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Cam is dipping a grilled cheese sandwich into a bowl of tomato soup when he feels the summons. He goes ahead and grabs it. Doesn't even drop the sandwich.
Steel summons Demon Cam
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from_scratch
"I'm teasing. Mostly; I do try not to make more things than I have to. Can't get rid of them without setting things on fire or equipment I cannot safely have here."
sturdycoldsteel
"Sensible to be careful with space. It's not like you're going to run out of things. If you want to read about the bluestream, try looking for Why Blue? An Overview of Magic's Biggest Questions. A bit rambly and philosophical, but otherwise a good introductory theory text. For fiction I'd recommend the Ace's Tail series. Ace is a wandering adventurer who rights wrongs where he finds them. They're a bit two-dimensional, but I like them."
from_scratch
"Sure. Thanks." Cam prods his computer into coming up with appropriate character encodings for the new alphabets, and then tracks down the first book mentioned.
sturdycoldsteel
The first few chapters are about what bluestream (supposedly) is, a step by step guide on doing one's first shaping (which mostly seems to consist of willing things in the correct way), the most elementary or common uses of it (light, heat, and motion mostly), and brief descriptions of the kinds of things one can do when one is more learned.
The broad categories each get a chapter. Agriculture, construction, transmutation, healing, and thermo-kinetics.
'Transmutation' sounds a lot like chemistry with magic, since it talks about elements and compounds and so on. 'Thermo-kinetics' similarly sounds a little like physics or engineering. None of the knowledge contained therein is particularly impressive by Cam's standards.
The book describes how one becomes a shaper: One sits in the stone circles. About 70% of the time the person who goes into it will enter sensory deprivation for five days and wake up a shaper. The other 30% experience intense pain that bypasses all known anesthesia.
Apparently statistics show that it's completely random, not disciminating by age, gender, race, health, education, personality, sexuality, or anything else they could think of to investigate. Nobody knows why the stone circles do this, or how to get it to work with a different arrangement, a different kind of stone, etc.
The broad categories each get a chapter. Agriculture, construction, transmutation, healing, and thermo-kinetics.
'Transmutation' sounds a lot like chemistry with magic, since it talks about elements and compounds and so on. 'Thermo-kinetics' similarly sounds a little like physics or engineering. None of the knowledge contained therein is particularly impressive by Cam's standards.
The book describes how one becomes a shaper: One sits in the stone circles. About 70% of the time the person who goes into it will enter sensory deprivation for five days and wake up a shaper. The other 30% experience intense pain that bypasses all known anesthesia.
Apparently statistics show that it's completely random, not disciminating by age, gender, race, health, education, personality, sexuality, or anything else they could think of to investigate. Nobody knows why the stone circles do this, or how to get it to work with a different arrangement, a different kind of stone, etc.
from_scratch
This is all very interesting. Cam wonders if a circle would even work on him. He can probably get most of the conventional end results that these people use shaping for his own way, but multiplicative possibilities with his tech and making are tantalizing.
sturdycoldsteel
Bluestream cannot accomplish inherently magical ongoing effects. Examples: If you build something, it has to stay up with physics and not magic. Shields only last as long as the shielder's concentration and continued existence in a friendly section of stream.
The book speculates wildly on how bluestream would behave if it didn't have a planet underneath it to anchor to. The bluestream thins out as you ascend above the thickest part of the atmosphere, and anything one makes starts degrading faster as well. This is why most cities are at low altitude.
The last chapter details the basics of a system for how to mark down and read basic arrangements of bluestream (it includes an example map: a firepit that you can light yourself, or just keep it burning with magic) and mentions that more detail can be found in most intermediate textbooks.
The book speculates wildly on how bluestream would behave if it didn't have a planet underneath it to anchor to. The bluestream thins out as you ascend above the thickest part of the atmosphere, and anything one makes starts degrading faster as well. This is why most cities are at low altitude.
The last chapter details the basics of a system for how to mark down and read basic arrangements of bluestream (it includes an example map: a firepit that you can light yourself, or just keep it burning with magic) and mentions that more detail can be found in most intermediate textbooks.
from_scratch
Cam wonders what on this planet makes bluestream... but it seems they don't actually know.
sturdycoldsteel
(The book mentioned in passing that living things exert little disturbances on the bluestream. It is generally assumed that the fog is millennia of accumulation of this.)
Steel is now standing in the middle of her circle, arms and wings outstretched, perfectly still. The surrounding area becomes significantly dimmer, almost like twilight.
Steel is now standing in the middle of her circle, arms and wings outstretched, perfectly still. The surrounding area becomes significantly dimmer, almost like twilight.
from_scratch
It could just be life in general, but his making wings did something to it too, so it can't be something literally physical or chemical about the life, since - well, he did start the wings full of a copy of Steel's own blood, so maybe it could be some trait of native life. Further tests necessary. She didn't mention if the tomato soup's appearance did anything.
Cam's computer automatically compensates for ambient light.
Cam's computer automatically compensates for ambient light.
sturdycoldsteel
That's pretty much it for the first book.
After a few minutes, the light goes back to normal. "I declare the experiment a success. Made me a bit thirsty, though, would you mind filling my canteen?"
After a few minutes, the light goes back to normal. "I declare the experiment a success. Made me a bit thirsty, though, would you mind filling my canteen?"
sturdycoldsteel
"If you want to make me apple juice or raspberry sourdrops, I'll hardly object. No caffeine or alcohol or anything stronger, please."
from_scratch
She gets apple juice. Sparkling. "There you are. Hey, I want to test a thing. If I make a butterfly can you tell me if it does something to the bluestream like making your wings did?"
sturdycoldsteel
She takes a swig of juice. "Ah, carbonation. I'll watch, sure. Appear it a few inches above a hand so I know where to stare."
from_scratch
Cam holds out his hand. He makes a pretty blue morpho - deliberately attending to the fact that he means to make an Earth one.
The butterfly lands confusedly on his hand, flaps its wings a few times, then flies away.
The butterfly lands confusedly on his hand, flaps its wings a few times, then flies away.
sturdycoldsteel
A couple seconds' pause, then. "That did - something. I was listening and looking both. I heard a faint echo of bass, almost like what healing makes. Your soup was different, almost transmutation-y. And it was like the butterfly - shoved out all the fog that was in its way when it appeared. It has a strange outline, though not as strange as yours. What kind is it?"
from_scratch
"Blue morpho. I promise not to make two of anything until I know what species you natively have in the area. What's my outline look like?"
sturdycoldsteel
"Like a person. But a weird person. The features I know to look for to see if you're sick or hungry or hurt just aren't there at all, and you have some weird, almost non-geometric twist to half your patterns. I don't think anybody would notice it unless they looked closely."
from_scratch
"There is a distinct limit to how much I can get sick or hungry or hurt without my own express permission. The twist I have no idea. Can you name a local butterfly species?"
sturdycoldsteel
It's a butterfly. Its wings are very shiny, and a section of them does indeed look like copper.
She blinks. "Yep, that's it. The effect on the stream seemed exactly the same as your morpho."
She blinks. "Yep, that's it. The effect on the stream seemed exactly the same as your morpho."
from_scratch
"Okay, there goes one hypothesis on what the heck bluestream is. Well, partially, anyway, maybe the difference would be too small to see or I made the morpho incorrectly."
from_scratch
"The book mentions there's less bluestream at higher altitudes, and also that living things affect it. I don't have a good way to test the hypothesis 'there's a magic rock at the core of the planet' but I could give a whirl to 'life on this planet has something about it that generates bluestream'."