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

[or_coincidence]

"Sure!"

[alicornucopia]

Kaylo goes back into the lift and is carried away.

[or_coincidence]

Blueberry finds Joy.

[joyfulnoise]

Joy scoops her up and hugs her.

"Hi, Berry! I went outside for a little bit but then I came back."

[or_coincidence]

"The spell I've been using to try to get you has serious problems. I think I'm going to want to invent a whole new one that doesn't," she says. "It probably won't take much more than a week."

[joyfulnoise]

"Sure, that sounds fine. Did you know this world is a square? They've got maps and everything! It's pretty cool. What shape's ours? The maps I've seen mostly just show Equestria."

[or_coincidence]

"It's a sphere. It's actually mostly water; at night the sun is still shining somewhere, but only on lots and lots of ocean. But because there's plenty of land and it's all bunched up close together, nopony bothers making maps that show all the rest."

[joyfulnoise]

"That makes sense, I guess." He goes back to the book he was reading.

[alicornucopia]

Kaylo comes back with full to bursting binders flagged with various colors of sticky notes. "Hi again," he says. "Where do you want to start, Blueberry?"

[or_coincidence]

"Well, figuring out interworld transport seems like the most immediately practical thing. Whether or not unicorn spells can override wizard spells, and how to make a better unicorn spell so I can go back and forth between the worlds by myself without accidentally dragging any other ponies along."

[alicornucopia]

"Come to think of it, do you think you might have had trouble grabbing Joy because he's under a summon?"

[or_coincidence]

"It's possible. But it's hard to tell, because the spell I used is so bad. It was originally supposed to be for moving large groups of ponies long distances - that's why it targets by species. I managed to get it narrowed down so it didn't try to grab all of the dragonlike creatures in the building, but now I think it would be a better idea to abandon it and invent one myself."

[alicornucopia]

"Want to walk me through how you're going to do that?"

[or_coincidence]

"Well... casting a spell depends on being familiar with what it's supposed to do. So I think I'm going to learn all about how wizardry does interworld transport first, and then figure out how I want my spell to do it, and see if I can make a spell that works how I want. I haven't done a lot of work in spell invention, so it might take a while."

[alicornucopia]

"Okay. Lemme get us an intro interworld spells book and we can go through that?"

[or_coincidence]

"Sure!"

[alicornucopia]

Kaylo calls up a book meeting this description without having to get out of his chair. It flies to his hand and he thunks it on the table.

[or_coincidence]

Blueberry hops up onto a chair, and from there onto the table, and sits and reads the book.

[alicornucopia]

Wizardry can do the following things interworld: scry, summon, and send. Scrying involves looking at things in other worlds, summoning involves pulling things from other worlds and putting them in Elcenia, and sending involves taking things that are in Elcenia and making them stop being there. Objects that are summoned or sent do not leave their relevant spells active once they've made the trip, but live creatures have "native world" as a property that continues to tie them to wherever they're from; an active summon or send must constantly work against that in order to continue working. Active summons may be broken, at least in theory (breaks are difficult); sends can't but only because their targets are not in places where wizarding spells may be cast. Active spells, if not broken, must end via either reversal or caster death.

[or_coincidence]

The "native world" property is interesting. Blueberry suspects that unicorn magic doesn't interact with that, or doesn't interact with it in the same way, because she's managed to move people between worlds without having to keep a spell active to do it.

She rereads the parts about summoning and sending a few times. Then she says, "Can I have something to write on and something to write on it with?"

[alicornucopia]

"Sure." Kaylo gets her some paper and a graphite stick.

[or_coincidence]

Blueberry starts writing notes and drawing little pictures, clarifying for herself the concept of an interworld-teleporting unicorn spell.

"Are there any books that talk about the idea of where different worlds are in relation to each other?" she asks after a few minutes of this.

[alicornucopia]

"As far as I know, no, there isn't any relevant concept of adjacency or distance."

[or_coincidence]

"Hmm. What is there, then? What identifies worlds as different from each other but the same as themselves?"

[alicornucopia]

"...good question. When we look for someone specific it's a matter of being able to identify it through a unique description or personal experience, like, I've met you, I could go serve as a focus if somebody else wanted to summon you, if I were going to send somebody to your world I could put them in your library..."