Social Activity (Thought 3)
Mary nods, her path forward clear.
‘First I need the foundation.’ Mary thinks firmly.
Mary closes her eyes and mentally dives into the memories of her last life. Mary must acknowledge that, without the perfect recall of Alexander's implants and the superior gene-crafted biology of the modern era, remembering the specifics of her past will be a difficult task.
Mentally, Mary cringes as she moves past the memories of Alexander's murder, past the horrifying memories of having control stolen from him.
She passes years of dedicated training and education, important and potentially useful now, but not what she needs at this very moment.
Finally, her mind reaches the goal; she mentally grasps the half-forgotten memory and begins to meditate on one of the less important memories of Alexander, attempting to relive that which was long forgotten.
‘Please let it be enough.’ Mary thinks with a grimace.
Focusing her thoughts on what to him was a trivial exercise, something he had created partly for the protection of using a non-corporate application but mostly to prove to himself that he could do it.
In her mind’s eye she remembers it was earlier in Alexander’s life, before he had gained a university scholarship; before he had moved out of his mother’s home; and before even his total immersion into the virtual.
He had an older set of cybernetic implants at the time—less efficient and less capable. Mary recalls that at that time, Alexander did not have access to the powerful tool of a virtual environment; instead, he had to rely on a more primitive form of augmented reality.
Before him sits a see-through screen, and upon it is an augmented reality interface with the information that Mary desperately needs.
The readable logic flows down the screen, and Mary rushes to try and remember the program in its entirety.
‘Was the call application this long? I can’t remember this.’ Mary thinks grimly, frowning.
Then how is she supposed to progress from here?
‘I can’t remember thousands of lines of code, not without some means of enhancing my memory.’ Mary confirms to herself, mildly disappointed that her meditation seems to have been for nothing.
‘Then do I instead make a memory rune? Something to enhance my memory before trying again?’
As Mary considers how to go forward, she feels for a moment that she has rushed ahead and wasted some of her very limited time.
She feels her frown deepen before, as if struck by lightning, and she mentally straightens up.
‘I don’t need the entire thing. Or even just most of it,' Mary reminds herself.
‘What do I need from this? The telepathy rune should handle almost everything; its very existence means that a spell that utilises it can engage in telepathy. A spell like that is essentially freestanding.'
‘So, what extras do I need?’ Mary asks herself, taking a moment to consider the spells' needs.
‘What I need is a safety feature, something to ensure that the spell remains under control. Any additions to the spell circle would just make it more efficient or more controllable. All the internet logic that Alexander used – those might be helpful but aren’t truly necessary.’
Mary mentally nods, convinced by her logic. Immediately, she casts her thoughts back to the memory and focuses on one particular part.
On the screen before Alexander, she remembers the speech controls, the block of programming that would dictate when speech was activated and what volume of speech was sent.
‘These. If I can dial my volume, then I can safely talk to Sylvia.’
Mary mentally stares at Alexander’s old memory, scrambling to refresh the important block of code that would hopefully allow her to speak to Sylvia.
She opens her eyes, the formerly distant memory now fresh, and begins to form a spell circle.
Instantly, her basic telepathy rune, pulsing in purple, appears and gets surrounded by the light blue mana of her spell circle.
Mary rubs her gums together as she forces the memory of the old Earth code to appear in the spell circle.
‘I need the volume control.’ She thinks desperately.
For a few moments, Mary eyes the spell that she has completed, the purple telepathy rune surrounded by the somewhat readable code that Alexander had written over a decade ago.
‘It looks good.’ Mary tries to comfort herself.
The spell ignites, and Mary frowns, attempting to feel if it had worked as intended.
‘I don’t feel anything wrong… but without a target I can’t confirm anything.’
Mary exhales in a weary sigh before opening her mouth to once again summon Sylvia.
“Waaa!”
Moments later the door to the presumed servants' quarter swings open and Sylvia marches out, the door slamming closed behind her, and Sylvia's eyes lock on instantly to Mary.
"Well, Princess, what do you need?" Sylvia asks as she arrives at Mary's bed, reaching down to lift her. “Hungry already?”
As Sylvia's arms lift Mary's tiny body, Mary thinks to herself.
‘Now.’
The spell circle that Mary had just tested appears once again, this time right before Sylvia's fascinated eyes.
“What’s this?” Sylvia asks in confusion before her eyebrows shoot up in surprise, “A telepathy rune?”
Sylvia tries to interject as Mary begins to inscribe her Earth logic into the spell circle.
“Telepathy spells can be very”
Before Sylvia can finish her warning, the spell ignites and the magic latches onto the maid.
“Dangerous.” Sylvia finishes with a resigned sigh. “You are exactly like your mother.”
“Is that so?” Mary asks, speaking to her maid for the first time.
Sylvia blinks in surprise at the voice, not that it exists – she had recognised the telepathy rune after all – but rather the tone used.
“So, you were a boy?” Sylvia says while smirking down at Mary, “So that’s why you kept sending me those complicated looks.” Sylvia's shoulders begin to shake in restrained laughter.
“Didn’t know whether you should be enjoying yourself or not?” Finally, her restraint breaks and she breaks down in giggles.
“I’m an adult! "A man, not a boy!” Mary answers with resentment in her mental voice, “Or I was.” She corrects herself.
“Heh. Sorry, Princess, it’s just the looks you were giving me.” Sylvia answers, laughter still in her voice. After a moment, Sylvia begins to lift Mary up to her smiling face.
As Mary feels herself half balanced on Sylvia's large bust, she narrows her eyes at her, wondering if that too was intentional.
Mentally, Mary sighs over the telepathic connection before continuing, attempting to ignore Sylvia's actions.
“I wanted to talk about my situation.” Mary says, “But first, do you know how long the telepathy spell will last?”
Sylvia visibly thinks for a moment before answering.
“You should be able to sense that. Whatever logic you used made it an active spell, there should be a constant drain on your magic that you can feel.”
Mary blinks at Sylvia's reply before turning her concentration inwards and confirming that Sylvia was unsurprisingly correct. Mary was actively supplying mana to the spell, which had created a connection to Sylvia.
“I see the connection but can’t tell how long it will last.” Mary eventually answers.
“You’re not used to magic after all. Let me see.” Sylvia responds before turning her eyes onto Mary’s soul. Briefly Sylvia frowns, her eyebrows once more lifted in surprise, before she answers.
“That is a surprisingly efficient telepathy spell. I would say maybe fifteen minutes.”
“What do you mean, surprisingly efficient? I used the most basic telepathy rune and some old-Earth logic.” Mary questions immediately. Now knowing that she has a very real time limit on her spell, she intends to make the best of it.
“Telepathy is usually very costly and dangerous. There’s a reason why I didn’t try to use it, you know?” Sylvia answers, “What old-Earth logic? There’s not supposed to be any magic on Earth.”
“I don’t know how much you know about Earth. I used some logic that was originally created for a computer program designed for long-distance communication.”
Mary wondered how she could explain something that might be completely outside of Sylvia's experience.
“Ah!” Sylvia exclaimed, “My ancestor wrote about things like the internet; you’re talking about a voice call.”
It was Mary's turn to raise her eyebrows in surprise; she hadn’t expected that much detail in Sakuya’s diaries.
“Yes. In my previous life as Alexander, I knew how to write such programs. I used the logic that he’d used once earlier in his life.” Mary answered in explanation.
“Alexander? A strong and famous name.” Sylvia says back teasingly before continuing more seriously, “It’s still very surprising. Being able to squeeze that much efficiency out of a basic rune, you must have a very strong impression of that logic.”
“What do you mean?” Mary asks firmly, before beginning her interrogation in earnest, “Surely a basic rune would be the most mana-efficient? And what do you mean about the impression of that logic? Logic is logic; impressions have nothing to do with it.”
“Basic runes are the least efficient overall.” Sylvia answers in a tone that suggests that anything otherwise would be ridiculous. “I guess I didn’t explain it well enough last time.” Sylvia concedes apologetically.
“If you increase a rune's power, then of course it uses more mana, but the level, or what can also be called sophistication, increases mana efficiency amongst other things.”
“So, a [least] power rune with a [supreme] level would be an extremely mana-efficient rune, still somewhat powerful in its own right but more due to being able to use its energy as efficiently as possible rather than power draw.” Sylvia explains again.
“I see… I suppose that does make sense. But what did you mean about me having a strong impression of logic?” Mary questions further.
“Well, runes are the logic of mana.” Sylvia starts to answer, “You create them from your desires and neutral mana. The formulas that go into spell circles are your own logic to go with it.”
Mary frowns as she considers that.
“Which means that any logic you use in a formula is yours. It’s why copying spells can often be so difficult.”
Sylvia continues her explanation.
“You used maths for your fireball, remember? Earth’s Arabic numerals are very widespread on Terra, but there are other numeral systems as well. Any of them would have worked, or you could have even just made one up; if you truly believed that what you used described a ball, then it would work.”
As Sylvia said it, Mary felt as if lightning had struck her.
“As long as you believe in the logic being used, it just works?!” Mary shouts, intentionally raising the volume of her telepathic spell.
Sylvia winces as she feels her brain being punched by the greatly increased volume. “Calm down, princess. Remember, telepathy spells are dangerous.” She says pleadingly.
“Right. Sorry.” Mary answers apologetically before continuing, “Can it even be called logic if anything goes?”
“Well, magic is magic. The logic part working like that is the reason why instinctual magic works.” Sylvia explains further, “Formulas are you using your understanding of reality to make magic happen, rather than brute-force wishing it to happen like with that other magic.”
“But, to return to the fireball spell. Instead of using math to describe it, you could just insert an actual ball into the spell. It would serve as an almost physical demonstration of what your goal for the magic is.” Sylvia says, smirking, heavily suspecting what sort of reaction this explanation would garner.
Mary twitches, partially at the explanation and partially at Sylvia's smirk.
Mary forces herself to move on and asks, “So does that mean some mages create their own languages as a form of magic encryption?”
“Yes absolutely. In fact, so-called magical languages are one of the things that various mage guilds create and hide. Those languages are only magical because they are made for spells.”
Mary visibly sighs and answers, “That sounds stupid.”
Sylvia laughs and then replies, “That’s because it is.”