A Paper on the Nature of Fire: Extinguishing Flame with Flame

Notice: I am a novice fiction writer, so this is not really up to the standards, but all criticisms are welcomed

Author's Note: This is a research paper written by Senna Kalingrad in 2E 576

As every mage would know, even a less-than competent one, that there are certain substances on Tamriel that is immune to a certain element. One example would be the flame atronach, these fiery dancers are completely immune to even the most heated of inferno, and to most people, this makes sense, you can not simply annihilate fire with fire. At least that is what we once thought.

Before I delve into the subject, let us examine another form of magic, and hopefully, this could avoid confusion later on. It is common knowledge that dunmer are slightly more resistant to heat than others, though it does not mean that they could walk into lava and remain unburned, it does make fire magic less effective against them in battle. However, this resistance to heat is not the same as the one fire atronachs, or another daedric creature born of fire possess, dunmer simply have this innate magical energy that suppress the effect of heat to some degree. A skillful sorcerer could easily negate this kind of resistance with a sleight of hand,this kind of magic is a subset of the destruction school, under the category of "weakness" spells, and yet,such spells can not be used on the atronach. The atronach seems to be born entirely of an element, in the case of a flame atronach, it is fire given a form. No matter how skilled one's magic is, he can not weaken a flame atronach's resilience against fire with "weakness" spells, and as such, the common protocol for most battlemages when encountering elemental daedras is to simply switch to another element, or, more bluntly, use their weapons. All of these are common knowledge, elementary within most magical colleges, however, one expedition to Valenwood two years ago changed my perspective on the matter.

I was staying at the Lifewood tavern outside of the capital that time, drinking the tavern's special tea when I heard a patron rushing into the inn, shouting:" Fire! Fire! There is a fire half a mile from here and it is spreading fast!" I stormed outside to see the trees in the distance blazing, black smoke following the wind uphill coming to the direction of the tavern. Just I was beginning to arm myself with a water spell against the oncoming firestorm, the tavern owner stepped outside and grabbed my hand. "Hold your spells, mage, your magic is of little use against fire that size", he calmly said,"Then what shall we do? Wait for the fire to burn down the whole forest?" I retorted. Letting out almost a sacarstic smile, the owner replied: "Here in Valenwood we do things differently from Daggerfall, such fires are common in areas dominated by trees, were it not for the wisdom of our ancestors, we would have a forest to call home" He turned to the barmaid: " Elara! Call the guards, tell them there is a fire,asked them to bring the pyromancers here!"

I thought to myself: pyromancers? is the man mad? How can you put off fire with pyromancy? What is this nonsense? But, alas, I did not say a word, there must have been a reason for that, these bosmer would have been wiped out long ago if they don't know what they are doing. And sure enough, the guards came to the area with a league of battlemages moments later. The mages spread out in a line parallel to the oncoming wave of ember and smoke, and began moving towards the fire, it was not long before they were 20 yards away from the fire wall, and then they stopped. Wrapping their hands in magic, they began to spray a line of flame directly in front of them, forming a yet another wall of blazing heat against the first. Just as I was about to question what they were doing, the fire suddenly vanished. It just stopped, just gone, the wall of flame that was just scorching the entire forest was just gone, and so did the one produced by the mages. Before I even came to my senses, the mages were heading back the capital, and all the patrons returned to the tavern, as if nothing had happened.

"Marvelous thing isn't it, breton?" The owner said to me:"Not a lot of outsiders get to see that." "But how did they do it? How did they make the flames just vanish?" I asked inquisitively. "Ah, no need to be anxious, let me explain. Fire is a magical thing you see, given enough energy, it can scorch any forest twice over, but they are also prone to rage, they need the air to fuel their anger, they need it to sustain them, when you construct a line of flame just adjacent to the first one, the two group moves closer, they compete for the air,clinging on to the instinct of survival. The two walls of fire gets greedy, grasping onto their life force, competing for survival, however, as they battle, the air gets thin, and before the wind could replenish it, it is gone, and so does the fire. It is their own rapacity that lead to their demise, one volley of flame will absorb all the energy, and burn down everything it touches, two volley, though, they compete, they battle, and in the end, they vanish, nothing is set ablaze. This is the secret that allowed us to steer clear of destruction of the forest that we bosmer hold dear since time immemorial." The owner smiled, and walked back into his tavern.

The rest of the expedition was rather fruitless, but I did learn the one thing I needed, the nature of fire. And back at my research station, I tried to replicate the results. After months of failed experiments, tedious calculations, countless trial runs and several scorched trees later, I finally mastered how to control fire. I do admit that though I am a master pyromancer, it did took me longer than I expected to achieve this.

The trick is to create, rather than to destroy.Normal procedures regarding the approach to pyromancy is to simply unleash your rage, a novice can spray fire from his finger tips with great fury while a master might concentrate his power into an elegant firebolt, causing dreadful, yet pin-point accurate destruction. Though the two might sound different, regardless of the caster's level of control over flame, pyromancy is used to destroy. However, this technique goes against intuition. Rather than to project your power onto a cleansing flame, one must create. First, you need to observe the target, in this case, a gout of fire, you must understand its shape, its vigor, where it draws energy and how it burns, note that to do so would require tremendous understanding of fire, so this is no easy task for even an expert of destruction. You must project a spark, an ember just oppose to the original gout of fire, observe its shape, create something to counter it, if it is a half-circle, then project the other half, if it a line, project one parallel to it, if it is a point, project one weighing against it, you must project your power to counteract the original. This is a step that requires precise skills and focus, and it takes a very long time to master, it would be years and decades before you could do this intuitively to fire of any size, but when you do, you are half way through. After you have placed your sparks countering the original flame, you will be faced with the hard part: you must project enough magicka to surpass the energy of the original flame, you must create a flame that is so strong, it absorbs more air, it competes with the original, you must create a flame that can choke out, that can starve the target, and once you do, the original gout of fire would extinguish in shame. It took me several months even to just extinguish the fire in my wood stove, and needless to say, the stronger the fire, the more skills and raw power are required.

With practice, a master destruction mage might be able to achieve such a feat, just last month, I was able to cleanse an atronach with my flame, watching your inferno burns so intensified that it bested a creature born of fire is pure satisfaction, there is no greater deed than to extinguish flame with flame. I now share my discovery with all of my fellow mages, may it aid you in your travels.