Power Without a Price

[curiousdiscoverer]

The first time Ezra finds Milliways he spends most of the experience overwhelmed by psychic sensory overload. Postcognition doesn’t really mix well with inter-dimensional nexus.

However when he walks out and tells about the experience, the true nature of the place is eventually revealed, furthermore he discovers that the Traders are very interested in using the unique location to seed magic to other worlds and they pay very generously for it. So Ezra’s family all hear about the story and stay in the look out for another door, just in case.

Years pass, and Ezra’s family gets a little smaller, and starting wishing for a door to show up.

Because resurrection is possible, but expensive and bringing three people back is impossibly costly without extreme circumstances.

So Ezra feels extremely lucky the day he finally finds a door again, with family in his apartment where they wait behind after Ezra grabs a few things while Temps holds the door.

He is now in better control of his powers and Milliways massive history doesn’t overload him anymore.

Ezra looks around the bar, sits on a table with a nice view and observes.

Is anyone here that could want and deserve magic?

Comments

[unblinkered]

Max is carrying his copy of Interstellar Physics: History, Principles, and Engineering, vol. 1-6 (Omnibus Edition), by habit, as he walks through the front door of Brenda's. It has been a week or so since he left Milliways, and he's since been studying advanced physics in hopes of understanding the thing.

A pair of people, whispering to each other, push past him as he heads inside- and before they can turn and... apologize, Max assumes, although they sounded more frantic than that- the door swings shut.

And, unceremoniously, he finds himself in that non-Brenda's location. Its claims that he might find a door again have, it seems, been confirmed. And... it's the same door as last time, which he finds suspicious, but...

Milliways has a different person in it this time.

[mage_see_mage_do]

This person is a nineteen year old sitting in a stool eating a sandwich she watched Max walk in and has a quizzical expression.

"Did you just walked pass two people while you walked in?" Temps says "I don't think the door can open to two different worlds at same time, not like that at least, not normally."

A napkin appears

The door is working normally, he just managed to walk in while the other two are leaving.

"Well, that explains it," Temps says after reading the napkin "Hello, have you been here before?"

[unblinkered]

"I- what? This..."

He looks around, taking in the bizarre view from the front window again. There's a part of him saying "so it wasn't a dream!" which is being berated by the parts of him that already knew full well it wasn't a dream. Exploding stars... and, uh, right, someone's talking to him.

"Uh, yeah. Been here before. Weird place."

[mage_see_mage_do]

"The weirdest!" Temps says brightly "full of interesting people."

The place is, in fact, empty besides the two.

"Most of the time at least," Temps says looking around "Are you an interesting person? I know I am."

[unblinkered]

"I would describe myself as more 'interested' than 'interesting', actually. I'm a substitute teacher. And, judging by how the people I've met here so far have been an omniscient talking bar, a pokémon trainer, and an elf... I'm probably at best 30th percentile as interesting people go."

A napkin appears, issuing a gentle correction on the subject of omniscience, which Max ignores.

[mage_see_mage_do]

"You can add magical girl with power copying to your list," Temps says taking a bite of her sandwich "I do admit you are interesting by association alone, whatever a Pokemon is."

A napkin explains pokemon.

"Ah, cool," Temps says after reading, she turns to Max "What are you interested in? I am Temperance by the way, call me Temps. Power copying magical girl at your service."

[unblinkered]

"Power- magic- inter- at my service? What do you want?"

Max eyes her suspiciously. Direct, and... he can't make assumptions about how she'll take anything he says, yet. She might be like that elf, where some innocuous part of speech could have unusual connotations. And... this one's magic, unless that's also some strange idiom.

[mage_see_mage_do]

"I... was just trying to talk," Temperance says slowly "Sorry, I met the people that just left the bar and as far I could tell we all come from similar Earths, including languages, I wasn't pledging some sort of endless servitude to you. It was a joke. Also, I assumed that since you are familiar with Milliways and elves you would know about magic being a thing."

To illustrate the point of magic being a thing, she takes a flower from a nearby vase and the flower starts to grow, doubling in size.

[unblinkered]

Max takes a deep breath, apparently greatly affronted by the casual disrespect just suffered by the laws of physics. The... suggestions of physics. But it's not, he reasons, a kind of violation he needs to be specifically concerned about right now.

"So... your magic lets you make things grow. That's what you do?"

He offers no attempt at conciliation. His posture is tense as he draws himself up onto a barstool.

[mage_see_mage_do]

"Dude, are you alright?" Temps asks "and my power is that I copy others magical powers, at least from mages from my world. One at time, I am copying the ability to change plants now."

When he is closer Temps can't help but look at the book cover " Interstellar physics? Is that book for real?"

[unblinkered]

"...I got it from the bar. She does books. I am going to use it," he adds, "to get stupendously rich. And, to advance the edifice of human knowledge, because... win-win."

He thumps the book down on the counter. S'heavy.

"Others' magical powers? As in, more than one?"

[mage_see_mage_do]

Temps looks at the book for a moment, but looks up at Max.

"Yes, more than one," Temperance says "it would be shitty if power copying was the only available. Changing plants is the only showing we have around in the moment, my half-brothers are here too, but they don't have visible abilities. Franklyn copies skills from the people around him, no personal knowledge. Ezra can heal minds and sense the past, he can even show it to people, but Milliways have so much past that it is dangerous to use here. Also, if you don't want to say your name, at least give me a better term than just you."

[unblinkered]

"You didn't ask." he replies. "I'm Max. And- hold on. Copies- heal minds- sense- the..."

There's two questions fighting for space in Max's mouth. First, sense the past, what that means and how it works seems extremely important, especially given the bar's alleged lack of knowledge as to its origins...

But the one he settles on is: "What's the... common thread, here? Are they all part of a... magic system, or does your world just independently allow for... all of those... what are the rules?"

[mage_see_mage_do]

"It is polite to offer your own name during conversation," Temps can't decide if Max is nervous or has a speech problem, or both.

"Ah, the rules are a bit complicated to explain all at once," Temperance says "the most important ones is that people with magic, what I call mages, always have the ability to sense magic and at least one other power."

Temps sips from a glass of water.

"A mage gets powers depending on a few factors, skills, personality and heredity," Temps continues "the last one means that your powers are influenced by the powers of your family,ancestors or the mages that gave you power, I will explain that in a minute. Using a power costs a energy we call mana. Side note: I using my preferred terms, but back home people have all sort of different names like witches, psychics, gifted, post-humans, etc. It only got worse after magic went public. Anyway, one can be born a mage like me, or one can be infused with magic. The popular process needs two or three mages who expend twelve hour sending purified mana to the mage candidate."

Temperance can't help but feel very curious about Max reaction to that.

[unblinkered]

Max has opened his laptop, and has begun taking notes in a Word document. Various headings and disorganized lines read:

• 'sense' universal - chk sense description, what information sense prov.s


• source unspec. - skills (mem.? musc. mem? talents?), personality (what mapping? what evaluation? mbti analogue | single-factor temperament?), heredity (genetic? how ubiq. is ATCG dna?


• NVM, source specified- power acq. from other mages, bestowed somehow (vector?)


• all magic uses 'mana' resource, mana source + costs + transaction procedure unspec.. +mana has purity levels?? characteristics of 'impure' mana unspec.


• magic recent development in home world, possible non-native (milliways as vector?)


• heritable + transferable, heritability -> genetic expression, does transfer alter ATCG/equiv.?)

Max jots down several questions, but the most pressing, he decides, is...

"Spells. That's what I... this is all answering 'what', but no how or why... powers, you can... control plants, change minds, see through time... those are all, they're, completely different sorts of things! Why would they- how can they all run on the same 'mana', and follow these same rules?"

[mage_see_mage_do]

Temps almost reads the Word document, but stops herself before Max starts typing.

"Using the term spell is sort of unpopular even among the most superstitious mages," Temps says "I honestly don't know how it works, people are trying to figure it out back home. The best explanation I can offer is that individual mage powers are like mechanisms that change mana so it has the observed effects, there is extensive research to reverse-engineer magic powers with different levels of success. The advances in science are estimated to be about twenty years ahead of your world, but most isn't public knowledge."

[unblinkered]

Max types some shorthand approximating this new information into his document, then stares at the screen for a bit.

"So... how long has magic existed, in your world? If people are working on figuring it out, how long have they been trying?"

[mage_see_mage_do]

"5 to 10 thousand years," Temps answers "but it was very isolated and people weren't initially aware of all it's properties, like the ability to infuse new mages, not to mention superstition. The current mage population is just shy of a million. I can't tell you much about earlier efforts, but serious scientific research with people who are actual scientists only started 10 to 15 years ago. Keep in mind that the general public knowledge only started less than two years ago, before that most people who knew about magic are more interested in hiding it instead of publish academic studies in magic."

Temps eyes Max head to toe.

"Don't take this the wrong way," Temps says "but why are you curious about figuring out magic? Want to see if you can become rich slash edifice of human knowledge with it?"

[unblinkered]

"There's two kinds of unknowns. There's the kind of unknown where other people don't know the thing, and there's the kind of unknown where I don't know the thing. This book represents the second thing, which is the thing I care about. Magic appears to be both things, and..."

He taps at his keyboard for a bit.

"...ten to fifteen years of academic research, and 'other people' don't know yet. And..."

He consults his notes, briefly.

"...it works here, in this bar. The plant. So... the question is, is magic something that works in all universes, or is the source of its power limited to your world, and that it works here is another one of the bar's inexplicable conveniences?"

[mage_see_mage_do]

"A curious one, got it. My kind of magic isn't original to my world," Temperance says "It was seeded there by a Trader... a powerful mage from another dimension and the practice of seeding worlds with it is common enough that at least hundred of universes have it and works alright in all worlds, I couldn't begin to tell you how, but the source of magic seems somehow unified. I do agree that the Bar is convenient."

Temperance starts petting the bar "Who is the inexplicable convenience? you are! yes, you are!" she says in a mocking tone. Temps turns to Max again.

"If anyone anywhere has figured out magic they didn't publish a book that the bar could provide us," Temperance continues "there are books with practical details about magic, but I don't think they are the kind of unknown you are interested in, they are pretty useless if you don't have magic in your world," she thinks for a moment "my half-brothers might know more than I do but not much, Franklyn could tell you about the underlying physical principles on how some powers work."

[unblinkered]

"The bar is, a, um, person," Max adds, in response to Temperance's... joke? "And... if there are already people working on it... multiple worlds..."

He pores over his notes for a moment, confirming the situation. "You've implied... that I can have magic, then. What's the catch?"

[mage_see_mage_do]

Temperance quietly decides to be more serious around this guy and is already dreading what will happen when he and Franklyn start to talk, even if it turns out hilarious.

"Unless you are a very convincing non-person android, yes, you can have magic," Temperance says "There isn't really a catch... It could be hard to control the powers in the first six months but it is easy to manage without risking serious injury. If you want a sort of catch: the two or three mages that will do the process need motivation to do it, because it takes twelve hours and it is tiring and the mages will need at least a couple of days before you can do it again."

Temperance isn't trying to be pause dramatically, but she does sip from her water glass again, it is funny how the conversation in this bar tend to have one side talking for a long period.

"I do have some motivation to give you powers," Temps says with a grinning smile.

[unblinkered]

Max frowns. "You'd need to have that, yes. You want... to have me sit there for twelve hours, while you and some friends weave complicated enchantments around someone you've just met, out of the goodness of your heart? Your motivation would be pretty important, I think."

[mage_see_mage_do]

"Resurrection," Temps says at once "There is this sort of interdimensional magic trading network, created by a being that wanted to preserve magic and figured out that it is hard to destroy something in multiple universes, so Traders are always looking to seed universes with magic, which is easier said than done, so they give 'magic credit'" these last two words are accompanied with air quotes "to people that managed it, we have enough that we can resurrect three at a heavy cost, but with one more we can resurrect three for free. Which doesn't mean you already in, but you see the motivation."

[unblinkered]

Max stares, pauses, and then turns and jots down more information. Magic that... cares about what universe it's in, it's got to be, these terms of "seeding"... a network...

He hears the part about resurrection, and flags it as important, but foremost in his mind is his uncertainty...

"What does it mean that a universe is 'seeded' with magic? Anything more than 'people with magic exist in it'? Some way the universe is altered, by having magic in it?"