delta v over delta t when there is no t

[ertia]

In a bar, there is a girl.

She looks like she has saved up all of her decadent and slothful impulses for a solid decade and is indulging them all at once. She is sprawled on a couch with a book she's only half-reading, and an ice cream sundae, and smiiiiiiling.

Comments

[ertia]

Kithabel gives her a bead and says that if the world tries to end again she should notify the bead.

[cheerfulish]

"I will certainly do that," Jannivae promises. "Thank you for getting rid of the ravening fiends. I am glad to no longer be beset by fiends."

[ertia]

"I am sure everybody is glad to no longer be beset by fiends, it seems inconvenient."

And then she makes there be a door.

[cheerfulish]

"Goodbye!"

[first_and_final]

"Bye!"

Through the door they go.

"That was kind of a fun world."

[ertia]

"Yeah. Got to take my with-enough-momentum-even-information-problems-are-doable tricks out for a spin."

[first_and_final]

Adoring giggle.

[ertia]

Snuggle!

[first_and_final]

Snuggle!

And then they go have more Mated Vampire Activities, and some time passes, and a few more people come through wanting fairly specific small-scale problems solved, and then Milan is out flying by the lake and he says to Kithabel,

I met this girl out here who says her world has locations called 'magics' that make random magical changes to anything that enters them. This seems like something we should take a look at. And by we I mostly mean you, although I might as well come along just to see if I can mess with them any.

[ertia]

Random, random? That doesn't sound good.

Down she comes.

[first_and_final]

Things that might happen to someone who enters a magic include: growing extra limbs, losing all of your limbs, turning permanently purple, becoming deaf, gaining the ability to hear sunlight, vanishing into thin air, dropping dead on the spot, sprouting wings in inconvenient locations, turning into a goat with snakes for legs...

There is Milan! He is just coming in the back door, accompanied by a sixteen-year-old human who is in fact reciting this very same list to him.

[ertia]

Kithabel goes and listens to the rest of this list from her own mouth.

[makeyourselfuseful]

"...learning to braid moonbeams but that's from a folk tale and doesn't sound especially plausible, having your head replaced with a frog's which is also from a folk tale but does, having the air above your head rain puffed rice on you wherever you go, having your voice replaced with the sound of geese honking, growing to twice your normal height, growing scales all over your body, I wouldn't be surprised if someone walked out of a magic looking like you..."

She notices Kithabel approaching and breaks off with a little curtsey-like gesture. "Hello."

[ertia]

"Hello. These things sound... let's go with 'mostly bad'."

[makeyourselfuseful]

"'Mostly bad' is a pretty good description of the results of magics!"

[first_and_final]

"Kithabel, this is Berete. Berete, Kithabel."

[ertia]

"Nice to meet you. I'm not immediately thinking of a good way to limit the effects of magics to the good ones that has a nice consensus definition of 'good', but they seem entirely too charming at least in potentiality to just eradicate altogether."

[makeyourselfuseful]

"Well, I don't know what-all your fancy godlike powers can do, but if you just made it so that no one could go into a magic who didn't mean to go into a magic that would help a lot."

[ertia]

"Fencing is definitely the simple option. But it might be nice if someone who wanted Milan's extra limbs but not the risk of being a snake-goat could have that. I could just make them turn out specified results, but that loses the charming whimsy altogether. Maybe I can make them present an option list, with 'nothing' always being an option."

[makeyourselfuseful]

"Sounds pretty charming to me. What would that do for all the actual goats that wander through them?"

[ertia]

"I'm not sure. How inconvenient are the results when animals get turned into things?"

[makeyourselfuseful]

"Usually more amusing than anything, but once in a while you hear about a fire-breathing bear."

[ertia]

"I think I can define 'dangerous' out of the options for nonsapients. Should I do that for people too, do you hear about firebreathing humans causing trouble?"

[makeyourselfuseful]

"I wouldn't expect firebreathing humans to be that much more trouble than the regular kind," she says. "And some people might get some use out of breathing a little fire."

[ertia]

"All right. So harmless nonsapient results, and chosen results off a list with 'nothing' always on it for people."