quiet, this is a library

[lifes_sake]

Cam's in the library, waiting for Renée. "Waiting" here means "browsing until a quarter hour after ostensible meeting time". Renée is supposed to meet him here - on the way home for both of them, him from high school and her from elementary where she teaches kindergarten - but she is rarely punctual. Her co-workers or stray parents or the principal keep her after and Cam does notebooking, does homework, looks at the contents of shelves. It's a fine arrangement.

Today the contents of shelves don't seem so pleased with the setup, and one attacks him when he stumbles into a stack. Specifically, it tumbles onto his head. That's gonna hurt for a while. He picks it up to tuck it away again.

It says, So You Want To Be A Wizard.

Heh. Mis-shelved. This is a nonfiction row. Or maybe it's about stage magic or something? Cam's not going to find any use in that either, he can just about eat dinner without impaling himself on a fork and certainly shouldn't be handling delicate props, but it could be diverting while he waits for Renée and he wasn't finding anything else. He flips it open.

It's more interesting still than that; it's presenting itself like an actual guide to wizardry. This'll kill a whole afternoon with pleasant escapism. Cam checks it out, then turns around and spots Renée coming down the sidewalk. He bags the book and goes out to meet her.

At home, he takes it out of his backpack. The plastic film on it - it did have some, right? Just like every other library book? - is gone. Maybe it didn't have any. He didn't write it down; he's not sure. It doesn't look like a library book now. But it still says So You Want To Be A Wizard and he still wants to pretend to be a wizard for a bit, kill some time, put off U.S. History homework. He flips it open. He reads.

Comments

[lifes_sake]

"But it's closer to the sun," says Cam innocently. "Hey, manual, can I just not eat, one way or another, and be okay?"

[pythbox]

"No," says the manual. "You can convince your body to put off its needs, but not indefinitely."

[lifes_sake]

"Can I cover for an unbalanced diet?"

[pythbox]

"Yes, but not indefinitely."

[lifes_sake]

"Ooookay."

He'll look up some information on nutrition.

"Let's see the spells for that so I can mark 'em."

For while he does that and sets up interviews with various members of the plant and animal kingdoms.

[pythbox]

The underlying principle seems to be that you can convince your body its needs have been met, but if you keep on doing that, it will catch on and stop believing you. The more of its needs you are actually meeting, the easier it is to fool it about the gap.

[lifes_sake]

Fair enough. Maybe he can find suitably ethical multivitamins.

Bleah, this isn't going to be fun.

Can he talk tofu into actually tasting like chicken, maybe?

[pythbox]

Yes he can!

[lifes_sake]

Oh cool! Well then, that makes this much simpler. He puts a new color of post-it on the spells that he will be using for compensating for his newly expanded ethical sphere.

On his way home, he spots a woodpecker. "Hey woodpecker," he says, not getting too close.

[pythbox]

"Hi!" says the woodpecker.

[lifes_sake]

"How smart are you?"

[pythbox]

"What kind of a question is that?" says the woodpecker aggrievedly.

[lifes_sake]

"I'm having an ethical crisis sorta thing. I'm asking everything. So far, trees, smart, grass, stupid, muffins, stupid, goats, not too bright."

[pythbox]

"What's a muffin?"

[lifes_sake]

"A human food item. I don't think you'd like it."

[pythbox]

"Whatever, then," says the woodpecker, and takes off.

[lifes_sake]

Okay. Woodpecker: possibly brighter than a goat. Or at least less obsessive. This calls for no revision to his current meal plan.

Renée is still on board with experimental vegetarianism, and dinner is a tofu thing. He takes one bite of it, and then Renée has to go to the bathroom, and he mutters at it the spell the manual provided for this purpose, that he'd like it to taste like chicken.

[pythbox]

Using the Speech in conversation is not materially different from using English except in terms of who understands you; using the Speech in the casting of a spell carries with it a subtle sensation of being listened to, as though the Universe is paying special attention.

It also takes energy. Not a lot of energy, for such a small spell, but a noticeable amount - like climbing half a flight of stairs.

[lifes_sake]

Hmm.

He would like to read more about the energy requirements of spells. He anticipates doing a lot of them, after all. Will this harm him? Will it be unpleasant? He would like to be on the correct page of the manual before Renée gets back from the bathroom, please.

[pythbox]

In short: Doing spells is tiring. Doing bigger spells is more tiring. But it isn't any likelier to harm him than any other form of exertion. Less, actually, since the amount of moving around involved is negligible.

[lifes_sake]

Does it get easier with practice?

[pythbox]

Somewhat, yes.

But, separately, his actual power output will decline with age. The most powerful wizards are children. Older practitioners have to make do with using less power more efficiently.

[lifes_sake]

Oh, for goodness sake. Why?

"You're very absorbed in whatever you're reading," observes Renée.

The manual currently looks like a spiral notebook. "Yep," Cam says without elaboration.

[pythbox]

A child's mind has more potential, more imagination, more flexibility. The latter two are the qualities that, lingering in adult wizards, tend to lead to them settling at higher power levels.

[lifes_sake]

Tips and tricks? Also, is this sort of thing shareable? Can he go to work with Renée and harvest energy from the kindergarteners in some potentially sketchy but not necessarily unethical way?