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

[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?"

[mage_see_mage_do]

"Mostly 'people with magic exist' the presence of magic and how it is used can give some properties to some materials or species," Temps explains "but the effects aren't that noticeable, in my world they influence when mages want to enchant a magical item, and also had some effects on mages themselves, we are more likely to have twins and have very slightly better health, the last one is also a side effect of personal or Trader magic fixing genetic problems, I don't think it would affect mages from newly seeded worlds."

[unblinkered]

Max takes some of this down.

"Right, but- you said its presence 'gives properties to some materials or species'- that's the kind of thing I'm wondering about, if... let's say, some magic requires an eye of newt, does it... automatically bestow magical usefulness on all newt eyes when it enters a universe? What I'm asking is... does magic cause any global changes to how things work, to accommodate itself, or does it need to... touch things?"

He's not sure he's getting through.

"What I mean is... if I accept your deal, and 'get magic', and then walk back through that door... will anything about my world change, aside from the presence of my magic?"

[mage_see_mage_do]

"Being technical?" Temperance says "Yes, but it is a deal of... the best analogy I can think is like adding a drop of poison makes the ocean very slightly more poisonous."

Temperance pauses and thinks.

"Back at my Earth," Temperance continues "the laws of physics are fundamentally the same, magic doesn't change them. The effects of magic are layered over the normal laws, or are another aspect of it, depending on how you look. That all said, in my world, where magic has existed for thousands of years with hundreds of thousands of mages around there was nearly no noticeable effect to non-mages. We compared science between the two worlds and it all matches. We compared science with books from other seeded worlds, there aren't that many in contact with Bar, but the strongest effect was a good portion of plants having some magic property by themselves. Likely, your world will get the anti-magic affinity that iron has, which seems to be a common trend in all seeded worlds. The changing effects are stronger where magic happened, but can be universal without the magic touching."

Temperance shrugs.

"It is not something to worry in the next century," Temperance says "very likely, not something to worry for the next millennia" She pauses and thinks "I remember hearing that it could be possible to do massive changes in a century, but that was in the context of ten thousands of mages working in the specific project daily and might had been an exaggeration, heard it in a party. If you are going to worry about the laws of physics changing because of yourself, you should worry about that drop in the ocean too."

[unblinkered]

Max adds a "risks" header to his document.

"So, we're back to... the thing where I'm supposed to trust someone I've just met to perform a lengthy magical process that I don't know anything about, such that I couldn't possibly identify whether or not you were doing something less generous. Any idea how to address that?"

[mage_see_mage_do]

"Huh, You would be very convenient if you accepted," Temperance said "but we also would need to make a few... tests to see if you aren't a completely horrible person that will try enslaving making kind after developing some destructive or manipulative power. We also need to address that. Answering your question... I think Security would intervene if people start doing nefarious things, but I don't know if they can sense magic related attacks... Bar?"

A napkin appears with the words: The current Security can sense magic and can tell if it is used for malicious purposes. She has sleep and dream related magic and she can react within seconds and make you fall asleep immediately, she can also make you sleepwalk out of the door. The door's choices aren't perfect and hard to understand, but it does prefers patrons that can be contained before causing too much havoc.

"So when you said that she was asleep but still could protect us..." Temperance shrugs and turns to Max "Okay, I suppose now you have to decide if you trust the Bar. I don't mind that you are suspicious, at least it shows that you can take things seriously. Also, Magic is sort invisible. I mean you can perceive the effects, but if you are a mage you could sense it actually floating around the things it is affecting."

[unblinkered]

Max shuts his laptop and returns it to its bag.

"Decide if I trust the bar? Now... that's a question, isn't it? I didn't have a choice but to trust it, until now- I didn't have any kind of decision to make based on whether or not it was telling the truth."

He backs up, towards the door.

"Now I come back for the first time, and the very first thing that happens is you try to rope me into this, saying I can use the bar for protection. It established itself as a neutral party, that's what... that's what it was doing, before."

[mage_see_mage_do]

Temps did not expect such strong reaction, it is a little sad, the lost opportunity.

"I don't know what to tell you," Temperance says sadly "but I understand the... wait, a minute, how do you explain the book? The one about Faster-than-light travel?"

[unblinkered]

He halts. "Just to sucker me in, probably. I don't doubt it can really hand out things like that, I just doubt its purpose in doing so. If its purpose is to lull me into a false sense of security so that I allow one of its co-conspirators to cast some time-consuming spell on me without resistance, giving gifts is completely in accordance with that."

A napkin indignantly denying Max's accusations goes ignored on the countertop.

[mage_see_mage_do]

"I assumed you had somehow verified if it was useful," Temperance says.

She gives up on Max, and then starts thinking really fast.

"Okay, I don't think I can convince you of my good intentions," Temperance says "I would ask you to give the book to the people outside the door. I might have robbed your world of potentially good knowledge and technology..." she pauses "I honestly don't know if I should make cryptic references to magical consequences if you don't do it, but that defeats the purpose of trustworthiness... and I suppose you could just interpret that as cryptic reference already. Damn."

Temperance hates paranoia.

[unblinkered]

"I'm not giving away the book. I-"

He stops.

"Hold it. The people outside the door? What peo- the ones I- if the door was already open, then... you already...?"

[mage_see_mage_do]

"Breath" Temperance says "Under your logic, the book is either useless... or maybe the supposed conspiracy is powerful enough that it can hand space travel as a gift to earn trust," Temps shrugs "We already infused two people in your world, they are leaving and you managed to pass through the door. I thought I at least hinted to it?"