Vestoara then opens the manor’s main door wide open, while both Gyuron and her happen to see two visibly startled witches.
“So soon?” Janick yelps upon seeing them.
“We have another plan, another use for the loan we seek!” Vestoara loudly announces to the two witches owning the bank.
“What’s your new plan?”
“We need seed money to produce scrolls containing a new spell! It will revolutionize the entire training world!” Vestoara pitches the idea she has in mind.
“Magic-using scholars will pay the scroll’s weight in gold, if not more, to learn how to infuse knowledge into, and copy it from, someone else’s mind!” Gyuron adds.
A scroll that long costs around 250 gold to make. I might be wondering how many copies we could sell of the scroll, and whether this one would go above the going rate for spellbooks, Vestoara is left wondering about the economics of selling these scrolls.
“A scroll that long takes a few days to make, so how many scrolls do you think you can sell, and at what price?” Janick asks the would-be entrepreneurs.
The two tell them all the financial details of copying books as a business, whose profits would hopefully cover the costs of their research. I guess, a few copies are enough to get some seed funding, and then infuse the knowledge of writing into someone we could get, so perhaps a smaller loan is required than initially requested, Gyuron would then state a starting point.
This time around, Gyuron is the one kneeling before Janick to beg. “So rather than to ask for a thirty thousand gold loan, we ask to borrow two thousand gold so we can buy supplies to write our first set of scrolls for sale!”
“We’ll even open a bank account here if it can lower the interest rate!” Vestoara cries.
It’s not the most effective “get rich quick” scheme in the magic-using world, but 2k is a much more bearable risk than 30k. That’s about a barrel’s worth of magical wine for me, maybe a bit more, Janick mulls over the possible terms to offer the pair of wizards.
“You were talking about infusing knowledge. What about you infuse it in me? Then I might decide whether to lend you the money!” Janick imposes her condition.
Vestoara then looks into Janick’s eyes, and then the alcohol witch has visions flashing in her mind about how the magic of transferring what she refers to as data packets from one’s mind to the other works, along with the limitations. About there being two sources of pain one could inflict, parasitic and induced pain, the latter being caused by the transfer speed being higher than the bandwidth. Yet, for some reason, Janick didn’t feel any pain at all.
I don’t understand; it’s supposed to have inflicted some pain on the banker! How could it be so... painless? Vestoara opens her eyes wide and then rolls them, when she realizes that Janick endured no pain. There has to be... something about her mind that makes her different from everyone else!
Gyuron, however, is waiting for signs of Janick’s decision. Especially when she seems to take a bit to process what the spell is making her learn.
“Now I have a better idea of what you’re asking to borrow money for. Make copies of a spellbook so that people could learn about magical knowledge copying!” Janick then follows that up with one question. “Although I had reservations earlier about your research on immortality, I feel like now is the time to ask”
“If you know about how liches are made, you will probably want to know how this process is going to differ from what we are proposing. Essentially, lichdom is about putting your life force and soul into a phylactery as it gets drained from you and turn undead” Gyuron explains to them.
“What are you proposing that differs?”
“Our most promising lead is making the life force and soul bound to an item that you must wear at all times, feeding these in symbiotic fashion. However, it’s currently unknown what side effects, if any, this is going to have!” Vestoara explains to her.
Then Gyuron infuses knowledge of the more specific mechanisms underpinning lichdom and phylacteries, as well as the specifics of how their talisman would ensure that the wearer is going to be functionally immortal. About how revival would not be instant, and how long it kicks in would depend on how long it has been since the last revival. About how being physically separated from the talisman might impact the owner’s ability to be revived.
I might not like to admit it, but they might be on to something, questions now spring in Janick’s mind. She starts to squirm and thinks of how sensitive the info is.
“Now I wonder why you weren’t more specific about the research area, nor did you infuse that information earlier, other than the mechanisms being too sensitive!” a puzzled Janick asks the two would-be borrowers about their earlier attitude.
“We just don’t infuse knowledge without asking the infusee first, or the infusee asking for it first!” Gyuron vehemently clamors. “You said it so yourself that our research progress was sensitive!”
“We might be far away from anyone else who could use it for malicious purposes, but we may never know: walls could have ears, magical ones perhaps...” Vestoara sighs.
“Yet... make sure that the Order of Magic gets your hands on the spellbook. By now you know that magic-users tend to think mostly in terms of what can be used in battle, and non-combat use of magic is often secondary. Like you, I contributed to magical scholarship!” Janick gets interrupted.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“What did you contribute?” Gyuron asks the banker.
“I pioneered alcohol magic! I mostly cast it to make magical wine for sale, but I killed the electricity-stealing dragon with it! If the Order of Magic deems magical knowledge transfer a significant enough contribution to magic, then you might get a fief from the Order of Magic to fund your research from its revenues!”
“Speaking of which, we would like to have the knowledge of alcohol magic infused into us. One at a time, please!” Vestoara makes a request to the banker.
“Please take a deep breath, I am a beginner at magical knowledge infusion, so it might not be that great!” Janick warns the two wizards.
I know how fast I was infused the knowledge of magical infusion, so I think I can infuse it into them at the same speed. It’s going to be a real doozy of a data packet, Janick muses before the knowledge infusion spell can be cast. And I am to do so twice, it’s only fair that both learn alcohol magic from me.
Now that it’s Janick’s turn to use knowledge infusion magic, visions of alcohol magic casting flash in both Janick and Vestoara’s minds. In addition, short-term side effects are also infused, along with various uses of alcohol magic. Combat and non-combat. Vestoara feels like she is learning far faster than she would normally have, but at an uneven pace. Which contrasted with Vestoara’s much smoother infusion to which she subjected Janick earlier.
As much as Janick could try to control the data packet’s speed, as a beginner in magical infusion, her control over that aspect means the data packet’s transfer speed tends to “sputter”. It peaks approximately at the speed Vestoara infused knowledge into her, but lack of consistency seems to make the packet flow more painful to process for the would-be borrower. In the end, Vestoara seems to have violent headaches that make it much harder to even function.
“Maybe you would have a better idea of how I could make the flow of knowledge more consistent…” Janick sighs, realizing that she is still a little raw at infusing knowledge.
“It seems like your alcohol-ravaged mind can’t stay focused as much as you would have liked…” Vestoara points out to her, feeling like their mental connection allowed her to glean insight into each other’s minds.
“And my lack of experience of using magic to infuse knowledge, too! I get that I must start somewhere, but still…” Janick then looks at Gyuron in the eyes before casting the same spell on him, for the same packet.
At the end of the second spell, Janick starts getting headaches, with her forehead heating up. That, despite the second casting being more consistent than the first one. Overheating perhaps. She doesn’t feel in the mood to continue discussing things with them, be in infusion, or the immortality talisman.
And she hastily drafts an IOU for the two wizards, reeling in from the pain.
Janick’s tone of voice has drastically changed after these infusions. “I just want to get this over with, so here’s your IOU for two grand!”
The two wizards realize that the final terms given to them are for a much better interest rate, but a shorter repayment term. 10% yearly interest rate, but for one year.
She then fetches two thousand gold’s worth of coins from the bank’s basement. Her headaches slowing her down, as well as the bag of gold, she feels like these two customers are getting increasingly unpleasant.
“There...” Janick sighs, feeling like she can get them on their way. “You now have a bank account here, too!”
“Thank you so much for contributing to the financing of magical scholarship!” Gyuron then leaves the bank with his wife, flying off on their broomsticks, with the borrowed money.
With their purses now full, the two wizards leave the bank to buy enough blank paper scrolls and ink to write the magical knowledge transfer scrolls. Which, unfortunately, they must buy in another city since no one in the village sold these items.
I didn’t think it was a good idea to tell the bank about why we pursue immortality as a research area. We see people die left and right, and it brings suffering all around. So perhaps, with immortality, even under the form of jewelry allowing for quick revival, we could bring that source to an end, Vestoara muses on her way to the nearest city where she could buy scrolls and ink. I was afraid that the bank would use the motivation against us.
But then Janick feels like drinking magical wine might soothe her headaches. She feels like her mind did the heavy lifting to infuse the knowledge of alcohol magic as fast as she was confident in doing and, as such, she might have pushed her mind a little too hard.
After sipping a bit of magical wine, her mind regains some functionality because she didn’t feel headaches anymore. So it wasn’t instant learning, but still several times faster than they would have otherwise. Yet, the short-term consequences of casting alcohol magic are painful. And, of course, parasitic pain includes a component based on the pain level of the content being infused or copied! Which leaves me wondering why is it that no one would have considered infusing knowledge. Other than wizards feeling like their worth is defined by how they can contribute to the security arena.
Over dinner with Seloniel that night, when they eat whole-wheat bread, they start discussing the more troubling aspects of what these wizards brought to the table after Seloniel crafted a carpet-portable plow.
“The customers I had today were on to something in their quest for immortality, but they deemed their progress so sensitive that they needed infusing the knowledge into me. In some ways, what they are proposing is like lichdom, but without undeath, and the problem is that their phylactery equivalent must be worn at all times because, to sustain the wearer’s life force, the phylactery needs to be in contact with it” Janick tells the crafter witch.
“What issues are they running into?” Seloniel asks her, before opening her eyes wide. “And did you say infuse knowledge? I never heard of that before, how come? Can you do it yourself?”
“Currently, they feel like the revive time is too long. The longer the revive time, to their eyes, the more the corpse decays before the revival takes place. Before I infuse you the magical data transfer spell, however, I wonder why is it that it’s underappreciated, despite its advantages in the training arena!”
“Alcohol magic is a relative novelty, and so is magical data transfer, or at least the way you make it sound like. Probably because it’s new and known only of a handful for now, but will become much more appreciated later. But I guess, it seems like the world appreciates some types of magic over others, and MDT doesn’t seem to fall into this camp!”
“The time has come for you to get your fresh infusion of knowledge!”
Janick, now that she seems to have gotten the hang of infusing knowledge, infuses both MDT and her knowledge of banking, at a speed she feels is appropriate for Seloniel. Visions of how to open a data channel to make the data transfers occur, the side effects, and make the transfers happen, flash in both witches’ minds. Which is followed up with a relatively fast data packet on what matters in banking and money lending: risk assessment and management, composite interest, security of the depositors’ money, bills of exchange, to name a few of the key concepts.
“Seloniel, how do you feel about knowledge infusion?”
“It made me learn many times faster than I would have otherwise, but don’t forget that, while, to the eyes of some non-mages, we are smarter than most, the cold, hard truth, and you probably know this already, is that mages are no smarter, as a group, than ordinary people! I am made to feel like we are intellectual outliers in the magic-using world, especially when so many wizards see their purpose as being mobile siege weapons!”