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]

"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."

[copycast]

"There are several differences between that and spell-word casting. First, there are innate spells and memorized spells. The innate spells are part of you and you can cast as many times you like. A spell-caster can write down a long description of what a spell-word means and does, then another spell-caster can memorize the spell-word from that description. Once memorized a spell can be cast once, but you don't have to make any special effort to remember it even if it is decades afterwards. Where do new rituals come from?"

[swordofdamocles]

"People who know enough theory putting together existing components and sometimes inventing new ones."

[copycast]

"You get new spells by deriving from existing ones and casting practice. Much easier if it is a innate spell, but you can do that with memorized ones too. It is all very intuitive."

[swordofdamocles]

"The only way anyone could describe my kind of magic as 'intuitive' is in the sense that anyone who becomes skilled enough at something gets a certain intuition about it."

[copycast]

"Unsurprising. They are very complementary, which only makes me more interested in learning. What sort of things do spell-rituals do? The lime platypus is a possibility?"

[swordofdamocles]

"No one refers to the actual spells as rituals. Rituals are the unabridged versions you use as a stepping-stone to being able to actually cast spells. They do...magic. I don't know what exactly you mean beyond that. Lime platypi are a possibility, although if someone literally made one happen while drunk it would be more likely to be an illusion than a summons."

[copycast]

"I was trying to distinguish the two type of magics. Mine can do healing, moving, shaping, sensing, protecting, etc."

[swordofdamocles]

"Mine can do anything you can find or invent a ritual for."

[copycast]

"Same thing for mine, if you have a spell-word to derive from. Some things are so complicated or powerful that it is better to create multiple spell-words that work together to create the desired effect..." Temple taps his cheek thoughtfully, "How well does your magic create magical items?"

[swordofdamocles]

"Depends on the magician. I'm okay at it, but it's never really been my highest priority. Look, I get that telling our kinds of magic apart would be convenient, but I think it would probably be better to call it abridged magic or something like that instead of ritual magic. Less misleading about how it actually works."

[copycast]

"Sure thing. I want to keep calling mine spell-word magic or just word magic. Is that distinctive enough?"

[swordofdamocles]

"Those are both fine, although just word magic seems less redundant."

[copycast]

"Perfect! Could you show me some of your magic while I inspect it under some spell analysis? Or vice versa? I am not picky."

[swordofdamocles]

"I was planning to cast some stuff on you to make sure you weren't lying anyway. Larenza megaros dastiroth. Okay, can you just confirm for me that everything you've told me so far is factually accurate and not intentionally misleading?"

[copycast]

"Everything I told you is factually accurate to the best of my ability to discern the truth... Any omissions are unintentional or for the sake of brevity. While we are at it: I have no ill intention towards you or people in general and I don't foresee that changing in the near future unless outside circumstance move me to the defense of myself and others."

Temple opens his coat (So many books in there!) and reaches for a book.

"LESSER DISCERN LIES!" He says with the same multiple-people speaking effect from before "Your turn."

[swordofdamocles]

"Everything I have told you is either factually accurate or intended to be obviously facetious, and nothing was intended to deceive or mislead you."