What does one perceive these days in the streets of Tarant? To be certain, there are shops, inns, men of high blood, respectable women, and, of course, street hawkers and urchins. Or perchance one notices the great machines that now thrust Tarant into leadership in Arcanum and into what some have called a valiant new era, leaving far behind the "obsolete" traditions of the arcane arts and magicks. Glorious! And let one suddenly realize that his or her feet are weary, so sit on the nearest bench or lean against the nearest wall. Soon, however, one finds the new, unfortunate quintessence of Tarant, soot, clinging to one's coat or dress. For as surely as Tarantians make progress, we also make messes in our rather formidable new era. May the reader, however, avoid hasty judgments, for I intend to show with indisputable logick that the march of Nature and Technology over magick toward Progress is inevitable, such that even soot is necessary to the ends of Progress.

Progress, by which I mean improving technology and the strengthening of natural laws, is an inevitable process. I propose that this is clearly evident in the natural laws themselves. Consider the following: a weak fortress will keep out sheep, but not marauding rogues. And yet, if the keeper of the fortress is able, he will strengthen his walls and his gate when he sees the rogues approaching. The invaders of the fortress of Nature are those who subvert Nature through the exertion of will, the mages. Through the course of eternity, only four outcomes between nature and magick are possible: they balance each other, they are mutually annihilated, magick suppresses nature, or nature suppresses magick. I shall address them one at a time.

The first possible resolution between nature and magick through eternity is that they always balance each other, an even match. This demands either equal power between nature and magick across the entire universe (universal balance) or, at any given time, equal portions of the universe governed by only one (localized balance). Science has shown that where magick and technology convene a small rift forms in space that is, literally, a boundary between the universe and a separate, yet connected, sub-universe governed by magick. Fortunately, the rift is so small that it does not affect the universe at a catastrophic level. The sub-universe, however, only exists for as long as a will exerts itself over nature, and when the rift recedes the world is as it was before: run by natural law. The rift acts as a pruning of the universe, it cuts off what is not natural. Thus, the universe as we know it will not stand for this kind of balance, for what is not natural it purges until Nature rules again.

Incidentally, the rift is the basis for the construction of devices which can detect the use of magick nearby through the inability of two internal instruments to interact with each other as the rift passes between them. The other-worldly effects of strong magicks are also thought to be caused by rifts that are growing or shrinking in width (as opposed to intensity or strength, as nothingness is a state and therefore cannot become any more or less "nothing"), although there is not as yet a firm explanation for this behavior. (note to self: quantized space). The apparent impermanence of the rift is also mystery, one which the mages of Tulla have been less-than-forthcoming in exploring.

The second possibility, that magick and Nature annihilate each other is actually a restatement of the universal balance hypothesis noted above. This is the case because, at that point, Nature stops functioning on a universal level and the magick that causes it to fail must be exerting itself universally with equal strength. The universe is transformed into an infinite rift and being ceases to be. Note that this surpasses even matter and energy, for, mysteriously, nothingness itself ceases to be. Furthermore, the wielder of such formidable skill would be required to apply his will equally and fully over the entire universe - even in theory this is a patent impossibility. Understand that magick, and this is an important point, if it could be exerted at this level would be fundamentally all powerful and yet necessarily self-destructive. "Oh great mage," I cry, "save yourself." And he would be unable. This contradiction implies that only the existence of natural law allows Nature to be bent and broken by magick, which then must be decisively bound to Nature. Yet not so Nature to the magick influences within this universe and the adjoining sub-universes.

The third possibility between magick and Nature through eternity, that magick defeats Nature outright, is at this point rather improbable. For magick to overpower nature permanently requires a perfect will, one that can comprehend the entire universe at one thought, as described above. In other words, one must be an omniscient god. Far be it from me to deny the gods their right to do as they please with the universe, but they are not natural. Those with spiritual inclinations will claim the gods to be the likely suspects in the very creation of Nature. Will the gods then tear down their own order and present it to pitifully small creatures to rule by inclination? Or if it was not the gods, but pure chance, as some have recently suggested, is not even chance unable to rescind what it has declared enduring? Magick's victory would be counterfeit through gods and impossible through chance.

In summary, an eternal localized balance is impossible because the rift exists, annihilation is impossible because men are not gods, and magick's victory is dubious because the gods are not men. Thus the reader is left with but one option: that in the ultimate end, through eternity incomprehensible and marvelous, nature will reign supreme. Magick may be strong now, but as time passes, the infinite reserves of Nature will weaken it ever more. Magick might or might not ever pass completely from the world, but Nature has granted itself victory.

Having arrived at this conclusion through incontrovertible logick and reasoning, the question remains why soot, the bane of modern Tarant, is necessary for progress. I cannot deny the many unfortunate effects that distress our fine city because of soot, but soot and other unexpected side effects of technology are beneficial to the causes of Progress and Nature because they are the problems that Progress overcomes. The gods, in their wisdom, or chance, in its capriciousness, require trouble in the universe as a singular mechanism for improvement. If problems were to ever cease there would no longer be any direction in which to progress! Thus, it is more correct to say that soot is necessary because Progress has not yet run its course, the natural course to perfection.