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

[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?

[pythbox]

No. A wizard's power level is a property of the wizard.

[lifes_sake]

Dangit. Okay. He'll have to be creative. If he happens to meet any particularly clever and cooperative kindergarteners can he make them their own manuals, or share his, or otherwise wizardify them, or do the manuals just capriciously drop themselves into people's laps and refuse to be community property?

[pythbox]

Those who are meant to be wizards will find their own manuals. Those who aren't, will not. Attempts to force the issue rarely go well.

[lifes_sake]

Grr.

Maybe when Cam is very very good at wizarding he can address this problem. It is a dumb way to run a magic system. In the meantime, he's going to get as good at wizardry as fast as he can, because apparently time is of the essence.

And he's going to cultivate his imagination-flexibility-etcetera. (He writes this down in Grace and she hums agreement.)

[pythbox]

Although it's not especially relevant, the manual also mentions at this point that wizards are strongly advised against directly lying. Since their main power is changing reality with their words, it follows that they should be very careful how they describe things they don't mean to change.

[lifes_sake]

...Noted. Cam doesn't usually outright lie, but he does lie by omission and by drawing misleading partial sketches of reality. So this is suitable for him anyway.

What happens if he lies to describe the world as being nicer than it is? He supposes he might magically exhaust himself rendering the earth a utopia. Would that happen?

[pythbox]

Any deliberate misdescription of the world that is not part of an intentional, carefully constructed spell is a bad idea.

[lifes_sake]

...Why, though?

[pythbox]

Because unless it is part of a carefully constructed spell, it might have unintended effects.

And because the Lone Power also invented lies.

[lifes_sake]

Wait, what? Someone had to invent lies? Lies come pretty straightforwardly with, like, being able to conceive of other creatures having minds. You want this other mind to represent a state of the universe that isn't true, you can manipulate that representation thusly, bam. Lies. Presumably someone had to do it first, but it's the sort of thing that would be easily reinvented.

Cam side-eyes his manual.

Ironically, he thinks it may be lying.

[pythbox]

The manual makes no claim that the Lone One is the only being to invent them, but apparently It was the first, and still has some connection to lies and to those who use them.

[lifes_sake]

A connection which amounts to what, precisely?

[pythbox]

They attract Its attention and increase Its power.

Neither of these is something a wizard wants to be doing.

[lifes_sake]

Its power consists of what? What does it do, how does it do it, what things does it tend to occupy its time with, this really does seem like an entity Cam needs to read up more on -

Although he's not totally sure he trusts the manual on this subject.

Especially since it's only direct lies it claims ought to be eschewed.

[pythbox]

Well, if he asks, the manual does have more information about the Lone Power.

Apparently the polite thing to say upon meeting It is "Fairest and fallen, greetings and defiance."

It spends Its time increasing entropy, disorder, death, and suffering in the worlds. It is one of the Powers who aided in their creation, so while Its abilities are far beyond those of any wizard, they are of the same general kind.

[lifes_sake]

So... it's a nasty sorta wizard with large (infinite?) energy reserves that's fluent in the Speech?

Also, why is there a polite thing to say to the inventor of death? Is it actually less likely to kill you if you are polite to it?

[pythbox]

The manual has no answers to these qestions!

[lifes_sake]

It may be that Cam should go visit that housecat sooner than planned.

[pythbox]

The housecat's entry in the listing of nearby wizards is still there, looking just the same.

[lifes_sake]

Cam is not really sure how one goes about visiting a housecat, and at fourteen he doesn't have quite that much freedom of movement around Phoenix. But he copies the address into Grace for later rumination.

And he goes on learning the language.

[pythbox]

Fully half of the manual is now devoted to the Speech; all the non-marked introductory material has been squeezed out until there is barely anything left except the Oath on the very first page and the wizard directory after it, and the subsequent chapters on magic are fairly terse unless Cam asks about something. The manual is definitely taking the hint about his area of focus.