I'm not demanding any personal info but like

I'll follow sealed instructions if you stop responding

This is obviously the most important thing I'll do all week. Maybe month. Probably not year given the uh

You being magic and wanting a ??research coordinator??

Uh

OcularStone is typing...

OcularStone is typing...

I don't want to be friendly and helpful JUST because maybe magic??

I wouldn't trust you to do that if you were, but you aren't.  I've known you long enough to get at least that much of an understanding of your character.  Besides, you put your potential ulterior motive(s) right on the table and I happen to agree with them.  Rational self-interest suggests that I pull you in here before someone else I don't know as well tries to make themself a better candidate, in self-defense.

asdf

Anyway if the cleaning thing did not feel hard at all you're almost certainly at least a C on this scale

That's good news.  Annoying that it's so vague, though.  ...Speaking of spells, I don't suppose you've found any others lying around?  I could probably try to improvise from my collection of literature, but I'm, well, fretting about messing something up.

There's a bunch

I haven't been throwing them at you because I don't want to

idk

Prejudice the condition

Break the double blind

Mmm, true.  Dammit, I want to do more magic, but I also don't want to - accidentally explode or anything.  That would, you know, be bad for our chances of immortality.

Think you're up for trying a spell without knowing what it's supposed to do? To test the mental hypothesis?

Sure.  Gimme a few, gonna get somewhere that won't mind some sort of misfire very much.  Or do I need supplies for this one too?

Cup of water, salt

Put the salt in the water

Alright.  How much salt, how big a cup?  Or, I mean, does it mean 'a cup' the unit or a cup the object?  Any special procedures...?

No, we just need salty water. Whatever size. Just enough to taste salty, doesn't have to be ocean level.

Alright, one cupful of salty water plus intent-to-do-some-sort-of-magic coming up, I guess.

...That shouldn't be too hard to round up, at least.  She'll go for a small one; she has little disposable cups and she's sure there's a packet of salt around here somewhere...

OcularStone is typing...

OcularStone is typing...

Try not to form expectations about the magic? If that's even mentally possible when you have to focus to DO it?

Touch the outside of the cup and stare at the water. Imagine the impurities within it- Salt, and also minute minerals. Focus on wanting to separate everything within the cup by type. Still focusing on it, set the cup down on grass or dirt, clear of anything fragile for about five feet and back off.  Then chant five times: As Below, So Above. Then walk up, pick the cup up, and pour it out on the spot.

...Maybe you should've picked something that doesn't have English chants with a clear intentionality behind them.  For future reference.

I know enough about Latin to not trip over my own tongue without breaking the blinding if I don't actively try to break down the words by roots I know?

"This is Alex Marche, I'm out here running another spellcasting experiment; I've had a friend pick out a spell and try to relay the instructions without telling me what they do.  Though I'm not sure that was successful, but I'm not sure I can successfully record my expected expectations without - solidifying them into something that will definitely interfere with testing the requirement that the mage not know what they're actually doing.  ...I'm not sure if he's testing whether spells are required to exist, actually.  I don't actually think he could tell me."

She will edit the instructions in, as-delivered, in post.

"Anyway.  Here we go.  Attempt 1."

And she does her best to proceed without expectation of how the spell might act, should it indeed exist.

All she is certain of is that it is invoking a principle of sympathy, and - separation?  The pouring-out of the cup, though, she has successfully formed no particular belief about, even if she might guess at some possibilities when left to her thoughts.

She's not left to her thoughts when she's busy casting, after all.

"As Below, So Above, As Below, So Above, As Below, So Above, As Below, So Above, As Below, So Above -" and pour -

Her fingers slip from the lock at the last step, the key released from her unsteady hands before it could be turned.

This is not a complete spell.

But it does leave behind the salt.

"...Well, it felt incomplete.  Like I stuck a key in a lock and then it fell out because I didn't turn it.  But the salt stayed put how I visualized.  If nothing else I've got a decent line on distilled water, hey?"

She debates, for a moment, whether to try and press the button to end the recording on her phone via magic or walking over normally.

Eventually, she chooses to walk.  Though not before recording a last few thoughts...

"Originally, I suspected that this could've been some sort of trace-mineral sifter, like some sort of magical equivalent of panning for gold.  But I wasn't sure, given the direction of the chant, that it really was; the thought fell from my mind before I cast.

"This suggests a further experiment; that will be another recording, or multiple, if and when it happens."

Annnd send the video.

Experiment thoughts: Do spell with intent to perform what your instructions say the spell should do, do spell with intent to do what I maybe thought it could after you break blinding.

Interesting!!

And answering a niggling doubt he's never going to mention, too.

What my instructions say, then what you thought? Or what you thought, then what my instructions say?

I think we test "do what your instructions say" first.

Gimme a sec, I'mma do it.

"Experiment number two, take one; I'm going to see if I can get the spell that didn't complete in experiment one, to complete by referencing the friend who gave me the instructions' understanding of its mechanics."

And so she forms and holds the intention to perform the spell OcularStone knows to be accomplished by this procedure -

- and the key doesn't fit anymore.

"...Same non-result; the salt separated, but the wider effect, if any existed...

"This felt more like I was trying to use the wrong key, than that I let go of it before the spell completed.  That maybe it could be forced with enough power, or something.

"...I have some ideas on how to actually ease the working of that, by the same sympathetic principles, but, mmm.  For another time."

She stops the recording.  Sends it.

Spell jammed, rather than not turning.  Hmm.  I guess now is...  Actually I should try to perform my suspected result both before and after you tell me the design intent.

:sparkles: :sparkles: :magic_wand: :sparkles:

Ha!

So, then.

What happens if she focuses on sifting the trace minerals from the dirt, as a logical consequence of the spell?  (While still, of course, recording and explaining what she's trying to do.)

Though there is that pesky thread of doubt...

As Below, So Above, is, after all, backwards, to accomplish that purpose.  It's what knocked that suspicion off to begin with.