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

[cardistry]

"What else is on your list?"

[alicornucopia]

"Oh, figure out what the heck channeling capacity is, develop the theory of Lialen, that kind of thing."

[cardistry]

"What the heck is channeling capacity?" he asks, giggling.

[alicornucopia]

"Nobody knows! We can use it and we can count it but we can't figure out what it is. That's why I want to find out."

[cardistry]

"Sounds hard. Any ideas so far?"

[alicornucopia]

"Not really. I'm trying to be thorough about checking preexisting research, of which there is a great deal, all of which leads nowhere."

[cardistry]

"Well, that sounds tremendously boring."

[alicornucopia]

"It really is, but if I skip to the fun part there's always the chance someone will go 'a-ha, you have been operating in ignorance of Obscure Study #945', which would be less fun."

[cardistry]

"Gotcha. Hmm," he says.

[alicornucopia]

Kaylo shrugs and eats his sandwich.

[cardistry]

"I'm wondering if there could be a spell - my kind of spell - to save you some of the boring," he says. "I've never tried, so I don't know for sure."

[alicornucopia]

"I'm not sure how that would work, unless your magic is capable of lots of independent information sorting."

[cardistry]

"Well, yeah, that's just it - I know my magic can handle information, I just don't know what the limits are," he says. "Could be interesting to find out."

[alicornucopia]

"...I am intrigued. What do you currently know about its ability to handle information?"

[cardistry]

"Not a whole lot! And a lot of it's kind of in 'vague guesses' format - my vague guesses are pretty solid, I'm a Device and all, but they're not exactly specific or easy to articulate. Probably the fastest way to start figuring out the details is to sit me in front of a problem and see if I can solve it. Makes the difference between 'I think it can probably handle stuff that's written down pretty well' and, I dunno, 'yes, I can invent a spell to alphabetize books'. That was a random example, but I actually can invent a spell to alphabetize books, the matter manipulation part's almost harder than the sorting."

[alicornucopia]

"Okay, so - I can get ahold of books that mention channeling capacity while excluding those that just mention it offhand because they're spellbooks, with standard library spells. What I can't do with standard library spells is distinguish the ones that have interesting results."

[cardistry]

"Hmm," he says. "Well, what makes results interesting? What kinds of books have you gone through so far?"

[alicornucopia]

"So far no results are interesting, so I don't have any positive examples for your magic to take as training data. Kinds of books are generally going to be research anthologies or theory essays."

[cardistry]

"Hmmm... I wonder how well my magic can summarize," he says. "Might have to try it to see. Summarize and compare - pick out stuff like different research that did basically the same things and got basically the same answers."

[alicornucopia]

"That sounds very interesting. Wizardry does not currently have affordances for that."

[cardistry]

"Wanna go show me some books?"

[alicornucopia]

"Yeah, sure." Kaylo swallows the last bite of his sandwich and heads for the lift.

[cardistry]

Brilliance is not quite done his ice cream. Omnomnomnomnomnomnom now he is done his ice cream! He does a quick teleport to catch up to Kaylo.

[alicornucopia]

Kaylo snorts slightly, and tells the lift to take them to the library when they're in it.

Here is the library. It has many books in it.

[cardistry]

"Hmm," he says. "Okay, bring me your list of books that mention channeling capacity the right way?"