"speech"

[telepathy]

thoughts

*sound* (or action in dialogue)

Chapter 2 - Magic and reading

Hmm, that's the first guy I have seen that has books with him. I wonder if he knows where the library is.

After wondering the streets and rooftops for a long time I finally decided to try out this telepathy thing and see if I could ask somebody.

The old guy, with a stack of books was the first one I decided to approach. Mostly because he was carrying books, but also because I could easily outrun him. Well I could outrun any other human as well, but some of them have tails or even wings around here so better safe than sorry.

I took me a couple of tries to get this telepathy thing, once I got the trick I was really easy.

[Do you know where the library is?]

“Eh? who said that?”

The human looked up and down the quiet backstreet.

[ I did.]

I jumped on a nearby barrel and tapped the lid to get his attention.

“Eh?”

I can't really understand human expressions all that well, but he seemed very confused so I tapped the lid one more time, and when he looked at me I asked again as clearly as I could.

[Do you know where the library is?]

“You are the one talking?” he looked at me with what I assume is the human expression for astonishment.

[Yes. Now do you or do you not know where the library is?]

“Of course I know where it is, but … you're a cat.”

[Obviously. Now why don't you take me to it. I'm rather tired of wondering the city without direction.]

“B-but … cats don't talk.”

[Why to you think I'm asking you? The only ones I have come across are even dumber than the ones I'm used to!]

“But you're a cat too!”

[Yes, you said that already. Now take me to the library.]

“But … ” he shakes his head. “ *sigh* just follow me.”

So after a short walk we arrived in front of a tall and overly complicated looking building.

The old man opens one of the humongous doors and we go in.

“Well there you go. Welcome to the library.”

“Delmer, who are you talking to?” A much younger and female human asks the old man and looks around.

“Err … the cat.”

“The cat?” she looks at me. “What, did you finally go senile in your old age?”

[Hi, I'm Nori] I say as I walk past her.

I must say, the look on her face is quite amusing, but right now I'm more interested in the rows upon rows of books before me, so I head on.

•••

It turns out that books are actually really hard to understand. First of all there is that whole page turning thing. You have to know which way to turn them and then look at them from the correct side, not to mention the actual action of trying to flip pages with paws.

Then there is the problem of understanding. With the screens it's easy. You look at them and you understand. With books you have to not only look at it the right way you have to actually look at different parts of it and then put everything together to understand it.

Delmer called it reading. He said that the markings on the book are divided into many different parts like letters and words and you have to understand all of them separately to read a book. I think he might not have been entirely right though, because I don't understand anything about the different marks and squiggles, but all I had to do to understand the book was to look at it one line, or sometimes half a line, at a time. It did feel kind of clunky so maybe I'm not doing it completely right.

After I started to more or less understand, of at least was able to read books, I asked Delmer for one about magic. He took me to a small table and after a bit of searching put some books on it.

The topmost book was a really small one called “Introduction to Magic”.

Everything in this world, from rocks to animals, from spirits to the sun and skies, is made of energy.

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

Every living being aside from some primal elementals has two types of this energy. One which makes up the body and is generally static and uncontrollable and another one which fills the world and flows free.

This free flowing energy is called mana, and is often referred to as the essence of even the soul, for it resonates in a rhythm or frequency unique to every being.

Magic is the art of using this mana to either create phenomena that don't occur naturally or control ones that do.

There are three ways of using magic, each of which has it's own benefits.

The first method is to control the flow of mana and weave it into patterns and forms that then act as a core for the surrounding natural mana and direct it.

This method is primarily practiced by wizards and required great knowledge and understanding.

The second method is mostly dependent on natural talent and involves imposing your will onto your mana to change it's properties. Because this method rarely affects natural mana, the strength of a magician using it depends heavily on their mana capacity, but because of it's instinctive nature it is possible to accomplish feats that would otherwise be beyond our understanding.

This method is mostly used by sorcerers and magic swordsmen.

The last, and by far the most difficult method is to manipulate the rhythm of your mana. With this you could potentially affect the natural mana without depleting your own by resonating with it, or even change the very nature of you mana and therefore yourself, both body and mind.

This method used to be the way of druids, but is now all but lost to all sentient beings.

It is generally considered impossible to practice more than one of the three methods, but there are exceptions.

For example, many accomplished sorcerers use a simplified version of the wizard circles for stability in their stronger spells.

Or take the ever-present magical beasts. They are by their very nature animals whose mana-rhythm has been altered, but the magic they occasionally use is based on the second method of magic.

A persons ability to use magic is dependent on four things: affinity, aptitude, control and mana capacity.

Of there only aptitudes and control can be trained while affinity and mana capacity is determined at birth or shortly after.

Affinity is your ability to resonate with a certain element or things with similar nature and determines how easily you interact with it.

For example, most dwarves are born in the deep tunnels of their mountain cities near fire, stone and metal and have great affinities with them. As a result they are excellent at handling metal tools and most of their mages work with fire of earth.

Aptitude is the ability to interact with a certain type of mana. No matter how great your affinity to fire, if you don't have to aptitude to feel it and it's connection to fire, you won't be a fire mage.

Control is mostly a matter of training. It is the ability to weave mana or change it according to your will.

Mana capacity is the amount of mana a body can hold. Note that this is not necessarily or for that matter even usually the amount that someone has access to. The amount of mana that a person can use is rarely their full potential and is mostly dependent on their skill and understanding of the world and themselves.

Well that doesn't help me all that much. All that I really understood was that there are three ways to use magic and I still don't know how to actually do it.

_______________

This turned out really short ...

It's hard to get into a habit of writing, especially because I usually do it so impulsively.

I do have some ideas about logout and a future companion, that would probably be short as well, but work better in a separate chapter.

I'll start on that in a few hours/minutes depending what I do for a break and try to post it by tomorrow or the day after.

P.S. I tried hitting the keyboard randomly for a name for the VR. Some of the initial results are kazd, segael, uviab, aigi, apiry, iwerz, eiaub, aiub, ugros, osfgor.

Do comment if you like one or have better results.