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

[alicornucopia]

"Anyway, I'll go see about summoning you - and you wanted me to tell that purple and green fellow something?"

[or_coincidence]

"Well, maybe, but I think if I'm going to be visiting the world in three hours anyway it doesn't matter as much. I was going to say that he should go somewhere there aren't any dragonlike creatures nearby - would that be easy to do, or are there lots of dragons around where you were?"

[alicornucopia]

"Not a ton. Headmaster's wife, me, one other student."

[or_coincidence]

"Well, that's pretty easy then. Tell him that if he really wants to go home right away, he should go somewhere there aren't any dragonlike creatures nearby, and if he doesn't he can wait for me to show up and talk to him myself."

[alicornucopia]

"Sure thing."

[or_coincidence]

"Thanks!" says Blueberry. Then she floats her scroll of notes in front of her, opens it, and picks up her quill to start scribbling a second version.

[alicornucopia]

Kaylo peers over her shoulder while she does it. Well, pretty much over all of her.

[or_coincidence]

Yes. She is very small and peerable-over.

Scribble scribble think think scribble look something up in a book scribble scribble think scribble.

"Hmm..." She frowns a tiny frown at the finished version of the second spell, then fetches a blank scroll and opens it up beside the first scroll and transcribes her notes more cleanly. They're not written as understandably as the compass spell in the textbook; subheadings include 'Safety safety safety' and 'What?' and 'Where?', with lists of fragmented sentences laying out relevant parameters.

[alicornucopia]

Kaylo, being about to be subject to this spell, is particularly concerned with the "safety safety safety" section.

[or_coincidence]

One entire list item is just the word 'Teleport' - the first one, in fact. Then there's 'extra attention: land comfortably' and 'extra attention: cancel for danger' and 'extra attention: do not land on people'.

[alicornucopia]

"I assume 'teleport' has its own list of parameters you're referring to here?"

[or_coincidence]

"Yes. Teleport safety is its own thing, I don't need to re-list all of it - the spell would be worse if I tried to pay individual attention to every single thing, because then I might miss something. But most of the time when ponies teleport they're teleporting themselves and they can either see their destinations or are pretty familiar with them, so an interworld teleport needs extra attention to things like not sending you if something unexpectedly dangerous is going on where you would be put, and not dropping you on top of a table or another person or into a pond."

[alicornucopia]

"And the spell understands 'danger' as a concept just fine?"

[or_coincidence]

"Yes."

[alicornucopia]

"How does it do that?"

[or_coincidence]

"Well, most ponies understand 'danger', don't they? It's not that complicated of an idea."

[alicornucopia]

"But you're sending me to another world. There's potential dangers you've never heard of," says Kaylo.

[or_coincidence]

"Yes, that's why I made sure to have unexpected dangers as an extra point. I don't think you have a different definition of danger, do you? It still means 'things that might hurt you', more or less."

[alicornucopia]

"Yeah," Kaylo nods.

[or_coincidence]

"So the spell won't have a problem noticing dangerous things just because I haven't heard of those particular dangerous things. They're still dangerous things."

[alicornucopia]

"Welp, that will completely shred half the open questions on my list and open up about twice as many new ones."

[or_coincidence]

Blueberry giggles. "What do you mean?"

[alicornucopia]

"I have this long list of open problems, and magic that can take a definition and use it to sort things that are not individually analyzed by the caster is an automatic fix for a bunch of them - maybe not half - and then the question is how exactly it goes about doing that, which subdivides like crazy, probably - I'm guessing, on both counts, I'll need to sit down with my list and you and go through it."

[or_coincidence]

"That sounds like a lot of fun! Do you want to be put back now?"

[alicornucopia]

"Yeah, go for it. And I'll collect you in about three angles give or take and tell your friend to wander off someplace if he wants yoinking - will you be able to tell if he does that versus deciding he's not in a hurry to come back here?"