The many ways of magic

[copycast]

Temple wakes up suddenly, his hand automatically going to his abdomen as he raises from the ground...

...Then he notices the lack of pain and the entirely new surroundings.

A new world, which means that he saved Rajir but his former body got sacrificed in the process. Temple is unlikely to see Rajir or the others ever again, without a proper goodbye this time.

There is no point in feeling miserable, his friends and students are safe, just distant.

Temple decides to be practical. He feels and locates traces of magic coming from that way and follows them until he finds himself knocking on a door of a solitary building.

Comments

[swordofdamocles]

It takes a few minutes, but eventually the door opens.

"Hello?"

[copycast]

Temple doesn't look like he had a nice day, despite his (extremely strange) clothing looking clean and new.

"COMPREHEND PERSON!" Temple says, the utterance is very odd, the meaning is clear but the is sound off, like several people speaking at once in multiple languages "Hello. This traveler means no harm, could you spare a few minutes of your hospitality or attention?"

Temple is usually more discreet than this, but he isn't feeling like it today.

[swordofdamocles]

"Yeah, sure. I was working on a new spell-ritual, but it'll keep; I was at a good stopping spot anyway. What did that spell you just cast do? The side effects were nice."

[copycast]

Temple face lights up like a christmas tree (not that he knows what those are) when she says "new spell-ritual".

"It was a spell-word, not a spell-ritual. Not the same type of magic. What is a spell-ritual? How do they work?"

[swordofdamocles]

"...Are you some kind of magical creature I haven't heard of that gets spell-like abilities?"

[copycast]

Oh, right. Focus! Get your bearings first, Temple. Magic geeking can come later.

"Where I am from any human can cast spell-words. I am human... currently, but it is a bit of a long story, do you mind if I come in? And maybe you can explain your own type of magic?"

Not much later.

[swordofdamocles]

"You know what, sure, why not, this should be interesting at the very least."

[copycast]

Temple walks in and observes the interior more carefully.

"So, I think we should introduce ourselves first? I am Temple, spell-casting teacher and tutor, traveler of many worlds," He bows politely.

[swordofdamocles]

"Andrea Rockwaller. Professional magician." She observes his bow thoughtfully.

[copycast]

Temple smiles, holds back several questions and then says, "This world is new to me, meaning, I arrived less than a hour ago. My magic takes me to a new world whenever my body is killed... You could say I am a extremely lost, but that doesn't quite cover it."

[swordofdamocles]

"I'm probably going to want to cast some spells on you at some point to confirm that, but ehn, I've heard weirder. So magic in this world--practicable magic, that is, as opposed to the innate magic of any of various species and quasi-species--is composed of intricate rituals whose components can be condensed down into something practical to actually cast."

[copycast]

"Oooh, interesting. Spell-casting is technically human magic... I am originally from a cluster of worlds where you get to reincarnate in each world once. There is one intelligent species to each world and each species has their own kind of magic. If you have been born human once, then you are a latent spell-caster, and due to some metaphysical reason, humans tend to be the first or second life of most people. What have you seen that is weirder? How many different species do you have? Are spell-rituals complicated to learn?"

[swordofdamocles]

"How many species we have depends on how you define a species. Things like 'do vampires count as a different species from human' and 'do you count all the individual varieties of demon and fey and so on'. I've seen lots of things that were weirder, mostly at magician parties. Spell-rituals are complicated to learn and complicated to condense."

[copycast]

"Magician parties!" Temple says, delighted with the idea. "How do I get invited? I... Oh, right, I need to get more info about this world. Huh, what can you tell me? Not only about magic, but about living here?"

[swordofdamocles]

"I would have no idea what to compare it to. We live in houses? We have electricity? Magic isn't actually that well-known. On a related note, magician parties aren't as fun as they sound--it's a lot of social hobnobbing with mostly old white men punctuated by someone getting drunk and summoning a lime green polka-dotted platypus or something."

[copycast]

"Electricity and houses are common to all of worlds that I have been to... Maybe start with very basic stuff? Does this world have a name? The number of moons in the sky? I might need to go to the magician parties because my other type of magic works by protecting and nurturing magic."

[swordofdamocles]

"Huh. Well, okay, we call this planet Earth, there's one moon...what do you mean by protecting and nurturing magic, exactly?"

[copycast]

"I reincarnated as a giant in my second life, and that gave me Guardianship magic, which involves getting powers for protecting, preserving, nurturing, etc. a specific kind of thing. There are several ways to approach it and my favorite is creating magical schools in the worlds where I land..."

Temple pauses for a moment.

"What is the afterlife situation in this world?"

[swordofdamocles]

"Sometimes people become ghosts. Other than that, not a clue."

[copycast]

"I got in this world-hopping business because some extremely powerful people wanted to add more worlds to the reincarnation cycle. This world will be added eventually now that I am already here, but having more and more spell-casters will make the process faster. Which is why they picked me."

[swordofdamocles]

"So you want to start a school for your kind of magic. That'll be interesting. I'm not sure 'going to magician parties' will be as useful as all that, though. I can introduce you to some of the more reasonable ones; if you're planning to learn our kind of magic you'll want to go to the parties eventually because if you aren't basically a member in good standing of the community other magicians are even more reluctant to share their secrets with you, but most of them aren't going to be interested in a school for a brand-new kind of magic."

[copycast]

"I prefer magic schools. Some of the best years of my lives were spent that way, but I can adapt if that is what is necessary. I spent too much time creating safe havens, but managed when it was necessary. Spell-rituals magic don't have schools? It is self-taught or taught to a single apprentice?"

[swordofdamocles]

"A combination, mostly the latter. I'm learning through a combination of tutoring from my grandfather and self-study in the library he left me when he died."

[copycast]

"Spell-casting is usually taught like that, but my Guardianship benefits from a more school-like setting. How long does it takes to learn a spell-ritual? What are the costs involved?"

[swordofdamocles]

"It varies depending on the ritual, but almost no spells are practical to cast in ritual form. The cost is massive time and memory commitments. What you do is, once you've cast a spell in ritual form enough times to be familiar with it, you can replace individual components with gestures, or spoken words or phrases. Then you can abridge sequences of gestures and phrases until you have something that you can actually use. And most components come up in more than one spell, and many sequences show up in more than one spell, so once you've got a gesture attached to something, if you forget the gesture, you can never cast that thing again. You can write things down, of course, but if anything is permanently lost you're pretty much screwed."