What Magic does the man seated across the table from you, negotiating, angry, he’s drunk on Witches Brew, what will it take to get him to agree to, say, your proposal? He doesn’t appear dangerous, he seems hapless and frustrated, yet what Magic might he be able to wield? Maybe no Magic at all. But you may suddenly find yourself disoriented, a high-pitched siren-song in your ear, or the man suddenly is a snake, fearsome, hissing a warning, he’s literally turning the table, he’s literally changing your mind, you try to hold fast to the meaning of the moment, the present, the eternal present, this time, but Magic is here. The meaning of this moment is forever changed.

But no. He is in fact drunk and hapless. And what Magic might you have at your disposal, at the ready? The challenge here, the challenge always, is not necessarily what Magic is available. It is so satisfying to overwhelm your target with a spell, trick, or phantasm, that leaves them scrambling, or mouth agape, stunned to silence. But then you’ve shown your cards. Are you alone? Are there others here that may also be saving their talent for Magic, for a moment of weakness, for a misguided show of inadequate strength? Magic proclaims itself, and thus proclaims its host. It says, this is me, and thus, this is you. You decided there was no alternative to proclaiming your strength. And now you either collect, or you pay. And everyone in OZ learns the payment far exceeds the collection. You win the negotiation. You escape. You gambled and this time, you won. You knew exactly what the collection would be. You knew what you would win – whatever that negotiation was worth. Finite. A number, a deal, an agreement. Finite. But the payment. What could that have been?

You don’t know. You can’t know. You’ll never know what it might have been. Suppose this hapless drunk you just took advantage of in the negotiations had a Serpent’s Head on his person? He, though practically incapacitated, knew, perhaps, that if things turned dangerous, not just things were going poorly, but truly dangerous, that he had a spell, a potent Mysticum, and a talent. He need not be a true Arcanist to completely change the game, and thus the stakes, in this meaning-making moment of Truth writ large. In fact, you may yet meet that Serpent’s Head. Are you certain that this drunk used every power at his current disposal? Did you use all power that you currently have?

Maybe you are able to divine, briefly and incompletely, a whisper of a thought wrapped in a glance that gives you an edge in the negotiation. That’s Magic. Of course you use it, it happens naturally, no need for a spell to cast. But a Mysticum, in this case a live Serpent’s Head, could destroy you in an infinite number of ways. This drunk may be more clever than you suspect. Is he clever enough to not use a spell this time, because he is willing to make a payment now, in order to collect at some future moment in a manner and magnitude that far outweighs this minor trade scuffle?

You don’t know. You and he are making the same calculus. Try to collect now, or a bigger payment later? This is the paradox of Magic. It is rarely wielded except for in the most innocuous of circumstances. The kind of Magic that often goes unnoticed, and if it is noticed, it is given a pass, in order to forestall an escalation. A sleight of hand. A puff of smoke. A password revealed. You don’t always know if a Magic has been loosed upon you. And since Magic is literally everywhere, and almost everyone has access to some Magical ability (though few are properly trained in its use) it remains mostly and nearly completely unactivated. Magic exists, then, as something of an ambient state.

It is everywhere, and it is nowhere.

Read more at https://thetruehistoryofoz.substack.com/