Most Likely A Refuge

[whatamithinking]

It was probably safe.

The bar was...unusually reticent, in the lower layers of her mind (and she hadn't pried further; she wasn't sure if she'd be noticed; she wasn't sure if offending would get her kicked out, and regardless of whether it was actually safe it was safer than anywhere else she'd been for the past...three years?) so she couldn't be sure this place wasn't really a trap of some kind, but the higher layers gave a plausible explanation that didn't involve being a trap, and whatever else it was warm and dry and had food. Her guard was probably a full 25% down. Positively trusting, these days.

Comments

[onceandforall]

"It's very tingly."

[ragexserenity]

"Good."

[onceandforall]

"Thanks, by the way."

[ragexserenity]

"You're welcome."

[mutatis_mutandis]

"So I assume you'll want a copy of everything too...Bar, what's the best memory-to-volume-ratio computer you can give me with an intuitive interface?"

[alicornucopia]

Standards for intuitiveness vary crossculturally. Possibly the best fit as described would be one with a psionic attachment but it may be that this does not meet your needs.

[mutatis_mutandis]

"I can psionically attach to it myself regardless of interface. It should be intuitive for Bella."

[alicornucopia]

Aha. And Bar produces a slender tablet.

[mutatis_mutandis]

Charlotte turns it on and pokes at it to make sure she has a good idea of what corresponds to what. "And...I have no idea how to meaningfully ask for the Lost Wisdom of the Ancients. Obviously there's too much literature produced by an entire civilization to to reasonably fit inside a bar."

[alicornucopia]

It would present a tight fit.

[mutatis_mutandis]

"Well, how were the other two kinds of magic created? No, wrong question, artifact creation would be a large number of interrelated things, possibly its own field of study, not a monolithic event. What can you tell me about how magical girls came to be?"

[alicornucopia]

Not very much. It was an intensely classified procedure and I'm limited to material that has been in some sense 'published'.

[mutatis_mutandis]

"Dang. Can you at least tell me who it was classified by?"

[alicornucopia]

No.

[mutatis_mutandis]

"Oh, well. Can I get some...textbooks, or something, on artifact creation?"

[alicornucopia]

I'll do my best to curate you a reasonable quantity.

Here is a stack of books!

[onceandforall]

"How long am I going to be tingly?"

[ragexserenity]

"It varies. For me, it lasted hours. One of the other children my teacher kidnapped only spent a few minutes at it."

[onceandforall]

"Oh."

[mutatis_mutandis]

Charlotte, who has started skimming the textbooks just fast enough to transcribe them into the tablet, winces slightly.

[maggie_of_the_owls]

Over the course of the next few minutes, the tingling feeling is accompanied by a new awareness of the world around her. It feels like the non-Kyubey magical girl magic the showed her in her vision quest--not exactly, but more like that than like the Kyubey-induced variety, and more like either than like anything else. She can feel--not exactly patterns, but textures, in the air around her--textures that correspond to the diagrams in the painkiller spell. And, if she cares to glance over the book that Charlotte is speed-reading, like the diagrams in there as well. A short while after that, the textures gain an impression of malleability--if she wanted to, she could poke one until it matched a diagram. A short while after that, the tingling ceases entirely.

A moment after that, her magical girl magic presents her with a new spell.

[onceandforall]

"Ooh, new magical girl spell." Pause. "Annnnd I'm not sure I should cast it while in Milliways because this place has its own time-screwing-around-ness but the incantation is 'Possibility Vision'."

[mindovermagic]

"Nnnniice..."

[onceandforall]

"Yeah!"

[mutatis_mutandis]

"Congrats."