"Figuring out fatherhood is possible, even easy, but people are still dumb about it."

"One of the traits is having up to twice as much lifeforce, they are called naturalborn sorcerers. The five of us having that to various degrees. There are two from Elan, one of it is called Synth, which lets people alter hereditary traits to a limited degree, but includes the other Elan trait: Augmentation, which is just making the organism stronger, faster and bigger, it increases their Stamina, Health and Youth. Though, a completely augmented human doesn't interact straightforwardly well with sorcery. So the local eugenics-minded people arrange for half-augmentated naturalborn sorcerer descendants, because it's the sweet spot, it nets you triple lifeforce. Then there is Heat manipulation from Efross, which lets its carriers absorb and later release heat."

"The last one relates to stamina, in the sense that people with more stamina can store more heat. But it's a matter of paired capacity and people are, like, less adjusting their cultural customs around it."

Huh. That last one has some surprisingly immediate parallels to Calorism, even if they're also obviously not the same. "Interesting. And for Synth, Augmentation, and Heat, they are 'from' particular worlds. Pardon my vagueness, but how does that work?"

"In a sense, sorcery is from Elsewhere itself? Mind, we actually don't know much about how that came to be. Elsewhere, had a civilization in the past, like fifty thousand years in the past. And we don't know what happened to them, but they died. Then about four-to-five centuries ago Elsewhere got 'closer' to Elan and naturalborn sorcerers started being born there."

"Naturalborn sorcerers that never been to Elsewhere will be transported to it at some point in their lives. Landing in a random location on its surface. Sorry, we are explaining it all out of order. And being a naturalborn sorcerer that 'found Elsewhere' was one of our theories for you, by the way."

"Yeah, that. And anyway, Elan just always had Synth and Augmentation, well, Augmentation came from Synth, but you know. Efross always had Heat manipulation, it's partially a trait of the world. Some animals there have a lesser version than the human one."

"Hm. I don't think I'm a naturalborn sorcerer, I certainly came here on purpose, but i suppose that doesn't actually rule it out entirely. Is there any way to tell? Perhaps someone with access to Synth could determine it? And, were Synth and Heat manipulation always lineal things, or did that somehow change when their worlds, uh, came into contact with Elsewhere? I'm curious what to expect, if my home world is liable to enter contact in the future."

"Given what you told us, we don't expect for you to to be one. But sorcery can determine it. And Synth and Heat manipulation still are lineal things. Uh, using Synth is painful on the target, historically it largely has been done to fetuses because of the smaller mass making it faster, and presumably them no feeling the pain if they are undeveloped enough."

"Synth feels like being electrocuted, and even magical anesthesia has a problem with preventing the pain. So you can augment an adult, it is just... torturous."

"Anyway, we never had a world coming to Elsewhere on its own. But assuming that you are cosmologically close enough, I expect Elsewhere to... put roots. Which will lead to children being born as naturalborn sorcerers."

Opero has had the misfortune of being struck by lightning before. If being subject to Synth feels anything like that he will certainly avoid it if possible. He nods. "Vitalism is more a discipline or skill than a matter of biology. I've heard tales that some people have gotten songbirds to produce spirits, but I've never seen it myself and I'm rather doubtful of it, and other than that it seems to be an entirely human faculty, so I suppose it'll only be going as far as it's taught. And, given that naturalborn sorcerers are spontaneously transported here at some unknown interval, I imagine there will soon be great demand for sorcerers to come and identify which children bear the mutation. Thinking about it, another relevant question is, what's involved in becoming a sorcerer? I know for vitalism there's a fairly large hurdle to get over initially, figuring out how to reliably enter the correct meditative state. Is there something similar for sorcery, or does it have a lower barrier to entry?"

"There isn't a universal definition. In a sense, a sorcerer is one that practices sorcery, in the way that someone that practices art is an artist? Granted, having extra lifeforce lets us use more and be more comfortable... killing oneself with sorcery is not easy, but, it's a thing that can happen. And once a sorcerer comes to Elsewhere at any point of their lives, they aren't taken later, even if they come via portal. Though, I think your civilization still is going to want to learn about it anyway."

"No worries. Kids that have twice as much stamina and wakefulness tend to make themselves very well known to their parents. And neighbors. And teachers. You are allowed to pity our parents for having to deal with the three of us growing up."

"That does sound like they might be a bit more rambunctious than the average, though especially at the more moderate end of the spectrum having explicit confirmation will bring families some peace of mind. And, given that analogy, it sounds like sorcery is indeed somewhat more...loose, perhaps, than vitalism? Anyone can pick up a brush and apply paint to canvas, or shape clay between their hands, and becoming a painter or sculptor is a matter of improving on that natural capacity. In contrast with, hm...maybe literacy? You can be a better or worse writer, have a stronger or weaker grasp of poetry and prose, but you can also be completely illiterate, not just a poor writer but a completely incapable one. Would you say sorcery is more like the former than the latter?"

"I want to say something in between. Maybe speaking a language if it's... Have we explained gifts or rituals at all?"

"I don't believe so, no. Please go ahead?"

Gabe - freed from the oppression of Henry's hand - says. "You guys are the worst interworld explainers."

"We thought he was from a long-lost colony that thought there still was a war going on. Anyway, gifts and rituals... Well, gifts are powers you have, one for each of the five aspects, wait we did explain that."

"We did. We talked about them a few minutes ago."

"Okay, so. It's possible to learn to manipulate your own lifeforce on your own? And gifts are powers. You get one for each lifeforce aspect you can... grow a power attach to it in your lifeforce. They each use that aspect for fuel. It takes time to grow them, and usually it's done by meditation... or trauma to the relevant lifeforce aspect." Henry shifts uncomfortably.

Gabe sort of, quietly pulls Henry away from the conversation.

"The trauma version is not, I can't emphasize enough, a reliable way to get gifts. Anything that affects your lifeforce that much is just as likely to kill the person. Though it happened in Elan..." Felix shrugs as if trying to clean something off his head "Anyway, growing gifts takes time, naturalborn sorcerers have an edge there because it's just easier for us to just notice our own lifeforce the right way. Still, with help it can take a week, months without or if you are not a naturalborn sorcerer, each of the aspects takes progressively longer."

"Rituals are the other part of the sorcery. They are more versatile, you can do a series of steps, like chanting, arranging specific objects, doing some actions, with the purpose in mind. This produces a magical effect, the caveat being that the magic that is metaphorically hearing your request is very literally, and each action in a ritual has a meaning. If you do it incorrectly, you can die because you accidentally told the magic to take away too much of your lifeforce or because you told it to explode on your face. In that way it's like speaking a language. You can learn phrases in a language, but it isn't the same as being fluent."

Long-lost colonies? A war that is apparently over? Something to ask about when this topic has run its course. "Ah, yes, sorry, I didn't realize that was what 'gift' was referring to. It's interesting, and I'm curious whether, for example, my training with spiritism, and my comfort with spiritual meditation in particular might incline me to develop a gift for breath, at least more easily than someone otherwise as totally unfamiliar as myself might. I assume, going from how you speak of noticing your own life-force, that developing a gift is the 'part' of sorcery that might be the more direct path to detecting naturalborn sorcery in children?"