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“I want you,” says Mannimarco. “I want you... so badly… to shut the door and never come to ruin my concentration again! What in the name of Auri-El have you forgotten here at night?“ “Your rituals have caused a storm on the island. Master Jahesis told me to warn you, this is the last time…“ “I am the only storm here, Vanus! The wellspring of thought! And I'm in the middle of it! Now puff away please — or are you just lurking around spying on my work?“ Awfully pathetic — but helpful. Vanus slams the door, and the bitter scent of his invasion hangs in the air, spoiling all the fragile magick Mannimarco is trying to cast. Making him lose his temper is one of the few pleasures here on Artaeum. Mannimarco wonders if he can ever speak to Vanus without freaking out himself … bah. Vanus Galerion is a little upstart, a vulgar being, a son of a slave, raised by actors and trying to break through to the top. Mannimarco, on the contrary, left his noble family of his own free will as a part of his well-planned fall. It is a conscious, directed fall, where each step is controlled so that he could renounce his nobility by becoming a psijic, renounce life by becoming a necromancer, and finally, renounce humanity by becoming a God. He hardly cares about lesser, baser things, but still it is funny and instructive for him to watch Vanus' unhappy floundering. Hatred is a much more fruitful feeling than love: it has plenty of ways to be expressed. Love unites and leads to creation of a dependent system; hate unites too, but parts remain separate. Mannimarco likes being separated from all ordinary things and from some oddities too; and thus his hatred is a form of love, purified from virtue. So, he “loves” Vanus in a way. Vanus is like a parody, a caricature, a carnival mirror, a part of dichotomy… They are separated from each other by a Nirn-sized gap — and connected by this separation — and that’s why Vanus is so attractive. Well, being at a distance with Vanus is a form of a guilty pleasure. Mannimarco wants Vanus to be around: neither away nor dead, but somewhere at hand, always ready to catch an intellectual punch and fight back. A great mind sometimes can do a great job just inspired by mistakes and fails provided by a mind not so brilliant. Vanus plays a fool all day round, but somehow he finds unexpected solutions and insights that do not come to more educated and concentrated minds. He is like an Elder Scroll where all the lines are writing themselves far away from any speakable categories. In fact, this means Vanus is a genius and a moron at the same time, and Mannimarco adores shaking fruits of insight off the tree of his naivety. Vanus is a rare fruit — but Mannimarco will never let this simple soul understand that.