“So this is the fundamental sigil, it is used to channel Ether into other sigils. It converts it to other forms of energy. The base types are mana, fire, earth, air, and water. There are also some special ones but they are advanced magic.”

How come ether can’t be used directly? It was funny, here I am learning magic from a spirit while my siblings hold me. Reading a book completely unaware of what I am doing.

“Ether is what we call life energy, it is produced by nearly all living things. It can’t be used to fuel sigils or spells directly. Once someone's ether is used up they will fall unconscious which most people try to avoid. Though if you are any indication then they should be, but that's a secret we’ll keep.”

So how does converting it work?

“Well, sigils can be nested inside each other, within limits. For instance, to make a mage light you would draw this rune,” she uses her power to draw a rune, which I copy. “Exactly, if you look here you can see the fundamental sigil. In this case, it's turning ether into Mana which energizes the sigil and activates the magic.”

What does the sigil mean? I ask though I have a feeling I already know the answer.

“What do you mean?”

I mean the patterns and letters. They are clearly of some importance.

“I'm not sure, perhaps the Repository would hold the answers should we gain access,” she said, shaking her head.

Do you always need an object inscribed with a sigil to use magic?

“Not at all, but it's easier and it makes it harder for someone to prepare a countermeasure. To cast a spell you need to know the sigil and the chant to go with it.”

Can you show me? I am getting excited now. I may have been into science and sci-fi but as a famous person once said ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." This may be literal magic but there is always an underlying set of rules for the world.

“Sure I have just the spell, it's called Fairy Light. It's an advanced form of mage light that can only be seen with spirit sight.” She closed her eyes and began to focus, she held up her right hand and her ether began to flow. In front of her hand appeared a sigil, I can see the fundamental sigil and another sigil. Both contained in the larger symbol, she then spoke the word fairilight. A small orb of light appeared in front of her and then floated above her head.

Tani, can you please come down so I can see the orb? I needed to satisfy my curiosity. When she floated down I once again put power into my eyes. In the center of the orb floated the same sigil. I took a moment to memorize it before the pain forced me to stop.

Is there magic that will let me store and retrieve my memories? I think I might have noticed something but I'll need to be sure. There is definitely a pattern to these sigils. I just need to find it.

“Not that I am aware of. Such magic would make research an easy affair.”

That's a shame. Without paper, this will be hard. Well even if I had some paper I probably couldn't read it anyway. Actually, I remember this one thing, one of my professors talked about it. What was the name…

“Lilli, hello.”

Huh? Tani was waving her hand in front of my face.

“You weren’t responding.”

Sorry I was trying to remember something.

“Remember what?”

Ahhhh it's called the Method of Loci. I smiled slightly which caused everyone to say awww.

“Lilli is so cute. What is this method of Ioki?”

Well, it's a system of memory where you put your memories into an accessible format, such as rooms in a house or books on a bookshelf. Though being a world of magic it might work a bit differently. This became my next priority, it could make learning magic easier.

“Sounds interesting. Maybe I'll try and figure that out. It would definitely help.”

I figured since I can't see, I can't use paper. So maybe I can use that. After all, if it's in my head sight or not I would be able to see it. And if I could make it magical maybe it could function as more than just a memory tool.

Tani taught me more throughout the day, I had been so engrossed that I had lost what little track of time I had. Before long I was being picked up by Anna for my evening feeding. For some reason the last few days my gums have been hurting. Maybe I’ve been grinding them in my sleep?

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“Lilli is such a good girl, yes you are. You are such a clean eater. Master Andreth got more food on him than in him. Miss Titalia was cleaner but would get distracted and make a mess,” Anna said as she fed me. Im not sure what I was eating but it almost tasted like apples.

Tani? Do you know what I am eating? I was getting curious now.

“I think it might be a Tamagi, but I'm not entirely sure,” she said drawing something that kind of looked like a long apple. She was sitting on my shoulder again.

I had a thought. How come I can touch you but the others can’t? I realized that I have never seen her be touched by my family, even accidentally.

“Oh, it's part of the rules of the world. While nonspirit life can touch us on some fundamental level they never will. In the past, there used to be a number of humans who could see us. But the technique has largely been lost to them. There are ways for us to let people see us. Much like how you can hear me.”

After Anna finished feeding me it was time for bed again. Despite my mind being abuzz with activity my body was getting tired. Not for the first time I cursed being stuck in this childs body. Tani snuggles up in my hair again. I can’t wait until I'm old enough to actually do stuff. But for now, I can at least learn. Being reborn was such a weird disconnect. How did I die? Why did I keep my consciousness and memories? However, this was a good opportunity to study child development. Especially in this world which is fundamentally different than my own. I exhaled my breath and got ready for my night exercises.

“Everything alright Lilli?” Tani asked hearing my sigh.

Yea I was just thinking about how and why I am here.

“Ah some heavy thoughts for a baby,” she said with a grin.

Haha. I wrote that as sarcastically as possible. But seriously I mean. I was a middle-aged woman on a different planet working on the energy crisis. And suddenly I’m an infant in a world of magic, and swords(?).

“I suppose that would be something hard to handle. I can't imagine I would have handled it nearly as well as you.”

It has been easier with you around. At least we can talk, even if I could form words I would have to act like a child. I don’t want to think about what would happen to me if people found out I came from another world.

“I'm glad I ran into you. Most of the other spirits aren't interested in seeking knowledge. They feign interest to try and make me feel better but they aren't that serious about it. Only my brother is. It's actually what drew us together. He is pretty research minded like me. However, he chooses to study plants and animals. Mainly why some animal form ether crystals and others don't.”

That's something I’d be interested too. After I can get back my sight… hopefully.

“Well to do that you still need to learn magic so we should go to sleep now.”

But I don’t wanna. I was only half joking. She giggled but didn’t respond. I closed my eyes and began to meditate. I didn’t really believe in the stuff back on Earth. I only meditated once in my life and that was during a company trip to promote ‘mindfulness’ which was corpo speak for ‘mental health’. Surprisingly though I did feel my ether begin to settle and flow rhythmically.

Before I realized it I found myself standing in a pure white void. Though it wasn't the white of nothingness but rather my ether. It swirls about the space in a circle. A thin mist of ether filled the entire space while off in the distance sheer walls of ether stretched up and down as far as I could see. I sat down and just admired the energy flowing all around me. A thought struck me and I began to manipulate my ether. The ether surrounding me began to react. I had been missing my computer. With its nearly endless font of knowledge and entertainment potential. This world seemed to be lacking in technology, definitely something I’ll have to correct.

I opened my eyes again, it was still weird to mostly see the same whether they were closed or not. I had learned how to turn off my sight, which I didn’t actually need to do yet. The one time I did terrified me. Thankfully after an hour, I managed to turn it back on. Losing what little sight I possessed was not something I am keen on repeating unless absolutely necessary. With a sigh, mental sigh? I stood back up, and just as I was about to figure out how to leave I noticed the computer.

When had that appeared? It wasn’t there when I first appeared. I walked over to it, though it was a little weird, it was less like me moving to it but rather it moving to me. It looked like my computer well minus the cables and plugs. It was my keyboard, a Frigate RGB pro. And it was lit up in my color scheme. The mouse was mine too, the Haloid Joan 117 I got at GamePlace. I tapped a key on my keyboard and my desktop appeared. It was my old computer, but some things were different. The OS wasn’t the same but had a very similar feel. Some stuff was missing from my desktop, and there were extra folders. One drew my attention, it was labeled ‘New World’. Inside was all of my memories as Lilli, split up into months.

I opened up the last month and saw further folders, one immediately caught my attention. It was labeled sigils. I immediately clicked it and saw a couple of pictures as well as two pieces of audio. The pictures were what I remembered when I copied the sigil. And the audio was Tani explaining them. This would make magic so much easier, and maybe I could even start decoding these symbols. I always liked puzzle games. The struggle of figuring out a problem and the rush of satisfaction I felt when I finally sussed out the answer.

Well, that would have to wait until I had more pieces of the puzzle. I closed the new world folder and opened the other one, it was labeled earth. So pretty obvious what would be in there. What did surprise me however was the sheer size of the folder. There was no way I’d be able to store all this data on my home PC. To make it worse everything was kind of just jumbled together, TubetoYou videos, random research papers, workdays, and even things as small as what I had eaten. It was honestly shocking that I remembered some of these things. It would take me months to sort through everything. I wish I had a way to tell time, another goal perhaps.

I began to sort through my Earth memories. For now, I wasn’t sure what would happen if I deleted things so I put what was utter trash into its own folder. Thankfully it looked like the memories were sorted from newest to oldest. I looked through my most recent memories but I didn't find any clues as to what happened to me, the last memory I had was me bidding my work friend farewell.

I kept sorting until I was distracted by a movie. I wish I could show this to Tani, I wish I could show her a lot of my memories from Earth. My vision started going dark. Looking around I realized the ether around me was nearly gone. I was so distracted by my memories I hadn’t noticed. As the last bit of ether disappeared from this place I fell unconscious.

I hope this isn’t bad…