Re: The Savage Brawl [Round 4: Small 50s Town]
07-17-2011, 09:45 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by SleepingOrange.
In uncountable worlds across uncountable planes of existence, even more uncountable sages and mages and scholars had spent lifetimes arguing the nature of magic. To many, it was truly the ultimate mystery; to others, it was the one true god, a source from which other petty divinities drew their powers; others still simply saw it as a tool, something to be understood simply for the practical applications that understanding would bring. Very little could be agreed upon by these myriad practitioners and students of arcane lore; for a start, magic was certainly not a multiversal constant. Every universe had (or even lacked) its own form, and many universes even had varying magical types within them. To describe anything on so grand a scale is impossible, and something as variable and difficult to understand as magic is doubly so. There are, however, a few things that can be said about most magic; while certainly not overarching rules, they are definite tendencies, at least among the most commonly-observed universes.
Magic is usually the tool of thinking creatures; sapience is typically a requirement for its use, and more intelligent or strong-willed individuals are usually able to channel it better. Magic is usually characterized by a kind of ordered chaos; while it seems capricious and variable, there are usually overarching rules or forces that govern it, as though it were a physical law like gravity or electromagnetism. Magic is usually difficult to use, requiring study and practice to effect great spells. And, perhaps most importantly, magic often seems despite its rulebound nature to possess some kind of intelligence or will of its own. Magic typically does not like being examined too closely, and usually rails against attempts to force it to one's own will rather than to use it as it prefers to be used. Many a story on many a world tells the tale of the sorcerer who delved too deep into the lore of the ancients or tried to hard to make magic his slave; these stories typically end in the sorcerer going mad, being eternally torn asunder, or dying if he's lucky, and the world around him is often significantly changed or damaged through his hubris.
While most observable universes don't seem to have any kind of magic in them, or at least lack any life capable of using it, planes that completely lack it are actually rare. It's simply more common that life evolves in a way incompatible with its use than it doesn't exist at all. On such worlds, magic simply does nothing observable, or exists on the fringe of parascience, or spends its time taunting theoretical physicists; often, it could be entirely removed from those universes and nothing would change at all. It exists, but seemingly-pointlessly. One such universe with latent magical force was the one that the Cultivator and the Monitor had placed the contestants in the Savage Brawl in; it had formed, life had come to be, things happened, and magic simply stood by and twiddled its thumbs, occasionally making a ghost manifest or causing little acts of serendipity that nobody noticed. When the extradimensional aliens that were the competitors had appeared in it, it had gladly allowed itself to be filtered through the Grandmasters' contingencies for nonmagical universes and channeled by those few that could use it. Ekelhaft had proven irksome and uncomfortable, but at its current scale, the ooze was largely inconsequential. Inasmuch as something with no real mind and debatable existence could be so, it was happy for this little intrusion from abroad.
And then something started pulling.
Hoss's nanobots, with their hyperadvanced sensors, sophisticated computer-minds, and explicit directives were attempting to decipher the ineffable mystery of spellcasting. Their work was slow but methodical going as they used data from the giant's home universe and this one to determine what magic was and how to use it. In fact, it wasn't even so much the nanobots themselves attempting to understand and codify magic as it was an attempt to merge the giant's memories and abilities with the efficiency and logic of cyborging technology. Magic itself had never much cared for technology, a distaste mirrored in many universes the multiverse over; it certainly didn't like uppity mortals getting too nosy about its business (despite such never having happened to it before in this existence); and it was utterly furious that some very persistent little specks of metal were doing their damndest to pin it down as though it were some kind of stupid thing like the nuclear forces. This needed stopping.
The nanobots themselves were certainly unaware of the peril of their course of action. It had never occurred to Hoss, and thus never to them, that magic might itself be willful or mutable. Millennia of study and understanding of the more mundane forces of the universe had left him certain that magic was just more esoteric and just as understandable, given research. His tools mirrored this certainty, and they did little but mine information from the giant's organic brain and transfer it to its new synthesized one. Eventually, the collective entity that still somewhat mirrored the shape of the giant sorcerer determined that its internal systems were complete enough to begin casting; it spread its fingers, more out of borrowed habit mined from the giant's remaining brain than any real necessity, and willed.
It was to be a simple spell. The giant would send a jet of flame licking at a nearby house and that would be it. Fire conjuring was a very common start for aspiring wizards the multiverse over, and for good reason: it merely exerted a small amount of effort in the form of heat and combustion, then stopped. The energy required was minimal and the ritual simple. The nanobots of course had no conscious idea that there was any kind of precedent for fireballs as an introduction to magic; they cyborg they'd constructed simply seemed to know what it was doing and that this was a very minor use of the force it wasn't quite certain was completely meshing with its new form.
Of course, the phrase "it was to be" implies that the result differed from the expectation, and that was very much the case here. Hoss's bots had not discovered everything they needed to know to fully integrate biological, technological, and thaumaturgical systems, as magic itself had carefully ensured. The mistakes made were of course minor; had a human attempted much the same thing, there would have been some minor backlash, and he'd have been left slightly exhausted and with singed eyebrows. However, since the miscast had effectively come from a billion tiny processors, simultaneously doing the same things wrong, the consequences were significantly more severe. Flame briefly formed a coruscating pyromantic halo around the giant, but that was so minor as to be completely insignificant next to the true result of the spell gone wrong.
Space warped at the core of the undead and robotic mage's body, pulling inward and pushing outward and turning inside out all at once. A sound with no Earthly equivalent shook the entirety of the town for mere seconds as colors that didn't exist spiraled around the burning giant. The scene was largely indescribable; few corporeal beings could process what was happening to space and time and reality in the vicinity of the sundered corpse, and fewer still would have understood why or how it happened. High above, extraterrestrial sensors squealed and sputtered and shut down; a few moments later, they calmed themselves, thoroughly-confusing already-baffled science officers.
After those few confusing seconds passed, sight and sound and smell returned to normal in Jedesburg. Comparatively so, at least. There were still monsters and aliens and zombies, but there were no longer gaping holes in the fabric of existence or an impossible twisting of the world. There was a large, perfectly-hemispherical crater in a little suburb; nothing remained of the giant, most of the houses that had been near it, or any of the people close enough to experience things they never should have had to. Aside from the comparatively mundane insanity that had been plaguing the town for some time now, things looked about right; the whatever-it-had-been had passed and left little trace of having been.
However, there were a few individuals who felt aftershocks for some time thereafter: an old woman who was convinced she could hear the voices of the dead (but was actually able only to communicate with rather-confused elemental spirits) found the usual quiet murmur that filled her days had become a cacophony; Konka Rar found those active spells he'd had when the giant had disappeared surged in strength and efficiency, and even those he cast afterwards were remarkably easy to use and powerful; Ziirphael found necromantic energies suffusing him, heightening his current body's abilities and senses, but at the same time found the one-word obedience he'd been chained to even more irresistible than ever.
Ekelhaft and Self found magical energy coursing through their surroundings and themselves, and briefly gorged themselves on the wave of mana that had been pushed away from the giant's catastrophe. Both cackled internally, growing in size and feeling their subtle influences extend.
In uncountable worlds across uncountable planes of existence, even more uncountable sages and mages and scholars had spent lifetimes arguing the nature of magic. To many, it was truly the ultimate mystery; to others, it was the one true god, a source from which other petty divinities drew their powers; others still simply saw it as a tool, something to be understood simply for the practical applications that understanding would bring. Very little could be agreed upon by these myriad practitioners and students of arcane lore; for a start, magic was certainly not a multiversal constant. Every universe had (or even lacked) its own form, and many universes even had varying magical types within them. To describe anything on so grand a scale is impossible, and something as variable and difficult to understand as magic is doubly so. There are, however, a few things that can be said about most magic; while certainly not overarching rules, they are definite tendencies, at least among the most commonly-observed universes.
Magic is usually the tool of thinking creatures; sapience is typically a requirement for its use, and more intelligent or strong-willed individuals are usually able to channel it better. Magic is usually characterized by a kind of ordered chaos; while it seems capricious and variable, there are usually overarching rules or forces that govern it, as though it were a physical law like gravity or electromagnetism. Magic is usually difficult to use, requiring study and practice to effect great spells. And, perhaps most importantly, magic often seems despite its rulebound nature to possess some kind of intelligence or will of its own. Magic typically does not like being examined too closely, and usually rails against attempts to force it to one's own will rather than to use it as it prefers to be used. Many a story on many a world tells the tale of the sorcerer who delved too deep into the lore of the ancients or tried to hard to make magic his slave; these stories typically end in the sorcerer going mad, being eternally torn asunder, or dying if he's lucky, and the world around him is often significantly changed or damaged through his hubris.
While most observable universes don't seem to have any kind of magic in them, or at least lack any life capable of using it, planes that completely lack it are actually rare. It's simply more common that life evolves in a way incompatible with its use than it doesn't exist at all. On such worlds, magic simply does nothing observable, or exists on the fringe of parascience, or spends its time taunting theoretical physicists; often, it could be entirely removed from those universes and nothing would change at all. It exists, but seemingly-pointlessly. One such universe with latent magical force was the one that the Cultivator and the Monitor had placed the contestants in the Savage Brawl in; it had formed, life had come to be, things happened, and magic simply stood by and twiddled its thumbs, occasionally making a ghost manifest or causing little acts of serendipity that nobody noticed. When the extradimensional aliens that were the competitors had appeared in it, it had gladly allowed itself to be filtered through the Grandmasters' contingencies for nonmagical universes and channeled by those few that could use it. Ekelhaft had proven irksome and uncomfortable, but at its current scale, the ooze was largely inconsequential. Inasmuch as something with no real mind and debatable existence could be so, it was happy for this little intrusion from abroad.
And then something started pulling.
Hoss's nanobots, with their hyperadvanced sensors, sophisticated computer-minds, and explicit directives were attempting to decipher the ineffable mystery of spellcasting. Their work was slow but methodical going as they used data from the giant's home universe and this one to determine what magic was and how to use it. In fact, it wasn't even so much the nanobots themselves attempting to understand and codify magic as it was an attempt to merge the giant's memories and abilities with the efficiency and logic of cyborging technology. Magic itself had never much cared for technology, a distaste mirrored in many universes the multiverse over; it certainly didn't like uppity mortals getting too nosy about its business (despite such never having happened to it before in this existence); and it was utterly furious that some very persistent little specks of metal were doing their damndest to pin it down as though it were some kind of stupid thing like the nuclear forces. This needed stopping.
The nanobots themselves were certainly unaware of the peril of their course of action. It had never occurred to Hoss, and thus never to them, that magic might itself be willful or mutable. Millennia of study and understanding of the more mundane forces of the universe had left him certain that magic was just more esoteric and just as understandable, given research. His tools mirrored this certainty, and they did little but mine information from the giant's organic brain and transfer it to its new synthesized one. Eventually, the collective entity that still somewhat mirrored the shape of the giant sorcerer determined that its internal systems were complete enough to begin casting; it spread its fingers, more out of borrowed habit mined from the giant's remaining brain than any real necessity, and willed.
It was to be a simple spell. The giant would send a jet of flame licking at a nearby house and that would be it. Fire conjuring was a very common start for aspiring wizards the multiverse over, and for good reason: it merely exerted a small amount of effort in the form of heat and combustion, then stopped. The energy required was minimal and the ritual simple. The nanobots of course had no conscious idea that there was any kind of precedent for fireballs as an introduction to magic; they cyborg they'd constructed simply seemed to know what it was doing and that this was a very minor use of the force it wasn't quite certain was completely meshing with its new form.
Of course, the phrase "it was to be" implies that the result differed from the expectation, and that was very much the case here. Hoss's bots had not discovered everything they needed to know to fully integrate biological, technological, and thaumaturgical systems, as magic itself had carefully ensured. The mistakes made were of course minor; had a human attempted much the same thing, there would have been some minor backlash, and he'd have been left slightly exhausted and with singed eyebrows. However, since the miscast had effectively come from a billion tiny processors, simultaneously doing the same things wrong, the consequences were significantly more severe. Flame briefly formed a coruscating pyromantic halo around the giant, but that was so minor as to be completely insignificant next to the true result of the spell gone wrong.
Space warped at the core of the undead and robotic mage's body, pulling inward and pushing outward and turning inside out all at once. A sound with no Earthly equivalent shook the entirety of the town for mere seconds as colors that didn't exist spiraled around the burning giant. The scene was largely indescribable; few corporeal beings could process what was happening to space and time and reality in the vicinity of the sundered corpse, and fewer still would have understood why or how it happened. High above, extraterrestrial sensors squealed and sputtered and shut down; a few moments later, they calmed themselves, thoroughly-confusing already-baffled science officers.
After those few confusing seconds passed, sight and sound and smell returned to normal in Jedesburg. Comparatively so, at least. There were still monsters and aliens and zombies, but there were no longer gaping holes in the fabric of existence or an impossible twisting of the world. There was a large, perfectly-hemispherical crater in a little suburb; nothing remained of the giant, most of the houses that had been near it, or any of the people close enough to experience things they never should have had to. Aside from the comparatively mundane insanity that had been plaguing the town for some time now, things looked about right; the whatever-it-had-been had passed and left little trace of having been.
However, there were a few individuals who felt aftershocks for some time thereafter: an old woman who was convinced she could hear the voices of the dead (but was actually able only to communicate with rather-confused elemental spirits) found the usual quiet murmur that filled her days had become a cacophony; Konka Rar found those active spells he'd had when the giant had disappeared surged in strength and efficiency, and even those he cast afterwards were remarkably easy to use and powerful; Ziirphael found necromantic energies suffusing him, heightening his current body's abilities and senses, but at the same time found the one-word obedience he'd been chained to even more irresistible than ever.
Ekelhaft and Self found magical energy coursing through their surroundings and themselves, and briefly gorged themselves on the wave of mana that had been pushed away from the giant's catastrophe. Both cackled internally, growing in size and feeling their subtle influences extend.