trade my soul for a wish

[from_scratch]

This is a successor to "call me maybe", which is getting crowded.

Cam is dipping a grilled cheese sandwich into a bowl of tomato soup when he feels the summons. He goes ahead and grabs it. Doesn't even drop the sandwich.


with Mark (kappa)

with Adanya (Aestrix)

with Sable (kappa)

with Ari (andaisq)

with Metella (kappa)

with Miles (kappa)

with Isabella (Eva)

with Steel (Rockeye)

with Daphne (Maggie)

with Edie (Maggie)

Comments

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Eh. Fiction or non?"

[from_scratch]

"Do separate libraries have those?"

[sturdycoldsteel]

"A whole library is a lot of books, and I don't want to be responsible for including things you'd be bored by. Alright, try Opri Grande's main library. It's a university for shapers."

[from_scratch]

"Cool, thanks." Cam makes a bizarre stick-shaped device, which appears in his hand and proceeds to project light in a square beside it.

[sturdycoldsteel]

"That is not a library. That is not a book."

[from_scratch]

"No, it's my computer. With the library on it on top of everything else usually stored there. Demons can do format conversion just fine even if translation evades our magic."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"I have to assume it's some sort of incomprehensible technology. Are all five thousand-some books written inside that somewhere, ridiculously tiny?"

[from_scratch]

"It's... more complicated than that. Sort of, though. Five thousand, really? That's an entire library here?"

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Well, it's the school's main library, which is kept pretty tidy generally and doesn't include all the specialties. I was concerned about the size of five thousand books, let alone a hundred thousand. If you want all the books just go grab Capitol Spire's library, archives and all. They'll have five of anything Opri does."

[from_scratch]

"But now that I've already made the computer I have to make an entire separate object for that," he says, making an entire separate object and wedging it into a space in his computer.

[sturdycoldsteel]

"I did not know computers were a thing. Sue me for wastefulness, you might even win with all the gold you could toss around."

[from_scratch]

"I'm teasing. Mostly; I do try not to make more things than I have to. Can't get rid of them without setting things on fire or equipment I cannot safely have here."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Sensible to be careful with space. It's not like you're going to run out of things. If you want to read about the bluestream, try looking for Why Blue? An Overview of Magic's Biggest Questions. A bit rambly and philosophical, but otherwise a good introductory theory text. For fiction I'd recommend the Ace's Tail series. Ace is a wandering adventurer who rights wrongs where he finds them. They're a bit two-dimensional, but I like them."

[from_scratch]

"Sure. Thanks." Cam prods his computer into coming up with appropriate character encodings for the new alphabets, and then tracks down the first book mentioned.

[sturdycoldsteel]

The first few chapters are about what bluestream (supposedly) is, a step by step guide on doing one's first shaping (which mostly seems to consist of willing things in the correct way), the most elementary or common uses of it (light, heat, and motion mostly), and brief descriptions of the kinds of things one can do when one is more learned.

The broad categories each get a chapter. Agriculture, construction, transmutation, healing, and thermo-kinetics.

'Transmutation' sounds a lot like chemistry with magic, since it talks about elements and compounds and so on. 'Thermo-kinetics' similarly sounds a little like physics or engineering. None of the knowledge contained therein is particularly impressive by Cam's standards.

The book describes how one becomes a shaper: One sits in the stone circles. About 70% of the time the person who goes into it will enter sensory deprivation for five days and wake up a shaper. The other 30% experience intense pain that bypasses all known anesthesia.

Apparently statistics show that it's completely random, not disciminating by age, gender, race, health, education, personality, sexuality, or anything else they could think of to investigate. Nobody knows why the stone circles do this, or how to get it to work with a different arrangement, a different kind of stone, etc.

[from_scratch]

This is all very interesting. Cam wonders if a circle would even work on him. He can probably get most of the conventional end results that these people use shaping for his own way, but multiplicative possibilities with his tech and making are tantalizing.

[sturdycoldsteel]

Bluestream cannot accomplish inherently magical ongoing effects. Examples: If you build something, it has to stay up with physics and not magic. Shields only last as long as the shielder's concentration and continued existence in a friendly section of stream.

The book speculates wildly on how bluestream would behave if it didn't have a planet underneath it to anchor to. The bluestream thins out as you ascend above the thickest part of the atmosphere, and anything one makes starts degrading faster as well. This is why most cities are at low altitude.

The last chapter details the basics of a system for how to mark down and read basic arrangements of bluestream (it includes an example map: a firepit that you can light yourself, or just keep it burning with magic) and mentions that more detail can be found in most intermediate textbooks.

[from_scratch]

Cam wonders what on this planet makes bluestream... but it seems they don't actually know.

[sturdycoldsteel]

(The book mentioned in passing that living things exert little disturbances on the bluestream. It is generally assumed that the fog is millennia of accumulation of this.)

Steel is now standing in the middle of her circle, arms and wings outstretched, perfectly still. The surrounding area becomes significantly dimmer, almost like twilight.

[from_scratch]

It could just be life in general, but his making wings did something to it too, so it can't be something literally physical or chemical about the life, since - well, he did start the wings full of a copy of Steel's own blood, so maybe it could be some trait of native life. Further tests necessary. She didn't mention if the tomato soup's appearance did anything.

Cam's computer automatically compensates for ambient light.

[sturdycoldsteel]

That's pretty much it for the first book.

After a few minutes, the light goes back to normal. "I declare the experiment a success. Made me a bit thirsty, though, would you mind filling my canteen?"

[from_scratch]

"Just water?"

[sturdycoldsteel]

"If you want to make me apple juice or raspberry sourdrops, I'll hardly object. No caffeine or alcohol or anything stronger, please."

[from_scratch]

She gets apple juice. Sparkling. "There you are. Hey, I want to test a thing. If I make a butterfly can you tell me if it does something to the bluestream like making your wings did?"

[sturdycoldsteel]

She takes a swig of juice. "Ah, carbonation. I'll watch, sure. Appear it a few inches above a hand so I know where to stare."