chalk

[alicornucopia]

In Paraasilan, Esmaar, a pair of roommates are about to break a rule that, compared to the one about running in the corridors or even the one about unlicensed teleportation, is there for a good reason.

In unison, they complete their shared spell.

~~~

with Adarin (Aestrix)

with Ekador (kappa)

with Brilliance (kappa)

with the admin (kappa)

with Teah (kappa)

with Katran (lambda)

with Hall (kappa)

with Joy (kappa)

with Kalinda (Christy Hotwater)

Comments

[aeskhyne]

"Her favourite food is applesauce and she's Aleist. When I do a nice no I do a nice no. They're more widely understood back home, weight of history and all, but I figure people here will catch on eventually too."

[alicornucopia]

"But would it have been irrelevant to send, say, the entire city of Peiza a rainstorm with thunder that happened to say 'no' in the pattern of the booms in pulsecode?"

[aeskhyne]

"Nah. I could've if I'd felt like being that flashy and obscure."

[alicornucopia]

"And you had access to memories which could theoretically have included incidental information about Peiza needing rain?"

[aeskhyne]

"Yeah. And I can read the history of the world if I want, find out things like that - and here's what I mean about inconsistent relevance: Peiza did need rain, I just looked it up, and then I gave it some, because it was funny that it did with you saying that and I was still holding onto the prayer for our conversation. That's the kind of weird edge case I couldn't plan for or do on purpose if I tried. You were just making it up, right, you didn't actually know one way or the other?"

[alicornucopia]

"I had no idea," confirms Kaylo, reading the updates to the list.

[aeskhyne]

"Learning anything interesting?"

[alicornucopia]

"Maybe. How long can you hold onto a prayer? What if someone literally prayed for you to be able to do whatever you want?"

[aeskhyne]

"As long as I want, I guess, I haven't tried - and I have to know what I'm doing to grant a prayer. If I had any bright ideas, that would let me try 'em out, but I don't."

[alicornucopia]

"What if somebody prayed for you to be able to hold onto more than one at once?"

[aeskhyne]

"I don't think anybody's ever tried, but it wouldn't make sense for it to work. Same reason as the other thing - I can only do stuff that's relevant to the prayer I'm holding onto, but holding onto a prayer doesn't change how good I am at what it's asking for. You can give it a shot if you want, just to see."

[alicornucopia]

"Maybe. So in general people can't pray for you to be able to alter your own abilities, your status as a prayer-granter doesn't recurse?"

[aeskhyne]

"Yeah. I have stuff I can do, and what prayer I'm holding onto changes which of the stuff I can do right then, but not what stuff. If I can alter my own abilities, it's something I'll have to figure out how to do; just having somebody ask for it won't help with that."

[alicornucopia]

"Can people pray on each others' behalves? Wanting so-and-so to get whatever they want without being specific in the prayer about what that is?"

[aeskhyne]

"Yeah, I guess. I'd just have to figure out what so-and-so wanted, because if they weren't the one praying I wouldn't be 'hearing' it directly."

[alicornucopia]

"But the contents of what they want would fall under the scope of the relevance of the prayer."

[aeskhyne]

"Yeah. And so would, say, asking them what it was."

[alicornucopia]

"The detail work that gives you trouble - like brain stuff - you still can do, but have to do it stepwise. Does altering your own parameters seem like that, where given enough prayers directed at it you could figure out what to tweak to make it come together, or like something else?"

[aeskhyne]

"It seems like... mm."

Half a tick of silence - the list updates with another chunk of prayers.

"I can't see a lot of the things about me that I'd want to see if there was two of me and I was trying to work on the other one. It's not like working on somebody's brain where all the pieces are right in front of me. I've got this mortal body and I can see all its pieces just fine, but I can't see what connects me to it. I can kind of tell that there's something but I don't get any details. When Keo asked me to try giving myself an empathic signature - I could tell why I don't have one, and I could guess at how I might try to paste one back into my body, but I wasn't confident enough to try it because I don't understand anything about how this mind and that brain link up. I was afraid it might do something like - turn me into just a dream he's having, trap me in that body with no way to hear any prayers, and there wouldn't be anybody around who could undo it."

[alicornucopia]

"If you can get Keo something to grab onto she's - good at brain stuff," says Kaylo. "Well, mind stuff, technically. But I'm not sure how she'd interact with you because you're weird. Probably similarly risky to try sending your body back, even if we made plans to resummon you."

[aeskhyne]

"It seems like I came here with no problem, but maybe the mystery coma messed something up, who knows."

[alicornucopia]

"Yeah. There are potions and spells that can wake people, up, too, but likewise, maybe not safe to try."

[aeskhyne]

"Any bright ideas about how to figure out what is safe to try?"

[alicornucopia]

"...I usually avoid them like the plague because they're buggy, but there exist spells to tell the future, and this is actually the kind of thing that they're good at, specific planned action that might do one of two broad classes of things probably based on stable factors as opposed to small perturbations."

[aeskhyne]

"Spells to tell the future, huh? How's that work? What kind of buggy are they?"