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In Paraasilan, Esmaar, a pair of roommates are about to break a rule that, compared to the one about running in the corridors or even the one about unlicensed teleportation, is there for a good reason.
In unison, they complete their shared spell.
Brilliance in Elcenia
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cardistry
"Mm, don't think so. Just the books..."
He waits for the books to finish coming in. Then: "Read," he says, and his spell diagram unfolds beneath the pile. A thin film of rainbow-coloured mana rises to cover the books, gradually, starting at the bottom layer and working its way up. As each book is completed, it flashes slightly. Brilliance looks lost in thought.
He waits for the books to finish coming in. Then: "Read," he says, and his spell diagram unfolds beneath the pile. A thin film of rainbow-coloured mana rises to cover the books, gradually, starting at the bottom layer and working its way up. As each book is completed, it flashes slightly. Brilliance looks lost in thought.
Kaylo decides to stand back and supervise and not ask further questions or touch the books till it looks like Brilliance is done.
cardistry
He smiles slightly and murmurs, "Cool," which seems to be commentary rather than another incantation.
The next actual spell he casts doesn't take an incantation at all, and has the effect of lifting all the books into the air and fanning them out vertically so that any two books next to each other in a stack have enough space between them for another book to pass by. "Okay - Category Sort." The books take advantage of their newly roomy configuration to rearrange themselves into three groups - about three-quarters of them on the bottom, about a tenth of them on the top, the remainder in the middle. The vertical gaps between categories are exactly twice the height of the vertical gaps between individual books in one category.
Brilliance contemplates them for a little longer, then says, "Information Summary." All the books in the bottom category and some of the books in the top category flash. "Information Summary." All the books in the middle category and some of the books in the top category flash. "Category Sort." The top category splits and rearranges itself - most of the books that flashed on one or both of the summaries stay where they are; all the books that didn't, and a few that did, rise into a fourth category above them. "And... Information Summary." The new top category flashes.
"Now I just need something to output to..." he murmurs, rubbing his head. "Of all the dumb things, I don't have good enough matter manipulation to just make the spell auto-write it, I'd have to learn how to work with matter well enough to conjure paper with stuff written on it, that's way harder for some reason than getting the information in the first place."
He turns at last to Kaylo. "Any suggestions? I've got three reports here - grouping the research by different things people tried and how it turned out when they did, grouping the theory by what theories they mention in about what level of detail, and grouping the miscellaneous crap like statistics and historical overviews by what kind of thing it is. I just need to get the reports out of my magic and into some kind of a format you can read, and I don't feel like writing them out by hand when there's bound to be a way to do it easier with magic."
The next actual spell he casts doesn't take an incantation at all, and has the effect of lifting all the books into the air and fanning them out vertically so that any two books next to each other in a stack have enough space between them for another book to pass by. "Okay - Category Sort." The books take advantage of their newly roomy configuration to rearrange themselves into three groups - about three-quarters of them on the bottom, about a tenth of them on the top, the remainder in the middle. The vertical gaps between categories are exactly twice the height of the vertical gaps between individual books in one category.
Brilliance contemplates them for a little longer, then says, "Information Summary." All the books in the bottom category and some of the books in the top category flash. "Information Summary." All the books in the middle category and some of the books in the top category flash. "Category Sort." The top category splits and rearranges itself - most of the books that flashed on one or both of the summaries stay where they are; all the books that didn't, and a few that did, rise into a fourth category above them. "And... Information Summary." The new top category flashes.
"Now I just need something to output to..." he murmurs, rubbing his head. "Of all the dumb things, I don't have good enough matter manipulation to just make the spell auto-write it, I'd have to learn how to work with matter well enough to conjure paper with stuff written on it, that's way harder for some reason than getting the information in the first place."
He turns at last to Kaylo. "Any suggestions? I've got three reports here - grouping the research by different things people tried and how it turned out when they did, grouping the theory by what theories they mention in about what level of detail, and grouping the miscellaneous crap like statistics and historical overviews by what kind of thing it is. I just need to get the reports out of my magic and into some kind of a format you can read, and I don't feel like writing them out by hand when there's bound to be a way to do it easier with magic."
"Spells for dictation are mostly kind of terrible. There's good copying spells, but I don't know if that would work for what you want to do - what format is the information in right now?"
cardistry
"Uh, magical? It's - I don't know, spells can hold information apparently, I've got the whole text of all those books in here too, that's what Read was doing. Stored separately from the summaries, though. And I'm gonna dump it all as soon as I'm done with it, I don't feel like carrying around a library's worth of information about CC in my systems permanently even if there's room. I think the holding format's mostly supposed to be intermediary between reading or composing something and recording it somewhere, but I can access it directly like that because I'm a Device."
"Could you dump it into a picture crystal, maybe?"
cardistry
"Maaaybe, what's a picture crystal?" He tilts his head, then amends, "Never mind, it was in the books. I guess that's kind of handy. Sure, show me a picture crystal and I'll see if I can output to it."
"I can dig one up, just a tick -" Kaylo teleports away, is gone for a bit more than a tick, and then reappears, crystal in hand. "This one's blank."
cardistry
"Okay... hmm. I'm juggling a little too much crap here, one sec." He waves a hand at the floating books and they un-float, settling down neatly into contiguous stacks. The spell diagram disappears from beneath them. He blinks a few times. "There, that's better. Now lemme have a look at you..."
He holds the picture crystal in his hands and peers contemplatively at it for a few seconds. It shimmers briefly with rainbow mana, then begins displaying an image of a considerable amount of neat black printed text - in Leraal, this being the language the books were in - on a plain beige background. He hands it to Kaylo. "There's your reports."
He holds the picture crystal in his hands and peers contemplatively at it for a few seconds. It shimmers briefly with rainbow mana, then begins displaying an image of a considerable amount of neat black printed text - in Leraal, this being the language the books were in - on a plain beige background. He hands it to Kaylo. "There's your reports."
"Awesome," says Kaylo. "You could do that with arbitrary sets of books and topics?"
cardistry
"Yeah, pretty much. And if I do enough of them I can probably refine the spells so they're not so - hands-on, so I won't have to handle all that information so directly and theoretically somebody who wasn't a Device could use them."
"Somebody who's not a Device but could still use your kinda magic, you mean?"
cardistry
"Yeah. I mean, not that there are any such people in this universe. But who knows."
"Not something you can impart as a Lufelsis present, huh?"
cardistry
"I don't know any way to, but it's not strictly impossible that somebody could come up with one."
"Can you make - magical tools? Like, the picture crystal was made with wizardry, but you don't have to do any wizardry to operate it."
cardistry
"...Sooooort of," he says. "I mean, I can make Devices, but there's the awareness thing if they're remotely complicated and you need a linker core to use them for most stuff I can think of... I don't know if I can make magical tools the way you mean. I'd probably have to learn conjuration if I was going to get much of anywhere with it. What kinds of things do magical tools do, besides - picture-crystal-ing?"
"There's communication crystals and music crystals. Link paper. Waterspouts. Hover platforms. Floating shopping baskets. Scoots."
"Flying vehicle. I don't have one to show you, unfortunately."
cardistry
"Huh. Yeah... I think it's theoretically possible to make magical tools with my magic, I'm just not actually sure how you'd do it."
"What's leading you to believe it possible, then?"
cardistry
"I can kind of see how some of the pieces would work - how you'd make things, how you'd make things that did stuff - the main part I'm missing is how to make it so somebody without magic could use it, but just because I can't figure that part out yet doesn't mean it's impossible, it just means I'd have to think about it some more."
"Well - what exactly would a person with magic be doing to use such a tool?"
cardistry
"A person with magic wouldn't be using a tool, they'd be accessing functions of a Device. That's easy, I can do that just fine. But even the absolute simplest Device imaginable, that didn't need any input and just maintained a single spell indefinitely, would need to be attached to a mage to do anything - we can't wield ourselves unless we're complex enough to be autonomous. If I made a magical tool, like you're talking about, it would have to be something that wasn't a Device. And I don't know how it would interface because the only interface I already know how to build is Device functions, which you need my kind of magic to use. But, I dunno... I could cast a spell on something that'd persist, if it was the right kind of spell and the right kind of thing. I could probably make a picture crystal if I already knew what picture I wanted to put on it - it might not work exactly like a picture crystal, and it might be tricky to figure out how, but I could. What I don't know how to do is make a picture crystal you could take a picture with. Triggering functions based on, like - physical state changes. No idea."