Douglas Miller
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MiP B2 Chapter 1: Catching Up
🕑 Added 2024-03-12 20:59:56 +0000 UTC<< First | < Previous | Next >
Carlos lounged comfortably on one of the mayor's fancy sofas. At 23 years old with a healthy body he really didn't need cushioned upholstery, but he liked how it felt. Honestly, he was probably more comfortable with high quality furniture than someone of his relatively low-income background should be in this world. Spoiled by the mass production factories of modern Earth, I suppose. All of this stuff here is probably handmade. Er, make that definitely handmade. Unless they have magic factories I haven't heard about, or something. He mentally shrugged. There was no point trying to change his attitudes toward furniture now. While this world might have higher prices for a lot of things than he was used to, he was also a lot richer than he was used to thanks to having become a noble lord. People would expect him to treat fine furniture as cheap because of his station.
I might have the physical habits of a couch potato, but at least I don't look like one. Too skinny. Not as skinny as Amber, though. He smiled as he watched the young woman next to him on the sofa continue animatedly expounding on their recent adventures together. She was lanky, with few curves to speak of and spindly limbs, far from any conventional picture of feminine beauty. Her hair, a slightly lighter shade of brown than his own, was cropped short. He thought she was 18 or 19 years old, but wasn't sure. Have I really never asked her age before? ... Would that be a rude question here? Regardless of her age, she had grown her confidence a lot since their first meeting a few weeks ago. She'd found her footing in a new life that she'd seized with utter determination, and he saw no sign of the shyness that she'd first greeted him with. The way her potential was finally blooming was beautiful to watch.
Carlos turned his gaze to the sofa across from them and carefully held back from laughing at the expressions Trinlen was making as Amber wrapped up explaining the events and developments they'd gone through since their introduction to him at the Royal Mage Academy. Carlos had contributed a fair amount to the explanation at first, but Amber had taken to it with enthusiasm when she arrived, and he could tell she was enjoying it. The young man in front of them, newly graduated from said academy, was on the edge of his seat and leaning forward, hanging attentively on every word. His casual attire, plain and made of cheap materials, looked thoroughly out of place on the finely embroidered velvet of the sofa, but he'd shown no sign of even noticing the finery around him. Excitement warred for control of his face with surprise, disbelief, envy, and dismay.
Amber finished her impromptu monologue, and Trinlen slowly schooled his face into a neutral expression. His voice was tense and tightly controlled. "So... In short, you're telling me that in the mere two weeks since you met me, you discovered a mana-poaching conspiracy of nobles, were abducted right under the noses of two royal guards without them even noticing, absorbed mana so fast that you gained 6 levels in a day and a half - so unfair, by the way - somehow learned an obscure portal spell from just its name and description, found evidence of a conspiracy against the Crown, and personally met a princess." He paused, then threw his hands up as he wailed in frustration and disappointment. "And I missed it!?"
Carlos threw back his head and burst out laughing. He couldn't help it. Trinlen just sounded so much like a little kid who'd barely missed out on a candy store giving away its entire stock for free. It was such an incredible light-hearted contrast with how everyone else viewed these same events that the sheer ridiculousness of it was overwhelming. Amber joined the laughter a moment later, shaking her head in amused disbelief, and after a few more seconds Trinlen started chuckling too.
Carlos's laughter eventually trailed off, and he took a deep breath to settle down. "Thanks, Trinlen. It's been a very stressful two weeks, and laughing like that helped release a lot of it. Feels good. Anyway, what have you been up to? I thought you would take a whole month to graduate?"
"Technically I only said 'next month', not that it would be at the same point in the month. But yes, this is earlier than I expected. The normal graduation ceremony is still a week and a half away." Trinlen shrugged. "They didn't explain the reasons, but after what you said I'm guessing your meeting with the princess prompted her to do something. The vice headmaster called me to his office yesterday morning, a few teachers grilled me on my classwork, and they declared I'd passed my exams. Then they told me to pack because I'd be teleported to my new employers the next day, and here I am." He sighed. "Hmph. Now I won't get to humiliate Norla in front of the whole academy when she gives her speech." Then he perked up and grinned widely. "But it sounds like you two are going to be so much fun that I'll get over it in no time!"
"I'm not sure if I agree with your idea of fun, Trinlen, but if it motivates you to help us more then that's good enough for me." Carlos chuckled again. "Anyway, do you need some time to get settled in? You might need to think about lesson plans for us too. We don't need just catalogues of incantations to learn anymore, at least not for simple ones, but I believe you learned other things in the academy too. You mentioned creating your own spells, as I recall."
Trinlen nodded. "I did mention that, yes. I'm guessing your lack of need for a catalogue is because of your newfound ability to somehow pull entire incantations from thin air? You'll have to at least tell me about the limitations of that so I'll know what I still need to teach you, but yeah, there are other things. For one thing, there's your sloppy terminology! Why does no one outside of the academy care about properly distinguishing between the states of mana? Is it really that hard to understand that calling aether, mana, and essence all by the same term obscures your meaning and often causes confusion? Or are people so stupid that they can't even understand the difference?"
Carlos blinked and exchanged a look with Amber. His comprehension aid informed him about the distinction the instant Trinlen spoke the terms. That would have been nice to know earlier. The comprehension aid is a house secret, so we should let him explain. "At least for us, it's just ignorance. I don't think I've even heard the other two terms you mentioned, and certainly no one ever explained them. So, what is the difference?"
Trinlen paused, cocked his head for a moment, and slowly deflated after his impassioned rant. "Yeah, okay, that's fair. I don't think I ever heard about it before going to the academy either." He sat up straight. "Aether is what you've been calling ambient mana. It's thin like air, and it's everywhere. Its only use is converting it to mana or essence. Mana, using the term with proper precision, is thicker but still fluid like water. It exists primarily in people or creatures and is used as fuel to supply power for spells and magical effects. Essence is hard and solid. It is the material that soul structures are made of, as well as the forms of active spells and enchantments. Am I clear so far?"
Amber answered first. "Yes, I'm familiar with each of the forms you described. I have questions about more details - so many questions - but you should get properly settled in, and maybe eat lunch, before we really get down to it. Have you spoken with Mayor Stelras yet? Do you have lodging sorted out?"
"I went by his office first. He's having someone take my luggage to an inn. The Adventurer's Haven, I think? He said something about a 'low-value target' and having an empty suite already booked." Trinlen's eyes widened. "Waaait a minute. Is he putting me in the room you two were abducted from?"
Carlos shrugged. "Sounds like it."
"Nice! Think there'll be any evidence left of how it was done?"
"Haha! Probably not by this point, but you're welcome to look. Now go get unpacked, eat a meal, and start planning your lessons for us. I'm glad you're here, but we have some other things to do too."
Trinlen nodded and stood up. "Sure. I'll be back before you miss me."
Carlos waved as Trinlen sauntered out the door. He and Amber sat in companionable silence for a while as he felt the mana - or essence? - of Trinlen's soul moving off into the distance. "Well. That was interesting. It's good to have him, but I was expecting a bit more time to think and plan before he'd get here."
"Yeah." Amber stretched and then leaned back into the sofa's cushions, luxuriating in their soft firmness. "So, how much are we going to tell him? How useful will his knowledge even be for us, now that we have, what did you call it, the reference documentation? That bit about the states of mana is good to know, but is it really relevant and important, and how much more can there be that's not in the documentation?"
"Be careful talking about that out loud, remember?" Carlos relaxed and draped his arms across the sofa's back as he focused his mind on their mental bond through Purple, their friendly dungeon core. [On Earth, we made many languages similar to the language of incantations, and we had the reference documentation for all of them. We even published that documentation free for everyone to have. Teachers for those languages were still useful, and even critically important for many people. Having access to knowledge doesn't mean you automatically understand how to properly apply it. There may be related knowledge we have no idea even exists. There could be techniques and patterns for how to use the language that are simply outside the scope of the documentation. Perhaps most importantly, a teacher can use their experience to notice a student's mistakes and correct them before they become problems.]
[Hmm.] Amber bit her lip, thinking. [Like how I knew about making soul structures and synergies between them, but had no idea about the importance of being able to examine and fix them, I suppose.]
Carlos nodded. [Yeah. And that's a really simple example. I know some that are a lot more complex, though I'm not sure how many of them are even applicable for incantations. Inversion of control, dependency injection, factory patterns...] He shook his head. [Just the context knowledge needed to be able to fully understand those could take days or weeks to teach well enough for you to use them. I could maybe explain the basic ideas faster with some simplified analogies, but that would lose so many details that I doubt it would still be useful.]
Amber paused. [... Even my comprehension aid is baffled by the terms you just said. It translated the individual words that you said, but all I got for the phrases is a confusing jumble.] She chuckled. [Anyway, I concede the point. Trinlen will still be able to teach us important and useful things. We still need to decide what secrets to share with him.]
[A lot depends on how good he is at keeping secrets. We don't actually know him all that well yet. He's certainly fun, and he seems clever, but for assessing his integrity we're leaning pretty hard on just a janitor vouching for him.] Carlos frowned in thought. [In order for him to do his job, he needs to know that we can only "pull an entire incantation from thin air" if it's a simple one. He does not need to know the full details of `help`, however, and most certainly does not need to learn to use it himself. That secret is a very sensitive one, where even just letting too much knowledge of it spread would lose us a major advantage.]
[Definitely. No casting `help` where he can hear it, and don't say anything about it that's not directly relevant for his teaching, either. Not until he's earned our full trust.] Amber lapsed into silent consideration. [We should introduce him to Purple. We'll kind of have to at some point anyway, and the really valuable thing there is Purple himself, not just the knowledge of his existence.]
Carlos nodded. [True. I think that probably is the least sensitive of our house secrets, and being able to call him through a bond with Purple would be useful.] He chuckled. [And maybe his cleverness will end up producing some good ideas for Purple to use. See if he can find a more productive outlet than pranks for his creativity. And then... If he keeps that secret well enough for long enough, we can consider trusting him with more secrets.]
Amber sent back wordless agreement.
Carlos started sitting up, lifting himself out of the comfortable cushions. "Well, we should get some food ourselves, too. And maybe introduce Trinlen to everyone else along with Purple." He stood up and spotted a letter he'd set aside when Trinlen arrived. "Oh yeah, and what do you think we should do about Kindar?"
"Wait, what's this about Kindar?"
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Comments
Jesse Wood
Sounds like aether, mana, and essence are just the three states of mana.
David Ellis
"Wait, what's this about Kindar?" "I hear he sells a lot of chocolate around this time of the year."
ReadingObsessed
R/ItRunsDoom is gold. Seeing smart fridges running it.
13L00D13ANE
No no no, we still havent gotten an answer...
Maurice Brown
That would be the most terrifying scenario for a dungeon.
Maurice Brown
Oh god, I’m dealing with a teenager right now who is like that.
Connor Mcharg
Y’know, I think it might work better if they tell Trinlen (most of) the truth about `help` - they've found a way streamline discovering spell words, so once they knew the sightgate keyword existed, they could find it and drop it into a basic activator spell. It’s not a lie, just a basic “house secret” kind of statement, and lets Trinlen know exactly what parts of that process they still need help with.
ParadoxFox
No, I’m 27. Their mannerisms just felt like those of someone younger. I think it has to do with the way they interact with authority figures, it never feels they’re being treated like adults, just precocious children. Like right now, Amber and Carlos don’t really have many interactions with peers. It’s either people with vastly more or less power than them. It also doesn’t help that they are somewhat clueless about some aspects of progression and politics. The only peer we saw was the other noble girl and she just acted like a bratty teenager. Finally, the other adventures and mercenaries also talk about spoiled noble children, and lumped Carlos and Amber together with them in those discussions. I think all of those factors cemented this impression of youth.
NethanielShade
Genuinely curious, do not mean to be insulting by saying this in any way, but; What makes you say that? Are you 15 yourself and just projecting your age on the characters, or was it how they acted in some way? I’m 24 and I definitely saw Carlos as my age, so I, for one, am guilty of it lol
Crim2582
Carlos and Amber will need to set some boundaries for public behavior in order to fit in with certain expectations on the behavior of nobility. It is likely that their fairness and sense of justice will earn them the respect of the people under their rule. I wonder at what point Carlos will have to reconsider his seemingly gentle nature and face the difficult truth that rulers must sometimes be ruthless or their people will suffer because of the indirect consequences of their mercy.
Markell
To be fair, we’re looking at this from our perspective. If you can come back from dying I think I would also develop a bit of complacency because “what's the worst that could happen?”
Brandon C
I didn’t think about the examiner checking on their soul structure, but you are right. I was thinking about how Purple used Carlos and Amber’s own Comprehension Aid to translate what people were saying before he made own of his own. Yes Carlos did put in a lot of effort to make a plan, but it was not perfect. Without the introspector, they would have been just trying out to fix synergies in the dark under an unknown time limit (1 and a half days).
Douglas Miller
If they were the type to get offended by Trinlen's attitude, it would have happened when they first met him back in the academy. Or, more likely, they would have been less polite to Mallern, and he wouldn't have even introduced them. You're completely right, no argument there, I'm just pointing out that the issue has already come up, and that Trinlen has good reason at this point to *expect* that Carlos and Amber won't mind.
Douglas Miller
Also classic young person feelings of invincibility.
ParadoxFox
To be honest, I thought Carlos and Amber were like 15
Josh
> Is it really that hard to understand that calling aether, mana, and essence all by the same term obscures your meaning and often causes confusion? Or are people so stupid that they can't even understand the difference?" It's a good thing that Trinlen wound up with a couple of nobles who don't get insulted easily. I get the impression some of the other nobles might not receive a comment like this as well as Carlos did.
Josh
A soul structure for a "remote debugging interface" seems potentially feasible, given that the person who examined them had specialized structures for doing so. And the introspector seems so useful that adding another structure or to specifically designed to work well with it seems like a good idea. But before they do any of that, they should be understanding synergies for second level soul structures in detail, so that they can understand what properties those structures need to have. Carlos put a huge amount of effort into designing a plan with a full set of synergies for the first time around.
viperfan7
With all the links purple is forming, I wouldn't be surprised to see more of purple
Markell
Agreed, I’d like to see more of Purple to be honest. I prefer the “backpack companion” instead of the “forgotten at the back of the cupboard” vibes we got going here.
TeFiLeDo
Oh, then I'm sorry for the repetition 😅
ForNatureOfPredatorsStories4837
This talk about different types of mana has got me thinking, IMAO, Carlos should make a soul structure which purpose is to give Carlos “the ability to turn “essence” (the super stable mana that the soul and soul structures are made of) into “mana” (the stuff you use to cast spells)” and a second structure which purpose is “to store and hold “essence” in as compact of a way as posssible” (basically, a soul battery), because IMAO, Carlos’s biggest problem rn (with his soul build atleast (not political, people or other more abstract problems)) is his lack of mana capacity, which limits the types and powers of his spells, Ohh, and as I said in a previous chapters comment, Carlos also needs a structure that gives him “the ability to invert (his own soul structures and spells, and the spells and enchantments of other people, and maybe also eventually the functions of other peoples souls)”, edit: actually, after thinking about it more, Carlos could probably get the “debugger” to turn “essence” into “mana” by making that the synergy between the “debugger” and “”soul battery””, so he’d only need the battery
Elain C. Moria
Ahh that's right. My bad. I def got them confused.
Pheonixarcher
I will find it hilarious if they eventually show the mage 'Help' and he says, "Holy shit you guys found that?! I found that my freshmen year and its how I managed to get through all my classes."
Douglas Miller
You're conflating Lord Merchant Darmelkon with Enchanter Tornay. Darmelkon is a merchant and businessman, and not an enchanter. He just happened to end up working together with an enchanter early in the story.
Douglas Miller
You are at least the 5th person to ask whether this story's magic can run Doom.🤣
viperfan7
Oh Trinlen is gonna love Purple isn't he. Although I feel like Purple is being treated like an object :( Purple doesn't seem to mind though
Elain C. Moria
Hmm so in the last chapter of the previous book we discovered that the royal guards enchantments had some issues. House whatzit tried to kill our hero's and now that enchanter wants his son (kindar is his son right?) to become a noble... If I were Carlos, I'd refuse that enchanters request until the enchanters guild gets properly shook out of the rats nested within it, and house dumbass gets mud stomped by Carlos. Of course, if I were writing (and I suck at it so I won't be lol), I'd sucker kindar with some real crappy and useless soul structures that on their face value look good, but in reality are just crap. But i'm more evil than you are. Now.. as for house arrogance and the spoiled brat daughter.... I think Carlos should just systematically kill them all, repeatedly, in an automated murder box... for the rest of eternity. Again, I'm more evil than you are so... Finally... Purple def needs to be uplifted to an orichalcum soul plan sooner rather than later cause House Carlos is def gonna be needing a real strong dungeon core to help defend his home. I also think miss investigator should get some help with soul structures. Maybe not to royal status, but stuff that will help her with what she does best. And finally... Carlos and Amber need a deceptively "cute" pet that can chew the ass off of a God. Just for the fun of the occasional "BRUTUS!!!! Put the shop keep down... gently!" XD
Dan Chadwick
Wouldn't that be awesome?! VR-IRL
Brandon C
IMHO, they should do that for Kindar, but not yet. Carlos needs practice with his second stage. With the son, he’s not going to have a second chance to fix any problems, unless Carlos is planning to give him an introspector and debugger too. (Which I doubt since that will make Carlos responsible for him). Or Carlos makes a soul structure to let him interface into someone else’s soul structure.
Maurice Brown
Now I’m wondering about just how powerful he’d be with machine language access…
Markell
Trinlen is wayyy too comfortable with the idea of being employed by nobles who have actively been targeted. A classic blend of being given a brain large enough to know it what it means, but not the head to hold the wisdom of it.
TeFiLeDo
Now that I'm thinking about it, can the magic system run Doom?
TeFiLeDo
> Inversion of control, dependency injection, factory patterns... Spells casting spells? One could build a computer out of that. Yes, I know that there is already some kind of computer running the spells. I'm talking about a general purpose computer like we have.
Red Panda
Tyftc
