Maturation 10

October 13th, 2032.

“Seven Pillars of Existence, seven sources of the occult and the magical.” I murmured as I analyzed a ton of glyphs. “Recursive circles appear to be a rather easy thing to accomplish.” I pointed out a spell chain which was two glyph arrays connected by a line. “I also misinterpreted some symbols here and there, triangles aren’t good for just convergence. They can be used focus magic inward or outward.”

“Is that so?” Dinah purred, leaning over my shoulder as she inspected the research I had brought to the local library. “Are these the ‘action’ runes you’ve been telling me about?”

I beamed widely. “They are! Object runes specifically correlate to a thing, a person, an animal, a quality, an idea. Modifier runes are symbols which act something like verbs to the nouns of object runes. If I want to make a glyph spell for breaking earth I use the Erset glyph paired with a rune for break or even crush.” I had tested it out and been rewarded with turning a block of stone the size of a truck into pebbles and dust. “I’ve uncovered close to a hundred runes so far, which means there could be an ungodly number of combinations. Two to the power of a hundred.”

Dinah flinched. “Are there really so…. many ways to combine glyphs?”

“You guys have a form of chess don’t you?” I asked, curious about the answer.

“The human game? It’s popular among certain wealthier clans. Why?”

“There are at least ten to the power of one hundred twenty possible games that can be played on chess. Probabilities get absurdly big incredibly quickly. It’s just a symbolic language used to shape magic. Complicated, but not incomprehensible.” I explained easily, expecting it to be enough.

“Is that a thing they calculated back in your world?” Dinah asked, her voice pitching upwards.

“The Shannon number, a conservative lower boundary of the complexity of a chess match. I looked it up for fun once or twice, but it was mostly calculated as an argument against using brute force using computers. Thinking machines.” I added, knowing that was the simplest explanation for a computer.

“Like a servitor or bud-will?”

I smiled. “Yep. But you guys don’t use servitors like that do you? You mostly use them as basic intelligences for controlling implanted spells.” I said with a polite cough, she knew this already.

“Permanent magical intelligences are very complicated workings of the Craft, even tools like the g-speakers have only become common in the last ten years.” Her claws tapped against the wooden library table. “And you say your world has similar technology on a massive scale?”

“Computers aren’t that smart, they just calculate things billions of times a second. On or off, yes or no. Ones and zeroes are just set up in a computer to represent certain patterns. We abstract that stuff of course… because having to write in one’s and zeroes would be a nightmare.”

“Abstract… like modern runic notation?”

“That’s closer to assembly language, which is one step above machine code, and one step above that is more general languages like C or Prolog.” I explained, opting to be as concise as practical for the dragon.

“They’re like letters, or like the tiny building blocks of some of the toy blocks my cousins play with.” Dinah said with a bright spark in her dark gold eyes. “But to turn a mere calculator into such powerful devices… It's a warranted achievement.”

“Everyone stands on the shoulders of giants,” I said wistfully. “Over a century of work, including the mechanical precursors. At its most humble, they’re no different from counting with your fingers, or using an abacus.”

Looking back at it, it really was the work of lifetimes upon lifetimes wasn't it? Millions of people, if not billions, they all contributed to the collective knowledge of humankind. All in their own way, tiny little steps adding up to billions upon billions of changes.

“Is that why you want our librarians to stock copies of human texts?” Dinah asked.

“Most of the fields humans have advanced are still applicable to your world,” I pointed out. “While alchemy is odder than chemistry it still shares many of its qualities, engineering is still applicable to the schools of Making.” It was about augmenting and supplementing their techniques, learning what applied and what didn’t.

I was one person, I couldn’t put in all the work and effort to figure out how to blend the craft with Earth’s technology.

Dinah nodded. “Do you really think this will help?”

“I’m not sure, there’s a good reason why I’m asking people who live here. I’ve had witches begging me for copies of one of my handbooks. Giving people the tools to better refine their craft, to advance their understanding of the world? I think that’s important, especially now.”

“If that’s true, can you tell me more about Earth, about your world?” Dinah asked, eyes wide and deliberately cute. Like a cat begging for treats… if the cat was a gorgeous dragon lady.

“So you want some verified Earth facts from a human?”

“I do.”

I grinned. “Well then we’ve got a lot to cover, since Earth is as large as Ersete even accounting for the underground realms. Seven continents, four oceans, nearly two hundred nations and billions of people from thousands of cultures. I can’t tell you about most of it in detail, but I can cover what I do know, and focus on local stuff.”

“Do you have a map?” Dinah sounded curious.

“Actually I do,” I chirped, pulling out one from my expanded pockets. “This is a flat projection of Earth.” I pointed to it, and she looked very taken in by it.

“It’s quite large isn’t it, and inhabited…” She murmured, eyes darting back and forth across the paper map. “Where are you?”

I pointed to my home, circling around the borders of the state. “California, the Golden State, third largest state, with a population of forty million. One of fifty states of the United States of America.”

“Forty million, and it seems to be nearly twice the size of Calafia? How do you manage it all?”

“Some would say it’s not managed well at all,” I said with a bemused chuckle. “But well a lot of it involves building the tools and infrastructure of the state, hundreds of thousands of people dedicated their time and effort to keeping things running. If you have a High Almoner, have them delegate to almoners who delegate to almoners. Delegation is the name of the game.”

“I am trained in the art of statecraft,” Dinah chided with a warm tone. “But yes, the scale that your world has built up to is absurd.”

“Don’t give us too much credit, a lot of it was trial and error and we made many, many terrible mistakes. Ones I wouldn’t ever want to repeat.” I shuddered at the idea.

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We had built our foundation on mountains of corpses and rivers of blood.

“Then perhaps both our worlds can teach each other?” Dinah reached for my shoulder, clasping it tightly and firmly.

“That’s exactly what I’m hoping for, so I’ll start with telling you more about Earth, about home.”

“And I’ll do the same.”

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I sat down, meditating and focusing on the power of the Green, on that vast source of magic, the driving thoughts of Reality. On the true connections of the elements, to their respective sources, to their respective pillars.

I could say each element, air, water, earth, fire, that light and darkness and void were entirely of one power or another. But that wasn’t the truth, it had never been the truth. The Green wasn’t just earth.

The Green was life, nature, the working order of the world. It was the power of growing things, fertile soil and falling rocks, red in tooth and claw just as much as it was healing, growth and fertility. Life and matter and all their ordered patterns were mine to bear and wield.

I flattened my hands, and pushed my intent into my bracelets as I drew out the glyph using the magic carved into them. A glyph derived from Erset, a glyph of plants, of entities feasting on sunlight.

Through the Green I could reach into the world around me, down into roots and up into branches and leaves. I could feel the plant life around me like it was an extension of my soul, connecting to the tiny shards of spirit within all life.

Grow, bloom.

In a circle a solid twenty meters around, life exploded into action as magic fed the growth of matter and nature. Grass and trees grew in seconds instead of weeks and years, and I could guide the shape of their growth, the final outcome. At that moment I thought of Althea, of her nature as a being of the Green.

In her warform, she was the sum of all earthly predators, the pack of a wolf and the pride of a lion. Claws and fur and teeth and skin, rarefied violence and hunger and predation. That was the power of the Green, and that was the image I drank in as I fed life with the power I gathered.

I turned, taking a fluid and low stance as I reached down into the earth, into the roots, and with a solid push roots burst out from the ground, unfolding into a twisting spear. It was an elemental power not unlike twisting mud into shape, bending living matter to one’s whims.

Recede, hide, fold back.

My mental command pulled at the knots of magic, the fine threads of khi making their way into the world. The world shivered at my command, until I was left in a field bare of the rich overgrown flora I had summoned.

I reached for the next source, the simmering strength of the Red, of the spark of creation.

The Red was entropy, will, the energetic patterns of the world. It was the power of matter and energy in motion, of heat and vibration, radiation and force, of the order and randomness within the world. Forces and entropy and all their patterns were mine to will as they may. I drew on my inner flame, in the heat of my animated body, using it to spark a far more powerful fire.

I surrounded myself in a fire whirl, fire reaching all the way to pure white hot flames, with touches of entropic combustion biting into the world.

Burn, devour, decay.

Air fell into the hungry maw of my fire, a hapless victim to the spell I had cast. Hot enough to melt steel, spreading around me like sinister fingers and tongues spreading along the ground and the air.

Flicker out, starve, die.

The flames fought against my will with their own will, and with iron-hard discipline I cut away at their spirit, snuffing them out until they were reduced to smoldering ashes.

I took a breath, taking the time to analyze how my thoughts shifted to the beat of each song, of each source of the occult. The Green was orderly, it was the order of nature, the balancing scales of the dragon. The Red was dynamic, wild energetic and entropic forces, the roaring core of a star.

I was cycling through the four sources, it was apparently a common technique among the most flexible of witches. Those with the Nature to tap into every force of reality.

The third didn’t get called so much as I let the entire ocean wash into me like a flood. I was almost drowned in that power, in the swaying gyres and whirlpool of an ocean that spanned every star in every galaxy. But it was not an ocean of mundane liquid matter.

The Blue was the ocean of spirit and mind, the primordial, ephemeral chaotic patterns of the world. It was the power of the intangible depths, the building blocks of thought and spiritual power, mirroring the material world.

When I reached out for the world this time, it was through perceiving a complex interplay of minds, perceptions bumping against each other in a great sea. I could feel the tiny minds of insects and critters, impulses and bursts of perception at the edge of my own awareness.

Watch, perceive, experience.

The Blue guided me towards larger and denser tapestries of mind, and I was caught off guard by the mind encompassing Ultima’s home. A mind which spoke.

Hello little one, child-by-theft, Claimed Apprentice of Ultima the Wandering Abyss.

“Hello…” I greeted nervously as I felt a deep, vast and old mind wrap around the boundaries of my consciousness.

Bayit was like slick oil, with the echo of rot, of darkness and brimstone, the deep Black dimming the light of the material world. Blending evenly into the oceanic landscape of the Blue, with a maw of mind and spirit that could crush my soul like a bug.

I would not be so sure Celia of Earth, you have a soul stronger than your body, a will that contended with the desires of the Old Ones, and your strength continues to grow.

Bayit offered the compliment freely, his aura brushing against mine with an affectionate mental impression.

Thank you, I offered as I retreated behind the boundary of my own head, letting the Blue surge back before it could fill the floodgates.

Contain, restrict, cease.

That great ocean was outside my perception as I released the power. Which just left…

The fourth source struck me like a second wind, a jittery sensation rushing into my veins, into bone and muscle and teeth. Like I was wind and motion, like packets of knowledge streaming from person to person at the speed of light. Like being caught in the center of a hurricane.

The Violet was the font of knowledge and memory, the informational patterns of the world. It was the expansive power and memory of events overlaying all worlds, allowing one to reshape them all.

Learn, understand, comprehend.

Periwinkle energies spread into the world, letting me understand the truth of things with a glance and a deep inspection. I saw the world as a sky’s worth of information, acceleration, inertia, weight, movement could be calculated if I observed with the working knowledge of the Violet.

It was like the entire world was made of information, the imprints and echoes of every event, of every little change experienced by the universe. This was the same power poured out from the soul of Adahn, and I was letting it rush into me like a storm.

Pause, delay, procrastinate.

I ceased supplying power to the spell, sweat dripping down my face and nose. Four contradictory perspectives, four great powers of Reality embodied within myself.

“Okay, that was more intense than I expected.” I mused aloud, clapping my hands together and wincing at the sharp sound. “But Ultima did always say the sources of magic are living, breathing things, just as alive as everything else.”

It was a terrifying experience, like I was being observed by a mind larger than a galaxy, a power as old as time and space itself. It reminded me of speaking with Chara, that sense of unreality and unsensible vastness. Except they had a structured, sapient form, one face instead of a trillion trillion trillion faces.

At least it explains why Ultima told me to stick with the standard four for now, the primal sources were far, far more alien apparently. There was a good chance I’d lose it if I wasn’t careful. Not in the sense of being driven mad by the revelation so much as sensory overload.

“I’m definitely going to write this down… maybe I can make a book out of my experiences and observations?” I fantasized a bit, with a croaking laugh. “Though I’d need to gather the collection of Earth books we’re going to copy down first.”

Dinah was apparently sponsoring my mission to push a printing run of Earth-made books for libraries across Caudalann. It was going to be a huge run of dozens of selected books from history to science and engineering and even fiction. Their printing presses were magical, using matter-altering enchantments to copy books and text.

I had grinned from ear to ear when Dinah had accepted my proposal, and I was absolutely going to be very thorough with my selection.

I had many many ideas, and I was looking forward to it.