Same as the Harry Potter version. If you have a Dresden Files question and don't think it needs/deserves its own threat, post it here.

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My question, are we ever told what Johnny Marcone pays Monoc Securities/Donar Vadderung/Odin for his help? And, if not, do we even know what form that payment takes? Is it just money or something more exotic like favours or worship? Thanks.

 

I don't recall it ever being mentioned, but I also haven't read the short story from Marcone's perspective, and that's where we'd have heard it if we ever did.

Judging by the personalities of all involved though, I'd be willing to bet it's primarily monetary supported by a similar deal to what Dresden has/had with Mab (X amount of favors, but Marcone retains power of veto).

 

If that's in Side Jobs I've been waiting for an excuse to read more of it and can go look in my copy tonight. I've not gotten past the wedding one because I'm just a bit too caught up in school work and real work... since a week before Cold Days /shame

 

It's not in Side Jobs unfortunately, short of buying whatever it's in you'd have to dig around really hard to find it online.

 

Not really hard at all.

 

We can't all be robots....

Can people of a more sea-faring nature find them easily?

 

Well, I was only looking for it like a year ago, so... idk.

 

The passage from Even Hand - Marcone PoV.

 

I have a bit of a question about circles. We know that if someone traps you in a circle you can’t draw energy from outside the circle. It happens with Aurora’s circle in Summer Knight and again in Small Favor. What I’m wondering, does the same apply if it’s your circle. Harry commonly puts up circles around himself when preforming magic; does that mean he only has the very limited power in the circle to work with or can he ‘reach beyond’ his own circles since they are formed from his own will and power?

 

He explicitly says that drawing a circle blocks him off from outside mystical currents, and he takes advantage of that to craft more delicate spells (like the silly putty thing with Binder in Turn Coat).

I'm as confident as I can be that circles apply the same to everyone, regardless of who draws it.

 

Think of circles as an overactive border patrol. You can see what's over there, you can hear it and you most definitely know it exists, but you're not getting across that defined line unless there's a break in it.

 

So if a wizard needs to tap a big power source for a spell (a lay line, a storm, a volcano etc), do they just not use a circle?

 

Well IIRC circles trap energies in...well, a circle. The earth beneath your feet and the sky above you is still fair game. Hmmm...Imagine it like a never ending cylinder, extending up and down forever. Everything in there that you could tap into normally, you can still do in a circle as long as you're directly above or below it.

 

Hum, you're right. Lightning is described as coming down a cylinder of focus in Storm Front if I remember correctly, but that does still leave open the ley line question. If you're standing atop a ley line and make your circle, you're punching a cylinder of will up and down. You're effectively taking a cookie cutter and slicing off a volume of ley line energy.

That's sure to give your spell a boost but it's still a finite amount of energy in your circle. Since the ley line's energy is magical, it won't be able to flow into the circle and will have to go around.

 

Actually, I think the circle's boundaries include the ground. The boundaries are probably more metaphorical than literal, too. Just shooting out my ass though.

 

He didn't use a circle in Chichén Itza for his huge gravity spell, if memory serves.

 

You don't need a circle to tap into a leyline. Matter of fact, you probably don't want a circle for anything you're drawing from a leyline for.

The circles, at least when it comes to the application of magic, are used to isolate what's inside from the random fluxes of ambient magic. It protects delicate spells from being disrupted by said fluxes, in other words.

Anything that requires leyline level power is almost certainly capable of coping with those fluxes, simply by virtue of them being "drop in the bucket" in comparison.

 

Makes sense.

 

Not exactly. Circles, as far as we've seen, fall under three uses: protection, delicate spells or ongoing spells. Ivy's prison, or Demonreach's temporal attacks all used circles + leylines. Harry's gravity spell didn't however.. as he's basically condensing forces.