Magister Shachalai,

Youve said much about the Sciomancers and shadow and presented an
interesting challenge. Below I will attempt to rebut what you have
presented to the best of my ability.
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A weak proof
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As part of the weak proof I accept all of your assertions that you put
forth in your argument without questioning their truth. While I do not
think that your assertions are actually correct, this demonstrates the
uncogency of your argument, even when you are granted the truth of your
assertion. Your bet is phrased thusly. If you can conclusively disprove
that your use of Shadow is not a serious threat to us all, and justify
the existence of your guild as anything but a long-term, apocalyptic
threat to Sapience. Meaning that to properly challenge your bet under
the precepts of logical one simply needs to demonstrate that it is is
not the case that our use of shadow is a serious threat to us all and
demonstrate that that our guild is anything but a long-term,
apocalyptic threat. In other words, proving that there exists someone
who our use of shadow is not a threat to and giving some other purpose
to our guild is enough.

In your own writings you state the following. This is one reason why
the undead, particularly the Consanguine, present a slow danger; they
absorb Spirit modicums from the lifeblood and transform it into the
Shadow necessary to sustain their unnatural frames. By this logic it
must mean that shadow, in and of itself, is not a threat to all given
that it is not a threat to the undead on consanguine. Additionally,
since it is not a long-term, apocalyptic threat, given that the undead
are not threatened by it, and the uncontroversial fact that Sciomancy
provides some degree of utility we have thus shown a "conclusive" proof
that it is not the case that your use of Shadow is not a serious threat
to us all, and justify the existence of your guild as anything but a
long-term, apocalyptic threat to Sapience. The victory may go to the
Sciomancers but I would prefer to have the gold personally.
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A strong proof
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A stronger proof would be one which encapsulated the first proof, in
essence, a proof that the first proof might be derived from if true.
While I consider the first to be sufficient here is my addressing of a
the longer argument that you make. The strong proof rejects the truth of
Shachalais assertions.

"Threat" is like love, shorter, taller, or many other terms, a two place
predicate. Any propositional statement about threat necessarily takes
the form of X is a threat to Y similarly to how statements about love
or height take the form of "X is taller than Y" or "X loves Y. So we
need to establish what you are talking about. If you mean that "Shadow
is a threat to the cycle" I fully accept the assertion. But we are not
all concerned with the cycle. In short, you need an argument to prove
that shadow is a threat to Spinesreach, the Sciomancers, and the undead
before a more general statement like "Shadow is a threat to the world"
should be accepted. Those of us concerned with a world of constructs, a
world of gears, or a world of undeath will not be persuaded that shadow
is a threat to us because shadow is a threat to you.

You have presented some controversial facts without clarifying several
position. While it is true that Shadow is capable of destroying and
subsequently replicating elements, particularly spirit this is not
enough to demonstrate that shadow is a threat any more than any other
aspect of the natural world. You yourself asserted, truthfully, that
shadow exists in quantities in the natural world. We do not fully
comprehend the nature of shadow, spirit, or any of the elements so to
presume the large scale, long-term effects of the channeling of any
element is presumptuous. The event that is perhaps the largest, wide
scale invocation of shadow is likely the Grand Artifice, since it was
something performed by Severn and Severn is the god of shadow. While we
can argue about whether or not the effects of the Grand Artifice as
positive, we here have a proof that the wide scale use of shadow on the
world does not necessarily produce apocalyptic effects. I consider
this enough to prove in a second manner that it is not the case that
your use of Shadow is not a serious threat to us all, and justify the
existence of your guild as anything but a long-term, apocalyptic threat
to Sapience.
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A rejecting the argument
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One of the strongest ways to disprove a sequence of logic is to
demonstrate that it can be used to prove anything. Below a rewording of
this same sort of reasoning is used to demonstrate that it can be used
with any of the elements and any attempt to single out shadow as a
dangerous outlier in this manner are weak arguments. I think it is plain
that the "threat" you have spoken of is really to the "natural" world or
to the cycle so that is the 'y' position for the two place predicate
"threat".

The cycle is a balance of the elements. An introduction of an imbalance
in earth/fire/air/water/fire/spirit by continually channeling [By your
own words "channeling material from one plane of existence to another]
creates an imbalance that is definitionally unnatural.

If your premise that the danger of channeling shadow is that it alters
the balance of nature then it once again follows analytically that any
channeling is an unnatural alteration of nature. Should we take it as
truth that channeling is moving material from one plane to the other
than this is a necessary truth. So if your argument holds true than both
Elemancy and Sciomancy is are dangerous threats to the natural world
because that unnaturally alter it.

Sciomancer Verrillia, Itzatl Sorceress

Penned by my hand on Closday, the 21st of Arios, in the year 468 MA.