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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
"Dunno if I've got any Flicker-suitable coordinates, but I can fly you to one and you can pop us there in future?"
point_b
"I can appear midair. And as long as nothing distracts me, nearly-hover there. Tell me how many miles and a compass heading and I'll go a ways up and you can point. I was not reassured the one time I asked you about how you took passengers."
in-like-a
Ariel mutters under her breath about math, then closes her eyes to do it. After a few seconds she points in a direction and gives a distance.
point_b
Bella puts them that way, that distance, a quarter-mile up. And keeps doing it, every eighth of a second, peering around, and spots a nice secluded grove not currently in use for extracurricular activities, and puts them in it.
in-like-a
Ariel sits on a low-ish branch and bounces slightly in expectation of magics.
point_b
And Bella pulls out her borrowed spellbook and reads the instructions for the light spell, again, then peers at the variants.
in-like-a
The variants are mostly for color. There's a certain area of the mental construct that gets twisted around to affect colors; the book says it's "according to the Kallistonic Sequence," whatever that means. There's also a few more advanced variants producing light in a certain shape (pyramid, heart, a very simplified cat), and one to turn it into a globe of whirling sparks instead of solid glow.
Ariel scans the page and produces a globe. "Oh, this one. Always the classics, I guess." She idly flickers it through variations, spinning it on her finger like a basketball.
Ariel scans the page and produces a globe. "Oh, this one. Always the classics, I guess." She idly flickers it through variations, spinning it on her finger like a basketball.
point_b
"Any tips?" inquires Bella. "And do you happen to know what the Kallistonic sequence is or should I ask Circe?"
in-like-a
"Oh, that's what you use to figure out how to change the construct for whatever color. There's an alteration for green, purple, blue, red, pink, whatever. Tips... The sparkler one is harder and takes a bit more energy, but it's cool and if you're anything like me you probably want the hardest one. And if you're coming up with a new variant that's not in the book or something you could look up the sequence and pick a color that's not in here. Or you could try for a flashing light or something, but that might be a little out of your league at the moment."
point_b
"I am allowed to try to make up one of my own, but it's optional and probably best left until I've got the hang of two book ones, maybe a color first and sparks if that doesn't take me too much of my allotted time. I'm wondering if I can pinch the shape of it in the middle until there are two of it, though, when I get there, what do you think?"
in-like-a
"Oh, totally! Hell, you could split it three ways and juggle with them or something, if you know how to juggle. Or you could bring me as juggling assistant."
point_b
"I know how to do extremely simple juggling! You don't think I'm overextending my ambitions there?" Bella peers at the color change. It looks simple.
in-like-a
"Eh, it's... maybe, yeah. You could make it make three at the same time? Altering an existing spell is kinda hard unless you've got mutant wizarding like me. Probably a later unit."
in-like-a
"Yeah. That's just adding a clause into the original construct, splitting it's like... making a secondary construct and slapping it on, and then that splits the first one into three of them, and then you have to maintain the three at once. The first one is a spell to make three lights, the second is three light spells and a splitter."
point_b
"Noted." Bella writes this down. "But color first. I think I will do blue."
Here goes nothing: she tries blue. Slowly, carefully. She decides to try box-breathing while she does it because why not.
Here goes nothing: she tries blue. Slowly, carefully. She decides to try box-breathing while she does it because why not.
in-like-a
And thus appears a blue light! Well, mostly blue. A little bit paler than the picture in the book.
"You want the curve on the color-adjustor to be broader," Ariel notes. "But nice work!"
"You want the curve on the color-adjustor to be broader," Ariel notes. "But nice work!"
point_b
"Broadening the curve will correct my color?" asks Bella. "Does that mean that if I narrow it I get one even paler?"
in-like-a
"Yeah. The more pronounced the feature you give it the more saturated the color. So, twisting it would make it red, the more you twist the more red. Twisting and curving gets... green, because magic makes no sense."
point_b
"I mean, that doesn't seem much more counterintuitive than the way mixing colors of light is different from mixing colors of paint, although it is not apparently quite like either." She examines the shape of her spell a moment longer, then drops it and looks at her bracelet.
point_b
"Okay, I'll... do the blue again and get it right this time, and then do a red, because the colors seem straightforward and I have the juice and homework-free time is precious," says Bella.
So she does that. Careful exact width of curve.
So she does that. Careful exact width of curve.
point_b
"Ooh, I'm going to see if this can follow me when I teleport," says Bella. "Unless you tell me it might explode or something."
in-like-a
"If it can't follow it'll just wink out, this one can't go more than like 15 feet away from you. Pop away."