ic E-Magic (IC)

[ChrisClark13]

Saturday, March 16, 2013
2:13 AM
 
"... I believe that is all the questions I will answer for now. I thank you for listening, this has been Etain Maher, next session I will get more in deph about the creatures I have mentioned before. Goodbye until then."
 
Curtis leaned back on his seat as the recording finished, looking up at the ceiling murmuring to himself after just having been sidetracked from his research into fellow local magical superheros and whatnot by her blog. "Should I contact her or should I not... oh come on... you're a superhero, and superheros don't not do things. Besides you should make friends in the magical community sooner or later."

 

He logged in to his email account and started writing an email.

 

From: cwright42@usnet.com

Subject: I do magic too

 

Dear Etain Maher,

 

Hey, my name is Curtis Wright and I do magic too. I have arcane talent I've inherited from my grandfather and a magic book he left me. It's mostly a very complex style of rune magic  and I've been able to make very complex spells with it due to my already existing expertise in programming and computer science. (You'd be surprised at how similar programming and some styles of magic are.) Though my grandfather might have had other magic books lying around with details on verbal and somatic casting. Still haven't figured those out so I'm limited to whatever spells I make before I head out.

 

I just thought you might like to know about other magic users in the city, since you're putting yourself out there for the world to see on your blog and on your podcast.

 

I think as for the type of magic I use, it's technically not technomancy (not yet anyways, haven't figured it out) and I think of myself as more of an artificer, or perhaps a "program-o-mancer."

 

Regards,

Curtis Wright.

[Aoiroo]

7:24 AM Sunday March 16

 

Eve was still sleeping when Etain got out of the shower, she ran a brush Crow had provided with a warming charm that dried her rather long hair as she ran it through a couple of times. It wasn't practical for consumer use, since a little tampering could turn a warming charm into a fire charm, but it did make the process much easier especially since she was rather iffy about handling hairdryers and how dangerously close they get to burning her ears every time someone else tries does so for her. She booted up her laptop while she braided her hair and pulled up the emails, some junk, an invite from Victoria to some new game beta she was trying out, updates for steam, and huh, an email. She looked at the title for a little bit before opening it. After one or two readthroughs she set down and started a reply,

 

Hello Curtis Wright,

 

I am not actually surprised, programming as I have come to understand is a complex system of syllables and numbers put in a certain order to create a desired effect and is rather similiar to runecraft as you seem to have found out since runecraft is the proper term for what your doing, and artificier would be what you would be called.

 

Anyway, yes, I do like to know about other magic users in the city, it is excellant for cataloging and learning more about different magics. I know someone who uses runecraft as well, but the way you are describing sounds much more complex in structure. Which a lot of runecraft is, the person I know is less about the theory, more about field testing different combinations, I do not suggest this method unless your home is immune to frequent fires, minature lightning storms, gail force winds, and suddenly being hoisted into other dimensions. I do not say such things in jest, having a very durable dimensionally anchored house is highly recommended for field testing rooms to find the combinations.

 

Those books on verbal casting are interesting, though you not being able to figure them out may just be you do not have much talent for those particular type of magics, which is not surprising as few practioners are actually adept in more then one or two forms of magic (though I have met some who are, one of them is a public practioner by the name of Siobhan Drake, she also teaches college level theology classes). You seem somewhat new to this then, is there anything in particular you would like to ask me?

 

-Etain Maher

Edited March 19, 2013 by Aoiroo

[ChrisClark13]

Sunday, March 16, 2013

11:27 AM

 

Curtis rolled out of bed and went over to his computer, still in his pajamas after a long night of patrolling the streets. He had been busy stopping and hopefully dissuading crime mostly since he didn't run into as many crimes as he thought he would. He did stop a couple by just standing there and aheming loudly with his MagiBlade out though. Not many punks want to pick a fight with roughly three to four feet of shimmering magical energy in the shape of a blade, well actually a lot of the punks he does run into don't seem to care until they're knocked on their butts. Though today he was taking the whole day off for himself, no crime fighting tonight, nope.

 

Anyways as he logged in a plugin popped up in the corner of the screen telling him what emails had arrived in his inbox while he had been out. Local deals, 20% off on select games till Saturday, come in to work early,- oh Etain had replied to him already, he pulled up the email and read it.

 

Huh, interesting. Better send a reply so I don't forget about it.

 

 

Dear Etain Maher,

 

Interested that you say you're not surprised, I was actually surprised myself that I found runecraft so easy when I got into it. A lot of my grandfather's notes were in Latin so I actually had to learn that first in order to decipher his notes. And runecraft is something the average freelance programmer actually wouldn't get without a deep understanding of how computers work from the ground up. Honestly I found it more complex than building a computer from scratch probably would have been since there's so many different runes you can combine in many different ways. (Don't get me started on how weird you can make the conditionals with it.)

 

I personally haven't been one to try and create my own runes since there's a few I still haven't made heads or tails of in the back of my grandfather's book. I think one of them has to do with summoning? I'm not sure.

 

About the verbal casting, I actually don't have any books on it. All I have is the book my grandfather left me and his notes which were stuffed inbetween the pages of it. I'm pretty sure I could learn other types of magic if I put my mind to it, though I'd probably just stick to things that easily define what you want to do with words or motions or something. I'll remember your advice about testing new spells in your own home since I'm not found of getting kicked out of my apartment.

 

Regards,

Curtis Wright

[Aoiroo]

11:46 AM

The tone of arrival of the new message vibrated in Etain's skirt as she sat down on the plastic chair while she waited in the neatly kept backyard for the party to begin. She wasn't set to perform for about an hour so she didn't hesitate to check. After a quick read through she removed her gloves and pulled up the screen's keypad to reply.

Curtis Wright,

You learn not to be surprised by much when dealing with matters involving magic. Lots of more mundane practices lend themselves to magical theory, like butchering meat which can alternately be used as a form of divination.

Anyway learning Latin is exceptionally practical for the study of magic. I am fluent myself. Now the things you do not yet understand, well I suggest you leave those be until you can find someone who does. Especially in case of the summoning magic, since simply because someone summons something does not mean it will abide to your will. As for you apartment, I think you may want to find a more secluded locations for any practical testing. I would suggest you make a warded room but that would likely involve carving symbols into the woodwork as a base and you would likely not get your deposit back.

-Etain Maher

[ChrisClark13]

2:09 PM

 

Curtis sat back down at his computer after going out and eating lunch. So far today had actually been quite boring compared to well, every single other day of the week. Maybe he could go out in costume just for funzies? Maybe find a good place to test magic like Etain had said, this apartment was definitely not going to hold up for testing things like say, exploding runes or fireball spells. Maybe an immobilizing spell? He sipped on a straw as he drank the last of his root beer up.

 

Etian Maher,

 

I've been thinking about what you said earlier, and I think my apartment will be fine for testing out spells as long as I stay away from anything that explodes. I been more playing around with a rune that creates pseudo-real matter, and making a magical particle engine of sorts. (A particle engine is something that simulates particles in a system. Games and movies use them a lot to simulate things like a fire, the smoke coming off of the fire, and fireworks. Though I could actually make a fire very easily by writing a few energy emitting runes.) The "matter" rune I find is very useful, though it takes somewhere around the neighborhood of thousands of runes to create anything that's usable. Most of them are used describing what the object to create is like, the more detail you use the better the outcome is. Trying to create cloth with it is very annoying and I can't get anything that doesn't feel like latex or spandex.

 

But anyways, maybe your friend could take a look at the runes in the back of my grandfather's book? None of his notes mention what they might be for.

 

~Curtis Wright

[Aoiroo]

4:28 PM

 

Etain hanged the freshly cleaned coat which was a last minute edition to her normal in her wardrobe before closing the door. She sat down on her bed and opened her laptop again, she had some time before Eve was done with classes so she checked her email and found another one from Curtis Wright. She read it, a worried line on her forehead forming as she typed out a message.

 

Curtis Wright

 

The particle engine sounds like a very interesting idea, I did not know before that was what such a mechanism was called. However, I must rebutt your assertion about testing in appartments. Magic is a very termpermental study, simply because the magic you are testing is not innately destructive in nature does not mean that it cannot cause serious damage. Your matter rune for example, it is used to make things, where is the additional matter coming from? Thare such runes that borrow matter from other realms which cause temporary doorways. What if something like that happened in a non-temporally locked location? Even if it simply changing local matter, a flaw in the code could turn something mundane into something very dangerous, like trying to create salt and getting chlorine gas instead.

 

As such I must advise you, to please find a more secure location for any testing of magics, especially something as detail oriented as what you are describing to me. Complexity leaves a lot of room for error.

 

-Etain Maher

[ChrisClark13]

4:45 PM
 
Curtis watched as little flecks of light are emitted by a complex rune on a piece of paper and move around randomly as they change color, also randomly, sometimes going out of the visible spectrum. Suddenly they all winked out as Curtis furrowed his brow and went back to his computer, changing a couple lines of code before compiling it and printing out a new sheet of paper. He unpins the the old sheet from it's place on a length of cork board and feeds it into a shredder before putting the new sheet in it's place.

He then taps a certain rune on another sheet of paper on the corkboard labeled "Run". It lights up and activates the rest of the matrix and again flecks of light are emitted  this time they cycle through the visible spectrum as they move about randomly for a few seconds before Curtis cuts off the "program" once more with a thought. The random number code seems to be working right, though the particles keep wanting to go out of the visible spectrum.

 

He then sits down at his computer and gets working on a reply to the email.

 

Etian Maher

 

I'm pretty sure I'm safe testing small things in my apartment, and I did say the rune creates pseudo-real matter. It doesn't actually create true matter, it makes something that's like matter. It's a specific application of the particle system where it creates a surface of sorts and interacts with real matter by repelling it (and being repelled by it). It's really strange stuff, it'll fold into into itself if you don't tell it not to, you can have it try to hold a solid shape, let it flow like cloth, or somewhere in between the two (but that's harder), It's weightless by default unless you tell it to be affected by gravity, and so on.

 

It's really weird stuff, but I'm pretty sure it's some kind of magical energy that is programmed to try and act like real matter. Over half of the runes in my grandfather's book have alternate forms that only work in conjunction with the particle emitter rune, so that's more of really what I've been focusing on.

 

And for combinations I know will be some what dangerous, I go out some where like an empty field or an abandoned building somewhere. I'm pretty sure I won't accidentally light my apartment on fire or anything like that. If it does look like it might, I just turn the spell off before anything bad happens.

 

~Curtis Wright

[Aoiroo]

9:38 PM

Dinner had been nice, Morgan certainly enjoyed it, though he as usual reclused himself to his room afterwards. After helping Millie with the dishes, Etain headed upstairs for a bit. Eve had gone out to meet her friends, she didn't mind letting her go on her own, the fact that Mark might had been in attendence might of nudged that decision. She bore no ill to the half/djinn, but she had a hard time staying in his vicinity without letting on she was somewhat uncomfortable when he did casual displays of his powers.

 

She booted up the computer and checked her email, her brow furrowed a bit, but she replied,

 

Curtis Wright

You know, what you claim to be producing sounds an awful like like quantum matter. You may want to discuss this with him or some other quantum physicist at some point, magic and science do share several different principles, and you would be surprise at the overlap you can find even if ultimately magic cannot be labeled a science because of too many chaotic variables.

 

As for random fields for testing, you might want to investigate any place rather thoroughly before you try anything. There are various abandoned places which are like that because there are magical forces that ward away other creatures, or because the barrier between realms is somewhat thinner. Though it is not common, it is not unheard of for someone to fall through in certain dimensions accidently when performing ritual magic or the like. Which is why of course I stressed earlier having a location that is dimensionally locked.

 

-Etain Maher

[ChrisClark13]

11:42 pm

 

Curtis paused a video as his computer notified him of another email coming in. He read it over a few times, especially the first paragraph, before chuckling to himself.

 

Dear Etain Maher,

 

I think you have a misconception about quantum mechanics. If I had something that could truly be called quantum matter it would be existing in a super position of states on a visible scale (I have no idea what that would actually look like) or have some other kind of quantum weirdness going on with it (like quantum entanglement which is even weirder than superposition of states).I think the closest thing modern science could come up with would be something like a material made of out neutrinos or something, since they tend to pass through regular matter quite easily. Though I have no idea what that would act like either. (And that's not including super science which sometimes can't even be compared to regular science.)

 

I think what I have could most accurately be called something like magic matter or programmable matter. (Though I'm leaning towards magic matter myself.)

 

Also, following your train of logic: The study of quantum mechanics (and many other things) couldn't be called a science either because a lot of things in it include chaotic variable that don't make sense at first glance either. I think I've seen more than one analogy that quantum mechanics is pretty much giving the finger to the people trying to research it since everything acts so weird when you get down to that scale.

So magic could probably be called a science in it's own right, though it probably makes even less sense than quantum mechanics at times because it interacts with everything on a higher level than most things do.

 

I think the chances of me running into places that'll send me into other dimensions or are haunted are pretty low just going to some place that's off the beaten path (like a spot a few miles out of town or a construction site).

I'll keep in mind the warning about unnatural abandoned places though, I don't want to run into any ghosts or bad vibes. Performing magic might make weird things happen there just because I'm doing magic, not because of what spell I'm testing that evening (even if it has nothing to do with ghosts or anything occult).

 

~Curtis Wright