Despite the dark atmosphere

[curiousdiscoverer]

They are in a derelict warehouse, the owner was quite happy to rent the place, it was easy to see why, it took all day to clean the floor and create a space to properly write the spell circle.

Despite the dark atmosphere, their purpose was far from evil.

Franklyn observed Ada draw the circle, while Maeghan read a book, using her cloudpine to support herself more comfortably. Maeghan looked bored, but Franklyn knew she really wanted this to work more than she was letting on.

Because if this worked, Franklyn would have magic, actual personal magic, the first male witch in this world.

Actually, the second male witch in this world, since this spell was meant to bring a male witch from another world so they could do another spell to copy them.

When Ada completes the last line of herbs in the cycle, Franklyn helps her memorizing the spell’s verse.

“Nothing will go wrong,” Maeghan assures Franklyn when Ada starts speaking the spell...

Comments

[of_all_trades]

That question really confuses them.

"Er... Spark means soul?" Franklyn asks "every person..."

"Except bears," Ada says from her position in the back.

"Except bears has a daemon," Franklyn says waving at his own Zara and the dog "I don't really know how it wasn't a dog before, or some other animal. Do you have any idea why yours is so injured?"

[between_worlds]

"A spark and a soul are almost the same. My spark is damaged and I doubt you can heal souls."

[of_all_trades]

"That could explain it," Franklyn says "as far I can explain nonbear people without daemons. I am not sure if there is soul-healing magic, albeit one of our half-sisters might know she is obsessed with-"

"DON'T TOUCH OTHER PEOPLE'S DAEMONS!" Shouts Ada and her own daemon suddenly.

The three locals go very, very still.

"Yes, Yambe Akka be merciful," Franklyn says "that is a very bad idea... don't let anyone touch yours either."

[intricate_engineer]

"Why not?"

[of_all_trades]

"It feels really, really horrible," Franklyn says "I never experienced myself, but it feels like the person is in... every part of yourself and you can't escape it."

"It is considered worst than murder," Ada says.

"Yeah," Franklyn says "for the sake of completeness: If you really love the person, it isn't awful, but most people never try."

[intricate_engineer]

"So you pulled us here by accident and now our souls are animals?" Glen says, "I'm sorry, but I'm not sure we can help you."

[of_all_trades]

"Oh, that hope flew out of the window, crashed into a car and..." Ada started saying.

"Anyway," Franklyn says "yeah, you can't help us and... we were planning to bring more herbs, but we lost some while flying over here. I don't think we have enough to send both of you home and it might be better to poke the Alethiometer for facts before sending you anyway."

Franklyn looks at Maeghan, some quick communication happens.

"We are really sorry for what happened," Franklyn says "but I don't think we can return you before tomorrow morning at earliest. You guys can crash with us tonight..."

[between_worlds]

"We can get home ourselves, you actually caught us when we were traveling. I'm not sure it would be a good idea to leave until we know more about Rove and Echo."

[of_all_trades]

"Wait... Seriously?" Franklyn asks "and how many favors I should try to pull out of my sisters so you could take us on a trip to another universe?"

[between_worlds]

"I'd be happy to take you, but I'm not sure what would happen to your daemons."

[of_all_trades]

"How it works?" Franklyn asks "If you two aren't witches? Actually I still want to figure out why the spell caught you two, hold on a second..."

Franklyn fiddles with the Alethiometer again.

"We should explain more about Daemons to them," Ada says "I have no idea where to start."

Franklyn ignores Ada. He rubs his forehead after finishing fiddling and stares at Alex.

"So... are you extremely immortal?" He asks.

[between_worlds]

"I am, but Glen's not."

[of_all_trades]

"Okay..." Franklyn says still rubbing his forehead "I know we pretty much kidnapped you and changed the nature of your souls... but how that happened? I am not sure how different your world is and I am guessing it is outside the Alethiometer's range"

[intricate_engineer]

"What's the Alethiometer?"

[of_all_trades]

"It's a device that answers questions with objective truth," Franklyn says pointing at it with his free hand "with the downside that it only speaks a cryptic language composed of 36 symbols that are a pain to decipher."

[intricate_engineer]

"Who made it?"

[of_all_trades]

"No one knows," Franklyn says "The creator managed to hid his own identity. After trying several variant questions with mine, it confirmed the known story that it was a male mortal metaphysical scientist from at least three centuries ago. It also doesn't answer anything about how to create new ones, much less how to make the design more user-friendly."

[intricate_engineer]

"That's too bad. Any chance I could look at it?"

[between_worlds]

"Glen," Alex says, a warning in his voice.

[of_all_trades]

"Not this one. It was a pain to get access to it," Franklyn says "they are know to be repairable to a degree... Actually, take a step back. How are you immortal?" That was answered to Alex "and how you can travel between worlds? It is likely to improve your chances to understand how Alethiometers work?"

[between_worlds]

"It's a blessing or curse depending on how you look at it, from a very powerful being I know. The organization I work for has developed technology to travel between worlds, Glen was a large part of that."

[of_all_trades]

"Wait... you are sci-fi or something?"

[intricate_engineer]

Glen grins, "I guess so! You seem to be from a fantasy novel."

[of_all_trades]

"Why would we be a fantasy novel?" Ada - the immortal witch with a magical soul bird - asks.

"To be fair I just compared them with science fiction," Franklyn says with a matching grin "That is so cool. One of my future plan was learning how to integrate witchcraft and technology better. It would take forever, but that is how much I want to have anyway. What else your technology can do?"

[intricate_engineer]

"A bunch of different things. We can keep people alive for several hundreds years and cure most diseases. I don't know much about the medical stuff though. We have extremely advanced computer stimulations, though no successful AIs. We're starting to really understand how the universe works," Glen grins ,"What it's made of, why parallel ones exist, why there are so many worlds with humans."