I was working on solving the 3-body problem now. Liam's physical and astral forms plus my astral-only existence. All 3 now counted as a single being, in some strange manner, or maybe always had been and we were just now becoming aware of it. Either way, I had a double astral presence, and "Liam's" astral body was actually more mine than his, so far as awareness went, so there was no reason I couldn't take it out for a ride - IT had a silver cord, I just had to unlock it, then I could go explore without any real danger - I hoped.
After catching his friends up on his new status, Liam was resigning himself to hitting the books big time for the next few weeks - we both needed to learn all about the various aspects, how they worked, and what to expect from using them. And that was the easy part - using them in combination would be the real trick!
So far, I'd only been using one aspect at a time - or at most locking in one effect before moving on to another. With flight, for example, I'd been negating gravity, and Liam had been using wind magic to move around. With practice, I should be able to use gravity for both, freeing Liam to use other effects while we flew. Or, as I had considered but not dared to try, I could leave the "negate gravity" in place while trying to reduce inertia or some other flashy effect. But I was going to have to do a lot of practice to get comfortable with combining magic - let alone doing it quickly, as in combat situations.
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Liam:
When I mentioned at dinner that more energy was going into my astral form now, Mom quickly got worried.
"Liam! Every mother knows that the most important thing to keep their kids away from is the astral. It isn't usually mentioned, but wards to lock-in the astral forms are part of child care that every young woman is taught - and it starts pre-birth! I know that when we get our magic we have to use our astral side to gather life energy, but we have to be very careful to keep it close and under strict control - it's very vulnerable and we die without it!
You may have access to all kinds of magic now, but only master mages can face the astral realms, and even they die doing it if they cross the wrong lines."
"I'll be careful, mom, but MY astral is getting energy constantly now, not just when I kill something, and it's developing fast - it's a real part of me now, not just a tool."
Mom said "Just a minute.." and went digging in the store room for a bit. When she emerged, she had two of the common belt cords used for young children. "Take these, Liam, they are minor enchantments that all children wear - essentially, they are handcuffs that keep an astral body from trying to fly off. You should keep these on you at night until you are sure of what you're doing."
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Well - now I REALLY had to start studying enchantments! They were weak, but operated exactly as Liam's mom had said, chaining the astral and physical to one another. Fortunately, I was able to bypass them without damaging them if and when needed, but they would certainly be enough to keep Liam home during normal dreaming.
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Having been warned of traveling, my project tonight was going to be Astral Perception. I'd stay with Liam's physical body, but extend my senses through various ranges of the astral world around me. It was something I'd read about on Earth, but never really tried. Here, though, without the huge blocks Earth's energy put in place, I was optimistic.
Extending my awareness through the house was easy enough, but beyond that I started to lose focus - the area was just too big. I found I had to either only be aware of one small part of things (like detecting where people were), or to focus on one specific direction, like a searchlight.
By the end of the night, I could "be" anywhere within about 200 yards, perception-wise - with mana-sensing, sight, and sound, at least. The other senses didn't translate well. As always, reading was the most difficult thing to do, because the visual processing was more of a physical brain function, so I had to have Liam's brain at least half-awake to really manage it. Over time, I think I can replicate most of the process in astral "brain-space", making out-of-body research more of an independent process.
By morning, I was rather tired, and just sort of merged into Liam to rest.
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Liam: My spirit was sure busy last night, if the strange dreams mean anything. Most of the dreams I remember had an old teacher handing me books to read out loud to him. The books were nothing special, though - just kids books and popular stories.
It felt strange having "holes" and "channels" in my body for magic to move through, instead of just gathering it up and making it sink into all my tissues evenly, but I had to admit it has advantages. I could now move magic forcefully into one body part and make it WAY stronger and tougher for a short time. And my magic re-filled much faster as well - even when the spirit wasn't actively helping.
The rules for using non-traditional aspects were a real headache - complicated and nearly contradictory. I understood why, in most cases - it was because it was so unfair to anyone who didn't know what to expect (almost everyone). Air, especially, could get away with things (like knocking people unconscious) that we weren't supposed do with other means, because people understood what was happening.
I was just going to assume Mind and Luck were entirely off-limits, since it was way too easy to get into serious trouble with either of them. With most of the others, it was mostly just common sense - i.e. don't be an ass and abuse people.
Another thing I noticed was that my body felt strange - like double-normal growing pains. At first I dismissed it as just a side effect of all the new magic, but my appetite had also increased.
On top of the homework I'd been give, I was expected to go back to school today as well. And forget going with the BS "burster" excuse the authorities were trying to force on me. I KNEW it was an incoming spirit from another world, and I wasn't about to directly lie about that to my friends. I wasn't even telling that lie to my family - I just stopped arguing about it, since they seemed to think the authorities "knew what they were doing", and "had my best interests in mind". The second, maybe, but on the first part I was certain they had no clue.
Of course, getting a spirit AND getting access to (rapidly growing) magic of my own DID sound kind of egotistical - but at least my friends would be forewarned when things started getting out of hand.
Yes, I could already tell things were going to get out of hand. The warnings they gave Dad just confirmed it. People in power simply could not leave a situation like this alone. I was worried about what would happen soon, because I could tell how interested my spirit was in enchantments - and those all started with draconic archeology. Humans might know HOW they worked (mostly), but we didn't know WHY they worked - even when we could copy them and make more of our own.
My spirit would be driven to change that - I could feel it. I could also feel that same ambition and curiosity growing within myself - we were much the same, he and I...yet he didn't seem to realize I could feel him feeling my thoughts - or maybe he just didn't mind? The lines were already getting blurry.