#Joseph and the Theoretical Raincoat

[writing-far-too-badly-old]

The History of Construct Combat

Construct Combat is called the king of sport, and for good reason. Its origins lie in the early days of Mage warfare.

Before the Great Families had even been formed, war between Mages was brutal. Every Mage in a tribe would be forced to fight, and the entire Magical population of the losing tribe would often be killed or permanently bound away from their Magic.

Of course, these wars precluded any sort of development. If you had a project that would take 50 years to complete (as so many of the most prized enchantments do), there was no way you would be able to complete it.

And so, in time, tribes agreed to duels of single combat. One Mage would stand for the entire community and duel to the death.

There are a number of theories as to how the shift away from single Mage combat happened. Some theorize that the hyper-specialization inherent to dueling was unsustainable. After all, outside of a duel there's nary a time that a Mage really needs to be able to launch all of their power at a single target after a long countdown.

Others theorize that the duels had the same issue as the general warfare. After all, if you lose five of these combats, you've still lost your five best Mages.

Others claim that the defensive constructs weren't progressing as quickly as the combat abilities. As duelists came with more and more enchantments, certainly they quickly approached the limits of most defensive arrays.

Regardless of why others believe it happened, one fact is indisputable: the first duel with a construct.

Before the Fall of the Great Families, there was a Family of Mages. They were not a Great Family, despite having existed for at least as long as any Great Family. They also refused to join with any of the Great Families, as they were proud of their own Magics.

For this "crime", the Great Families formed an unspoken agreement to destroy this Family. Invented cause after invented cause was levied against them until it was clear that they would quickly be destroyed if this continued.

According to the Family's histories, their leader prayed for a deliverance. Waking in the morning with knowledge, the leader and a holy man worked to craft a man of clay, which they called Golem.

The next day was the duel to permanently displace them from their last piece of land. The Great Family Locus claimed that the land within five hundred leagues of this Family's city were theirs.

Into the battlefield stepped the Locus Heir. He had won his past seventy duels, and was seen as unbeatable by any. The Golem entered from the other side.

Contemporary records show that there was little dispute about the entrance of the Golem as champion. After all, building a full body construct could never be as effective as a Mage, or so the Great House believed.

The Golem won the duel, and the Family was allowed to remain in their home. In their histories it is said that the Golem returned to dust when the treaty had been signed, its task completed.

After that, every Great House began research into fighting constructs. When they fell, the sport as we know it arose.

[writing-far-too-badly-old]

Magic Worldbuilding

"Joseph, I have to ask, what got you into Theoretical Ritualism?" His weekly meeting with his advisor normally centered around a single topic. Apparently this week was his motivations.

Thankfully, Joseph knew this answer well.

"I must have been in high school, since that's when I would have learned the Spellform for a minor illusion. I watched some Bard playing a song and weaving a light show as she did. The way the Mana moved was identical to one of the variations I'd memorized."

His advisor seemed a little confused by the immediate jump into recollection, but she let him continue.

"I asked my tutor about it. I think I asked something like 'if Bardic Magic is so different from what I'm doing, why did it look the same?' He took me out to a forge, and I sort of assumed that he was just ignoring the question."

It was clear that he needed to wrap up the story quickly. His advisor hated when he wasted her time, but Joseph couldn't think of how to share the story any faster.

"He pulled out a thermometer.

'What temperature is the glass?' he asked.

'It looks like it's around 1500.'

'What temperature is this piece of iron?'

'Also around 1500.'

'So they're the same?'

'No, that's ridiculous.' That's when it really struck me. The Spellforms looked the same because the way I looked at them was the same. I was seeing that light was being bent to show something different. From there I really got interested in what was objectively true."

"I'm not sure I follow."

"I guess like, in the real world, no two rituals are actually identical. There's always going to be some difference in timing, or in moon phases, or in the specific celestial alignment. How can we know which of those things are relevant, let alone the factors we don't know how to measure or don't know exist? In Theoretical Rituals, all that we do is inherently true. It should grow only from the base axioms we have to assume true to do Magic."

"Interesting. That's not the answer I expected you to give, but I suppose it makes sense." His advisor was clearly in thought, so Joseph stopped for a second to try to collect his own thoughts.

"Do you still think that Bardic and Ritual Magics are the same?" she eventually asked.

"I really don't know. That question got me into Theoretical Magic, but then I just fell in love with the Ritual content. Is there an answer?"

"There are plenty of hypotheses, but I think that could be a wonderful idea for a thesis. I know that Mgr. Theolos is teaching his seminar on Theoretical Bardic Construction next Spring, and I think that would be a good class for you."

"I don't know any Bardic Magic though," Joseph protested halfheartedly. Truthfully, it sounded really interesting.

"I guess you have 10 months to learn then," she said, handing him a list of books to look at.

[writing-far-too-badly-old]

A Dazzling Screen

For some reason I've realized all the FFF prompts I've written for end up being whatever I've rabbit-holed that week. That trend continues today. @flashfictionfridayofficial

Most of the Theoretical Ritualists Joseph was studying with hated that they had to take a class on not just practical rituals, but fully constructed ones. Personally, Joseph was glad for it. Not only did it mean he had some time where he wasn't allowed to beat his head against the wall of not understanding the fundamental rules of reality, but it also helped him see how the ways different materials took to glyphs and lines explained the theoretical glyphs people used.

When he mentioned that to his advisor, Joseph was glad that she agreed.

"I'm glad you got there on your own," she said, "most students take a fair amount of prodding to understand why you need to understand Concrete Rituals in order to truly learn Theoretical Ritualism. Now, what are you really here for?"

"I have an idea for a project," he said, "and I just wanted to make sure it wasn't too far out there."

She gestured for him to continue, so he did.

"My idea starts from two Concrete facts. First: mis-lain channels for Lightning can have small arcing. Second: when you have a rapid set of lightning bolts you end up with a tone."

"I think I can see where you're going, but continue."

"I plan to use these two facts together to make an instrument. Each note on a keyboard would be associated with a specific alternating Mana rate through the system. In theory, you should be able to tune it to produce actual music."

"How would you ensure that you don't end up frying your circuits, as is common in the Lightning arcs?" Joseph hadn't seen his advisor this excited about a project for ages, so he felt like he was on the right track. Thankully he had an answer.

"I thought about that for a while. If I have an alternating Lightning generator and a general Mana sink, the Lightning should preferentially follow a path to it. Then it's just a matter of tuning each an alternating generator to each frequency I need for a keyboard, and there are no circuits to burn." Joseph knew he was rambling a bit, but it was such an exciting project for him.

"How far have you gotten on the construction?" His advisor looked interested, but the question reminded Joseph of the rules that he was absolutely breaking.

"University policy states that I'm not to build any intentionally ungrounded Lightning circuits without explicit approval from the Dean or my advisor," he recited.

"For the purposes of this conversation, say that I gave you that permission at the start of the term. How far have you gotten?"

"Let me show you." Jeb opened his storage, noting again that he would need to get the engravings refreshed soon. They'd function for a while longer, but the efficiency would keep getting worse until he did.

"It's not totally in tune, but-" he was cut off by his advisor pressing a key.

Lightning arced across the tablet he'd bound to hover slightly above and behind the keyboard. A harsh but recognizable tone came out.

"What about chords?" she asked as she played a simple melody.

"I'd considered that. There were ways to modulate the circuits so that I wouldn't have to hard-build each note, but those all ended up monophonic. I wanted to be able to play-" the sounds grew louder as his advisor found the intensity knob and started playing a piece.

.

"This should be fine for your final project," she said, acting as though she hadn't spent the past ten minutes playing different songs on the keyboard. "What else will you add, though, since you have time?"

That was fair, he did have another few weeks until it was due.

"I was thinking that I'd add different colors for the different notes, but I'm not sure how. There's the part of me that wants to do similar colors for notes that share harmonics, or maybe just a gradient with pitch but-" thankfully she interrupted him before he went too far off topic.

"I knew that having you take that music theory class would come back to haunt me," she said with a wink. "I think a pitch gradient would serve you better than anything else, given that most of your class won't know too much tuning theory."

.

It was finally the day to demonstrate their final projects. His classmates actually studying Concrete Rituals mostly came with solid state constructions that were marginally more efficient than some predecessor. His other Theoretical classmates had mostly made aleatoric pieces, where different random events caused lights or flames to erupt.

"Joseph, if you would show yours?" he realized belatedly that he'd never talked to the instructor about the project.

Joseph unveiled the keyboard. It wasn't too impressive, looking as it did like a scripted keyboard and music stand. All the extra effort he'd put in to carve black runes on black slate felt worth it when he played the first note and red lightning shot across the tablet.

He went through the entire piece he'd practiced, showcasing the full range of the instrument. Lightning of all colors flashed across the screen as he did, and his classmates were transfixed.

Once he gave his demonstration, Joseph went through the schematic for the instrument.

"What's the point?" the instructor prompted. None of the other Theoretical students had been asked that.

"It makes music and light at the same time." Truthfully Joseph didn't know how to answer that question. Quite frankly, there wasn't a point to the project other than the project itself.

"That it does, and by the same effect no less. Good effort." That was a relief.

[writing-far-too-badly-old]

Worldbuilding Wednesday?

I know it's Thursday but

If he was being honest with himself, Joseph was glad that the world wasn't run by the Aristocracy anymore. The advances society had seen in the past two centuries should be proof, but he knew his family wouldn't agree with him.

Even though the rest of the world was modernizing, House Locus was doing its best to avoid moving forward. They were the only former Major House that still employed brownies, and even they had unionized.

Still, there were times that he was glad that his family was as regressive as it was. It certainly made doing research over breaks easier.

Where most of the Major Families had made a show of donating their collections of treatises and formations, House Locus stubbornly refused to part with any of its treasure. They wouldn't even share a list of titles, which meant that Joseph was probably the only person in his class who even knew where to find a copy of the Summa.

"Summa Abstracta" was the seminal work on Theoretical Rituals. It was explicitly cited by every Doctor for five centuries, and implicitly for another seven.

Unfortunately, after a little over a millennium of use, the Aristocracy realized how damning the book was to their power. Coded within the lines describing optimal formations were critiques of every piece of the power structure.

They called for the destruction of the book, and every House followed suit.

Every House except for Locus apparently.

When Joseph asked the Librarian, he explained.

"House Locus has always respected critiques to power. Moreso, we know that books with important knowledge remain important for longer than popular opinion goes in a direction."

As Joseph opened the book, he knew that his thesis was going to blow his advisor away.