A few weeks later

Lecture on applied magic

The students eagerly studied the documents handed out. Norman read through the overview of the different temperatures and the formulas required for them, as well as the respective degree of difficulty of the spell. When his thoughts wandered to the fantasy novels he used to read, he couldn't suppress a quiet giggle. He flinched, startled, when the slightly hoarse voice of his lecturer sounded right next to him: "Well, Mr. Zimmermann, what exactly is so amusing about this table?"

"Nothing, Professor Majere." Norman's mind raced. The professor had never been this far back in the lecture hall before. And he hadn't been the least bit interested in what the non-magicians were doing there, as long as they didn't disrupt the lesson. Was it because he had seen him with his daughter?

"Now come on. Why don't you let me join in your fun?" He sounded friendly, but somehow Norman thought he could hear an unspoken threat.

"I was just thinking about where I should put Dragonfire in the table. I must have read too many fantasy novels. I'm sorry..." His voice trailed off under the stern look he assumed was behind his sunglasses.

"Not an entirely stupid question." Majere seemed disappointed. He now spoke louder and addressed his next words to everyone present: "Mr. Zimmermann has asked an interesting question here. Where do we place dragon fire on the temperature scale? I would say..." He looked demonstratively thoughtful at Norman's documents, where a table took up the whole page in landscape format from "Smoldering match" on the left to "Iron smelting" on the right. He pointed to a spot on the desk a good 30cm to the right of the page. "Here."

He waited for a moment while everyone looked at him a little uncomprehendingly: "Dragon fire is off the scale because it's not real fire. Have you learned anything about dragons yet? No? I thought not." He slowly walked back down the stairs of the auditorium while his soft voice managed to reach the last corners of the lecture hall: "Fire, I'm sure any of these newfangled physicists would assure me, is a chemical reaction. The cause is heat, which in turn is an increasing movement of atoms. Or something like that." He wiped his hand disparagingly through the air, as if he could simply sweep away the annoying details of newfangled science. Leonardo was about to say something, but Norman elbowed him in the side, almost too forcefully. After a moment's thought, he preferred to keep quiet and was glad that Professor Majere had just turned his back on them. Once downstairs, however, the lecturer turned around and scrutinized his audience again: "Dragon fire has nothing to do with heat. Dragon fire has nothing to do with fire. Dragon fire is pure concentrated destruction. It does not increase the movement of atoms until they react with other atoms. It tears apart the smallest parts of matter, it eats away at the forces of nature that bind them together. No magic can create, contain, stop or extinguish dragon fire. That's why you won't find dragon fire mentioned anywhere in your teaching materials."

Some students raised their hands questioningly. Professor Majere folded his arms behind his back, puffed out his chest and raised his voice slightly: "No one knows where the dragons come from and where they get their abilities from. And above all, no one knows how they manage to appear out of nowhere and disappear again. Without warning. Without worrying about teleportation blockades or technological shields. They appear, take what they want, kill who they want to kill and disappear again. Those miserable, useless, godless monsters!". He obviously realized that he had lost his temper and visibly pulled himself together: "Lesson over."

He turned around abruptly and left the lecture hall. What remained was a group of confused students who spent the rest of the lesson exchanging rumors about dragons. Apparently, they could be found in practically every world and dimension. At least, there were countless rumors and stories in every culture represented here.

Norman turned to Leo: "Shall we meet back at the fractal later?"

"Sure. As long as you promise not to start a discussion about dragons. There's so much conflicting information and rumors about the creatures, I get a headache every time I look into the subject."

"Agreed."

*

Norman had almost finished his chocolate milkshake and was thinking about what to order next. When someone stepped to the side of him, he said without taking his eyes off the menu: "I think I'll have a 'White Café Mocha'."

"Sounds good. I'll have one too." Leo sat down in the cozy leather armchair next to him with a flourish.

"Oh, it's you! I thought you were Cynthia, she was just scurrying around here as a waitress."

"I have to disappoint you. The pretty one has just walked off arm in arm with Odwin."

"Crap. I'll just make myself a cappuccino then. I should still be able to manage that." Norman got up and walked through the still sparsely filled Café Fraktal behind the counter. The fully automatic coffee machine stared back at him with its numerous displays, indicator lights and buttons announcing disaster. While he was still trying to make sense of the numerous abbreviations on the control buttons, Leo tapped him on the shoulder. "Better get a professional to do it." With his usual deft fingers, he placed two cups under the outlet and set the brewing temperature, water volume and pressure. While the machine was grinding and brewing, he was already gathering the change for the coffee till. "On me today."

A little later, Norman spooned sugar into his cup, stirred it and looked thoughtfully at the students in the café: "Somehow it doesn't fit."

Leonardo looked up from his cup: "What do you mean?"

"Beings from the entire universe land here. Including countless parallel dimensions. Correct?"

"Absolutely correct."

"Why are there almost only European-looking students here, with mostly German names? It should actually look like the Mos Eisley Cantina here."

"Most of the people who end up here are humanoids. No idea why. The universe is probably just more boring in reality than in Star Wars. Of course, we also help out a little. The university hands out magical amulets that camouflage minor discrepancies such as horns, an unusual skin color or a third eye on the forehead. And of course, most of them quickly adopt an inconspicuous name. Occasionally, more unusual creatures also end up here. But methane- or hydrogen-breathing creatures have not survived for long. Those without a spacesuit die immediately. Some come from worlds that have too different natural laws and melt or explode. Since I've been here, only two non-humanoids have arrived. I haven't seen either of them, but it was said that one suffocated before anyone could help him. The other was sent back immediately before his spacesuit ran out of atmosphere."

"You've been studying here for a few semesters, hasn't that ever been a topic in class?"

"Nope. Very few students are surprised that things aren't crazy enough here. But I remember Archeron asking Professor Majere in class once."

"So, what did he say?"

Leo imitated Majere's voice in a low, husky tone: "That's because most gods are simply too lazy to work out a viable biological system for themselves. They simply order a copy of a universe that already exists. With a few minor changes at most."

"You were joking, weren't you?"

"If you can recognize that about Majere, you're better than me."

Norman's next question went unheard in the noise of the door banging against the wall. Three students burst into the room, heavily laden with measuring instruments, waving rod-shaped devices excitedly in the air:

"Clear that table away!"

"Sorry!"

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"Field constant still decreasing, delta vector increasing. This is the right place! Herbeeeert!!!"

A fourth student followed and pushed in a misappropriated shopping cart from the corridor, which was crammed full of other equipment. The vehicle rumbled and rattled over the doorstep, swayed and threatened to tip over to the side with its presumably fragile load. The student, addressed as Herbert, threw himself against the handle with all his meagre weight and barely brought the whole thing back into balance. A couple, who had just been gazing at each other in love over two milkshakes, looked up in confusion and just managed to jump to the side in opposite directions before 56 kg of electronics slammed into their table. The half-full glasses tipped over and dripped unnoticed onto the floor. Without reacting to the numerous queries and exclamations from the guests present, the group began to unload long poles covered in flashing lights from the shopping cart and frantically set them up near the table where Norman and Leo had just been sitting. The individual poles were each about one meter high with a diameter of about 15 cm and were held upright like camera tripods by folded-out tripods.

"Seventy-five seconds to convergence! Schneeelleeeerr...!"

Herbert pulled a laptop out of the mess, carelessly wiped a half-full coffee cup aside and placed it on the table where it had become free. A psychology student narrowly escaped the coffee splashing up from the bursting cup and glared reproachfully at the culprit, who didn't even notice. A cable, which Leo expertly recognized as a Firewire connection, connected the laptop to a large black box in the drinks crate holder under the shopping cart.

While Herbert opened the laptop, which had obviously already been switched on and booted up on the way, and called up a program, the other new arrivals began to set up the poles in a circle and connect them to each other and to the black box. The cables they used were twisted and stretchy, like those on telephone handsets, and wrapped themselves defiantly around chairs and other obstacles. The chubby little Chinese man, who had just been sipping his tea comfortably, was caught in a tangle of cables. Without allowing himself to be disturbed in the slightest, he stood up, avoided everything with minimal but very controlled movements and then, without spilling a single drop of tea, joined the crowd that had gathered at the edge of the room, where he continued to sip his tea calmly.

"Frequency scanner running, where's the main power? Would someone fucking plug in the power!!!? Jan, go!"

Having just finished setting up one of the poles, the man who had obviously been addressed threw himself across the room, rolled down next to the shopping cart with more motivation than skill and ripped a cable reel out of the holder on its side. Without slowing down, he rushed on to one of the ceiling floodlights standing discreetly in the room, carelessly pulled its plug out of the socket and replaced it with his own. Flashing lights lit up on the sides of the black box, while the previously flashing lights on the poles changed from a restless red to a steady green glow.

"Power is on."

When the last of the five posts was set up, the room fell silent from one moment to the next. The spectators' gazes followed those of the now suddenly idle troublemakers to the visibly nervous Herbert, who typed on the keyboard, read off the results and then kept entering new corrections. Drops of sweat formed on his forehead. Only through the sudden silence could you hear his quiet, exasperated sigh as he took his fingers off the keyboard for a moment and shook his head uncomprehendingly: "I can't do it. All the frequencies are forming dissonances, I don't know why. "

The students looked at the circle of poles set up. The indicators all lit up green, the cable connections were in order, the power was connected. One of them took a meter from the table behind him. He sounded incredulous as he looked from the display over to Herbert: "18 seconds to go. 17... 16..."

A head covered in thinning gray hair bent down under the door frame. The newcomer straightened up to his full height of well over two meters and looked around calmly. Norman involuntarily thought of a giraffe when he saw the extremely elongated physique. Despite his height, he could hardly weigh more than 70 kg. When he was greeted with loud pleas and shouts, he only raised his hand briefly and energetically. Silence fell again immediately. While the group of four, who had now gathered around the laptop, nervously tapped from one leg to the other and Herbert stepped aside in awe, he stood in front of the keyboard.

"12 seconds..."

Without paying attention to the hint, he bent his upper body at the waist and leaned on the edge of the table in front of the monitor. His eyes darted back and forth as he studied all the displays.

"5 seconds..."

A short press on the sensor field moved the cursor to the desired position on the screen. He changed one of the numbers after the decimal point in the input field and tapped the enter key.

"Two seconds!"

A tiny black spot appeared in the air above the circle of poles, from which oily, shimmering cracks wove their way through the air. Then the indicators on the poles glowed brightly for a moment. The air around the spot seemed to shimmer bright gold for a moment, then nothing more unusual could be seen. The indicator lights went out.

The older gentleman straightened up and folded his long arms behind his back: "Excellent work. I'll see you for the debriefing tomorrow at 08.00 in my office. And Herbert..."

The already rather colorless face of the inconspicuous young man had become even paler in the last few minutes as he stood there with his shoulders slumped. He looked up guiltily: "Yes, Mr. Wagner?"

"Your input values were completely correct. The feedback pattern showed that the cable to transmitter pole III was defective, so I had to compensate for that. So, now dismantle and march off!"

As soon as he had spoken, he turned around and walked with long, sweeping strides to the door, where he had to bend slightly again.

Leo hurried over to Herbert, who was whistling with relief, closely followed by Norman and most of the rest of the guests.

"Man, tell me, what are you guys doing here?"

The person addressed proudly pointed to a small pendant on his chest, which showed a small golden pyramid trailing a comet's tail. "Faculty for transdimensional transportation. We develop, build and maintain all the dimensional portals and vehicles for the entire university."

Leo waved it off: " Yes, yes... I know that. But what are you doing here?" He pointed to the chaos in the café. The first hesitant attempts to tidy up had already begun.

"Um... I see. Sure... So we should stop a dimensional tear here. And now we need to move on quickly and return the equipment." He hastily closed the laptop, which was still running, and put it in its holder on the shopping cart. Then he started winding up cables. Leo wasn't going to be put off so easily: "Come on, more than half of our students fall through dimensional cracks here. Are we so overcrowded right now that we can't take any more new arrivals?"

There was a murmur of concern. Were they going to close the university? Norman was more worried about where any new arrivals would end up if their way was simply blocked.

Herbert looked up briefly from the tangle of cables that had just contracted and wrapped around his arms: "The crack wouldn't have brought anyone here. The energy gradient goes in the other direction. If it had opened, everyone in this room would have been sucked out."

Leo frowned thoughtfully as surprised murmurs broke out around him: "How can that be? I only had transdimensional physics as a minor subject, but even there we learned that the university has the lowest Warshok level in the multiverse. That's why everything ends up here."

"I don't know how that can be either. Someone on the other side must be expending a hell of a lot of energy to create this effect."

"What's on the other side?"

"I don't know, but Mr. Wagner said we definitely don't want to go there. Well, now I have to go."

Without paying any further attention to the shouts and questions from the students present, he hurried after his colleagues.

Norman and Leo looked at each other. Norman nodded towards the exit: "Shall we go to the next computer room and look through the databases on dimensional breakthroughs?"

"No need." Grinning proudly, Leonardo pulled his PDA out of his jacket pocket. "I have a password for the local WLAN network." A few keystrokes on the miniature keypad with speed dial buttons attached to the bottom, which had obviously been retrofitted, took him to the university intranet. "So, now let's see..."

He entered a search query for the keyword 'dimensional tear'. A long list of hits appeared on the left-hand side of the small screen. On the right-hand side, however, a question appeared: "Do you want information about the dimensional rift in Café Fraktal?"

The two students looked at each other for a moment in amazement, then Leo tapped firmly on the icon for "Yes". The screen filled with text that scrolled through at a comfortable reading speed.

Logbook entry 2349.234.12 of the Faculty of Transdimensional Transportation:

17:34:

Automatic sensors report an increase in the Warshok energy level in the coordinate grid 3423 to 2343.

17:46:

The technician on duty checks the sensor results. A response team is sent out.

18:39:

The task force returns. A dimensional breakthrough was successfully prevented. No casualties this time.

Remark:

The occurrence of the phenomenon still seems to be concentrated on the university campus. The center of the overcharge zone is always located in places where intelligent humanoids are frequently present. The warning time from the first sensor deflection is constantly decreasing. In the first measured incident, it took 4 hours from the first sensor deflection to the complete dimensional breakthrough. This time has now dropped to just under half an hour.

End of logbook entry.

Leonardo also found the entry informative, but had more pressing questions at the moment: "Can you hear what I'm saying?"

The answer appeared on the screen without any noticeable delay: "Yes."

"How can that be? My PDA doesn't have a microphone at all!"

"There are currently 16 mobile phones in this room. Of these, 12 are currently switched on and calls are currently being made on 3 of them. The inactive phones have been taken over by me and are also recording acoustic signals. The total capacity is more than sufficient to monitor every call in this room."

Norman whistled through his teeth in awe: "Man, that's really brilliant. This AI must be almost as intelligent as a human!"

The screen flashed bright red for a moment. The previous writing and menus disappeared to make way for another text: "Almost as intelligent as a human?!?"

Before the two students could react, the screen went black. Leo switched it on. Nothing. He took out the battery and pressed the reset button. No reaction. He looked angrily at Norman: "You had to insult them. It's just as well that my computer in my room isn't switched on at the moment. I'm going to disconnect it from the Internet until we've made up with the AI. Any idea what it might like?"

Norman couldn't help himself: "How about a bag of potato chips?"

Reluctantly, Leo couldn't help but grin: "We'll think of something. By the way, we should keep the whole thing to ourselves for now. Since I've never heard that we have an AI on the premises, she probably won't like it if we tell everyone about it."