cooperation

[alicornucopia]

Two girls are moving their hands through the air and speaking together in perfect parallel.

Two girls are looking expectantly at a circle of red chalk on their floor.

Two girls have done something exceptionally stupid.

with Harry (andaisq)

with Isabella (Eva)

with Arcane (kappa)

with Miles (kappa)

with Nick (Rockeye)

Comments

[alicornucopia]

He takes it. "What are you researching, anyway?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Well, the problem I was originally trying to solve is how to end a co-cast summoning spell when neither caster has the CC to reverse it alone. But, uh." He looks ruefully at the stack. "Then I got distracted."

[alicornucopia]

"Co-casting is a mess," says the boy. "I mean, you could try a break, but co-casting makes that harder than usual and it's already really difficult."

[thisvorlunatic]

"It was a dumb stunt and they're lucky it turned out as well as it did," he says. "But, lacking anything much better to do, I figured I might as well read up on the local magic involved."

[alicornucopia]

"Oh, you're an offworlder. Huh. Well, welcome to Elcenia, I guess."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Thanks. It's an interesting place! Very, um, magical."

[alicornucopia]

"Not so magical where you're from?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"To argue that it's magical at all would be going out on a limb," he says.

[alicornucopia]

"Really? Nothing? What's that like?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Oh, we get by. In the absence of magic, one develops highly sophisticated non-magical solutions to one's problems."

[alicornucopia]

"Does one? I guess Erubia's supposed to be all right, but they use some magic, just not wizardry or witchcraft. Ryganaav's a hellhole."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Completely without magic of any kind, we managed to leave our original planet and colonize a couple hundred more. And invent all sorts of marvellous things besides interplanetary conveyances."

[alicornucopia]

"Wow. And now you want to go home but some people who didn't know what they were doing co-cast a summon too big for either of 'em. Rough deal."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Actually it's even more bizarre than that, because before that happened, I was inexplicably shunted between worlds by a different mysterious force that didn't stick around to apologize afterward. Being stuck here with some hope of going home eventually is infinitely preferable to being stuck there on a planet devoid of food, water, people, and apart from the contents of a single building, air."

[alicornucopia]

"...Wait, what? I mean, I assume you don't know the answer, but how?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Indeed I do not. It is a bizarre mystery. I've been kind of hoping that somebody somewhere had a theory that would explain spontaneous interworld travel, but so far no luck."

[alicornucopia]

"Yeah, wizardry only works here, can't explain that with local theory."

[thisvorlunatic]

"And there's no magic here that does interworld travel besides wizardry?"

[alicornucopia]

"Nope. Unless you count a really limited form which is both a fringe theory and not what happened to you."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Well, okay, you can't just drop a comment like that and expect me not to ask. Tell me more about this fringe theory."

[alicornucopia]

"Ha. All right, there's a fringe theory that Elcenia's got a nearby, attached, other world whence conjured matter and shapeshifter alternate forms."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Shapeshifters such as yourself? What's the evidence for or against?"

[alicornucopia]

"Such as dragons, like me, yes, or vampires. It's really technical, do you really want to get into it...?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Yes."

[alicornucopia]

"Shapeshifting and conjuration are instantaneous unlike anything that changes an existing object, if I left my other form dormant for a year it will have grown when I assume it again and would still have any objects tucked away with it. However, it's impossible to summon things from it and scrying just reveals that it is very dark wherever my dragon form is."