......on the plane I was born in, and all the planes it regularly contacts, you can't do science. The universe doesn't like - being cornered into making promises and expected to hold to them. You can learn stuff by practicing, and guessing, and divine inspiration, and copying other people or copying out of nature, but you can't... test a principle in mice, be sure you were right because your tests came out just so, and then check it in people. Or find out exactly how fast things fall. Or anything like that.

Arda is a science world. You can do all those things there and they work fine. But I was assuming it was the odd one out.

"...What?" Melody blinks owlishly at her. "But that's not – it doesn't – reality isn't the kind of thing that works by making promises? It's just...stuff that has certain properties... What do you mean you can't find out how fast things fall? If you drop twenty rocks off a building while you're looking at an hourglass, reality is going to change how rocks work and how falling works because it feels cornered?" Melody yanks at the neck of her robes. "I don't understand how you'd ever do anything at all. That sounds maddening." 

It's not great. The standard of living for a normal middle class person in a developed country is higher there than here - hot running water, birth control that works every time, one-and-done magic healing that'll take care of everything in a couple seconds, that kind of thing - but it's all kind of hacked together? And there's stories about science worlds and what you could do if the world would hold still but it doesn't, someone tried the how fast do things fall experiment and now down is a different direction for miles around.

"All right, that's just rude." A deeply offended sniff. "I'm, er, sorry? I mean, it sounds like it was all right in a lot of ways, better even, but...that would drive me up the wall. Reality being the kind of thing that can punish you for just, what, trying to understand it so you can make things? I mean, I'm irritated about my limitations, Mindhealing doesn't lend itself as well to experiments and we barely understand anything about how it works and I feel like I'm flailing around in deep water sometimes trying to find anything I can grab, but, you know, we could understand it? I could piece together the bits I do know and that could be enough and at the very least I'm pretty damned sure the world isn't going to go changing how minds work if I'm getting too close on its tail." 

Melody subsides, smoothing down her robes. "Sorry. I, just – the idea makes my skin crawl. I like reality to stay put. I'd feel like I was insane in a place like that." 

So you're very sure that this is not like that, and that doing experiments here is safe.

"...Um, now you've got me stressed about it, so maybe talk to Gemma? Or Shavri, Gemma told me she's gotten chummy with Savil's Herald-Mage trainee and they're working on something to do with what air's made of, I didn't follow. Maybe the thing they're doing isn't what you mean by experiments? But, um, I'm pretty sure some would've noticed if testing a thing changed the answer. Someone did the rocks test, I'm pretty sure. Read about it in school." 

I'll follow up on that.

"Mmm. If you're able to make it to the House of Healing tonight they should both be around. Er, I can let you go now? Getting close to lunchtime and I don't want to step on your other plans. I need to go away and sit down and do some thinking anyway." 

Sure. This was fun. And enlightening.

Melody nods and gets up and collects her teapot and cup. "I had a delightful time, aside from the creepy part about worlds that are out to get you. Do let me know if you want to go to the market at some point. I'll see you around." She goes down the hall to her own new room. 

Bella runs to lunch and looks for Shavri or Gemma.

Gemma isn't there, but Shavri is sitting with Vanyel at a table, talking animatedly at him. 

Plop! "Hi."

"Good, um, morning? Afternoon?" Vanyel seems unsure whether he's happy to see her or not.

"Hi Bella!" Shavri at least seems to have forgotten any awkwardness. "Did you end up finding Melody?"

Yes! She has brought it to my attention that this world may not be like most planes I am familiar with in which it is forbidden by the universe to attempt to systematically learn about how it works and thought you might be able to confirm. Something about an experiment on air. Are you doing an experiment on air?

"Oh!" Shavri lights up. "I mean, we aren't very far yet, but I was talking to Savil's student Sandra and she's really into alchemy for some reason – I think being a mage is helpful? There are some spells you can use to do things to different materials. Anyway she was curious about how fire works and I was curious about how breathing works and why living things die if they don't breathe, and I don't remember how but somehow we got onto the idea that it's a same thing – that living things burn fuel on the inside, just like a fire does. I think maybe it was a way my Healing-Sight looked when I went in really really really close? Anyway we played around with some tests, we put a candle in a sealed glass dome and it burned for a bit and went out, we put a mouse in and it died after a while – I felt bad. Then we tried both at the same time, or one after the other in both orders, and we're pretty sure there's something in air that both fire and living things need, and it's not the only thing because there's still air left in the bulb afterward, and now we're working on trying to pull it out so we have air that's only made of that part. I have a theory that if patients are having trouble breathing then surely it should help if they're breathing air that has more of the important thing in it. Anyway. We've been stuck there for a while." 

"...What do you mean, forbidden by the universe to systematically learn about how things work?" Vanyel gives her a horrified look. "How would the universe even forbid that? What does that mean?" 

So, when you say you're stuck you just mean that you're stuck, and not that your mice are dying before you can do more tests, or that your lab has caught fire several times, or that you had research assistants who have been struck by lightning, or that all or your notes were eaten by a swarm of paper-chewing bugs. You're just stuck.

"...Yes, I think we're being stupid about it somehow, Sandra tried to adapt a few spells for metallurgy and those didn't work and we're not sure what other spells could be adapted and neither of us knows how to invent new spells from scratch. But none of the scary things like that are happening!" 

And you have never heard of people having scary things like that happen to them when they did experiments.

"...I mean, not if they were being sensible? Sandra broke her window once because she wasn't being careful and she mixed some things together that really shouldn't be mixed together and they exploded. It wasn't even magic, Savil couldn't believe it. But, um, no? I've heard of people having accidents if they were sloppy, but not terrifying crazy nightmare accidents that make no sense when they weren't being sloppy. And it's never happened to me." She grins. "I'm careful." 

Oh good. She's practically vibrating in her seat.

"You seem really happy about that," Vanyel says. "I...didn't realize you thought our world would strike you with lightning or eat your notebooks if you ran tests like that. I, er, would've told you sooner so you didn't have to be scared of it." 

I would have asked! But there are a few dozen planes that do this and only Arda that didn't in my previous experience and if this one was like most of them it would have been an infohazard to mention it. Anyway, now I can do magic. I did so much science to magic back in Arda.