October 15th, 2AC
Timothy walked quietly behind the low stone platforms. Observing pairs of not-quite-children compete against one another in flights of fancy given form in clouds of smoke. Images danced, fought and shifted in dozens of dizzying transformations.
Beasts fought each other in a roshambo of dog trumps cat, bear trumps dog, hunter trumps bear then a poisonous plant offed the hunter. Two platforms over a traditional elemental battle raged. Water on fire and so forth, but it quickly evolves into the exotics. Steam, poison, fungal growth followed by an impressive entry-level entropy and finally ending with rot. A nice bit of work. Trumping simplicity with the ultimate recycler.
On another platform a fight straight out of Street Fighter raged, with cartoonish humans wielding weapons at first, spear trumping a dagger, and trumped by a shield and sword combo, and rapidly spiraling out of control. It got interesting when the hammer wielder swung and his opponent turned into a piece of metal ore, incorporating the hammer image as a forger to create a rough piece of armor. Timothy spoke a quiet complement to that one before moving on.
Good progress, even where the transformations were slow or generic, they were at least fairly stable. Without the jumpy, pulsing fragility they'd started with. Or at least mostly so, Timothy winced as Grumpy tried to transform a strangling vine into malachite, failed and collapsed backward cradling her head with a loud groan. Timothy sighed, she had to know better, both pieces being green was hardly a sufficient connection, but she just didn't handle pressure well. Something to work on.
He took a good look at her, then nodded. She'd be fine, well ambulatory, that headache would last at least an hour. Still, that was pretty light as far as backlashes went. There was a reason they'd settled on the burners as an introductory teaching tool.
He gave them another ten minutes, making notes of potential issues and areas he might need to teach on later.
Still, he was happy with where they were. Finally.
He waved his hand, dissipating the smoke and gently forcing their intent back inside their bodies. “Good morning class.”
“Good morning Runefather!” The students organized themselves for a moment, then gave a united bow and response. He held back a sigh.
He certainly hadn't taught them that! Not that he could object either. Turning down gestures of respect was a good way to lose it.
“Today is an exciting day! I think you've progressed enough that we can try the next step. And it's a doozy.”
An excited hum filled the domed classroom. Sure, the smoke fights were the closest thing to a video game available. That didn't mean it didn't get old. He'd done his best to keep it interesting, interspacing a variety of willpower-building games between lecture-like demonstrations of elemental and environmental interactions, from how a fire burned to a close-up scry of a storm, from inception to lightning falling. But there was only so much they could really do with unstable intent. At least not if they wanted to survive it.
So they'd taken colored slivers of wood on boat races. Guiding and directing them with their minds while being VERY careful never to directly oppose the flow. They'd played dodgeball where no one was allowed to move and the ball was a light piece of cloth. He'd taken them out to listen for hummingbirds in the dense underbrush. Combining training with bird watching. He'd done his very best, but it was still getting a bit repetitive.
“So now what?” Timothy smiled at them. Allowing the silence to build and extend. Over fifty pairs of blank eyes stared at him in growing confusion. Eventually, they realized that he was better at waiting than they were. Count, the tall skinny aristo was becoming something of a class leader, took a stab at it.
“Now you tell us more about it?”
“You get a few points for having the cohones to ask. You lose them for failing to think it through. If I was going to tell you, I would have. Since you all appear to be stumped, I'll point out the direction at least. What do you need to know to move forward?” Timothy fought to keep his smile on the gentle side rather than predatory.
“Ah,” the boy fumbled for a moment then spoke, if somewhat hesitantly, “-well, we need to know how to cast spells?”
“That sounded more like a question than an answer. You should work on that. It's a weak position and shows a lack of confidence in yourself. But to save time, I'll respond anyway. A spell is just applying intent to mana in a way that accomplishes whatever goal you set. What do you think you've been doing with those incense burners?”
He gestured for Count to sit back down. “Someone else, what do you think is next?”
Mona, dark-haired and with an ever-present gentle smile, hesitantly stood, waiting for his nod to speak. “Can we actually do it? You told us not to cast anything-”
Timothy nodded and finished the sentence for her, “-without my supervision and permission. I am supervising right now and you have my permission, though only while I'm here, but yes, you may. Now what?”
He stared at her, hoping she'd take the next step alone. He'd already laid out the road map, it was up to them to spot the milestones.
“Umm-”
“Unless you're trying to build suspense, that's a dreadful sound to make. Worse than asking a question you meant as statements.” Timothy interrupted her. “Normal people can afford to display their lack of assertiveness with filler terms. You, by virtue of self-awakening, are going to have authority and worse, the responsibility of leadership. You need to fix your habits now. I assure you, it gets harder as you age.”
“Now, please try again. With confidence.”
“Now we try out a new spell.” Her tone held all the confidence of a middle school pitcher in a major league game. He stared aghast for a moment as she sheepishly ducked her head, then sighed, making a mental note to work with her later.
“At least tell me you can guess at what spell.”
Timothy was starting to wonder if the day was cursed. It wasn't a hard question!
“Oh,” She suddenly blurted out, “The homework question!”
“YES. Finally, you redeem yourself, at least a bit. Now the rest of you, please tell me that you remember what you should have been doing?”
He raised one hand to his ear and beckoned with the other. “Just yell it out.”
“Writing.” “A pen.” “Carving.” “Magic Chisel.” and several other similar answers pulsed out in a mass at him. It took a clue stick the size of a tree trunk- he held in another sigh.
“Alright, good enough. Most of you have it. Not you Markus, though if you figure out how to make magic deodorant-” He had to pause to let the snickering pass as the class jester made his presence known. Timothy didn't mind. He wasn't the malicious sort, and his jokes kept up morale. Now if he would stay in that grove Timothy would be ecstatic.
Not that it was likely, he was the type to keep pushing till he got his hand swatted. “-I'd love to see it. It'll sell well too. But later yes? Now we see who is naughty and who is nice. And yes, there will be presents if you impress me.”
Reaching down he pulled out an enlarged stone coin with an arrow on its top. Giving his bottle-shaped spinner a twirl, he waited till it pointed to a small black-haired child, his oriental eyes much too large for his face. “Kick us off Owl. Put a mark at the top of the stele. A symbol for your nickname. Don't worry if it's overly simple, we all have to start somewhere.”
Somewhat nervous under so many eyes, the boy nevertheless sat down and took a few deep breaths, closing his eyes and tuning out the noise around him. With turtle-like quickness a small thought construct, invisible to the physical eyes without Dreamsmoke Incense's help, took form in front of his stele. A wave striking against the coast, over and over, slowly wearing away layers from a sandcastle.
A nice extra, Timothy reflected. Transforming stone into sand to be washed away was a much quicker option than waiting on the tides to polish stone alone. Either could work alone, but he'd just as soon not spend an hour waiting. Especially not when he had 50-odd others to check.
Even with the refinement, it was still taking a while. Carving solid stone with water was a far cry from manipulating incense specially formulated to respond to thoughts. With the copious amounts of water and stone mana in the area, the construct was drawing in a fair amount of mana. It wasn't ocean or sand mana, so there was a bit of an efficiency hit, but it was still respectable. Not nearly enough to feed the spell at full capacity though. Not with the clarity of the image and the willpower involved. It was well within Timothy's expectations.
Owl's bulging eyes showed a different perspective. Still, he stuck with it with admirable concentration, slowly forming a Minerva-style imprint. Eyes and an outline with little true detail, but it was recognizably an owl. Perfect for this task. It still took several minutes to complete.
“Very good Owl. Now I hope you noticed a problem?”
After waiting nearly 5 minutes for the briefest of sketches everyone had damn well better have noticed! Sometimes he had to point out the obvious if he wanted the lesson to take. “-took too long.” Owl muttered looking down with his cheeks darkening to red.
“It did take too long.” Timothy easily agreed. “Not because you did anything wrong, though you might want to watch your associative links next time. They could use some polishing. No, it took longer because of a lack of mana. The rate you were drawing it in wasn't enough to fully power the spell. So how do you propose we go about fixing that?”
The boy was glancing around the class, hoping for someone else to volunteer, but Timothy wasn't about to let him off the hook. He tapped him on the head gently and did a small beckoning gesture with his hand.
“Umm, get a better understanding of the spell?” He volunteered with a questioning tone.
“Answers should not be questions Owl. But you are partially correct. A better understanding will let you use the mana you do draw in more efficiently. More effect with less cost. But...” Timothy drew the word out a bit, cocking an eye at the boy.
“It will still take time?”
“Another question, not an answer Owl. Try to learn from your classmate's mistakes, it will save you a great deal of pain. But you are correct. That kind of evolution of understanding will take time and study, not something that you will be able to pull out in a few days, or even a few weeks. It's worth your time to do so if you plan to keep using this image."
"A small shortcut would be to go to a beach and observe the physical manifestations up close. As travel is a bit limited-” He paused for the offended laughter that caused, “-and we don't have a few weeks for you to just study a single concept, you might have to try something else first. Any ideas?”
The boy thought for a moment, then hesitantly offered, “Start the construct before I need it?” Seeing Timothy's eyebrow raised in disapproval, he quickly continued with a bit more confidence. “Let it build up mana when I don't need it and then spend it all at once.”
“Good save, and a very viable option. Of course, that means you are going to have to keep a portion of your attention on it, even when you're working or listening to a lecture. Do you think you can split your attention like that?”
He blushed, looking down. “No.”
“Oh, you might be surprised. Given some time and training, I think you could indeed.” Timothy grinned as the child's head snapped up in surprise. “Unlike most things with magic, that particular trick is easier than it sounds.”
“If you've been paying attention outside of class, you might have noticed that most of the awakened have a construct superimposed on themselves at all times. We call it an aural manifestation. In effect, a mental construct merged into your sense of self. It's not a static thing, but a constantly improving image that must be maintained, but that maintenance becomes like- well like breathing. Sub-conscious. Semi-permanent. I say semi because it can be damaged or destroyed. But until then, it will constantly draw in and convert the surrounding mana. Creating a well of uniform mana to cast from.”
“It's just one construct though. Not four or five dissimilar constructs hanging around waiting to be used. One for writing, one for lighting a fire, one for moving faster etc. The DnDers sort of do that, but like most exceptions, their cheat proves the rule rather than the opposite. I'll have someone demonstrate it for you in the future. For our purposes, I'll just point out that it takes work to make a construct, and a portion of your attention to maintain it until it becomes a habit.”
“You try to do that in several different directions at once and it's like juggling. Possible, but difficult. And it grows in difficulty the more balls you try to keep in the air.”
“That's a whole lot of negatives, yes? Let's see a couple of examples on the other side of the coin. Mnemonics are a good example. Think of a catchy song, it's way easier to remember than an essay. So much easier that you might find yourself whistling or humming it without thinking."
"If you set several different tasks in a set order, and sing a song that includes all of the above, it's possible to greatly reduce the attention costs. It's also a great trick for remembering and empowering more complicated spells. Referencing stories or tales does much the same. Linking a great deal of information to a simple phrase or name.”
“These are just a few examples in a nearly endless lake of them. But in general, it falls back to repetition and habit. Keep it up until it becomes instinctual. It takes a great deal of time and effort to push it to level, so don't think you can just memorize your favorite song and off you go. It's different for everyone, but I know guardians who took a year to solidify an image, while others took three or four months.”
“Either way, my point is you can't afford that kind of work for every little task. It's just not practical. So, what do you suppose they do instead?”
Timothy waited out a few bad guesses before continuing. “You've all been doing it already. Transformations. The slowest portion is claiming mana from the background field. Once you have uniform, claimed mana, yours or someone else's, it's much easier to convert it into a related image, correct?”
“Then that tank of one type of mana then gets tapped in a set of planned and practiced transformations. Spells.”
“-but” Count spoke then stopped red-faced, giving a quick but graceful bow. “My apologies for speaking out of turn.”
“Go ahead and ask your question. Or was it an objection?”
“Well, how do they store mana overnight? I could drag a construct around with me all day, though it would be very distracting, but I can't keep it up overnight.”
Timothy smiled sadly, “Breathing Count, I said like breathing. You do breathe at night, though some of you snore." He let them giggle, staring at a few of their members. Ah, the joy of living in dorms. "If you make the construct subconscious, your mind will keep it going overnight.”
“But.” Timothy stretched out the word. “Not just any construct can become so ingrained. I won't give you the limits we teach Guardians, because I hope you can exceed them, but in general, it will be far easier with ideas and concepts that resonate with your self-image.”
“Try to make something painful or awkward automatic and your self-consciousness will fight you, and you will mostly lose. Sometimes you can train it, yourself really, to accept a slightly peripheral idea. Sometimes you can't. This is what we call Affinity. Not every concept fits with every person.”
“It's the foundation of our new society and one of the reasons each of you has a reserved position of authority waiting for you.”
Timothy sat back, struggling to explain something so critical, but also obvious, at least to him, that it was hard to put into words. “Let's try this analogy. When it comes to mana sight, every human starts nearly blind. Near-sighted, cataracts, light sensitivity, you name it. We all have problems.”
“To self-awaken you managed to find, fumbling around blindly, a box of glasses that fits you perfectly. It clears up every issue you have. Now able to see, you can lead others, guardians, to that box. Letting them grab a pair of glasses. But they had different issues than you did. Do you remember what glasses were like before the change? Or perhaps you even had to wear them?”
About a quarter of the room raised their hands. “Good, did you ever try someone else's glasses on?” Nodding heads and winces told him he was on the right track. Or at least a working one. “It doesn't work very well. In our analogy, we assume that no one has exactly the same issues. But in the general spread, they can come close. Those people can see something at least with the glasses you offer them. Others? They need to keep searching, trying on each pathfinder's glasses till one fits... Or rather the one that fits best, they will never see as clearly as you do.”
"You can see the issue. If we only have a hundred types of glasses to try, then people can slip through the cracks. Willing to fight for their Holds, but not able to do so effectively. Each of you is a new prescription to fill those gaps."
“Now, leaving that analogy behind, I have to mention a few things. Aural constructs are the most common method in the Union. Even if most focus on wildly different concepts and spells that link to those base concepts. Despite that, it's not the only way. This is Pink Elephant territory.”
“So, let me show you a different perspective, or two.” Timothy carelessly dragged his finger through the air in three overlapping, glowing blue circles that lingered, floating in the air. Only one circle on top, because if there was anything nasty enough to survive the change intact it was the house with a mouse and he did not need that kind of trouble. He hesitates a moment, then draws another sort of box to the side. It flexed and pulsed with his breathing. One moment a small box, the next a large rhombus, then a circle, then a pentagram, before back to a boring box again.
Ignoring it for the time being, he looked back at the Venn diagram considering, then sketched in a few glowing images. The bottom right got a flexed arm with a bulging bicep. The bottom left got a stick figure with heat lines expanding outward. The top got a ghost, packman style. The center where all three overlapped got a brain. Then the not-box got a pair of praying hands.
“The usual provisions apply. This is how I see it, take it with a grain of salt and try to find your own perspective. It's a learning tool, not the truth handed down by Google and set in stone. That's the box over there.” Timothy pointed to the praying hands, then stopped focusing on the students, feeling rather than looking for understanding. He wasn't sure he was getting it, but he'd done what he could.
“Physical, aura and soul. And the special kid in the room, belief” He pointed to each in turn. “I like to think of each area as having its own resource. Stamina for Physical, mana for Aural and willpower for Soul. And well, belief for Belief. Though the term faith gets tossed around sometimes. It's not a perfect fit, but it's a useful lens.”
“I already told you the most common paths are based on creating a permanent, or semi-permanent at least, aural construct. That obviously belongs to the aural circle right?” Timothy waited for and received an affirmative response from most of the room.
“Only mostly.” He gestured, and the aural circle doubled in size while the physical halved. Soul remained the same. “Commanding mana to do anything requires willpower. If you want to draw in mana from the Field? Willpower. Want to transform it into a spell? Willpower. But as we said earlier, if you pre-claim and filter your mana, it takes way less time and willpower to do anything with it. You don't have to spend the effort filtering out the base mana, and it's already claimed so it's easier to work."
"Likewise, heavily working your mind can be exhausting and passing out isn't impossible. Not to mention you need to travel to a place where you can cast your spells. So you can't completely ignore the physical either.”
“The other specialties follow suit. I'm probably the closest thing to a mono focus you will find, and even I dabble a bit in Aura. But you are not me, so let's discuss what the most general benefits and limitations of each are.”
“And since we already started, let's continue with Aura. Great mana storage, good passive mana regeneration, great protection, though it has massive situational weak points.” Timothy paused then decided to go into a bit more detail. “It extends past the physical limits of your body, how much so depends on you and the degree of work you've put in, but by default, it bubbles out around you.”
“That's great for defense. Enough room to really stack shields and whatnot. It's not so good for your social life. Imagine walking around in a five-foot safety bubble. Hard to eat, hard to lie in a bed, hard to hug someone. Frankly, it just doesn't work.”
“You mind knows this, even if you don't. And as the aural construct becomes automatic, it will shift and adjust itself to the situation. Mostly for the better. Voluntarily pulling back into the soles of your feet when walking, and back into your shoulder as you brush past someone.”
“Instinct. And like many instincts, it can be taken advantage of. You reach out to grab a leaf and realize it's a poisonous bug. No aura, and you're boned. A man pats you on the back and you pull it in, only to get a knife, not a pat. You get the picture.” Timothy looked around and realized he'd gotten a bit too deep.
“Moving on. Decent flexibility with spells. It's a bit more limited than just doing it freehand, but a hell of a lot faster and stronger. Since you start from one typed mana pool, it can be difficult to work spells that are too far away, conceptually, from your base. Especially antagonistic types. That still leaves a lot of room for play if you use your head. You can dig a hole with a jet of water instead of an earth spell for instance.”
“Now physical.” The next circle bulged out as the other two shrunk. “Decent mana storage though it's tricky and risky to create, very low passive mana regen but they make up for it by getting much better returns from eating. At least if the food is mana-dense. Low spell flexibility. It's not safe to make unplanned transformations inside your body. Most of the successful mana wielders in this set craft specific pathways into their bodies for the transformations they commonly use. It limits the variety of spells they can pop out, but that's not always a bad thing. It forces them to really learn the ones they can cast. Good durability, not as purely defensive as a projected aura, but without the weaknesses to ambush.”
“Now, if all this sounds a bit lackluster, that's because it is.”
He waved Brunhilde down as she half rose from her cushion. “Sure the ambush protection is nice and most successful hunters spend a bit of time on it for that reason, along with the ability to get more out of what you eat, but if that was all it had, it wouldn't be more than a minor dogleg for most paths.”
“Where it really shines, making it a legit path in its own right, is its adaptability! Say the environment in an area is inimical to normal human life. High concentrations of toxic mana, underwater, constant darkness, extreme temperatures you get the idea. You can run some environmental spells through your aura, but unless they're a major part of your construct you can't sleep with them on. Not to mention the mana costs, which will quickly become prohibitive.”
“So along comes the physical sphere and it's all about modifying the body to become whatever you want. To do whatever you need it to. From gills, like the Fishman of Laketown. Or the low light vision and climbing claws in the tree-fort of Baumhaus, Brunhilde's people. More generally, if you need to run great distances, you can augment your stamina. You can change yourself to eat beast meat without a Cook's help or to sniff out treasures and trouble like a wolf. If that sounds awesome but dangerous, well it is. The body is a working system, if you don't know what you're doing, randomly changing shit isn't going to result in a long healthy life.”
“The next area, Soul, is what I focus on. Its primary aspect is the will, and as my family will tell you, it can leave its users a might stubborn." He paused to let an awkward pitty chuckle circle the room. "We're also the best large-scale spell casters. Controlling large amounts of mana and a great deal of meaning takes a powerful will. With a stronger will and better understanding of it, we also recover our spent willpower quicker.”
“The active mana regeneration is also the best of the three, but since, so far at least, you can't store mana in the soul, storage can be an issue. And like Owl's little writing project, without storing mana, those massive spells I mentioned earlier can take a very long time to cast. To get around that, most spend at least some effort in Aura studies. That or spend a bit of time in enchanting.”
Timothy held up his arms, clad in two bone bracers. Simple and even primitive to look at, he focused for a moment and allowed what he saw in the Field to shine into the physical, so bright that the students flinched away. There was a great deal of mana stored in those simple bracers. “Like these. Of course, some diverge in another direction. Creating a temporary well of organized mana for others to draw from.”
“On the negative side, without storage passive regen isn't really possible. It's active or nothing with a pure Soul focus. Unless you cheat, which I wholly encourage you all to do.”
“In the same manner, we don't get much in the way of passive defenses. Soul effects are almost entirely active. So we are even more prone to ambushes than Aura users. Even without surprise, it's more difficult to actively defend. Think of it like using a shield vs a full suit of armor. If you see it coming and can react fast enough, you can pit your will against a spell and command it to stop. Or even return to sender. If you don't see it or miss grabbing it? We'll it is going to end badly.”
“That active behavior has one other benefit that bears mentioning. Physical can combat physical. A punch is a punch, right? And a block a block. Aural constructs can directly attack each other, causing conceptual damage that can take months to heal."
"So what do you think willpower can do? A contest of wills is both possible and deadly. A Soul user can convert an opponent's personal mana. Introducing foreign intent into their very existence with lethal consequences.”
“An extended painful death via contamination. Like taking too many healing potions, your body isn't fully yours anymore and will attempt to reject the foreign bits. Like an organ transplant going wrong. Everywhere at once.”
“Of course, that's easier said than done. There is a sort of natural defense you have to overcome in all three spheres. A damage threshold you have to beat, and that means you have to have a pretty large advantage in Willpower or some time to pull it off. Time that the opponent has to use mana or physical attacks that they might be better at than you.”
“Attacks in all three spheres can be lethal, and if you take too long in one, then you might just get beat in the others. Just a thought, but please bear in mind that you can't ignore such attacks, but at the same time, you can't be good in all of them. Think out how you can use what you are good at to stop others from attacking you in what you're not.”
“The trick is to use planning and creativity to match your strengths to your opponent's weaknesses. And no, I'm not going to hold your hand to explain how to do that. Think about it on your own. You might even scheme a bit.”
“Moving on, I already mentioned that most paths double, or even triple dip. Focusing mostly in one sphere, but dabbling in the others. That leads us to the brain here.” Timothy pointed to the center. “There is a reason it's included in all three. It's the lynchpin. The point of connection between the spheres. Where the Soul is attached to both Body and Aura. And where the real power for all three starts. In knowledge and understanding. Spells are willpower and meaning, remember? Without meaning there are no spells.”
“No matter what path you take you can't do without it. You don't have to study musty old tomes all day for years to get it, you might instead find understanding on the battlefield or in a craft. There are many ways to find your own Meaning. But you must find it somewhere.”
“The incense burners are training wheels to lead you onto that path. Giving you a chance to explore and observe how meaning and mana interact. A practical example of how meaning acts as a multiplier in a battle of will or mana. And hopefully, it's given you a taste of backlash, the result of a poor or internally inconsistent understanding forcefully applied.”
A raised hand to his right stopped Timothy. Hanna stood at his wave. “But belief doesn't connect to the brain?”
Timothy slumped, sighing. “It's complicated. No, that's not fair. It just makes little goddamn sense, pun intended. I could say that it's putting something above yourself. An ideal, an entity or a way of life even. But even that doesn't really explain it. Our hosts use it to raise their companion spirits, and those aren't really above them. They respect them of course, but it's not quite the same. It's also not a way of life though, as the sheer variety of spirits and the way they interact can really throw you for a loop.”
“It is the most frustrating and incomprehensible aspect of magic that I know. It can be incredibly powerful one moment and disgustingly weak the next. Everyone, including me, uses it to some extent. Just having confidence in your own work can be enough to activate it in a minor way, and empower whatever you do. But it's the large-scale religious aspects that make people nervous. The gathered faith of the multitudes. Multitudes that in fact don't need that brain, they don't need to know much of anything, they just have to believe. And all that faith concentrated and refined becomes power.”
“Is it really that bad?” Hanna asked, looking a bit frightened.
“Bad is the wrong term dear, it's neither bad nor good. That depends on the person using it. What it is, is frequently irresponsible. Ironically, I'd say that as an article of faith, having to struggle and fight for understanding means you are more likely to use it responsibly. Worshipping to generate power, then hoping the priests will use it to help you is skipping that personal responsibility angle in my book. But that's my opinion and not one that's universal.”
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“On the positive end, those who focus on an ideal must do their best to embody it. For worshippers, the belief they generate will be larger and easier to convert if they are closer to the ideal. A bit of learning about the ideal helps, but then you have to live it."
"Take the Brotherhood for instance. You've all dealt with them and they have done a great deal of good for the Union. To be a member, to add anything to the pool, you must embody loyalty. Believe in the concept and live your life in accordance. Your ideal of loyalty may be different from your neighbors, but you must all act with it as your primary focus. It's hard to hate an organization that takes that as their guiding star, hmm?”
“I don't want to go into any more detail than that. The pink elephant applies to belief even more than to regular magic. Your preconceptions and perspectives can shape its effects to such a strong extent that I really can't safely guide you. You have to explore it on your own.”
“What I will say, is a practical warning on the limits of resources. Belief or faith, stamina, mana, willpower. Each individual generates a finite amount of each of these. Some more or less, but all finite. For Faiths or Ideals that means you are competing over worshipers. For stamina, you can only work so hard in a day. The same for mana and willpower.”
“That said, the two most contested resources are currently mana and faith. Willpower regenerates faster and stamina can be augmented with proper spell casting or enchanted gear. But who worships who has already led to fights and every city offers coin for mana donated to their stockpiles.”
“Hunting teams, the basis of most of our economy, no, not just them but most of our society is built around this lack. Standard hunting schedules are three hunts a week. A day between focusing on mana recovery with a bit of free time for mental stress relief at the end of each week. That's not just a day of passive regeneration either. Most have to do some navel-gazing-”
A confused murmur rumbled through the classroom.
Timothy hid a sigh and changed what he was about to say with an awkward cough. “-meditation. All the sitting and legs crossing is BS in my opinion, but that doesn't make the idea wrong. Turn your attention inward and work on yourself. Go over the constructs and concepts that are central to your growth and check them for wear or damage. Then really focus on them, like your incense images, to draw in the background mana faster.”
“Of course, it's not just mana. Maintaining your gear and training also takes time. And while Soul wizards usually make the best enchanters, it's a real fool who doesn't spend some time planning and creating tools for later use. External mana storage or weapons with a built-in charge for emergencies are just common sense. And those need filling up as well. Unless you buy them from me of course.” Timothy grinned widely. “Then as long as you return to where they were created, they will fill themselves up. Though it may take a while.”
“I'm one of two people in the entire Union who has managed that trick, and just so you know, it takes far more Willpower to do than to merely cast the same effect as a temporary spell. Think of it like a semi-permanent thought construct focused on a singular use. It's slower to charge than a caster actively recharging and its location limited, but it doesn't take any attention. They'll just keep charging until it hits the limits of the material it is stored in.”
Timothy grinned. “Then if I didn't do the limiters correctly it goes boom!"
"I try not to let that happen. It's bad for business.”
Timothy hesitated, the grin slipping from his face as lines he shouldn't have at 33 biological years deepened. “That's a decent lead-in. Claimed mana and meaning are inseparable. You can't gather mana without offering it some kind of meaning. It's the price of doing business.”
“But like with your first experiments with paper, all things have a limited ability to contain meaning and mana and if you overload that... well it doesn't end well. Possibly explosively not well. That's true whether it's velum, stone or metal. And if you look at it a different way, Body, Aura or Soul. If you want to hold more, you have to improve the 'material.'”
Timothy stopped and gestured over to a raised hand. “Brunhilde?”
The muscular blond stood up before speaking. “How is that fair? We have to improve our bodies-” she paused then graciously added “or our Aura's I guess. But you do most of your work with enchanting. Don't you just buy better materials?”
Timothy's eyes twinkled. “A bit to unpack there, my dear. Let me hit them one at a time. First, life isn't fair. Get over it, and fast. I personally believe there is something of a balance between effect and the effective effort you put in, but there's not a great deal of evidence to support my position. And it might not work out in your favor, even if I am right.”
“See, I've known people who work hard eight hours a day every day, and get less than a quarter of the work done of their more lazy, but forward-thinking coworkers. They can complain all they want, but an hour of effective training will beat the hell out of aimless hard work.”
“You'll see a lot of that in life, and from the outside, it doesn't look fair. The slackers race ahead while the diligent plod along. But surface looks are not truth. Look deeper, and try to actually understand. There's always more happening behind the scenes.”
“Next, you made it sound almost binary. Your choices are not that limited. Just because you don't go full Soul doesn't mean you can't make your own enchantments. You too can take advantage of, how did you put it 'just buying better materials.'"
“Of course, you have to earn that money somehow. How much effort do you think that will cost you?” He waggled his eyebrows at her. Things did seem to come full circle.
“More practically, it's not always even a question of money. Some things can't be bought. The Binder has a soul-bound spear he's carried since the end of the tutorial. It's a fallen branch he rubbed on a rock to make a crude spear. Stoneage craftsmanship at best. A sharpened stick.”
“Or it was once. At this point, it'll carve through metal like a hot knife through butter. It kills beasts with a touch and hurts to even look at if he's angry with you. The effort and dedication he put into it have made it far more potent than anything money can currently buy.”
“Effort, dedication, symbolism and so much more. The history of an item is written in its mana, and sometimes that means a great deal more than what it started out as. Whether that is my trusty stone pen here.” He held up the Pen-Is-Mightier and let the precision sharpness its mana charge embodied shine for a moment. “Or the people around you. Their history often is what makes them powerful, not the squealing infants they were born as. Try to keep an open mind.”
“And lastly, I did mention that the Soul users are the best at enchanting correct? And that it took a massive amount of will to create things the way I do? As much as Body or Aura, the Soul too must be constantly stretched and improved. No one gets a pass on that. We just go about improving it in different ways.”
She sheepishly nodded and sat down. “If it helps your sense of fairness, I'll tell you a little anecdote. My first attempt at an enchantment? I died. And it wasn't only once. It's hard to do things my way.”
“But...you're still alive?” Brunhilde muttered, seated now, but also clearly confused.
“I got better.” Timothy cheekily spouted in a terrible British accent, only to see blank eyes staring back at him. “Damn, tough crowd.” Apparently, young children before the change didn't watch that one.
Who knew?
Timothy sighed, “Tutorial magic. Everyone I've talked to killed themselves at least once in that place. Experimenting with magic can be a lot like playing Russian Roulette. Only when we lost, we still woke back up the next day. Just in debilitating pain.”
“That's why the Origins are as powerful as we are. We were reckless. Foolishly so, throwing ourselves at magic without care or understanding and not staying dead. We dared to try any and everything out. We abused an infinite life cheat. You only get one.”
“That's why the steps I'm teaching you are not ones I used. Oh, the self-awakening bits are similar, but beyond that, my path was suicidal without the tutorial's help. As were the paths of most of the Origins. It's even more true for her-” He gestured back to Brunhilde, “-crazy genius of a Holder. How do you think he figured out a safe way to modify a human body to hold mana? Practice! Endless practice, on both himself and magically created living bodies.” Timothy hid a shudder. Sure medical cadavers were a thing, but to summon living bodies, if mindless, and do magical experiments on them? That was a special kind of creepy. He crushed the familiar thought and continued.
“You don't get that. You get the safe, boring, generic route. The survivable one. You can thank us later.”
With a wry smile, he changed the subject. “Now, let's talk about moving from a general direction, the route I mentioned above and towards a Path. Let's talk about concepts. That's the central bit of meaning that controls what a construct is. Not just what it does. That's critical because if you make something a part of you it had damn well better be something that fits."
"Whether you embed that concept into your Aura, modify your Body with it or adjust your Soul to match it, you are going to have to live with the idea being part of you.”
“Mana affects reality. Sounds obvious I know, but I doubt you could guess how broad the effects are. Before any spell is cast, mana still affects and changes reality. On the simple end, you will find water near water mana. Earth near earth mana and air near air mana. On the more complex end, there will be emotional and philosophical mana types near humans. The more prevalent one of those mana types is, the less likely it is to find divergent points of view. All happy mana? It'd be hard to feel depressed. Cause or caused, who can say, but it happens.” Of course, humans being human, happy mana never seemed to become ascendant.
“More germane to this discussion, this applies to you personally even more. The mana you focus on, choose to gather and work with will affect you far more than the ambient mana does! With a great deal of work and self-discipline, you can guide that change. If you don't, then it will still happen, just at the dictates of chance or your subconscious.”
“Keep it in mind as you think about where your focus lies. Equally important, make sure you fill in the details ahead of time.” Timothy stopped and scratched his head, grasping for a way to explain gracefully, then with a sigh gave up. “Few people are just one thing. There is a mix of concepts in nearly every construct. But if those aspects conflict, it can lead to the self-destruction of the construct. Maybe not at first, but as you travel down your path it will become more and more of a problem. And when it all flies apart, it will tear you apart with it.” He stared outward, pushing his intent and small figments of memory to them. Images of friends lying motionless or mindlessly foaming at the mouth.
“I've seen it far too many times already. So please, take your time, and test your ideas out before jumping in. Build up your personal narrative one small piece of the story at a time. Make sure as you go that each new piece is consistent with what came before and the entirety of it is coherent. Try not to close it in with ideas that contain a set start and end. I won't stop you, but it's easy to run out of room to expand. You aren't so far along in life that you need to have your end planned already. Start small, and build up to it.”
“But it's still a good idea to have a direction you want to go. Who you want to be. Make your construct tell that story. And make it a livable story. Because as cool as it might sound, a raging wildfire might be incredibly powerful but the person underneath that mask is unlikely to have a pleasant home life. I'd call it a win if he or she didn't kill everything and everyone around them. Don't go all edge lord.”
“Moving past the story aspect, try also to be practical. You'll want to consider mana regeneration. Mana and reality being linked is more than just how it affects your personality or the world around you. Since water mana is more prevalent on the river, earth the same underground you can leverage those places to harvest mana more effectively."
"The opposite is unfortunately true as well. Despite how cool throwing a fireball sounds, there isn't a great deal of natural fire around and I very much doubt people will be understanding if you start large-scale fires every time you need to recharge.”
“Spend some time studying the local Field and how it shifts with the terrain. See what's available before you pick. Then consider again where you might end up. A sun aspected Path might work great on the plains, not so much in the jungle depths. We call that place the Deep Dark for a reason.”
“Right now some of you may be thinking this is all too complicated, 'I'll just use whatever mana I need to and figure out my future later.' That's fine for temporary constructs. Please don't try to make those non-temporary. It's in the name, non-temporary. It's a commitment, not a convenience.”
“Forcing yourself to forget it once it becomes subconscious is enormously difficult. I'd say try not to breathe for a while, but some of you might take me seriously. Instead, I'll put it like a habit. Any of you have family who tried to stop smoking in the before? It's much harder to quit than to not start. And that's for Aura users. It's much worse for Body. Once the body is changed, it's not something you can just Mulligan. There is no blueprint that can lead you back to baseline. It complicates an already complicated art. It's neither smart nor safe.”
With considerable sympathy, he directed their attention back to Brunhilde who was sporting a bloodless, slightly green face. “Just ask her, that expression says she's seen in.” He didn't bother to ask though, that would come out on its own, and be all the more powerful for it not coming from him.
“Also remember what I said earlier about flexibility. The farther a spell is from your starting mana type, the more difficult it will be. You've practiced those transitions. You can work water around to fire... Eventually. But it's not cheap and it's not fast. Not to mention the increased complexity.”
“Plan your concepts around the sort of tasks you will need to accomplish. If you don't know what those will be yet, well congratulations! You are in good company, but that won't save you from the results of a poorly thought-out build. I suggest you go out there and talk to people. Ask about what they use in everyday life. Ask guardians what works for them in the wild. Ask your Origins what they've needed to secure their Hold. Don't expect me to spoon-feed you the details, I've found people are much more respectful of information if they had to work to get it.”
Timothy hesitated, then continued. “You don't need to limit your considerations to the obvious base elements of European or Asian myth either. You can be more specific. Sun instead of fire for instance. River instead of water and wind instead of air. The more complicated or specific versions come with some drawbacks, but they also come with benefits.”
“All other things being equal, which they never are, the same amount of the more complicated mana type will easily defeat the basic. But the basic types are ubiquitous. A river will have river mana. But water can be found nearly everywhere. From the obvious oceans, lakes and waterways to inside us or floating in the very air. Next to the river, river mana will be easier to harvest, but not so by the ocean nor in the rain or the humidity in the jungle's depths.”
“Water is not terribly powerful in its base state, but it is such a simple concept that it's much easier to get a handle on it. Which means you will find others who have done the same and probably have a similar understanding of it. Teamwork becomes easier.”
“You can also use it for nearly everything. A jet of it can cut, a plume can dig, a fog of it can clean and a flow of it can cool. With a bit of thought you can find many more things you can do with it. Or, with little work, you can transition upwards to a vast number of things. Water feeds wood, it leads to storms, it is the main part of blood and is the carrier of most potions.”
“It can become nearly anything and that isn't true the more specific you get. Going to an extreme, take something like the speckled light of the sun through a dense canopy. Try to twist that into preserving your food, dig a ditch, make it cut or defend a hold.”
“That's not to say those things are impossible. They are most certainly not. You can do it if you're clever. But the images are more of a stretch, yes?”
“Moving past just the elemental options, the emotional or even philosophical concepts are also available, though they have some restrictions. Mostly in where they are plentiful. Except for some of the more primal emotions that we share with the beasts, most of the more complex emotions are only generated by large groups of humans. And they come with a side of belief.”
“I've said it before, but belief is a contested resource and someone else is probably trying to collect it already. Like the constructs you train with, a strong Belief can convert other Beliefs into its own image. So if you need greed but the Brotherhood has a stronghold in the town, then even in a busy market you might have less greed mana than you would expect. And someone else is probably already collecting it.”
“Since their mana is formed through loyalty, in acts, expectations and preferences. Lots of people living together with that belief structure will create a feedback loop that tunes other belief types to loyalty. Not all of it, the mana flow is too chaotic for a true monopoly. Some other time I'll demo that for you or you can go look at one of the local houses of worship.”
“Now as to its use, let's stick with Loyalty. With the Brotherhood around it's probably the Ideal that we have the most information on and it is really quite flexible. Within limits at least. Need a wall up? Sure, as long as you think of it in terms of protecting your buddies. As long as you can phrase your work in those terms, the mana can be converted easily. Though even after the conversion it will keep a flavor of the belief that spawned it.”
“Stepping past Loyalty, the primal emotions I mentioned are probably more common. You can find Fear, joy, anger, desire, disgust and sadness in nearly anything that lives. Even plants like trees to a small degree according to my sister. But while the wilds do have these emotions, they aren't human in how they express them. Similar but not the same. It's an additional barrier if you want to harvest it as a mana source.”
“The more complicated emotions and ideals? Those you pretty much only get around humans. Maybe high-tier beasts feel them, but trying to collect from that source sounds a bit suicidal. So sticking with something a bit more reasonable, I have to point out that towns are considerably less common than plants and beasts. It limits you a bit in where you can easily harvest mana.”
“Another negative is in their opposites. Unlike elemental types, the antithesis of the ideal is not just a matter of a few hard transitions. Holding the belief in loyalty and using your mana for treachery will cause a hell of a backlash. That flavor I mentioned. The one that is left behind when you convert Loyalty into, say, earth? Ya, that doesn't go away and it will punish you for trying to get around it. If whatever you're doing doesn't tick the loyalty box then using it isn't a good idea.”
“Of course, a good spin doctor or self-deception can make many things into loyalty projects. Some legitimate, like filling the tub for your spouse while she fills it for you. Or realizing that good hygiene prevents the spread of disease and is thus the right and loyal thing to do.”
“Don't laugh, it's both true and it works. Others not so much. Like tying together the fact that you protect the hold, so anything you do to benefit yourself also benefits the hold. It's a twisty sort of logic that crops up every once in a while, and if it sounds self-righteous and a bit hypocritical, well..duh! Welcome to Humans 101.”
Timothy paused for a courtesy chuckle, but the emotions echoing back to him through his aura were becoming a bit concerned. Best nip that in the bud. “As easy as that kind of self-righteous BS is, it doesn't occur nearly as much as you might think. Not in the powerful at least. Power requires you to be in tune with yourself. To understand yourself and match thoughts and words.”
“That includes seemingly subconscious feelings. You want to slap someone. You tell yourself it's because of what they said, but inside it's really because they broke up with your sister a few years back. That sort of disconnect doesn't matter at low levels, but it can cause a nasty backlash if you are strong enough. Will and words in harmony grant power. Disharmony within leads to backlash. Know yourself. It's a common enough saying, but that doesn't make it any less true. Especially if you ever want to see the heights of power.”
Timothy paused, picking up a water jar as he pointed to a raised hand off to his right. “Yes Karen?”
“So having lots of power means you have to be a good person?”
Timothy spluttered, nearly spitting the water out. “Dear Google NO! Where did that come from?”
“But..” She fumbled a bit. “You said they have to be honest.” Her voice trailed off with each additional word.
“Ahh, I see. Sorry, dear, I don't mean to mock you. You just surprised me. Unfortunately, the world isn't nearly such a nice place as to require the powerful to be good. Just honest with themselves. That might mean they accept that they are honestly bad, honestly selfish, honestly a jerk, hell honestly a killer and eater of children. Magic is a tool, it has no requirements for good or bad. It just requires those who use it to harmonize their Intent. That thoughts and communication must match. I can choose not to say anything and let people deceive themselves, but deliberately lying hurts. It's even hard to mislead people when they can feel the intent in your words. Does that make sense dear?”
She hesitated, then shook her head. “So if you have selfish thoughts then you have to act on them?”
“A reasonable question, but one with a very complex response. I won't even call it an answer, just some idle musing on my part.” Timothy tapped his fingers on the ground for a few moments. How to explain...
“One of the most overpowered things about magic is that it enables change. Mostly we look at that outside ourselves. To change the world we live in. But it can also go the other way. To change ourselves. I suspect, from how I've grown and from watching the growth of others, that to be powerful requires that you distill yourself into a more coherent set of ideals. Ones that you can hold to and must assert control on your mind to conform to them. Even when it comes to idle thoughts. Otherwise, you get that painting from earlier. When your mind is a half-cocked weapon, you don't get the luxury of a hair-trigger temper. There's more, but I think this is getting a bit heavy. It's a problem that is a long way off for all of you. How about you ask me again in a few years?”
She nodded, still looking down. He held in a sigh. He should not have reacted... ah well. Something he'd have to fix later.
“Go ahead Owl.” Timothy gestured to the boy as he brought his hand down.
“Are opposites really that big of a deal? Even if it's circuitous, I've taken water to green wood, then green wood to seasoned, then burnt the wood to shape copper and used the shaped copper to cut. Sure, I might not want to do that every time, but I can if I want to. As long as I don't pick one of your philosophies it sounds like I can still do anything I want to.”
“You can indeed Owl, but at what cost? You can theoretically trace a logic line from simple water to nearly anything. But each step you take is one more you have to will to happen. One more you have to hold in your mind to cast the spell. And more steps to lose mana in if your images aren't flawless. It will also take a great deal of time. Each transition may be fast, but they aren't instant, right?”
“Oh.” He muttered looking down, a small flicker occurring between his hands. The very transition he just mentioned, slowly flickering one to the next.
“Remember what I said about resources being the name of the game. You can't afford to waste too much mana. And while willpower recovers faster, it's not endless either. Let's say a wizard with a water-aspected mana pool takes an hour in meditation to raise 10 units of mana. He needs 30 minutes of rest to recover his full willpower pool. Now, a simple water spell that costs 1 unit of mana might take 5% of his willpower to cast. It's cheap because while he isn't transforming the element, he does need to add enough meaning to make the water actually do something in the attack. Having it en globe their head is a pretty standard low-level use for example. Let's say he casts that 10 times in five minutes. Then he needs an hour of active mana recovery and 15 minutes of rest. That's 1 hour 20 minutes for a full cycle. If you work that out into a full day of training, say 10 hours to be very generous, you get to cast the spell what, 75 times?”
“Now let's consider a fireball from the same mage. For someone at your level, the elemental conversion mana loss is probably on the order of 12%. For each conversion. Now, per your description, water to green wood, green wood to seasoned wood, seasoned wood to fire. That's three conversions. So to get a 1 mana fireball, we have to start with almost 1.5 mana and probably around 20 percent of his willpower. A bit more than the 5% for the water globe for each conversion as it's a more complex change. So the same caster is now only capable of casting 4 spells as bottoming out your willpower can and will kill you. So six mana and 80% of his willpower. 24 minutes to recover will and 36 minutes for the mana. The spells will generously take 3 times as long to cast so that's another 15 minutes for a total of 1 hour and 15 minutes for a full cycle, but of 5 spells, not 10.”
“Sure, I'm throwing out a lot of assumptions that would change with skill. A better image means less mana loss. Better understanding means less willpower. But even so. You get those skills and understanding in part by practice. And if you can practice a little better than half as much in the same amount of time... You get the picture right?”
“Time.” Timothy flipped the hourglass hanging overhead upside down. “Gathering mana takes time. Understanding takes study which takes time. Practice takes time. Feeding yourself takes time. So much to do and so little time to do it in. There is your 4rth resource. Be very careful where you choose to spend it.”
“Used wisely and even with something as simple as water you can become good at accomplishing a few useful tasks. You can become an expert, respected and requested to accomplish those things as they cost you far less, in time, mana and willpower to accomplish.”
“Don't and you become a jack of all trades, and good for jack all. No one will ask for you when they can get someone specialized who will do the task better and for cheaper. No one wants to hire the handyman to make a vase. Nor to make you a high-cost focus. But if you want to spend your life cleaning up random messes and unclogging the occasion toilet, by all means, do as you please.”
“That doesn't mean you can't have some variety in what you do. In fact, you absolutely should. Just keep it within reasonable bounds. Even on the hunting teams, where most of you will be at some point, they don't want someone with 30 half-assed widely spread spells.”
“The standard is a bit of a pyramid. Something like a half dozen core spells focused on movement, stealth, detection and combat at the tip. Then maybe a dozen more situational spells that are well studied, but far less practiced for situational issues. Anything from environmental hazards like swimming, toxic swamp air, etc and moving on up to a ritual or long chant spell good only for opening attacks.”
Timothy glanced around, seeing eyes glazing over he started to wrap it up. “Maybe another two dozen or so out-of-combat utility spells you have written down or enchanted into something below that. Things like drawing water, personal hygiene, food preservation, harvesting or entertainment. You still need those kinds of quality-of-life spells, but you don't need to toss one off in a split second.”
“Power comes from mana and understanding. But combat efficiency often relies more on speed and comfort with your spells. That comes from practice. And you don't have enough time to study or practice everything equally. You need to make some sacrifices.”
“Just to confuse you, I should point out that applies more to Guardians than to us. We can rarely afford to just practice a single spell to completion like I'm describing. It's an old saying, but practice does not make perfect. It makes permanent. So correct practice is key... but as a Pathfinder you need to be constantly progressing. Figuring out new and better spells, or at least refinements on your old spells. How can you afford to make an entry-level undeveloped spell permanent?”
Timothy looked out and realized that there was little understanding in the radiating intents... Shit. He did it again, didn't he?
“..I'd better leave it there. It's a lot to take in, I know, but you don't have to make any decisions immediately. There are weeks of work and study before you're ready to make any permanent decisions. Just keep it in the back of your mind as you go through your day. Who do you want to become, and what will you need to make that happen?”
“Focus on you. On what you want, and what goals you have. I can't emphasize this enough, forget about fair, forget about 'best'. Don't try to min-max based on someone else's meta or some mythical best possible build. Your Path is exactly that. We all have affinities, it's the way our minds work. Work with them, not against.”
“I'm here if you need a sympathetic ear and once you think you're ready don't rush ahead on your own. You will only try new spells in front of me for the foreseeable future. Once you pass my tests and I ok the spell, you can then use them on your own. Again, most of us died, more than a few times creating the spells we use today. You don't have the luxury of coming back. Don't screw around.”
He stood up abruptly. “Now, that's enough lecturing. Too much I'm sure. So let's get back to the practicals. Please create your writing constructs and start harvesting mana. Don't activate them until I'm there to watch. If any of you forgot, don't worry about it. The sewers always need some help and I'm sure mixing up the drainage pits will give you plenty of time to make it up!” The cheerful tone of his voice was nicely contrasted with a few guilty and sickened facial expressions. “Now, who's next?”