Unknown time of on the 50th day of Winter
My nightmares were getting worse. Last night the silence and darkness moved like leeches and when they touched me I imagined I was the rat I killed. Only after my bones were charred and my eyeballs boiled did I wake screaming. But that was just a dream. I could handle that. Worse, my senses would play tricks on me even when I was awake, leading to paranoia. I've started to hear voices. Indistinct and distant but still disturbing. I needed to leave this place.
On that topic, I could now consistently print objects within my clasped hands without producing elevated levels of radiation. I had replaced the radiation detector I had worked so hard on with one made out of a reverse-biased diode. The depletion layer of the diode would absorb charged particles to cause a cascade very similar to the argon in the geiger-muller counter but much more compact. It ended up being much more precise as well as portable. The little marble hung on a sting around my neck and would shine through the colors of the rainbow bead on different levels of radiation. I managed to keep it from showing a single hint of red, even while making battery powered LEDs.
Now I was practicing with the lenses I was using to fake being able to see like a light mage. One side was an array of photosensors, while the other side was an array of LEDs. So far I could only get it to detect the brightest light it could see, identify the frequency of light, and display the corresponding color or false color on the other side. I would make near infrared a light pink while far infrared was close to white. The ultraviolet band produced a light cyan. It worked well enough to understand Arin when she was speaking in Signal.
I sighed with exhaustion. The sound felt loud in the cave. What else did I need to accomplish before returning home? I needed to be able to fake the darkness spell. I needed to be able to 'speak' Signal well enough to not make a fool of myself. I needed a hand held laser strong enough to defend myself with. What else? Well, this cave was a relatively safe place to run experiments that could be harmful. I would need to finish any experiments that would be dangerous to run on the surface. That included most of my laser research and development, including making Arin's gift. Also, anything having to do with magic cores.
Bored with the monotonous practice, I dug through my supplies to retrieve one of each type I had. I stripped and returned to the lake, less for the radiation shielding of the water this time and more for its impact absorption. I started with the fire core which was dusty red in color. Having learned from two previous core dissections I proceeded slowly. I removed the layers one at a time looking for anything new or different from the light magic cores I had already seen. But everything was the same, as far as I could tell. The same pressurized channels of liquid hydrogen and oxygen. I managed to poke a small enough hole this time to slowly release pressure safely over the course of several minutes. Looking deeper I saw the same materials and structures at every layer. Even the carbon 14 structures and the fleck of heavy elements were in the same spots. I don't know exactly what I was expecting but … some sort of difference I guess.
I dried my hands and recorded my observations in a notebook before proceeding to the deep blue water magic core. Water and Earth magic cores were larger, maybe a bit bigger than a ping pong ball, and always felt a little different to handle. For one they were noticeably heavier. There was also a strange sort of inertia to them. Like they subtly didn't want to roll. Just a few layers in the reason for the feeling became obvious. There was a spinning disk of dark metal near the surface of the core. It wasn't moving very quickly but I still couldn't inspect it under the microscope. Around and beside it were the same channels of oxygen and hydrogen as the other cores. Once I released the pressure, the disk I could see slowly spun down. Stripping away more and more layers revealed the rest of the disk. It was only about a millimeter wide and two deep, running in a ring around the whole outside of the core. Looking at it closely I tried to figure out what it was made of. The nuclei were just a bit lighter than gold but I could tell it was substantially denser.
Osmium? What the hell? No wonder these cores are heavier. But why?
I deconstructed the disk and looked below it. Just a few layers down I found another one oriented almost perpendicular to the first. Beneath that was another and another. There were twelve disks in all, each spun around a different axis. Looking more closely at the tracks they ran in, there were graphene wires leading back to the little fuel cell elements that combine hydrogen and oxygen. Osmium was in the same chemical group as iron so it could be magnetic. These wires were probably some sort of magnetic levitation or a way to increase the speed of rotation.
Okay, theory time. Why would the water magic core have a bunch of spinning osmium rings? Well, the light magic core seemed to be a perpetual motion machine set up to generate light mana from oxidation. Something in the water magic core had to generate water mana. Maybe that's what the rings were for? Maybe mass and speed generates water mana like oxidation reduction generates light mana. I got back out of the lake and sketched the water mana core in my notebook while thinking. Recalling that moving bodies of water like rivers helped water mages recover their magic more quickly I sketched notes on how I might test my theory. I wrote down equations for momentum, mass times velocity, and kinetic energy, one half mass times velocity squared. That would all have to come later though.
I retrieved a dark orange earth magic core for dissection. To my shock, it was identical to the water magic core. There were only eleven ring disks in this one but they were constructed the same. This was getting strange. For completeness I got out an air magic core and dug in. This one was extremely similar to the light and fire magic cores except that it had three of the osmium rings. So, an air magic core was something between fire and water cores? I suppose that made some kind of sense. But it could just as easily be said that it was between earth and light magic cores, which made no sense at all.
After recording notes on all the core types and what that all could mean I climbed into my bedroll and tried to sleep. I kept reliving the core dissections in my head again and again trying to understand why they were similar or different. This time, instead of darkness and death, I dreamt of swimming through a ball pit of different cores.
***
Unknown time of on the 51st day of Winter
"Fire magic?" said Arin. "I'm not a fire mage."
She was confused and had every right to be. I was confused. Light and fire magic cores were almost identical in construction but light and fire mages, and monsters for that matter, had completely different abilities. It made no sense and that probably meant that something I was assuming about the nature of magic was not true.
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"Just bare with me." I said. "If my hypothesis is wrong then nothing will happen. But if I'm right then we could learn something really important."
She just gave me a strange look for a bit before shrugging and sitting down.
"So what do I do?" she asked. I retrieved a bowl with scraps of paper in it and two small marbles. I gave her one of the marbles and held the other other up over the bowl.
"You are going to cast the fireball spell." I said. "But not quite like a fire mage does. These marbles have been enchanted to glow blue if they detect the smoke from a fire."
"Wait." she stopped me with a raised hand. "You made marbles that can smell a fire?"
I had actually made tiny optical smoke detectors. They used a simple infrared diode and light sensor that would trigger a circuit if the light was disrupted.
"Yes, well kinda." I said. "The point is that if they see the chemical products of a fire then they will provide a visible response. So, try to make the paper catch fire by focusing on turning the marbles blue."
Most light mages had improved vision while most fire mages had improved sense of smell. My theory was that if the only thing that separated fire and light mages were their senses then she would be able to cast fire magic spells with the help of a device that acted to change smell into light.
Arin focused and after a few marks the marbles started to glow blue. But there was still no fire. I frowned at that.
"You're just turning the marbles blue with your magic." I said.
"I can tell." she said with a note of frustration.
"Let me rethink this." I said lowering the marble.
She was unconsciously putting light mana into the marble to make it glow blue and that was somehow easier than making the paper catch fire. I needed to shield the smoke detector from light magic somehow. I went to my supplies and got out the ink sack channel that would cast darkness if we're injected with light mana. I put the channel between Arin and the marble and held both up over the bowl. If the marble glowed she could still see it because the light would reflect off of my face and the bowl but she couldn't project mana at it without triggering darkness.
"Try again please" I said.
Arin focused and after a mark the corner of the paper lit on fire. The marble I was holding glowed blue and I was starting to get excited when I realized my mistake.
"You did that with invisible light. Didn't you?" I asked.
"I think so?" she said.
Darn confounding variables.
"Okay, let's try this again but with something to block direct light."
I retrieved two more pieces of paper from my bag and tore one up to place it in the bowl. The other I placed between the bowl and Arin. After the smoke cleared the marble stopped glowing.
"Try again please." I said.
Arin focused once more. This time I waited for almost a measure before anything happened. Then there was a buzzing sound, a flash of purple light, and the paper, the bowl, the marble I was holding, and half my arm was consumed in fire.
"AAAAHHHHH!!!" I screamed. I dropped and rolled but the fire was already out. I got my canteen out and poured the contents over my hand. It stung a bit but wasn't too badly burned. No blisters at least.
"Are you okay!?!?" yelled Arin.
"Ya, I think so." I said, flexing my hand a bit. "I just caught the edge of it. More importantly, you just cast the fireball spell."
Arin was on her feet leaning over me with worry but then her face shifted. Realizing that I wasn't hurt badly and she started blinking in confusion.
"What does that mean?" she asked. "Am I a fire mage?"
"No, all this means is that you are capable of fire magic under very narrow circumstances." I said. "But, more importantly, this tells us that light mana and fire mana are fundamentally similar in some way."
I thought back on everything I knew about both magic types as I wrapped my hand in a bandage. Light mana changed how matter interacts with light, obviously. Fire mana, ionizes materials, even at low temperatures. I remembered the experiment I ran with air in a bottle before all this happened. Ionization is all about electrons, matter emitting light is all about electrons. With my good hand I lightly slapped myself in the forehead for being dumb. Why did it take me so long to realize it?
"Light and fire mana both affect electromagnetism." I said out loud. "They both must change how photons work."
"Okay, stop for a mark to explain. What's a photon?" asked Arin.
"It's what light is made of, but it does so much more than that." I said. "Photons hold matter together as solids, liquids, and gasses. They are what binds material together. So, for example, sodium is a metal that catches fire in water and chlorine is an extremely toxic gas but when they are bound together through electromagnetism they can make table salt. Your magic changes how photons interact within materials to make light while fire magic must do the same thing to change the chemical structure of the material."
"Wait wait wait, rocks are held together by light?" asked Arin. "That's insane, you're insane."
I shrugged.
"I don't make the laws of reality, if you have a problem with them don't take it up with me." I said.
"That's impossible." she said. "How could you even know that?"
That derailed my thoughts about the nature of magic. How would I show her? After a couple of marks I had an idea. I retrieved a kind of magical Bunsen burner from the supplies and set it up with a fire magic core. After lighting it I set up a stand above it. I found a small rock nearby and placed it on the stand so that it was in the hottest part of the flame.
"Come and see." I said,
Arin sat back down next to me on a rock ledge. It took several measures for the rock to heat up. When it did, it started glowing a deep red.
"All matter emits light." I said. "What color is that light?"
She gave me a strange look.
"I guess I've seen metal just out of the forge glow red hot or even yellow." she said.
"Exactly, it depends on how hot it is." I said.
"Turns out it doesn't matter what the material is, air, metal, rock, it only matters how hot it is. But why does the color of light depend on temperature?"
I waited for Arin to think through it. We sat in silence a while longer before she responded.
"I don't know, because there is more energy involved?" she said.
"Yes, yellow light has more energy in it than red light." I said reaching over to turn up the burner. "So, as you heat up a material first it will shine red, then … "
It took another measure but eventually I showed her the now yellow tip of the rock. Then I reached over and turned the burner back down to a small flame.
"All matter emits light because it is bound together by light and some leaks out." I said. "There's more to it than that, and this is certainly no proof, but the demonstration is sufficient to disprove that matter and light are entirely separate."
Arin had a thoughtful expression while she looked at the rock and then at me. Then her face relaxed.
"That's really quite beautiful." she said.
"Ya," I said looking at the light of the burner. "It really is."
I was smiling now. I had to admit that I was having fun exploring all this with Arin. I loved physics, always had, but it wasn't really relevant on Root until now. I'd read stories on Earth of a plucky hero cast back in time or to an alien world only to reinvent firearms to solve all their problems. But this world had firearms already. The fundamental inventions of guns were around metallurgy and manufacturing practices like quality control for the gunpowder. Frankly, I didn't know enough about either to advance the field. But now I could explore how this world's physics worked differently from Earth. Not only that but I got to explore it with someone else.
Arin and I stared at the little burner flame for a long time. At some point I realized just how close she was. Our shoulders were touching and I could feel how warm she was. It was intimate but I found I didn't mind her closeness. Did I think of Arin like that? I was definitely attracted to her. She was whip smart and I liked spending time with her. A better question was if I wanted to pursue anything with her. No, probably not, at least not right now. For one, I had yet to fully master the printer spell. For another, the demon army could be at the gate any day now. There was no way I could get distracted by a relationship right now. I just enjoyed the feeling of her warmth and her company in our little island of light in the dark.