Glen (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
intricate_engineer) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
glowfic2016-01-15 12:50 pm
intricate_engineer) wrote in glowfic2016-01-15 12:50 pm
Entry tags:
between then and know
It was a trap.
Glen should have seen it coming, but she'd thought the offer might be genuine. Wasn't the possibility of immortality worth the risk?
Well, not this time.
Her pendant, her way out, was broken.
She tried to use it anyway.
Glen should have seen it coming, but she'd thought the offer might be genuine. Wasn't the possibility of immortality worth the risk?
Well, not this time.
Her pendant, her way out, was broken.
She tried to use it anyway.
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She tells the translator to test Darkness for [essence 0]. Is it a better match than Nothing?
She attempts Time for [essence 2] in case she just got Time and Energy switched.
While the translator works, she tries to understand the relationships between the circles.
What does it mean that Matter goes through Life to reach the center? Life is the sum of [essence 1] and [essence 2], but relies on Matter? Or perhaps it means nothing.
Essence 9,10,11 all use Light. Does that mean they are less physical than the four elements formed from Matter? Fire is less physical than Earth, Water, or Air.
What does Light and Nothing (or Darkness) become if not Death? But then Light wasn't a component of Life.
Glen sighs. She's having trouble thinking metaphorically.
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Time is a poor match for [essence 2], about as bad as it was for [essence 1].
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Instead she searches for use of [essence 0] and [essence 9] in the books.
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And:
"As the zeroth essence, [essence 0] represents the [state or condition] at the beginning of all things, even before the first essence, [essence 1]: the [state or condition] before the [noun]. [essence 2] brings the possibility of [noun] to the [adjective] [essence 1], and Light and Matter [act on] that possibility..."
"...[essence 0] is often [sensed] to [act on] other essences in combination, such as for example when it combines with Light to form its [noun], [essence 9], or with Life to form [essence 56]. But sometimes the result is more [adjective], as when [essence 2] and [essence 0] combine to form [essence 12], or more [adjective], as when Matter and [essence 0] combine to form Air..."
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She tries Space for [essence 1].
It seems the essences are number in the order of their creation which is interesting. Whatever 15 is, it's the most recent. 13 is Life, so perhaps 14 is intelligence or self-awareness? She tells the translator to try both for [essence 14].
She gets out her computer and makes a few notes while she waits for the translator to finish. She guesses at a few of the gaps. It seems like there's enough information to figure this out, she just has to put it together.
[essence 2] brings the possibility of <existence/life> to the <something> Space. Light and Matter <act on> that possibility.
<Nothing> represents the condition before <Space>, the state before <the universe>
What is essence 2? It isn't time, but it came before Light.
Heat? Growth?
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It also figures out a few more words. That second snippet now begins: "...Nothing is often [sensed] to negate other essences in combination, such as for example when it combines with Light to form its opposite, [essence 9]..."
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Glen tries Humans at [essence 14], then tells the translator to look up the passages with the fewest untranslated words that contain [essence 15].
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Humans for [essence 14]: rejected.
The passage with the fewest untranslated words concerning [essence 14]:
"[essence 14] is sometimes called the immaterial counterpart of Life. Like many of the immaterial essences, its uses can be [adjective]. Although infrequently useful in [noun]s, it is [adjective] in the construction of [noun]s."
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A local equivalent of a soul perhaps? Or maybe it refers to the magic itself.
She turns back to the previous passage mentioning [essence 9].
Is Something not the opposite of Nothing?
Oh. Oh! She's an idiot. It's saying Nothing negates the other essence. It's asking for the opposite of light.
She tries darkness.
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She knows Matter and Nothing make Air. Matter and Light create Fire.
She's missing to essences from the basic five, which combine with Matter to create Water and Earth.
Her theory of the numbers going in order of creation is disproved by nine being Darkness.
Still, the first five all seem to be things that existed in the very beginning.
There is Nothing, Light, and Matter. But what else?
Heat, Space, Time, Energy, the Unified Force, Plasma, Atoms, Hydrogen.
But that might be getting too specific, Glen would try Space and Time but she already knows they won't work.
Heat perhaps? But wouldn't that go with Fire better than Light?
Again, maybe she's getting too specific.
What was there in the beggining? There was Light and then there was Sound.
She tells the translator to try both Energy and Sound for essences 1 and 2.
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Light + [essence 1] = Energy
Movement perhaps? Speed?
She asks the translator to try both.
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Movement: also no, but slightly less no than Speed.
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Hmm, fire doesn't have it's own atoms, at least not in the normal sense. Air does but there is, in a way, Nothing joining them together.
Hmm, she tells the translator to try Motion, Force, Gravity, Unity, and Binding.
It will take a while to finish testing those. Until then, Glen is going to start reading the journal.
She might have more success once she understands more about how this society works and what its people value.
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For example, jotted notes on the theory of magic:
"[essence 1] and [essence 2] are opposites, but Nothing is sort of opposite [essence 1]..."
"Life and Air makes [essence 76], Life and Water makes [essence 82], Life and Earth makes [essence 88], Life and Fire makes [essence 94]? The first three make sense, but what's so fiery about [noun]s?..."
Recipes:
"[noun] [noun]: Life, [essence 88], [essence 94]. Much better than the book's." (A carefully drawn diagram follows, using the three indicated colours. Then there is a little cartoon of what might plausibly be a plant with rashers of bacon in place of flowers.)
Quite a long stretch of mostly-untranslated personal notes in the vein of "I [acted on] the [noun] today but I don't know if it'll stay [adjective]", and many others even less comprehensible at the current translation level.
And then:
"[Profane exclamation]! I'm a [profane adjective] [noun]! I almost [acted on] my essence spheres on the [noun]! [Proper noun] would've [acted on] me!"
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How is this magic used?
The paintbrushes indicate drawings.
The power has to come form somewhere. Is it imbued in the paint or the ink? Drawn from the caster? Drawn from the earth? Incorporeal and existing in this entire dimension?
She flips to the beginning of what seems to be a textbook, and then checks to see if the translator is done.
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Well, some of them are slightly better than completely wrong on some of the essences - Unity and Binding are wrong-but-not-that-wrong for [essence 2], and Motion and Force are wrong-but-not-that-wrong for [essence 1].
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She doesn't have the context or she's coming at it from the wrong direction or she's missed something important.
Whatever the reason, she isn't making progress and she doesn't have any time she can afford to waste.
She heads back inside the hill.
She's starving. It isn't making it hard to think, not yet, and she won't be in any danger until her food pills run out. Still...
What are the chances of someone rescuing her?
Alex would try, but he doesn't have the necessary skills to find her.
He might not even realize she's gone.
Some of her peers may be able to help, but they won't have all the necessary info and they might not be motivated enough to find her without it.
There's no food in the ocean. If there's no food in the ocean, there might not be food anywhere.
She doesn't know. She hasn't seen the entire planet. Maybe this is just one lifeless patch.
But if it is, she has no idea which direction to go in. She could easily end up heading deeper into the desert.
She sits down on the floor, staring at the broken chest and the strange tools.
"Who were you? Where did you go?" Glen whispers, picking up one of the objects she doesn't recognize.