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Tree branch: check. Assorted lightweight seed-bearing fruits and nuts: check. Other seeds: check. Water bottle, for when she has to veer away from the river: check.
Better not linger in her starting place too much longer. Yellow's faster than her and may have already come home to a wreck. Thorn might have a habit of checking up on the place, even, just in case. She's invisible, inaudible, unsmellable - that won't help if he sends someone thorough. Or comes in person.
She sets out.
She's been flying for about thirty minutes after her shopping trip when she falls through a tear and squeaks inaudibly and lands in the middle of -
imeanforever
wormcan
If you'd rather be suspiciously mute than risk her finding out you're not here, I can translate.
The instruments continue to report that the light is just light. No other effects, no power source, definitely not natural but well within the scope of powers.
"These aren't turning up anything obvious. When you do sorcery, what outside factors affect it?"
The instruments continue to report that the light is just light. No other effects, no power source, definitely not natural but well within the scope of powers.
"These aren't turning up anything obvious. When you do sorcery, what outside factors affect it?"
imeanforever
"I suspect the reason I can't do it outside places Vista has used her power has something to do with harmonics, but I can't directly sense harmonics, so I'm not sure. Harmonics are an undetectable feature of an area which influences sorcery. I haven't done a full map of this room, but from what I have done, all the harmonics here seem to be moving around much more quickly than I'd expect Fairyland harmonics to do. Vista's power may be distorting the natural harmonics of the mortal world so that sorcery can coexist, or creating a new pattern, there's no way to be sure."
Let her assume I'm here to observe.
Let her assume I'm here to observe.
wormcan
"Vista's power we know. It doesn't change anything except distances. In here we should be looking at the same of whatever these harmonics are but at a different scale.
Do they affect anything other than sorcery?"
Do they affect anything other than sorcery?"
imeanforever
"They might, but not obviously. Some things affect harmonics, more obviously - sorcery has feedback effects with it; living things affect harmonics; other things back in Fairyland like sky islands or crystal deposits or mercury wells can have bizarre harmonic patterns around them."
wormcan
"Even better.
Do the mercury wells tend to have similar harmonic patterns, or does it vary from one to another?"
Do the mercury wells tend to have similar harmonic patterns, or does it vary from one to another?"
imeanforever
"I don't know. I've never been to these in person and the book I read that in didn't include harmonic maps or a verbal comparison."
wormcan
"We could probably build something to detect them, if we knew what we were looking for."
He unstraps something that looks like a half-length halberd from his back. The head rearranges itself into a rough sphere, and starts swinging from a short chain noticeably faster than a pendulum should. "This has minor exotic effects on some background features of space, but not others. Can you tell if it does anything to harmonics?"
He unstraps something that looks like a half-length halberd from his back. The head rearranges itself into a rough sphere, and starts swinging from a short chain noticeably faster than a pendulum should. "This has minor exotic effects on some background features of space, but not others. Can you tell if it does anything to harmonics?"
imeanforever
"If you give me a moment to make a quick map of part of the area it will affect while it's not affecting it, and then when it is, yes."
wormcan
"Of course." It slows down to ordinary pendulum speed, and collapses back into the halberd shape.
imeanforever
Promise makes a flat grid of fairy lights, one at a time, in the space he was swinging the pendulum through, and makes notes in obscure notation.
"Okay, now I have a map of that square. Does it have to swing? I don't know if that will throw off my second map."
"Okay, now I have a map of that square. Does it have to swing? I don't know if that will throw off my second map."
wormcan
"It can be stable." It rearranges itself again, and Armsmaster holds it steady while the chain lowers the sphere.
imeanforever
And Promise makes and notes another gridful of shapes.
"This is different. It's not very different, but it's different, and not in the sweeping ways this room has led me to expect of it. So that thing does affect harmonics, a little bit."
"This is different. It's not very different, but it's different, and not in the sweeping ways this room has led me to expect of it. So that thing does affect harmonics, a little bit."
wormcan
"I could probably build something to have more of that effect. Would it help if I did, or is the change in a wrong direction?"
imeanforever
"The important thing isn't that the harmonics be anything in particular, the important thing is that I know what I'm working with. If you think Vista's power is just spreading out the normal harmonics of this world, that makes a lot of sense; it means that under conditions where she hasn't done anything, all of the slopes are very sharp and change too rapidly for me to adjust and instantly shred sorcery in it. The optimum casting condition would be completely flat or even absent harmonics; I think the natural condition of the world must be chaotic noise."
wormcan
"If that is what stops people from being able to do sorcery, this is very likely worth trying. How hard is it for humans to learn?"
imeanforever
"No harder than it is for fairies, I imagine, although where this gate will take me I don't know where to find a library and it might take me a while to get books."
wormcan
"And how hard is it for fairies? I'm told you're immortal; we might weigh time investments differently." As he speaks, Armsmaster dismantles the piece of his halberd they tested and tinkers with the inside.
imeanforever
"I've lost track, but I think I'm less than a hundred years old. I started learning sorcery when I was very new. I'm pretty talented at it, but I could do simple things within a few years of work."
wormcan
"What would be a reasonable amount of progress in the first few weeks? Assume ideal harmonics." He reconfigures the machinery, doesn't bother closing the casing, and turns it on. "Map the area again, please."
imeanforever
"With flat harmonics you could probably learn to do lights in the first few weeks, and maybe one other thing, like purifying water or warming things up." She re-maps the area.
wormcan
"Or cooling things down?" He checks the sensors to tell what non-harmonics things were affected by the altered device, then rearranges it again and holds it out.
wormcan
So harmonics are affected by things that act on this fundamental force that means nothing to non-tinkers, and not by things that work on that one. He keeps testing.
"How long before I'd be able to make a gate?"
"How long before I'd be able to make a gate?"
imeanforever
"Gates are complicated. I'd been a sorcerer for years before I picked up the skill and it took me weeks."