on their employers. All this information is taken from National minimum wage, http://www.fairwork....es/default.aspx , the Australian Government Fair Work Ombudsman. Though these policies do create a subsidy, similarly to the incentivizing you suggested, it is more targetted at the specific issue of getting people into work, and does not provide any advantages to companies which would already pay well above minimum wage to most workers. Unfortunately, it doesn't provide the benefit to starting businesses which you suggested, but they can be addressed with other methods which don't involve paying workers less than they are considered to need. With regard to high wages leading to unemployment, this is a more difficult problem to address. I will note that Australia's unemployment rate is quite low (at 5.2% at the moment, with a high of 10.9% in 1992 for data starting in 1978 as per Australia Unemployment Rate, http://www.tradingec...employment-rate , Trading Economics), but the high minimum wage could have a substantial impact which is cancelled out by other large advantages enjoyed by Australia. To rule out this possibility would take a larger amount of research than I am planning to do at this point. If you assume that a low minimum wage is barely enough to get by without any luxuries, and a medium minimum wage also allows for basic luxuries such as renting more than the bare minimum of space, and having a television and maybe one or two other things not strictly needed, then a high minimum wage allows the earner to buy disproportionately more luxuries. The necessities like food and bedding have costs stabilised by the international market, although farms can operate competitively in Australia, so the high minimum wage doesn't necessarily raise the cost of these things. The extra income of minimum wage workers when the minimum is high is either a) spent on things which should have been available to people on a lower minimum wage, implying that that wage was really too low, or spent on things which are, essentially, luxuries. This means that any business which provides luxuries, like electronics, furniture beyond simple beds, clothing (providing more than two of each garment is basically a luxury, as it means washing doesn't have to be done as often - incidentally, this reduces long-term costs of washing on the poor), and in fact almost everything we consume, will have a larger market. With more customers who can afford to buy things from them, and less customers who may buy on credit and be unable to pay, profits rise, which means that at least some of the impacts of paying a high minimum wage are mitigated. Ideally, the rise in income would outstrip the costs of paying more wages, but this seems unlikely, because businesses are not actively lobbying for minimum wage increases. Another benefit is that workers with access to more money have the potential to eat more healthily (as this is sometimes more expensive than unhealthy diets). Workers with better nutrition should have more energy and be more attentive, increasing productivity. Businesses are still in competition with each other, so if one raises its prices more than needed to adjust (which will be less than the gains made by the workers), other businesses will out-compete it and it will lose sales. For businesses using substandard practice, with substandard materials or quality control, there are reasons that this doesn't work. A business is just as likely to use this to improve its profits from 8% of capital to 10% as they are from 6% to 8% (although doing so to offset a drop in profit would be more likely). If that approach works, it will be in place either way, or legislation will already be in place to stop it. If it doesn't, businesses which attempt it will fail. One area where Australian businesses have been adversely affected by the high minimum wage is in some sectors of manufacturing: "Manufacturing is one of the industries that is most exposed to competition from overseas firms. In general, given international wage relativities, Manufacturing firms in Australia will have the most difficulty competing in non-differentiated traded goods that rely on low-skilled, labour-intensive processes, and have less difficulty competing in processes that draw on high-skilled workers." (Manufacturing Industry Profile, http://www.fairpay.g...try_Profile.pdf , Troy Wheatley, Australian Fair Pay Commission Secretariat, March 2009) It is difficult for manufacturing industries dependent on large amounts of low-skilled labour to compete in Australia's market because they are competing with other countries where wages are lower. This is a problem that occurs for all first-world countries, however, because they cannot compete with the wages workers will accept in third-world countries. It is notable, however, that many third-world countries are reliant on this kind of production, and providing them with more market share makes it easier for them to lift themselves from poverty (if carefully managed). If these products are to be produced in a market with a high minimum wage, they mostly have to do something special to improve profitability - automation, minimising corporate overhead and developing brand loyalty can help, but it is a difficult position to compete in. If raising prices in the face of the global market were possible, then these are the products which would become more expensive - though not enough to erase the gains made by the workers. I believe that Australia is significantly better off because of the high minimum wage and that some other countries could benefit from the same strategy, but there are significant risks in increasing the minimum wage. A rapid transition could be very uncomfortable, with costs up front while the benefits lag behind, and many countries could not deal with the change. A more gradual transition is easier to deal with, but may still cause problems in some places. Also, it requires long-term political willpower, which is hard to manage. Disclaimer: My field of study has nothing to do with economics, so there could be some basic mistake I'm making, or my argument could otherwise be fundamentally flawed. Also, I haven't addressed the moral issues involved or examined a country with a low minimum wage, or even discussed how to measure whether a minimum wage is low or high (I think comparison to the average or mean wage is the most effective measure, but the key words there are "I think").

The sound of metal on metal rang through the depths of the Keep, a steady rhythm of hammer and anvil. Focused intently on his work, Sir Ordolar did not notice the much fainter sounds of scrabbling at the room's door. Banded with iron, closely fitted to the stone walls with solid hinges, it was a door which would have held out an army... if it had been locked and barred. Against a foe with no concept of door handles, it could withstand a great deal of punishment. Time passed, and the pounding ceased. Still, Ordolar was preoccupied, and did not notice the scrape of zombie hands on wood and iron. Passing into a deeper chamber, he ate and slept. Now three days have passed like this, and the door still holds strong. The routine cannot last long, though, for Ordolar will need more supplies soon, and has nearly completed his latest project in any case.

"Sald Ardil, you have made a mistake." The name of this particularly stern tutor eluded him, but that was of no importance. He had to consider the tutor's further words. "It is expected that such battles must be lost. You have taught three students false lessons, told them that numbers are meaningless, and all to demonstrate your pride." Sald unleashed a convincing facsimile of controlled rebellion, though he kept his tone civil. "By which you mean that I should not have shown my combat ability, of course. But I lost nothing; the top third of my peers could have managed it one time in two, and I have not hidden that I stand at least that high." In two sentences, his confidence in the approach collapsed. He had allowed himself to delve too far into pride for the answer. Now he had to hope he had broken nothing. "Your response indicates a lack of empathy. I am not pleased." The tutor turned away, and Sald silently considered the implications. Clearly, his prideful response would keep the administration guessing. It had not been such a weak approach after all. So long as he kept himself unknowable to them, he would continue to advance. Of course, the negativity of the conversation only meant that they wanted him to think of reasons for their apparent hostility, so he was still left uncertain... Seeing no permanent positive or negative answer to his position, Sald turned to new matters. No one event could be allowed to trap him in uncertainty if he was to advance to his peak.

I intended to write more, but I haven't yet worked up the willpower. With Uni semester nearing its end (and exams), the few occasions when I can defeat the forces of Procrastination are mostly reserved for work. This is not set in the same world as Shades of Grey, although there may be some similarities. This is in a more "standard" pseudo-medieval fantasy setting, so no mention of nuclear war, for example. Also, the basic rules of the setting will be different... if I manage to write far enough that it matters. Thanks for the feedback, both of you. I'll try to expand on the story soon.

The night grew cold, and the shouts and screams faded as the flames dropped from view. Corid rode on. His "political" ambitions broken, he would have to think first to survival, before any thought of vengeance could be attended to. He cursed the luck that had forced him to take the East road, for he could not turn South into the thick woods, and North lay mountains with a healthy populace of goblins and similar foes. Neither could he slip back around any pursuers, being a passable woodsman at best. No, he could only continue on, and if any bandits appeared, that would be no choice at all. Hours passed, and as the Moon rose, he saw no signs of pursuit. Tired, hungry and drained by anger, Corid slipped from the road and into the forest. He tied his horse to a tree, and slept in his armour, wrapped in a thick cloak. When he finally awoke, the Sun was high and his armour had left him almost immobile. It took him some time to prepare for another long day, and only the twin sparks of anger and fear let him move onward before more trouble could find him.

Congratulations on defeating the endless waves of bots (150 sounds like it must have been extremely time consuming and very painful. That's a lot of work to put in...). I just hope that the blacklisting of IPs doesn't come back to bite you, since IP addresses can be faked or shared. Shouldn't be a problem, though. Thanks for all the hard work you continue to put into the Pen.

Hello, Eyeoneblack, thanks for your feedback. Looking back over that sentence, I agree that it seems unwieldy. I'll think about how to revise it. To be honest, I haven't been going back over my work much. I hadn't actually considered the idea that talking about kinetic energy would be a problem... I guess it's more a part of my background and less a general language term than I thought. Perhaps I'll go on a tangent earlier in the story to cover similar terms.

Sald completed his spell. Ice formed on the grass across the area, save the line of his heat wall - there, the grass flared and blackened, leaving nothing but ash. He felt the bite of cold through his thick robes almost instantly, and sensed also a weakening of local magic. His head ached; in grasping external power he had burnt much of his personal strength, for a while. Such was the price of large-scale spells. Lynna's spell, whatever it had been, had failed as all the magical strength it relied on was pulled away. On the other side of the line, their opponents were faring little better; while their magic had not been drained as much due to the distance, they also lacked the experience of low magic environments. They were left struggling all the more as Anne's next defense spell was an attempt to emulate Sald's heat wall; it took more heat from the air around them, and they would risk frostbite soon. Either through panic or logic, Erean abandoned her spell, which Sald knew would likely have required energy and so lowered the temperature for the trio even further (it was typical to source the energy for chemical changes, motion or light spells from heat). Jasper's strike, a pulse through the ground, was reduced to triviality by the lack of magic to convert internal stresses to kinetic energy. In such unfamiliar conditions, the trio hesitated and lost precious seconds in considering new approaches. While Sald was still unsteady and drained, Lynna was left in a perfect position to take advantage of their indecision. Her next spell drew the little remaining heat from a patch of air and sent it around the (now almost glowing) wall of heat to icily waft over first Anne, then Jasper, finishing with Erean. They shivered, and a horn sounded. A potentially dangerous attack had landed, and the battle was over.

Thankyou for awarding me the amazing Mighty Pen T-shirt prize! I've sent you my details. Well done on the Halloween skin, by the way.

Magical combat was hard. Sald might have compared it to playing speed chess while solving complex problems in order to make each move, and being punched if the move was bad. Had he had time, he might. The moment's inattention to half-form the thought let wind through his defenses; he fell to the ground. Lynna saw and incanted briefly; five darts of light flew from her hands to hover in front of them. As Lynna cast her spell, their three opponents - Erean, Jasper and Anne, all much less experienced than Sald or Lynna - siezed their advantage. A dark-coloured globe, an invisible fist of air, and a flurry of ice shards came to meet the remaining defenses of the pair. Two light-darts neutralised the dark globe, and the other three flickered as they intercepted the air (Sald wondered how Lynna had known where to place them as he scrambled to his feet). The pair were struck by a half-dissipated gust, but Lynna's defense did nothing to counter the ice shards... which struck as rain. Sald recognised his earlier spell - a concentrated wall of heated air - which had countered fire as easily as ice, and lasted well, defying entropy as magic did. He looked up, saw Anne and Jasper casting defenses (he hoped, from what he could see and hear), and prepared to counter Erean's offensive. As his next spell conducted Erean's electrical attack to the ground, he wondered why Lynna had not taken the chance to gain the advantage in their personal plots, discarded the thought, saw Lynna's searing light spell reflected off a brief mirror (that had been Jasper's spell, though Anne's hovering earth shields might come into play soon) and prepared for the next move. This time Jasper joined Erean in taking the offensive, the switch a tactic which had worked in the past, and Sald fell into his own casting.

Some hours passed. Sunset approached as Sald plotted in his room. Time away from study could cost him dearly, but Sald knew that he could not concentrate until this was resolved. Finally, he was certain of his plan. The messages it would send would be complex; perhaps even Lynna's cunning could not decipher them... and Sald knew his intent was unclear even to himself. He gathered the necessary equipment; it was not difficult to find all he needed. He made his way along the corridor to the shadows at the end. Cloaked in darkness, he would not be easily seen, and he wore spells only to defeat detecting magic. With a clear view of Lynna's door, he watched as the shade deepened, and the common dining hall approached opening time. The short corridor saw only a few passing through it, but Lynna was among them. When it seemed no stragglers would see him, Sald walked unobtrusively to her door and incanted briefly. He produced three simple batteries, a mirror and a laptop, and with these and some complex spellcasting, he gained a full image of the wards protecting her room. With much greater simplicity but significant magical potency, he banished all the protections and observing spells in place. The batteries in his hand heated suddenly as he burnt their strength, forcing entropy. The magical reaction provided the power for his dispelling, and Sald felt ambient magic increase; an inevitable consequence of negating spells. He captured some of this for later use, and felt pride in his power; Lynna might not be alone in outweighing his cunning, but few students matched his capacity to shape magic. Unlocking the door with a whisper, Sald entered the room. He glanced around briefly; as he knew, Lynna kept her room almost as it was provided to her. A simple table by the bed, three bookshelves, a chest and a cupboard. After a cursory glance at the bookshelves, he realized nothing there would suit his plan. On top of the cupboard, however, there was a tiny wooden box. It clearly held something of importance, but he did not open it. That would be going too far. Instead, he drew a small gold bar from his pocket. Sald remained for only a short while longer, working magic. When he was done, he slipped out. He considered the next set of events, and imagined how they would play out. Lynna would return to find her wards intact. She would enter, catch the gleam of gold from atop her cupboard. Looking closer, she would find her box, now plated with gold, atop a note - "You know what this is for." Then she would inspect her wards, find the inconsistencies from their destruction and restoration. Sald was reminded once again that the politics of Eisund were entertainment as much as rivalry; this plot had been fun. It did not cross his mind that in other times and other places, his actions would have been seen as direly sinister; in Eisund, such subterfuge was the norm. With his plotting for the day done, Sald ate in his room and went back to his studies.

As Edris approached, Sald considered the greeting he would give. What with Edris' part in banning Sald from the caves, to speak too warmly would either seem forced or reveal his capacity to suppress emotion; such knowledge in the hands of other students could prove harmful. To fall short would risk being deemed a failure by Edris, thus harming his chances of success in future tests. Sald made his choice, and called, "Hello, Edris." As soon as he had spoken he mentally cursed the mistake. He had spoken while Edris was still too distant, and must have seemed a little desperate. Edris took a few more steps before replying. "Good day to you. I was wondering if you would be interested in a little chat about tactics. One of the library's discussion rooms should be just perfect." Sald was already nodding, and moved to follow Edris immediately. This was undoubtedly a test of sorts. Once the door was closed, a whispered spell and brief gesture unleashed an electromagnetic pulse; magical scrying was very difficult within Eisund, but electronic bugs could be placed by almost anyone. Edris appeared not to notice, though Sald knew he had. "Sald, I was just recently thinking about a hypothetical situation. A powerful country fifty kilometres to the South is on the brink of declaring war upon us. What would you suggest?" "Well, er, we should send some agents to manipulate public opinion away from war. Using fear to suggest that we are invincible should work." "Assume some Eisundar have defected to their side; they know their force is superior." "In that case, more drastic action is required. We should assassinate their entire clear line of succession, leaving a leaderless country which can be easily turned to civil war." Edris' expression was too blank to tell whether Sald was meeting success or failure in this test, undoubtedly key despite its casual appearance. Despite his swift replies, Sald felt more stress under Edris' gaze than in even the most difficult of magical tasks. It was this stress, from the constant uncertainty and merciless exploitation of weakness by other students, which had led to many students backing out to preserve their sanity, and more than one suicide in Sald's year. "Five candidates for their throne are serving in the military. Three manage to evade their assassins through their positions. There is now a clear line of one ruler and two successors, all with reason to hate Eisund. Direct military conflict is inevitable. War is declared." Clearly there was no intent to let the pressure off until defeat came; a test of endurance. "Manipulate the weather to delay attackers and destroy the enemy crops." "Enemy food is imported. They rely on mines for their wealth. Heavy snow gives you a month to act." "Send messages to buy up food in the countries which supply them." "They have enough stored for a year or more." "Poison their troops." "Even if you succeed, their missile operators and mages are most likely safe. They have more technological power but slightly less magic than us left." "No choice is left. Rapidly construct nuclear weapons and blast the enemy into oblivion." Edris nodded at Sald's final answer. Clearly some form of mass destruction had been the sought-for answer. Sald realized that he had erred, perhaps, both in delaying the inevitable and in choosing a technological approach over a magical plague. Still, the test was over, and once Edris was gone he could breathe a sigh of relief.

The library of Eisund was in truth much larger than the single room in which Sald walked. Most of its books were stored underground, brought up in the hands of magical servants on request. Still, several rooms above ground were reserved for library use. Tomes were read in those rooms as often as borrowed, and the privacy and paranoia of readers demanded extensive areas to be devoted to that single purpose. The room in which Sald had found Bookworm served as a gateway to the main library complex. It held the main entrance, and was one of the most public rooms in the library (with the exception of Bookworm's corner). Sald browsed through some of the display texts, considering both his possibly impending testing and his ever-present plotting. Sald happened upon a title, Paranoia and plotting in Tarind. He almost laughed. The treatise would undoubtedly be filled with examples of heavy-handed and crude manipulation. The finesse and cunning needed to simply remain at Eisund was beyond anything he had heard of elsewhere. This he reconsidered. What he had heard was undoubtedly incomplete. Perhaps the city of Tarind truly held equal complexity in simple survival; he could not know for certain. He made a mental note to read the book when he could find the time, or at least the first few pages. Sald looked up just in time to see Edris enter the library. Edris glanced up, and saw him in turn.