The Magic Kingdom was an interesting place. On the way, Sizemore had warned them that the influence of the royal sides had already been used to prevent them from expanding the number of casters they could contract for the conflict.
"Royal sides do war with each other," he explained, "but when someone who was common infantry originally, like Lord Stanley, gets to be a ruler, the Royals like setting aside their differences to team up on them." After a moment, he elaborated: "Ah, they also tend to put alliances together to croak anyone who ends a royal bloodline, which Lord Stanley also did." Well, at least it wasn't completely a matter of royalism. There was revenge in there, too. "I'm honestly surprised that they didn't do so already, Stanley doesn't trust barbarian casters much, and they don't trust him either."
"Couldn't you vouch for him, though?" Tanya asked.
From how uncomfortable he looked as he didn't answer the question, the answer was apparent, but he said it anyway: "Misty was a barbarian. Maggie recruited her from the Short Pier, and the Magic Kingdom never saw her again. It's why none of the hippiemancers were willing to enter our portal; people talk, and while the stories are worse than the truth..." Ah, a poor reputation that was earned. Just because the story was worse didn't make the truth pleasant. "Headmaster Isaac wouldn't have come if Lord Stanley was still around." The more Tanya hears about Lord Stanley's decisions, the more they're glad that he decided to leave when he did.
Still, something about that story… "What is the Short Pier?" Tanya asked.
Sizemore looked even more uncomfortable with this topic than the one about how untrustworthy Stanley was. "It's a small pier, thus the name, where you can get a good view of the sunrise." He said, dancing around the topic. "It's the last thing many casters see, the ones who can't afford next turn's upkeep."
Ah. It's the local equivalent to a popular suicide spot. Combined with Sizemore's mention of Maggie rescuing the late Lookamancer from there, they could easily see why such a place would develop: any caster that was feeling charitable knew exactly where to go to save some poor soul from dying of starvation, and those at the end of their rope have an out of the way place to gamble on the altruism of men. The immediate consequences of a single missed meal meant that the number of beggars would naturally be quite low.
Tanya had a hard time imagining a worse spot to be in, particularly because they knew that Being X would love it if they found themselves in such a pitiable position.
Anyway, the Magic Kingdom was an interesting place. The center was a series of freestanding portals in all kinds of colors, only a vague sense of pulling that they felt towards the Gobwin Knob portal allowing them confidence that they could find it again. Hm, would that sense be Natural Findamancy?
Right. Natural Magic. In this world, Erf, there was no such thing as science. Everything was explainable through magic. There were three kinds of magic, in this axis of distinction. First, there was Magic. This was what casters used. Then, there was Natural Magic, which was things like how units healed and got cleaned at the start of turn, natural Healomancy and Dirtamancy respectively, fueled by those unit's upkeep, natural Moneymancy. Casters could sometimes manipulate the natural magic of their discipline, but it was scattershot. Something like using Dirtamancy to clean was easy, but emulating the Natural Moneymancy of purchasing Natural allies to purchase other kinds of units was considered beyond even master-class moneymancers, although those purchases can be subsidized or accelerated with such magic.
Finally, there was Titanic magic. This was the category where, as Tanya understood it, casters just threw up their hands and gave up understanding how it could be accomplished, reserving it instead to their gods, the Titans. The best example of this was when Wanda offhandedly mentioned that the Arkenhanmer turned walnuts into pigeons while Stanley was attempting to crack the nuts with it. This was agreed upon to be some form of Hat Magic, but as there was no actual hat involved it was deemed to be part of the Titanic Stagemancy that the Arkenhanmer possessed, which was mostly encapsulated in the ludicrous Dancefighting bonus it granted.
Personally, Tanya just suspected that Hat magicians weren't as limited to hats as they claim to be. It would fit the stage magician vibes they had going on.
"Here we are." Sizemore said, pulling Tanya out of their musings. "The glade of the Hippiemancers."
One of the interesting bits about the Magic Kingdom was that it was color-coded: the Island was an octagon where each octant was reserved for one of the eight classes of magic, and each one was demarcated by the “logical” system of ‘what color are the trees?’.
Thankfully, the Hippiemancer octant had the normal, green trees, so Tanya had some time to come to terms with the other seven colors. The place was pretty much what Tanya imagined when they thought 'gathering of hippies', with psychedelic illusions and exotic plants being the centerpieces of gatherings of people of questionable hygiene (although when everyone is magically scrubbed clean every morning, normal hygienic standards would be a bit odd to be concerned with). There were hookahs and alcohol being passed around, and overall the place had a sense of tranquility.
It was rather nice, although Tanya sensed some kind of… it was hard to describe. Despite never meeting any of these people, nor with any of them knowing who Tanya was, they felt… unwelcome. Like a large swathe of the crowd hated them, sight unseen. In fact… as they glanced at each person, focusing for just a second, that feeling spiked and ebbed. Was this a magical sense?
Tanya glanced at Sizemore, who was happily talking with a matronly woman dressed in a simple green dress. The feeling of unwelcomeness was absent when Tanya looked at her, in fact… it was kind of the opposite. It was subtle, Tanya wasn’t sure they would have noticed without the hostility to compare it to. “-and this is…” Sizemore paled, as if he realized that he was about to say something that he really shouldn’t have.
Tanya put their hand out, and the woman shaked it with a smile. “Tanya Degurechaff. Shockamancer of Gobwin Knob.” The pre-prepared lie came easily, and the woman smiled indulgently, her eyes twinkling with smugness.
“I am Janis Atlantis, Grand Abbie.” She said formally, as if addressing royalty. ‘Grand Abbie’ was the title for Hippiemancers (Life and Matter elements) that have mastered all three disciplines: Flower Power (Erf), Signamancy (Fate), and Date-a-mancy (Numbers). “It’s nice to meet you.” She looks between Tanya and the crowd. “Can you feel it?” She asked.
What? “Feel what?” Tanya asked.
“The heartstrings.” Janis replied, “I saw you looking nervously at the other hippiemancers, but you didn’t feel any hostility, you were reacting to theirs.” She tapped her nose. “I was popped as a date-a-mancer, you know. Of anywhere in the magic kingdom, it is here that you’ll find the most casters who hate warlords reflexively. That hatred marks your status more than your Leadership special, when you’re in front of me.”
Ah. “You know, then.” Tanya said, “I did feel some… hostility. If that’s what you mean. It was rather strange, to go somewhere and feel unwelcome before I even introduce myself.”
Janis nods knowingly. “It’s not really spoken of much, but the Magic Kingdom’s octants grant a bonus to casting spells of that class, it makes learning out-of-discipline magic easier. While sensing something like that would be one of the easiest possible feats of date-a-mancy, doing it by accident must mean you have some talent with hippiemancy, even with the bonus.” She smiles widely. “Even with your challenges, it’s good to see that you hold peace, love, and harmony in your heart.”
Hrm. “I am a peace-loving person, I agree.” Tanya said, “But what is date-a-mancy?”
“Come with me to my tent, we can discuss magic there.” She turned to Sizemore. “I have some of those mushrooms you like too, Sizemore. You’re welcome to join us, or to mingle with the others.”
Sizemore pumped his fist in celebration as he followed us.
---------------------------
Janis’ explanation of Hippiemancy (she didn’t stick to just Date-a-mancy) was… well, they can make their magic work, so clearly she was correct to a point, but how much of the philosophy and mindset was important?
Nevertheless, she spoke of date-a-mancy. The magic of love, emotions. But it was a numbers axis discipline, so it had to be quantifiable. And it was. Each relationship between two people was quantifiable through the heartstring that connects them. Their ‘red thread of fate’ as it were. Like Mathamancy and Moneymancy, a decent chunk of the actual magic involved was simply number crunching large data sets, collective relationships between many people, and creating a usable output from that data. Heh. Date-a.
Tanya decided that they liked date-a-mancy. Apparently, it wasn’t popular as the common idea of love was that it was beyond magic, and the proof of that being wrong rubbed some people the wrong way. Boiling down relationships to numerical values unsettled people. Tanya fundamentally disagreed with that mindset and resolved to learn date-a-mancy at their earliest possible convenience.
That is, right now.
“It’s actually kind of interesting, seeing your heartstrings.” Janis commented, having decided to load up her hookah at some point during the discussion. “You’ve not really known love, have you?”
Tanya shook their head ruefully. “No, I can’t say I’ve ever fallen in love.” Not in any life. He dated a bit in college, but he never really… clicked? With his girlfriend. She was a wealthy girl who asked him out on what was probably a dare or bet, and he gladly did all of the normal boyfriend things… but she ended up breaking up with him after four months, and promptly started up a rumor that he was a homosexual out of some misguided view of being wronged by him. They never really understood why the relationship failed, but they died before they could try again with a more mature woman.
Janis hummed knowingly. “I suppose it makes sense; the summoning spell wouldn’t target someone with too many connections to their world.” She had explained that she was involved with the creation of the spell, although she had deflected on the why. “It would be easier to unmoor someone without those connections anchoring them.” That made sense; to her, those emotional connections were just as real as actual cables anchoring someone to the ground. “But I expected it would result in someone who was lonely, who didn’t fit in their world but could in ours.” She smiled ruefully. “I suppose it did.”
Tanya’s eye twitched. Yes, they knew that they were rather twisted, but they prided themselves on their ability to adapt to their surroundings. They fit in just fine! …Except that they were planning on becoming a military officer as an eight year old girl. While they were confident they could manage it, Tanya supposed that someone of their appearance could be taken much more seriously as a threat in this world. “I wouldn’t call myself lonely.” Tanya eventually got out.
“You wouldn’t, no.” Janis said, with a tinge of melancholy. “But that’s not why you’re here. You want to learn what magic suits you.”
“Yes, exactly.” Tanya said, nodding. “Now, could you explain date-a-mancy a bit more… concretely?”
Janis giggled. “You sound like Sizemore, you know.” The man in question, who had calmly sat through the conversation while eating some fat mushrooms that Tanya could easily see adorning some salad or pizza, perked up. Janis turned to him. “No matter how elaborate I made my explanations, you always thought that there was some more fundamental layer to what I was saying. Magic isn’t so… limited as that, to be boiled down to strict concepts and objects.”
Tanya snorted. “Perhaps I should be clearer: Is there an actual spell I could be trying to cast? Theory is fine, but I think I understand it enough to move on to attempt some practical application.”
“Yes, I suppose you have.” Janis acknowledged, “Let’s start with something easy. Leadership and the stack bonus are Natural date-a-mancy, the bonds they share being the source of their strength.” Tanya nodded along, she had mentioned that before. The literal power of friendship. It was why the scroll that manipulated the stacking rules to allow Tanya to be effectively a Knight was date-a-mancy. “The diminishing of the bonus when the stack gets too large has to do with how difficult it is to pay proper attention to many people at once. Love can be exhausting like that, even as it is a source of strength.”
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“You’ve never said this before…” Sizemore said, in awe.
“I was trying to teach you Flower Power, Sizemore.” Janis said, smiling despite the scolding tone. “Love and Peace, as much as they feed off each other, are still two different perspectives.”
“I suppose if you wanted to learn out of class magic, sticking to your natural axis would be a logical choice.” Tanya mused.
“Yes, it is.” Janis agreed, “Sizemore suspected that you’re inclined to numbers axis magic, and your natural talent with date-a-mancy seems to agree with that. The three axes of magic are, at least in my opinion as a multi-master, is that the Erf axis describes the hows about the world. Flower Power is the magic of peace, the natural state of the world. The plants in hexes will wilt and wither if battles are fought in them. Peace is absolutely essential to growing plants, and that is something that Sizemore never really seemed to grasp, always too mired in soil mixtures and water balances. That helps too, but that final step…” Janis shrugs.
Sizemore frowned, and put another mushroom in his mouth. He seemed deep in thought from this revelation.
“Moving on, the Fate axis describes people. Units. The Who. Signamancy is harmony, the natural balance between a unit’s nature and its interactions with the world. Every unit will naturally glide into a state of harmony with themselves, becoming more in tune with who and what they are, and their appearance will change to reflect this.” She gestured to Tanya. “Your signamancy is incredibly unharmonious. It is why you change so much as you level up, you are becoming closer to who you are. The summoning spell is still at work, attempting to give you that harmony.” Ah, they don’t see themselves as a child, so they grow older. Makes sense. But would they become a man later?
…Probably not. Something about that idea, retaking their old body in full… it was unsettling. What did they tell Being X? That being a man was a natural advantage in their life, that made it easier for themselves and thus contributed to why they didn’t need religion? It was… something along those lines, although they probably didn’t go into that much detail. That wasn’t really true here, was it? They’d tower over everyone in their old body; while that wouldn’t be a new feeling, Erf humans were even shorter than the Japanese. It would be uncomfortable. They might even become Heavy in that case. They couldn’t ride dwagons while Heavy. They knew this because one of the promotion options for Hobgobwin Knights was becoming heavy, and Maggie had to explain that Tanya had made a planning mistake.
They still didn’t like being a girl, but… Hrm. “I know that may be some difficult news to digest.” Tanya nodded in agreement, and looked Janis in the eye again. “Now, the Numbers axis is about the What. These are rough categorizations, some classes could maybe seem a little twisted around, but date-a-mancy puts value to the connections between units, and the interplay of those numbers creates the wonders of love.” She gestured, casting, and ten little yellow seeds flew into the ground after flying upward from her hand, planting themselves and sprouting stems with leaves, growing from the dirt of her tent’s floor. “Now, stack with me.”
Tanya stacked, and could now see that each of those stems were, in fact, a tiny plant unit. They dug themselves out of the dirt, their tiny yellow bodies featureless except for their beady little eyes and little cat-like ears.
[Pikpik]
Attack: 18
Defense: 18
Hits: 1
Move: 0 (garrison)
Special: Plant (Vegetable), Digger, Jump
“These are the cheapest plant-type units I can create.” Janis explained, “As you can see, they currently have both of our bonuses, as a level 9 Grand Abbie and a level 5 Chief Warlady, plus a stack bonus of three.” That would make their base stats… negative two. Janis gave a small grin. “But I think we can do better than that.”
Over the next few minutes, Janis tried to walk Tanya through entangling the heartstrings that even golem units possessed, albeit only with their creator. Through them, Tanya learned to cast their first proper spell. “Espirit de corps!” Tanya said, the magic words coming to them spontaneously as they understood how to accomplish their task.
Startlingly, it worked. That 18 in attack and defense turned into 20, their +3 stack bonus becoming a +5, a true ten-stack. “It’s more difficult with beasts and speaking units.” Janis warned, “you need to find units that work well together, that have compatibility. You can’t just take any ten units and make it happen. Further, the spell only lasts until they unstack. You’d need to cast the spell again to replace any casualties.” She added, sighing. “Some sides have done very well making use of this spell to bolster their garrison defenses, but it’s not really something that sides like paying for. The juice cost of the spell scales with the upkeep of the stack, so a capital’s garrison could take tenturns to fully organize, and the benefits would mostly fade after a single battle dangerous enough that the bonus would be appreciated.”
Tanya hummed. There were many logistical difficulties, but they could see how this could be useful. “What do we do with those now? Disband them? They can’t be allowed to remain here.” Tanya asked. Golems were frowned upon, unless they already had a buyer lined up.
Janis ordered the units into her hand, and then… ate them. “Mm, crunchy.” She commented, some kind of yellow mist escaping from her mouth as she did so. They were suspiciously ghost-shaped. “Pikpiks are more edible than most plant-type units, so they’re easy to clean up.” She said in explanation.
“Right.” Tanya said, a little uncomfortable but putting it out of their mind. They were just little plants, designed to be eaten. Like carrots. “Moving on, it was very educational to speak of someone with your tenure, but I’d like to review the other octants a bit.”
“I wouldn’t recommend that.” Janis said breezily.
“...Why not?” Tanya asked.
“Well, I’m sure the Great Minds in the eyemancy octant would be welcoming enough…” Janis said, backpedaling her position a bit. “But date-a-mancers aren’t the only caster type that can sense that you’re a warlord without much effort.” She explained. “Your side is currently on the outs, with royal sides making a point to insist that no one deal with you.” She waved her hand vaguely. “You’re not going to find much in the way of trustworthy allies, with that happening. We haven’t been helping you that much, and us Hippiemancers stick together; no one’s going to narc on you for dealing with us, and we weren’t going to help Stanley overtly anyway.”
Tanya nodded along. Her points made sense. “Boop.” Ah, they were doing so well avoiding cursing. “I would like to speak further with Count Harbinger, I understand he lives in that octant?”
“Well, let’s go then.” Janis said, standing up. “Come along, Sizemore. I’d like to have a word with Tisha, anyway.”
“Coming!” Sizemore said, shoving the last two mushrooms into his mouth.
---------------------------
Count Harbinger lived in a small cottage that was referred to as ‘The Cauldron’, for some reason. Probably because the architect had a sense of humor and made the structure look like one that was tilted about thirty degrees. Very odd.
“It’s nice to see you again, Tanya.” The Count said, in a genuinely pleased manner that made Tanya once more check his hands for a knife. Why does he always sound like he’s about to murder someone?
He had company over, apparently some sort of card game, before Tanya had arrived, but he was willing to introduce them around. “Everyone, this is my latest client. Tanya, this is Duchess Riley, Healomancer, Prince Jack, Puppetmaster, and Countess Fortuna, Luckamancer.” Tanya wasn’t entirely sure what ‘Puppetmaster’ was, but it was probably a multi-master title. At a guess… Spookism? From Dollamancy? Or maybe Stagemancy?
“We all used to be part of the same side!” Riley added, grinning. She also looked prepubescent, like Tanya used to before she aged up a bit, but she seemed to wear it well. “Before King got croaked.” Riley’s emotional state didn’t dip one bit when saying that, which was vaguely unsettling. Another thing she had in common with the Count.
At Tanya’s look of confusion, Count Harbinger elaborated. “Our former ruler insisted that he only be referred to by his title. He believed names had power, which… is not inaccurate, but he took it too far.” That did explain why Count Harbinger had the same habit.
“So you’re contracted with Gobwin Knob?” The Countess asked, looking over Tanya like she was contemplating whether it was worth the effort to kill them.
“For another two turns, yes.” The Count said in agreement. “I’m not about to break a contract on another side’s say so. Make sure anyone who asks knows that.”
Prince Jack grinned sharply, so much so that Tanya felt the impulse to check themselves for cuts. “Well, aren’t you an interesting little minx.” He said, eyes wandering. Ew. “It’s not every day you see a warlady in the Magic Kingdom.”
Count Harbinger frowned. “No casting at the table, Jack.” He said, scolding his friend.
“But she’s just so very special.” Prince Jack said, his wide grin completely ruining his look of contrition. “I’ve never seen an unflavored Caster special. No discipline at all? Undyed by the elements of magic? It’s so much… simpler than any caster special I’ve seen before.” Then he pointed at Tanya’s wand, affixed to their belt. “And that’s one heck of an accessory. You don’t see magic items linked so inexorably to someone. It might even be an artifact!” He started doing tricks with the butterfly knife that he was suddenly holding. “I’m not even going to get started on what my original discipline has to say about her.” Tanya flinched back at the knife. It seemed extraordinarily dangerous, menacing in a way that made it seem like more than just a knife.
“Hey now.” Riley said, pouting. “Don’t go flirting with other girls, Jack! Turn right back around, you turnamancer!” Ah, Tanya did not like the implications of that sentence. Were turnamancers stereotypically playboys? Jack was kind of classically handsome, they supposed. Like one of those heartthrob actors.
Countess Fortuna didn’t say anything, but she stared menacingly at Jack. Ah, so his partner wasn’t Riley. So he wasn’t perving with his statements. “Ah… Yes Poppet, that’s probably a good idea.” Jack said nervously.
“Anyway…” Riley said, the prince adequately chastised, “It’s so cool that you’re another caster with the tiny lady signamancy! There’s so few of us, and Salti’s the only one who talks to me!”
“Empress Saltina, she’s a thinkamancer.” Count Harbinger supplied. “One of the Great Minds, even.”
“Don’t expect that to last.” Tanya warned the girl. “My signamancy is currently in flux. I was half a foot shorter two days ago.”
“Aw! But you could join the L.O.L.I. club!” Riley whined. It was another weirdness of this world that Tanya understood that it was an acronym despite her not spelling it out. Come to think of it, they always know how to spell all of these new words… Interesting.
“Do I want to know?” Tanya asked Count Harbinger.
“Probably not.” He replied. “Did you wish to attempt some more moneymancy?” He asked. “Or perhaps Mathamancy?”
“I did,” Tanya said, “-but if you have company perhaps I should speak to the Headmaster instead.”
“This is way less boring than cards.” Prince Jack said, throwing the cards away. “Contessa’s out of juice, anyway.” At that confusing statement, the Countess started picking up the cards with precise movements, not a single one wasted.
After a few minutes, The Countess had left and they were settled into the Count’s sitting room and Tanya attempted to assess gems again, with much more success.
“You know, I could make these earrings.” Prince Jack said out of the blue. Tanya had removed one of them in order to not spoil the test, and the prince had picked it up to examine. “They’re not actually that unusual, accessory-wise. All it does is grant the ‘Analysis’ special, with a little bit of superfluous redundancy for the stat board readout. It’s high end but in comparison to that other accessory it’s quite boring.”
“I like them.” Tanya said defensively. They fixed their crucial deficiency as a command unit, so no matter how they looked, they were precious.
“They don’t really suit you.” Prince Jack said idly. “Not yet, at least. They were clearly made for you, though.” He pondered that paradox. “If I had to picture who would wear this… It would require… Hm.” His frown vanished into a cruel smile. “Ah, I see. Very special indeed.”
“Care to share your insight with the class, Puppetmaster?” Tanya asked sarcastically as they crushed the gem that they had just made, reclaiming the shmuckers.
“Oh no, this is far too interesting to spoil.” Prince Jack said, “Once Gobwin Knob gets crushed into dust, do see if you can make it here, will you? If you can’t find other work, I’m sure you’d make a great fashion model for my weapons.” Tanya was guessing that dollamancy was the most lucrative of the spookism disciplines. Which made sense.
“Healomancy’s not actually that lucrative, so it’s how I make upkeep, most days.” Riley added, “It lets me save my juice for my experiments! I’m Master-class, you know! Not many level 4s can say that.”
Tanya smiled at the excitable girl. “That’s quite impressive. I’m the opposite, sadly. Level five, but without anything impressive to my name, casting-wise.”
“You’ll get there.” Riley said authoritatively. Tanya could feel the date-a-mancy bond, the heartstring, form between them as Tanya flattered her. Interesting… “It’s a lot easier to learn when you have a lot of juice to waste.”
The rest of the day passed quite educationally. Tanya wasn’t sure if they could manage anything more useful than just casting more shockamancy with their wand, but managing at least a little bit of magic from two disciplines was an excellent start.
If only they weren’t so doomed…