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On Monday, Bella arrives at school completely and stably human shaped, with everything she has learned about critters (except for her own species, which she isn't liable to forget) written down as margin notes on a page reminding her to ask Darren about D&D and filler decoy notes about that. She's probably going to have invent an actual cipher alphabet or something eventually but for the time being she thinks this will probably do for casual inspection.
She sits next to Darren in English.
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shesepankh
castmyown
He snickers, and then retrieves a paper and pencil and draws out a rune.
Then, he gets to explaining it. There seem to be several different meanings to the rune - and it's wonderfully flexible at doing multiple things. The problem is, Darren explains, that when you put down a rune you get all of the effects it gives, not just the single part of it you want. So you need other runes to cancel out the unwanted effects of a rune, which causes other unwanted effects that need to be cancelled out, and so forth.
"So," says Darren once he's finished explaining what this particular rune does, "it becomes sort of like a puzzle, where you cancel out the effects you don't want but keep the ones you do. You see the danger of what happens if you miss an effect."
Then, he gets to explaining it. There seem to be several different meanings to the rune - and it's wonderfully flexible at doing multiple things. The problem is, Darren explains, that when you put down a rune you get all of the effects it gives, not just the single part of it you want. So you need other runes to cancel out the unwanted effects of a rune, which causes other unwanted effects that need to be cancelled out, and so forth.
"So," says Darren once he's finished explaining what this particular rune does, "it becomes sort of like a puzzle, where you cancel out the effects you don't want but keep the ones you do. You see the danger of what happens if you miss an effect."
shesepankh
"Yeah, no kidding." She was expecting to wind up with a chart, but this rune has taken up the entire page by itself, the drawing in the middle and notes orbiting it.
castmyown
Darren is aware that Bella does not like people looking at her notebook, so he is not looking at her notes.
"It gets even worse when we start getting into the strength of runes and how strongly they exert their effects on the world. Not all runes have the same strength when at the same size. Or, for some of them, not even all of their own effects have the same strength. I picked one that did because I know what mercy is."
He pauses, and adds, "Did I mention that magic is fun? Because it's fun."
"It gets even worse when we start getting into the strength of runes and how strongly they exert their effects on the world. Not all runes have the same strength when at the same size. Or, for some of them, not even all of their own effects have the same strength. I picked one that did because I know what mercy is."
He pauses, and adds, "Did I mention that magic is fun? Because it's fun."
shesepankh
"This sounds like the sort of thing that really ought to be handled by computer programs, actually, but I anticipate enjoying it."
castmyown
"If you can program something to figure this out for you, I will throw myself at your feet in awe. Since placement and size of runes also matter. Because why not, right?"
castmyown
"I'm sure you'll have so much now that you've started learning magic," Darren drawls.
shesepankh
"Maybe that'll be the division of labor. I'll catch up to you and then start learning to program while you collect information for me to eventually incorporate into the program."
castmyown
"Hmm. Maybe. That would be useful. I like this plan, if it's viable."
shesepankh
Bella goes back to her long-term projects list and writes automate some runing subtasks? under the existing items. "How were these runes originally discovered-or-invented, or don't you know?"
castmyown
"Discovered. There's a way to find new ones and that's how I learned most of the ones I know. Thing is, you have to reference something that the potential rune has through another rune, so I don't have any idea how it got started. I'm actually pretty sure there are runes I just don't know."
castmyown
"Like..." he draws another rune. "This one's got the same aspect of persistence that the one I showed you has. It's got lots of other completely different things to it, but these two have that in common. So if I made a spell that uses the first rune and looks for something with persistence, this rune can come up."
shesepankh
"Huh." Bella copies the second rune onto a fresh page. "Okay, and what else does this one do?"
castmyown
"I was going to save this rune for later, but since we're here and you're probably curious..."
He starts explaining what it does! It's more complicated than the last one, and it has different levels of strength to its effects. Darren explains these in percentages. Persistence seems to be the only thing it has in common with the first rune, and in other things it's wildly different.
He starts explaining what it does! It's more complicated than the last one, and it has different levels of strength to its effects. Darren explains these in percentages. Persistence seems to be the only thing it has in common with the first rune, and in other things it's wildly different.
shesepankh
"Cool. So the finding new runes - I guess you find yourself looking at an insoluble puzzle and then you're like 'if only I could get X without all this Y and Z, let's see what other runes do X' and then you find something that doesn't do Y and Z but maybe it does P and Q and with any luck they're easier to cancel?"
castmyown
"Pretty much. I spent around three months just trying to find out new runes and nothing else. It got kind of dull after a while, so I went back to making spells and looking for more runes if it seemed like I needed them. I found lots of runes over the three months, though. It helped a ton, it's just mind-numbingly boring if you do nothing else but that."
shesepankh
"Yeah, that sounds like it'd get old. I'm sort of glad I'm the second one of the two of us finding out about magic, because I am selfish and terrible."
castmyown
Darren snickers. "It's fine, you're not selfish and terrible. I can't blame you, I'd want the same. I had fun figuring things out, though, so I think it's all right."
castmyown
"Where are you selfish? Not wanting to spend months doing nothing but looking for runes? That's sanity, not selfishness."
shesepankh
"I'm selfish in general. Everything is about what I want. It's just that I happen to want nice things for other people a lot of the time - the mental framing is still very self-centered."
castmyown
"... I'm not sure I understand? You want selfless things for selfish reasons? Is that what you mean?"
shesepankh
"Something like that. I want, like, world peace, in roughly the same way that I might want a sandwich. 'Selfish' is descriptive, here, not a value judgment."
castmyown
"That's... Quite different from how I think. But it's still rather nice," points out Darren.