letter to cam #17

[thisvorlunatic]

You would not believe the month I've had.

I really did mean to get back to you within a few weeks of my last message, but circumstances intervened. On the other hand, it seems to have worked out all right this way, because there's an Ash and Stars tour coming up and I'm not dead yet. How would you like to attend a concert in addition to raiding the comm nets?

Comments

[thisvorlunatic]

"I once spent a while trying to come up with a use for them and couldn't. They're absurdly fragile, they disappear after an hour, and even their fragility isn't consistent enough to rely on for anything. It's like they have the magical property 'cannot be used for any conceivable purpose'. They don't, quite, at least not that I can detect, but it's always possible that an anti-usefulness property just isn't enough of a functional system for my Sense to pick up on."

[from_scratch]

"Decoration?" suggests Cam. "Or do they also have to be unattractive?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Yeah, they generally come out looking like something a small child made out of clay."

[from_scratch]

"Ha. Well, how minor are the tricks, are they a step up from parlor tricks?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"I'm not sure how they compare otherwise, but the only effects they can have that persist after an hour are moving things and cleaning or dirtying them, and in almost any situation it would be easier to move the thing by hand. You could use it to very tediously do small amounts of laundry at a time, I suppose, but you are also a demon and could just conjure modern laundry equipment instead."

[from_scratch]

"Indeed. Parlor tricks are mostly only used by people who for whatever reason cannot in general do things by hand, perhaps because they don't have any."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Sounds about right. So which other spellbooks would you like to pick up before you go home?"

[from_scratch]

"Is there a good reason not to grab one of everything? I can reimburse you the zorkmids."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Well, you might find it a little tedious to sit here reading my entire repertoire of spellbooks, but other than that no, not really. Feel free."

[from_scratch]

"I mean, it's a little tedious, and also this magic system is very stupid, but it's a novel form of tedium and it's still a magic system."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Fair enough. I'll assemble a full set, then. Here."

And he passes Cam a spellbook and then starts going through the stacks and piling up a selection.

[from_scratch]

And Cam reads.

[thisvorlunatic]

And Miles finishes compiling the stack and starts cleaning up the miscellaneous residues of used spellbooks. They are many and varied. One book goes up in smokeless, heatless grey flames as soon as Cam finishes it; another becomes abruptly drenched in water. Miles is practiced enough with ileyi by now that he can apply it to small simple tasks as a form of telekinesis without risking throwing things across the room or lighting them on fire, so he is pretty efficient about collecting the confetti and ash and waterlogged volume and so on. And this room has a handy disintegrator chute.

[from_scratch]

Cam thanks him for picking up after the miscellaneous interesting debris.

Spells spells spells.

[thisvorlunatic]

The last spell in the stack is also the one with the highest MP cost: create demiplane, at 666 MP. The second highest MP cost is 145 (mass time stop). Creating demiplanes is apparently reserved for people with absurdly high stats.

"And that's the end of them," says Miles, collecting the remains of the create demiplane spellbook, which has become bleached of all discernible pigment and is snowy white from cover to cover.

[from_scratch]

"Shall I replenish your zorkmid supply?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Yeah, sure. A full set via wish is, let me see—" He pulls up a spreadsheet on the comconsole, makes a calculation, and names a precise quantity of zorkmids. The number is rather large, but it's smaller than the big batches he's had Cam conjure in the past.

[from_scratch]

"Where do you want 'em?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"The zorkmid crates are over here."

Over here: A room that still retains a few bookshelves and end tables hinting at a past life as some kind of sitting room, but is now mostly full of crates of zorkmids hovering slightly above the floor, suspended by unclear means. (Miles has been playing with grav tech and rilte.)

There is room among them for the named sum. And some more besides, if Cam is feeling generous.

[from_scratch]

Cam generously adds zorkmids to the supply.

Can he float if he walks amongst the crates?

[thisvorlunatic]

The unclear means does not float him! It applies only to the crates and their contents.

"Thanks," says Miles.

[from_scratch]

"How are these things floating?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"I have rilte and float pallets. I decided to experiment. They're using the same principles as Nexus grav tech, just applied magically instead of physically."

[from_scratch]

"Neat. Do you have any tips on starting to play around with taieli or will I probably be fine if I'm just careful?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Well, I of course recommend doing it somewhere that won't cause anyone to ask awkward questions. Other than that - if your visit to the monument was anything like mine, it probably snuck in a basic education in how to use taieli with whatever information it was giving you overtly. If you don't find that when you wonder how to accomplish simple feats with taieli the answers just pop up like you knew them all along, then I can probably write up a quick how-to on most things you ask me about. Or summon you to go over it in person, if you prefer. But I'd find it hard to sit down and write an entire introductory taieli textbook because most of my practical knowledge is still in the 'oh, I guess I already knew that now that I think about it' format. Once you have the basic idea, though, then yes, just being careful will take you a long way."