Sometime in 3AC
“Lets talk about cooperation, teamwork of the magical variety.” Timothy said, striding down the ramp to jump lightly onto the dais. “It's something I've actively discouraged before now, I know. You needed to establish your own habits and style before you start messing with someone else’s. No pink elephants if we can help it, ya? But you’ve done that, so it’s time to expand a bit.”
Three forms, each not quite Timothy walked out of his body and turned to face him, making a triangle around the real deal. ♪Please stand up, Please stand up♪ he hummed for a moment. Each image was close but not quite him. One was blond with a big nose, another swarthy and fat, the third a redhead with freckles.
Each suddenly took out three objects and started to juggle. Three batons, three bowling pins and three eggs. “Now, everyone does things slightly different. You found what works for you, and that’s great! But what happens if you try to make it a group performance?”
The three began to toss one of their implements sideways. But the egg took delicate handling and cracked in the redhead's hand. The batons weren't balanced the same and the fatty fumbled the toss. The bowling pins were too slick and slipped through the blond's fingers. In moments it went from choreographed to chaos.
“Everyone has different understandings. Even something as simple as a dirt construct will be different for each person who makes it. That doesn’t matter much if you work alone, but this is a good analogy of what happens when you don't.”
“So we back up,” Like an old VHS tape in rewind the chaos flowed backward at 10x speed until the figures once again stood as they started. “-and first familiarize ourselves with the particulars of our partners.”
At 10x forward each clone placed their implements on the ground, then walked clockwise to pick up a new set. At first, they handled them poorly, dropping, cracking or just missing the unbalanced tosses. Still in fast-forward they continued to practice till it began to look polished. Never quite as good as the original, but still a professional level of skill. Then they placed the objects down, and walked clockwise to the next set for the dance to begin again.
“Familiarize yourself with your teammates and we're ready to try again.” In normal speed, each began to juggle, then at an unseen signal, again tossed an object counterclockwise. This time there was no fumble. The handoff slid through in dizzying triple arcs of shifting objects.
For a time. But soon irregularities cropped up. Fatty had only one object to toss upwards and Blondie had to miss his next pass because another egg was already incoming. “Tempo,” Timothy spoke over the ensuing mess, “rhythm, timing call it what you want. It’s not just the flavors of mana that are different, but the speed at which you work them. To beat the same drum, it’s not something that comes up much when you work alone. With a group it’s critical.”
“So we back up again-” The rewind spun them back, “-and find a way to mesh.” Blondie raised his leg and stomped, then again, and again at a constant slow beat. Fatty and Redhead took it up, slightly off at first, but rapidly blending into one beat. Then Blondie lifted his other leg. Marching in place now to the same slow beat. The others matched him. The juggling began, the objects were passed and again the three-part harmony of interlacing looping objects flickered across the stage, rapidly growing faster till the jugglers were full out riverdancing and flipping the toys about to the same fast beat.
With a wave of his hand, the illusions dissipated into swirls of fast-fading smoke. “I’m going to tell you about three common buckets for teamwork. Loosely called Rhythm, Pyramid and Clockwork. Like the spheres, despite there being three distinct groups, mixes are more common then not.”
“Still, it's useful to consider them separately. Just don't get trapped into thinking that's the only way.”
“Lets start with Pyramid. Say wizards A through E generate wood mana. Wizards F through H take that mana and convert it into dried firewood mana. Wizard I lights the wood and flings the resultant blaze at the enemies.”
“It's simple, easy to set up and provides some nice returns. With other people doing all the prep work, it leaves more of the head wizard's attention free to focus on the final effect. But that's also its weakness. The spell is limited by that head wizard's capacity, and even pre-aspected and smoothed, there's a limit to how much mana any one person can control.”
“If you want to go beyond that limit, you need either better tools, ritual style mostly, or more minds. We’ll ignore the first here, because while it can drastically increase a wizards capacity, its not infinite, and usually comes with drawbacks in time or reagents.
“Minds don’t have that problem. But they have problems of their own. Without extensive practice or specialized traits, like the Brotherhood uses, its very hard to mesh different styles and ego’s into a single whole. Like the jugglers from earlier, balls get dropped. And in life, there is no rewind.”
“And that is what brings us to Clockwork. One wizard flings wood mana at the baddy, the next flings wind mana and a third throws a spark. Each is doing a separate job with their own mana. The mana doesn't even have to be claimed and converted as the synergy can occur in the combined spell effects.”
“It's hard to do correctly. Few potent spells are instant, so if you want to do it on the fly, in a fight, then your teammates have to be on the ball, know the timing and know what spell is coming with enough time to prep their own portion. They also all have to hit! Not a small problem when your targets are moving too.”
“If you have more time, say in a ritual setting or from fixed defenses, you can mitigate that to an extent by having everyone charge up and wait for the signal. One bungler can ruin the spell, but it’s unlikely to kill you if they do. It’s much more forgiving, but as you can guess, it has its limits. Mostly with expansion.”
“If you just think about that in terms of odds, perfection and timing quickly becomes a big ask. If one person rolls a die and only fails on a 1, they succeed five times out of six. But six people doing the same thing? You fail 2/3rds of the time.”
Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.
“The analogy isn't great, as odds are rarely that simple or bad, but it helps to explain why this method is rarely used for complicated spells in groups larger than a squad. Simple spells can be ramped up, but in a way that makes them far less potent.”
“Say a hundred guardians on the wall all cast something flammable from the walls, then a few others cast fire. Doesn’t matter how many you add to the group because there isn’t any real pattern to maintain. But there also isn’t any depth of meaning to give it power.”
“That leads us to rhythm. Instead of counting on each individual to read the flows and act at the perfect time on the fly, we give everyone a tempo, a set task to do at a set time and all held together by a common thread.”
“I could go on, but instead let's do a bit of class participation!”
“Stand up, stand up! Come on down to the floor. Yep, right here in front.” Timothy had to wait through the usual jockeying for position, hesitation and general confusion, but in only a couple minutes he had them down, equally spaced (mostly) in three lines.
“Now, all together right foot step forward. Now left foot. Lean back and clap.” They were completely out of sync. A few in the back rows stepping on the front who didn't move fast enough and the general. Timothy continued on anyway with a small grin.
“Now step backward, right foot first, then left. Try to step into your old footsteps.” The sheer clumsy chaos resulting from his simple commands was almost more than he could take. His face was growing more and more red with contained humor. Poor dears.
“Now lean forward and clap.” Mutiny! Over half didn't even bother to try. Timothy simply grinned at them.
“Turn 90 degrees to the left. No Owl, your left, not mine.” Timothy lost it, bending at the waist and laughing till he could barely see. “Ahh, you should see your faces right now! Ahh. All right, all right. You can all stop.” He finally managed to get it under control.
“To answer your most burning question, no, I didn't do this to humiliate you. That was more like a bonus!” He mock dodged the angry fists shaken in his direction. “Seriously though, it's not that you can't do this right, you're just missing practice and some props.”
Timothy triggered the wards and a small illusion by the door dissipated, revealing a middle-aged slim black woman in the usual bare feet, halter wrap and wrapped skirt of a Paradisian native. All of it generously covered in bone and stone beads. She held a guitar in her right hand and stepped forward with the confidence of her years. Beside her was an empty-handed handed tall skinny blonde man, tanned skin still spotted with freckles and wearing a beaded leather vest above his loincloth. “This is Ms. Anolita and Cowbell, they've generously consented to help you out. And yes before you ask, you are all paying for their time. It's still generous of them. You'll see.”
“Miss, Cowbell” Timothy gave a small bow as they walked down the ramp. “Would you kindly take over?”
“That,” Anolita spoke with a decided twang. “was darn right sad. If I'd seen it before you made your offer, I might've turned you down.”
“Or done it for free.” Bell, as he preferred to be called, drawled.
“Or that.” She agreed. “Now step back a bit while Bell and I show you how it's done.”
She sat on the edge of the dais and started strumming the jaunty cheerful notes to Cotton Eyed Joe as Bell began to dance. No hat, no belt and no boots, but he could still move it, move it. He walked through the steps to a four count. To the left, to the right then rotate 90 deg. Baby's first line dance.
Timothy was so proud.
The music stopped after a single verse, and Bell moved toward the middle, though still in front of the line. “Now with me, follow my lead and keep your steps small at first. Different sizes mean some are going to step farther than others. Pull it back and match your smallest person.”
“Now again!” He called as the twanging tune started up again. Shaking and stepping his way to exaggerate each step. Making what was coming next obvious, and easy to follow. Or at least it should be. It was still a bit of a cluster fuck.
They’d get it eventually.
The music cut back after another verse and Bell moved through the line, giving words of encouragement to some, a bit of advice or adjusting postures and feet for others.
After getting his own bit of help, Count turned and asked. “Teacher? I didn't take you for a country fan. Line dancing, really?”
“I'd prefer Bowie for the lyrics.” Timothy smiled. “But neither freestyle club nor moshing is going to teach you to move together. Line dancing will. And to your other point, I like any music I can find these days!”
“Bowie?”
“You've never heard of David Bowie? Magic Dance? Ahh, kids these days.”
“Wha-”
“No, no, let's leave that. My poor heart.” Timothy faked a sniff and a sob. “It's fine. More seriously, it's not the dance you do. It's doing it together.”
“Ballroom then.” He muttered stubbornly.
“That would work.” Timothy agreed easily. “And some of the old English dances from Period movies would probably be even better. But I don't know them, nor anyone who does. I suspect they take a lot of teaching too. Line dancing, on the other hand, you can pick up pretty damn fast. You may not look nearly as good as Cowbell, but you can at least learn not to trip over yourself in a few sessions.” Timothy paused and added a bit dubiously. “I hope.”
“But what does it have to do with magic?”
“Not tripping over yourself? Nearly everything. It’s another way to drop the ball after all, and if you like your mind intact and unscorched I recommend you avoid it.”
“But, as you have been decent sports about this, I’ll add one more bit before you get back to it. You can tie specific spell effects or constructs to a beat. Pick a song, and use the words and timing to build a long, powerful complicated spell. From there, you embed symbolism in your dance, compounding the amount of meaning you can pump into the same bit of mana. Even without a team, it can be a real power multiplier. With a dozen of you all dancing to the same beat, it becomes overpowering.”
“First we raise the wood mana!” Timothy sang out. “Then we dry it out. Now we project it. Now we light it.” It was a horrible sound and a worse beat, Anolita was looking at him like he'd killed her firstborn. He quickly stopped. He'd never had much of a voice, but hopefully, it got the point across.
“That's what were aiming for, though hopefully in tune.” He ignored the muttered 'hell ya' from the side. “It's not about a specific dance to a specific song. You can do the same thing with a choir. Or the read-and-response church-style liturgy. Hell, you could all do the robot in sync if you wanted to look even sillier. As long as it’s together.”
“But doing that raw is hard. That's why I recommend some music as you start out. A beat you can all match yourself to. And if you're thinking you can't afford to hire a talented musician for every spell, you don't have to. A simple drum beat isn't a hard skill to pick up.”
“Wouldn't mind a drummer.” Anolita agreed from where she was retuning her guitar. Catgut strings were still a bit of a work in progress.
“Might try to find you one if we do this again.” Timothy nodded. “Or send them off to dance at your club.”
“Be welcome.” Bell chimed in. “Late night is adults only, but we accept all ages till an hour after sundown.”
“There you go. It’s not required, but it might help you. Just don’t be throwing any spells around while you’re there.”
He gave them a hard warning look. “Another reason I waited till now to teach this is because it's dangerous. Deadly dangerous. More people is more room for someone to make a mistake. More room for incompatibilities or ignorance to get you killed.”
He watched a moment longer, then nodded. “Enough of that. Miss Anolita and Bell don't have all day, so continue.”
Then he stepped back and let them have the floor. He wasn't going to knock something that worked, but line dancing out spells... Ha! Sometimes the world decided to hand him a ready-made comedy routine, and it was his solemn duty to sit back and enjoy it!