She rubs her hands together.

“So. Three fundamental forces. Gravitoelectromagnetism, quantum cohesion, temporal flux. Not much of a simple way to describe all three, and I’m only here to set you on with enough knowledge. Enough for what, you’ll figure it out. School will teach you the real sciences if you’re up for it and you’ve found the cash. What you need to know is that gravitoelectromagnetism is the go-to for moving biggish things, quantum cohesion is for really small things, and temporal flux is for… well, time. Hm. Well, it’s a bit complex, but I’d like to introduce you to it, anyways. I’m not giving you too many crutches early on, since they’ll just hamper conceptual understanding, so I can’t teach you freezing or entropy or perspectives. Hm. Definitely not perceptives, that’s advanced bioalchemy curriculum. You don’t have the level for it, anyhow… Ah, fuck it. Just’ll map it out for you. Just draw the standard rune… here, and append this on the end for stability, and add in a few coefficients for stability. You’re only using the first one, but it’s good practice for compound, makes good habits. You twist gee up for a flat increase and you twist eff around to multiply the flux’s effect, as in dilation and contraction. There’s a graph somewhere, since gee increase is more efficient than eff increase to a certain point. For now, stick with flat increase. That’s like the first of the first of the basic operators. Technically, addition is derived from subtraction, but like, it’s easier to visualise addition. There’s… eight levels, ninety-eight theoretical operators, theoretical as by me, by the way. I’m better than humans. They’re only at the fifth tier, stuck at hypothesising on the sixth. Not necessarily their fault. Cognitive closure. I will come back to you on those ones.”

School? Incomprehensible magic? That’s… that’s thinking for later. Talking to Beryl is like… I don’t know. I don’t have the capacity to analogise this. “You mentioned levels. What’s that?”

Beryl scowls. “Crutches I can’t get rid of. They boost or reduce your ability through an algorithm to the mean skill of your level, using saved skill to reinforce itself. It’s a bunch of viochemicals and weird tech that accelerates your thinking, it’s designed to make sure you can’t fuck up too badly. Mostly based on how well you understand magic. Or, really, physics. It’s a combination of how high-tiered in operators you can understand, from stuff like subtraction and division up to like Turing degree operations and hyperdimensional physics. If you don’t get it, don’t bother, now. I’m just using big words to sound impressive. Hyperdimensional physics is a big school, though. Fun shit. That’s cus it makes nuclear fusion, nuclear decay, chemical bonding way stronger. Plus, more degrees of freedom means easier thermal equilibrium, and hella good cooling systems, and a bunch of other cool shits. Lots of things work in four degrees of spatial freedom that don’t in three. Only thing is that Halton’s against transcendence. As in, entirely sending us all up. Too much freedom. You’ll learn them, later. It also limits what you can do. Temporal magic is high level cus it’s an easy way to get an awful death. Oh, I’m overexplaining shit I hate. Ask the adventurers’ guild at Nemo. Now, draw the rune. Practice.”

“Hold on. I’m trying… to break down the rune into glyphs. For memory purposes.”

“Don’t bother. School will teach you.”

“My brain isn’t a computer. I can’t perfectly memorise images.”

“Fine. I’ll run you through it. Complicatedly, there’s technically five languages. For magic.”

“What the fuck?”

“Dionysian, Apollonian, Hermetical, Salacian, HaShet.”

“Can we take a break?”

Beryl grabs my wrist, and snaps it.

I stare at it, for a moment. It’s like being tickled if it was being punched. Then I think I go into shock.

Warnings flash in my eyes.

Vitals avg. up, stress suppression intact.

Shock.

A red overlay on my wrist, a 3d model appears above, showing the shattered bone. My suit tightens around that area, forming a sort of cast. I can feel the pain like an oncoming bruise. I hold back a whimper, buit it escapes, anyways.

More warnings, visuals for bloodflow blockages, and a pain intensity scale hovering around a five.

But I ignore the rest, as Beryl talks.

“You ‘k?”

“Ow,” I say, unconvincingly, even to myself. “OW!” I say, a moment later. “What the- fuck?”

I begin to feel nauseous. All the flashing warnings suddenly disappear, to accomodate, I’d suppose. I keel over, clutching my stiff wrist. My lips feel moist, my body feel cold. I breathe in, out, in… gasping. Not enough. Too much.

“What the shit was that?”

“You’re awfully cocky. You hear me?”

“No. The world feels… so… heavy.” It does. Like a great weight. I’m forced to a full prostration, clutching my wrist to my abdomen as my head touches the sand. My helmet, really. Don’t you fucking vomit. Don’t vomit.

“Next time, listen. How retarded are you? I boosted your mental performance, and you’re already getting tired? Fucking fleshbags. Look. Look at me.”

She does something. Not with her hands, because they’re behind her back. But I’m lifted up by my hair, and the machine lady is staring into my face. It burns my eyes to look at the glow behind the plates and gears in her face.

“Ow,” I complain, meekly, drunkenly, like a small child punched and held up to hang on a willow.

“Ugh. Your nose. Snot’s coming out. I’ll fix you up somewhat. Need you to practice. Hold on.”

A blink, and suddenly, all the light seems to be a bit dimmer, and I’m looking a something else completely different.

“Whar?” I struggle to my feet.

Beryl’s sitting in a thick leather armchair. She opens her eyes. I see just a little twinge of thousands of hallucinogen windows vanishing into privacy.

“I’ve given it some thought. You’ve had your break. I’m not the best with human biology, after all. Fixed up your wrist, though gave your brain some time to flush some stress.”

I feel around the inside of my own head. “Damn.”

“We’re jumping right back in. Prepared your mind accordingly.”

I sigh. “Not even a ‘how’d you feel’?”

Beryl gets up, snaps, the armchair turning to sand, before approaching me menacingly, again. I back away.

“Please.” That’s the one word I get out. Holy shit Iphi shut your mouth.

“How’d you feel?” She smiles, somewhat, letting out a shaky chuckle, before turning about again.

“Terrible.”

She raises an eyebrow.

“Wonderful? What does that eyebrow mean? I feel terrible. What do you want me to say?”

“Pft. Cocky fucker. We’ll only be going through each of the symbols we need for this equation. Dionysian is the language used for kinetic terms in Lagrangians, Hermetical is potential terms, Salacian and HaShet are custom-defined terms, there’s a weird difference between them, and Apollonian is miscellaneous terms.”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“What?”

“A Lagrangian is an action principle. El equals Tee minus Vee. It represents the total energy in a system. Tee is kinetic energy, and Vee is potential energies. I’ll draw the basic representation in the five languages. They’re actually derived from some old world scripts. Latin, Alchemical Symbols, uhh, Bopomofo, and Deseret. You should know latin. It’s the base script for English.”

“What’s latin?”

“...You? Ah. Makes sense. You didn’t mention it. What did you write in, again?”

I open my mouth to speak, but no words or thoughts exit.

I close my mouth, then open it again. “I… don’t know. I can’t remember.”

“Write some words.”

I bend down to the sand, and think. I visualise nothing, but I see the words written down. And I can understand them. I can’t understand drawing them, but it is done.

Beryl watches critically from above. “Hm. Nevermind. So… English, or what you speak-”

“What I speak now.”

“What you speak now, that’s English. It’s derived from latin, derived from greek, which is in turn derived from like Linear B, which is what we call what you’ve written. Alchemical symbols vaguely come from the vibes around latin and greek, but it’s more complicated. I’m going to write out the manipulation and deconstruct it in more familiar styles. Left to right instead of this Gallifreyan mess.”

Beryl squats in the sand, and begins to draw with a finger.

“The Focal term of this manipulation is the temporal term. Thus, all the other terms will be treated as limiting terms. This means that in the sum Lagrangian, we’ll write the temporal term in Hermetical, since it’s all potential, our modifiers in Salacian, and the rest of the other terms in Apollonian. The Lagrangian symbol is the most prominent universal symbol, by the way, along with our equals symbol.”

ℒUNT = ℒGEM + ℒQC + ℒMatter + ℒMass + ℒGeometry + ℒTF

ℒ𐐓𐐅

“This is the zeroth tier of decomposition. As in, the most abstract form. I already explained this, so let’s go down a tier. We’ll only be expanding Tee-eff, that’s how you pronounce the latin of the last one, the temporal flux. It’s written in Apollonian, because I fucked up, so I wrote it in the correct Deseret script since it’s the only modified term in this Lagrangian representation.”

ℒ𐐅 = 𐐓g𐐊f𐐀𐐉1𐐋4𐐓𐐊𐐓𐐃𐐅𐐁𐐃𐐅𐐁𐐓𐐉𐐓1𐐋2𐐊s𐐊f𐐀𐐄2𐐓

---

Note to readers:

1. 𐐓𐐓 = brackets

2. 𐐈 = +

3. 𐐉 = -

4. 𐐃𐐅 = Temporal Tensor

5. 𐐃𐐅𐐁 = Temporal Tensor dual

6. 𐐊 = multiply

7. 𐐋 = divide

8. 𐐁 = gradient

9. 𐐄 = exponent

10. f𐐀 = scalar field for dilation and contraction

11. s = variable for stability

12. g = variable

---

“Wait. Fuck. I wrote it in HaShet. Why’d that happen? Wait a second.”

ℒ𐐅 = (🜪🜚🜪🜚)🜽(g🜽f𐐀🜻🜁🜾🜄)🜻🜁🜾🜂🜽s🜽f𐐀🜠🜂

---

Note: the representation above is not an actual spell, but one written left to right.

In normal Mandalas, each inner Lagrangian is curved into a ball within the larger frame.

1. 🜀 = 0

2. 🜁 = 1

3. 🜂 = 2

4. 🜃 = 3

5. 🜄 = 4

6. 🜅 = 5

7. 🜆 = 6

8. 🜇 = 7

9. 🜈 = 8

10. 🜉 = 9

11. 🜚 = gradient

12. 🜹 = +

13. 🜻 = -

14. 🜽 = *

15. 🜾 = /

16. 🜪 = field tensor

17. 🜪🜚 = field tensor dual

18. 🜁 = scalar field

19. 𐐅 = TF

20. 🜠 = exponent

21. f𐐀 = scalar field for dilation and contraction

22. s = variable for stability

23. g = variable

—

“You see it, now?”

“Yeah. Roll it up into a little ball, and you’ve got one of the eigh- seven, seven terms in the full Lagrangian, for the Mandala.

“Done.”

“Cool. Don’t fuck with it. I need to get this out of my system. Got questions. That’s a statement. You’ve got questions. Ask away.”

“W-well. Right. Where- where is this?”

“Deep Blue. Name of the place. It’s like… an alternate dimension, kind of. A sort of block time construct in the dream of Neptune. Read on eternalism. Well, it’s been five hundred years. We’re not really tethered like that, anymore. There’s a fat issue in how we are. We can’t leave, but other things can enter. Not quite like a singularity, but maybe. Conceptually, things are sorted by the gods into the further dimensions in this place. I haven’t worked out an equation, since it’s so vibes-based. Mostly, human people and human people-ish things come in here. A sort of anthrophilic obsession.”

“Dream of Neptune? How? What?”

“Ay. It’s just that. Not important, since you’re not leaving, no one really is. There’s a lot of theories and religions as to how a planet can dream, but it’s impossible to affirm. Even talking with the gods doesn’t guarantee shit, since they could just lie and you’d never know. There’s certainly working theories, but I don’t care about them.”

Right. I need a break. “Hey. Don't break my wrist again, but I need a-”

“Yeah, yeah, sit in the sand, in the rune, whatever.”

I slump down into the sand and lie back. “Why’s it all blue?”

“Why’s the Planck constant 6.62607015 × 10-34 m2 kg / s? Fuck if I know. That’s just the way the world is.”

“I mean, there has to be some studies.”

Beryl kicks up some sand, her arms behind her back, stomping around the desert.

“It all goes down to before deterministic sciences, the Grand Unified Plan or the Unified Nexus Theory, all the same thing, were introduced. So it’s probably the whim of the gods. Can’t really tell anything, since all the natural sciences definitely drastically changed when Halton introduced the mold. Plus I wasn’t born then, and Halton ain’t sharing their shit.”

“Great. Would it be rude to just try and search up my answers.”

“Yes,” she says, very firmly, stopping her pacing. It feels a little weird that I’m sitting while she’s standing above. A sort of depersonalising feeling when it’s next to something quiet, but something dehumanising when it’s against another person. But when it’s against a talking machine, the feeling’s something a little weird. Who’s the object-pet in this dynamic? Depends who’s leaning and what for. And when the two trunks of personage stay free-standing? Maybe it’s a weird ode to pride that I can’t figure out what it all means. I’m just looking too much into it.

“Alright. So. What’s Halton? How’d it get here?”

“Non-mage human government. Uh. Yeah. We’re human, I on a technical-legal basis, so they’re in a weird way our government as well, but more distant than the actual actual governing bodies of the mage cities. There’s Nemo, for one.”

“What’s Nemo?”

“Technically, Nemos. But the s is usually silent, accent thing, human thing. Five cities mashed together. The cities came in the same way you did, without the people. Mages found the cities and tied them together on an island in the Sea at the distance farthest from non-mage human urban centres. Basically, that’s cus Halton slowly poisons any mage depending on how close they get to a non-mage human urban centre except when they’re on contract. Trying to outheal that killing factor gets lead in your brain and a tactical nuclear strike whereever your family is. Don’t fuck with Halton.”

“How many Mages are there?”

“Two mechanism of people.” Beryl stoops down next to me, drawing something in the sand. “Just doodling, don’t mind me. One way to get more people is the way you came. Passively. People enter the Deep like you do, ten to eleven a second. Mages get some data from Halton to track the mages. Technically, this ‘way you came’ also includes arriving in Halton via a portal, though Halton just sends those Mages directly to us. Second way is breeding. We started with six mages five hundred years back, and you humans have been breeding like rabbits.”

“That’s… inbreeding.”

“Yes, genius. Was a problem for a while until we perfected medical magic. Yes, yes, it has been perfected, at least in terms of breadth. We can cure any natural disease of the Deep, and basically almost any artificial disease made by regular technology or magical technology. It’d just take time. The human body is a machine and we’ve figured out how to perfectly take it apart and build it up again from the subatomic level. Funnily enough, I’m a more complicated machine.”

“Ugh. Can I make notes?”

“No, what the fuck?