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Morty knows he shouldn't be screwing around with multidimensional shit. It's dangerous, it's impractical, it's blah blah blah. But it's a potential key to unlimited energy, how does nobody see that? He's built a dimensional siphon (it kind of looks like a cardboard box with a funnel and a TI-84 taped to it, but it damn well works), keyed in the dimensional coordinates to a random plane, and by God he's going to use it.
He flips the switch and waits for the energy bar to fill up.
It does! It fills up very rapidly. Then it explodes, along with the box. There's rather more smoke than there should be, and once the smoke clears someone is standing there.
"Oh dear," Morty says faintly.
Flicker at Whateley
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in-like-a
"I mean, I'd recommend using the cipher anyway. It's not impossible that I'll accidentally glimpse a page or something, and then I'd have it stamped in my mind forever. Not so much of a problem if I had to actively try to work out the code, bit of a problem if it was plaintext. Sorry."
point_b
"I will write in cipher anyway! I'm just remarking that a decent chunk of what I write is not top secret."
in-like-a
"Not so much. High-level exemplar thing. Being an exemplar kinda rocks, case you hadn't noticed. I mean, it's possible you could graft on some extra mental space with the right spells, but it'd be preeeeetty complicated. I'll see about getting you a Circlet of Intellect +2 for Christmas, how about that."
in-like-a
"I'm not 100% sure those exist, that was a D&D joke. But I'll ask Circe and Sally if it's feasible."
point_b
"Speaking of Circe, is this a good time to go meet her and see what if anything she will charge?"
in-like-a
"Ooh, yeah, good idea. She'll probably be in her office. Because she's always in her office."
in-like-a
"It's near Grimesey's office, but it's in the advanced section, you can only get in if you're ready for the advanced classes. Fortunately, I'm good enough I can trick it into letting in whoever the hell I want. So yeah, just drop us off at Kirby and I'll get us to her domain."
in-like-a
Invisible door! Regular doors! A blank wall!
"Okay, so I'm gonna have to do some stuff so walking into this thing doesn't just bonk your nose." Ariel closes her eyes and starts fiddling with the air.
Abruptly, there is a short Greek woman with large quantities of hair and an irritated expression standing in the hallway. "As I've told you before, I spent a very long time designing that passageway, and I'll thank you not to muck with it. Flicker, it is good to meet you. Please, come in. Without destroying the door."
Ariel looks cheerfully unrepentant as she follows her through the wall.
"Okay, so I'm gonna have to do some stuff so walking into this thing doesn't just bonk your nose." Ariel closes her eyes and starts fiddling with the air.
Abruptly, there is a short Greek woman with large quantities of hair and an irritated expression standing in the hallway. "As I've told you before, I spent a very long time designing that passageway, and I'll thank you not to muck with it. Flicker, it is good to meet you. Please, come in. Without destroying the door."
Ariel looks cheerfully unrepentant as she follows her through the wall.
in-like-a
Through the wall is a room with two secretaries at slightly outdated computers. There is also a standard-looking office door which reads CIRCE. DEPARTMENT HEAD. NOT A TELEPATH. "You have told it to many of the people with whom you have interacted today. I have numerous sources of information. I am not reading your mind, as my door has decided to remind us all."
"Circe, would it offend you if I told you that I like your office door better than you?"
"It would be very reassuring, in fact. I encourage you to continue feeling this way."
"Circe, would it offend you if I told you that I like your office door better than you?"
"It would be very reassuring, in fact. I encourage you to continue feeling this way."
in-like-a
"Yes. Congratulations. I will meet with you on Sunday of each week, apart from the week of Christmas in your world, which you will be spending away. There will be no excuses unless you have died or are otherwise physically prevented from coming to my office. If you have contracted the Mongolian Death Flu, I will provide you with a wastebasket into which you may vomit while I instruct you. This is a part of your education, and has been the case for every student I have educated since the ninth century BC. Is this understood?"
point_b
"If I get the Mongolian Death Flu - is that a real thing? - perhaps it would be more efficient to send me home briefly, or summon one of my sister, so that she can fix the problem before we proceed."
in-like-a
"The Mongolian Death Flu is a term that I have unfortunately picked up from your companion for any highly unpleasant but nonfatal disease. Fatal diseases should be treated by a healer. Healing nonfatal diseases by our methods will weaken your immune system, healing them by yours would cost exorbitant amounts of money, and working through them is a learning opportunity."
point_b
"I am much more interested in learning magic than in learning about the unfortunate throes of the Mongolian Death Flu. Can I get a loose ballpark on how exorbitant these amounts of money would be?"
in-like-a
"By 'a learning opportunity' I mean that if you can concentrate while you are going through physical discomfort you will become much better at concentration in general, and concentration is paramount to all magic. A single round-trip summoning and banishment spell today would consume $8,000 worth of powdered mithril. Depending on how the selected date aligns with various astrological events, that cost might be lessened by up to $5,000 or raised by up to $15,000. One of your first assignments will likely be to work out a calendar of when the best and worst dates would be and why."
point_b
"If it is legitimately worthwhile for me to practice magic while physically uncomfortable I will do it while hanging upside down. I suspect that arbitrage alone will enable me to treat five to fifteen thousand dollars as a very reasonable price to see my sister and incidentally cease to suffer the Mongolian Death Flu."
in-like-a
Circe rolls her eyes. "I was not going to go into this until somewhat later in the meeting, but your logic is solid and you are unusually persistent, so very well. An important part of this arrangement is going to be moderating the implicit Sorcerer's Contract inherent to an apprenticehood-style relationship. Essentially, the fact that I will be personally educating you means that mystically speaking, you will owe me a substantial debt. This can be dealt with by various means, including a term of servitude or a simple payment in Essence, but if I concede too much to making you comfortable then the terms of the agreement must become accordingly steeper. I do not intend to be deliberately unpleasant to you, but there are certain clauses of my arrangement that I am loath to alter because they have a practical purpose, they helped me to become the sorceress I am today, and they keep my rates down. And before you ask, no, you will not be able to pay in coin. Magic stubbornly refuses to acknowledge fiat currency, and base metals and gemstones, while valid, are valued at an irritatingly low rate of exchange. You would need multiple tons of pure gold to satisfy the debt of the current arrangement, let alone a softened one."
point_b
"That is very interesting. Certainly it removes any objection I might have had to turning up to lessons with a broken leg and a concussion. I retain my problem with contagious illnesses and propose that you give me simply astronomical amounts of homework or something to compensate. I also want to know what you're planning to charge if it is not in fact multiple tons of pure gold."
in-like-a
"Preventing contagion is trivial. Ariel can assist you with this. The means of payment was going to be next on our agenda. I will want to educate you on the contract-making rules before we actually write anything up or agree to a long-term arrangement, but the general overview is that for one year of education, I would need one of several things. One month's indentured servitude, seven tasks which you could not refuse and which would have to be above a certain threshold of activity- no gaming the system by ordering you to pass me the salt, for instance, but perhaps ordering you to teleport me to the peak of Mount Everest for a ritual. A quantity of Essence which- mm. It's difficult to describe it to an uninitiated soul, but it would require six months' active collection to pay me without mystically bankrupting yourself, not counting any lost through actually using your magic. On the other hand, magic has no concept of interest, so you would be able to go quite some time before paying me as long as you truly intended to pay me back once you were able. Naturally, if you kill me the debt will be void, but I trust my tutelage will not drive you to that route, unlike my own instructor. Or you could save my life, which would immediately nullify any extant debts and pay for a great deal more, but that is rather unlikely given my sedentary lifestyle and profound cosmic power."
Perched atop a bookshelf, Ariel cackles obnoxiously at the idea of anyone saving Circe's life. Circe spares her a dirty look.
Perched atop a bookshelf, Ariel cackles obnoxiously at the idea of anyone saving Circe's life. Circe spares her a dirty look.