Khenal
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Chapter Fifty-Eight
🕑 Added 2022-06-09 22:05:08 +0000 UTCWe talk a bit more about Fate affinity and how it works, and it seems to me like Luck might be a little more accurate, though that might be splitting hairs. I always felt like Luck was basically quantum stuff, but if that’s actually how it works, it destroys my working theory on how magic works.
I was thinking it was basically controlled quantum observation: observe the wave-form just right, and collapse it exactly how you want. Could be a fireball, or it could be a coin flipping heads when you need it, that sort of thing. Sounds to me like, if it is related to luck, it’s not the foundation for magic. Or maybe it is. Non-causal stuff is even weirder that most people think it is.
The other option for how magic works is for it to be a fifth fundamental force. If I remember right, there’s the strong and weak nuclear forces. I forget exactly what they do. I think one is what makes it so mass doesn’t overlap, despite most mass having a ton of room between the atoms, and the other… keeps protons and electrons and neutrons from collapsing together? I just remember those two don’t do a ton outside of atomic scale.
The other two forces are gravity and electromagnetism, which do all kinds of fun stuff. I swear, it feels like potential energy is just a kludge to get around how those two almost cheat. A gravity well will make a moon or a pebble fall at the same rate if there’s nothing in the way. And, of course, magnets work via friggin’ miracles, as everyone knows.
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Teemo
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The rat grunts from the weight of the thoughts of his dungeon. His Boss might know some secrets? He grimaces at the thought there could be even more! Yvonne notices the change in her small friend’s face and stance.
“Is everything alright, Teemo?”
He answers, some strain coming through in his voice. “Well… I don’t think the Boss was joking when he said he knew some of the secrets of creation. He’s not even telling them to me, more like just talking to himself, but the weight of some of these ideas is…” He trails off, uncertain how to even explain.
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Thedeim
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Musings on the so-called secrets of creation I only half remember and half understand aside, I can work with what my Residents are talking about even without knowing where magic actually fits. Well, I hope, anyway. If it is luck magic, it’s time to try to explain bell-curves and standard deviations, and ways to actually cheat at luck. There’s not a game of chance out there that can’t be rigged or cheated somehow. Card counting, loading dice, aces up sleeves; lady luck is not the pure maiden some people like to think she is.
Teemo’s spatial magic allows for all kinds of shenanigans when it comes to defending himself and others, too! Those shortcuts of his are bigger on the inside than out, so he’s got some serious Non-Euclidean geometry going on. He could make terrain that looks flat actually be incredibly unstable, or the opposite. If he gets really good, he could just make there not even be a path to himself, or be able to hit someone from anywhere, or allow an ally to do the same!
Rocky’s fire affinity should allow for him to at least double dip with elements, and potentially get to kinetics, too. If his fire affinity lets him move around and manipulate heat, not only should he be able to produce fire by turning the heat up, but create ice by turning it down, or create both by moving that heat energy, instead of brute-forcing it.
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Teemo
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Teemo wavers and sits down, the two Residents looking more concerned. “Can we do anything to help?” asks Aranya, a bit unnerved at the state of the Sanctuary’s Voice.
“Talking… helps, I think. It’s… it’s like he’s thrown open vault doors of knowledge. Talking helps to keep me from trying to follow. Just hearing him think, it’s just words. But if I try to understand, it’s like I’m being crushed!”
“Then don’t try to understand?” offers Yvonne, unable to think of any other suggestions. Teemo gives a pained chuckle as something his Boss said a while ago suddenly makes sense.
“Heh, try not to think about pink elephants, especially with them stomping all around you.”
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Thedeim
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Tiny and Fluffles’ kinetic affinities are going to be even more fun. I always liked solid mechanics: levers, fulcrums, pulleys, ramps, and so on. The simple machines that make up what a lot of people think of when they hear the word engineer. For Tiny, I think he’d be better to try to make into the proverbial immovable object, show him how a truss actually functions to be able to take the kinds of immense loads they can, and how to abuse angles to deflect kinetic forces away, instead of just absorbing them.
And Fluffles would be the unstoppable force, especially with him using my mana. I don’t know exactly how much a delver usually has, but I’d be surprised if I don’t have at least an order of magnitude over all but the strongest of casters.
It’s also interesting that the affinities I feel I can best abuse are the ones my Residents think are the most esoteric. I have no idea how Poe’s wind affinity would fundamentally work. Is it some kind of mastery over the gaseous state of matter? If so, is fire affinity mastery of plasma, rather than thermal energy? Coda’s seeming thunder or sonic affinity: is it only sounds? Is it any potential wave? Maybe it’s pressure control, instead?
And even if I have the things all understood properly, all of this is easier said than done!
Before I can sprint my way deeper down this rabbit hole, a pained squeak pulls my attention.
“B-Boss… s-slow down!” my Voice gasps, a little bit of blood leaking from his nose. My thoughts, which had been running a mile a minute, suddenly lock up. I bite back the mental shout to Queen to get him some healing ants, and take a few moments to try to calm myself.
I can feel Queen directing the nearest healing ants to look over Teemo. Calm. Focus. Stop hurting your friend. Just because he can respawn, doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel pain.
My Voice sighs in relief from the ants working on him, and hopefully from me not thinking my way down the paths of tech and science that probably haven’t been seen in this world yet.
“What was that?” asks Yvonne, alternating between looking at Teemo with concern, and at my core with a different kind of concern.
Teemo pushes himself to his feet with visible effort. “That was just some of the Boss’ knowledge. I saw things… some just numbers and weird drawings of numbers, and some as huge things that actually exist! But… they don’t exist?”
He stiffens when I give him the simplest explanation, and tell him he can tell my Residents.
“He… he says they don’t exist here. They exist where he’s from.”
My two Residents both look confused at that, and Aranya manages to speak through the confusion. “Like… in the realm of the gods?”
“No… a realm like ours, but also nothing like ours.” He grunts and holds his head for a moment before shaking it off. “I don’t even know how to begin to describe it, either. I can get some of what he says about it, but there’s also huge gaps. He’ll talk, but I don’t get any meaning at all about it. It’s like putting together a puzzle, but some pieces just stop existing when you reach for them.”
I mentally nod, remembering when Teemo said that the word human had no meaning for him. My mind starts to wander down the paths of what that actually means, but I reign it in for now. I can wildly theory-craft later. Maybe after experimenting a little to see if it’s better if I’m ‘zoomed out’ when I do it, or if it’s better to be focused somewhere away from Teemo.
And speaking of experiments, there’s a very simple one I can have Teemo explain to my Residents. Flipping a coin is one of the oldest games of chance out there, at least as old as coins. I’d expect just trying to look at the result before it happens, while the coin is in the air, would be a good, repeatable, low-effort way to hone that skill. So, if I have them call coin flips to practice, we can get a baseline. And then, when I have them try to call a bunch of flips before tossing the coin, it’ll be a good introduction to how odds actually work.
Calling one coin flip is 50/50, but accurately calling five flips from the start is only one in thirty-two, even if the odds of calling each individual flip as they happen is still 50/50. Mathematically, it’s pretty simple, but conceptually it’s really weird. With any luck, the mana costs will scale in a way to make it easier for my Residents to grasp.
I keep myself from thinking too far down that path just yet, not wanting to hurt Teemo, but I can’t help a little nugget of an idea getting stuck in the back of my head. There’s a system here, reminiscent of a video game. If we can keep running down the numbers of how luck actually works, we might be able to do some actual RNG manipulation.
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A little late on the chapter, sorry everyone. This one hit the page rough, and still feels a bit rough to me. I don't know how much more smoothing I can manage with it, though. Please let me know what you think of it :)
