#Sullivan exclusively calls Road “his friend” rather than addressing them by name both in dialogue and in his POV chapter narration.

[autumnalwalker]

Heads Up, 7 Up

Thank you for the tag, @theprissythumbelina.

Passing the tag (with no obligation) to @oh-no-another-idea, @on-noon, @stesierra, @writernopal, @talesofsorrowandofruin, @sleepyowlwrites, @wordwizards, and an open tag for anyone else who wants to join in.

More from the next Empty Names chapter:

“Right, so, the idea is that if you put all those things together, you could enchant something to start playing an accelerated ritual incantation on command.  And then if you also had the glyph circle to go along with that enchantment inscribed on the object, you’d basically have a portable high-speed ritual ready to go on command.”

Glassheart goes silent for a moment and tilts his head in consideration.  “Theoretically one could do that, but why would you?”

“Because it’s more portable than an entire lab and server room and while it’s less flexible than a phone full of pre-saved audio and video files you wouldn’t have to worry about durability and battery issues.”

“But why not enchant the object to produce the desired end effect directly?  The extra steps are additional points of failure.  Potentially catastrophic ones.”

A small smile creeps onto Lacuna’s face. That is the question she’d been building up to.  She lifts her feet and tilts her body just enough to cause the office chair to rotate with what she tells herself is dramatic slowness until she’s facing in Glassheart’s direction.

“Flexibility!  A normal enchantment produces the exact same effect each time - at most with some conditional modifiers set at time of creation - but since a ritual’s output can be modified to some degree at runtime based on will and intent…”

“You seek to emulate a mage’s spellcasting,” Glassheart finishes, eyes wide.