1.82 – Somebody Stop Her

Lewd invitation, maybe boring magic exposition, idk

That was how Maple's day had started, and it filled her with joy. She wished—no, she didn't need to wish it didn't anymore.

She and Thera were on the same page. They would get to know each other after this, hang out more, become friends, and maybe become something more. That was everything she could possibly want at the moment.

They weren't officially anything. They hadn't started a relationship—yet even a friendship was a kind of relationship, and whatever their relationship was at the moment, both of them had a similar goal in mind.

On top of that, Thera liked Emma too. She was aware of exactly what she'd be getting into, and the same went for Maple. Thera wouldn't change for her, and Maple wouldn't need her to.

Maple couldn't stop smiling dumbly over it as she ate breakfast with the others. Alas narrowed her eyes at her.

"Pervert."

"What'd I do?"

Maple blushed on command at this point. She expected Alas to mention the collar, but she left it at that. If Emma was supposed to come to her defense—she only nodded in agreement with her own smug smile.

Sylla kept stealing glances at her, but didn't say anything. After breakfast—they were going into the dungeon soon, but not yet—Sylla pulled her aside and offered her another magic lesson. Into the trees, a short ways from the rest of the group.

"This is the basis for spells and enchantments. Magic has...rules. Or a kind of language. The firmer your grasp of those rules, the better the spell will work. Here's a glyph that emits light when mana is pumped through."

Sylla drew a shape into the dirt, and demonstrated by pushing her own mana into it. Maple tried to watch the mana itself, but when it lit up dimly under the sun, she was distracted by glowing dirt.

"The conduit can be made of anything, even mana itself as with most spells. The reason certain materials are preferred for enchantments is because flowing mana will degrade most things. The larger the conduit is, the slower that will happen, but if it's damaged—"

She kicked the shape she'd made in the dirt and the light ceased. Well, that made sense. So maybe she could learn to enchant things with cheaper materials—

"And anything complex might break in unpredictable ways. For example, an enchantment that heats a room to a certain temperature might lose the part that tells it what temperature to heat it to, and then burn out of control. That's why you should always use mana-safe materials for anything that could be dangerous—and most of it is dangerous."

Okay, maybe not. Sylla demonstrated a few more runes. Heat, cold, wind—she stopped and looked slightly flustered.

"It's hardly acknowledged by most [Mages], but...these are all made up."

"What do you mean?"

"I first figured it out a while ago...but look, this glyph makes fire, right?"

She made a spell in the air, and made the mana visible. It was a distinct pattern that made the fire.

"Now look at my fire."

An azure flame, made entirely of mana, no spell needed. Maple nodded, not yet seeing what she was getting at.

"They're both magic, but mine doesn't require a spell. If I wanted to, I could say that...this glyph makes fire."

She made an F with squiggly lines in the dirt. For a second, nothing happened. Sylla seemed to concentrate as she poured her mana through it. Eventually, a flame appeared above it. Sylla wiped her brow, it seemed to have taken some exertion.

"Spells are a language—someone else's language. You can make your own, if you wanted, or if you were determined enough. Or you can use it without a language at all. Um, but my view isn't very popular, so I'm just saying..."

She seemed flustered about it, but that kind of seemed like a big revelation to Maple.

"You're saying magic will just do whatever you want it to?"

Sylla nodded with a slight smile.

"Kind of. You have to believe it will, and the rules in your head need to be solid. Existing magic makes that easy because it's widely known. You can get confirmation from someone more experienced than you, and believe in that, if nothing else. Again, it's not really, um, proper. Most people would rather believe there's something more to the symbols they use. And that does make their magic stronger, so...I don't want to push you away from it, but I wanted to at least mention that."

Maple nodded. That was powerful knowledge, wasn't it? Magic was real, but the present-day foundation it was built on—wasn't? Or, what everyone was using was a kind of framework, and Maple could make her own framework if she...believed hard enough that she could?

The info was probably even more useful for someone not born in this world. She could make her own logical framework, like a programming language from back home, if she found existing spell structure lacking.

"Thanks, Sylla. That's really interesting. Um, but if that's how it works, then how do enchantments keep working, if they're like sold to someone else for example?"

"Ooh, good question. I think it adheres to the creator's will, even after they die. There's a knowledge gap, because most spells are based on older magic. An artifact is found that does a thing, and everyone assumes that whatever symbols are used must be why it does the thing. It might just be how that person in particular wrote things. You understand?"

Maple did. She nodded.

"Why hasn't anyone else realized this? It should be more powerful than...whatever is going on now?"

"I mean, some have. It's just not a popular belief. And it is difficult. Or—telling you that might make you believe it is, and then it really would be—so I don't mean that it's difficult, but...It is like any regular language. We're able to speak because we agree on what words mean, and that belief is reinforced through every conversation. It's simpler than if both you and I each made up our own language. Also, each word is a concept, and magic is similar. You do need to simplify things down into basic concepts, and then combine them into a new whole."

"So, back to the room heating example, I wouldn't be able to come up with one symbol to represent something that both detects the temperature and applies heat if it's below a threshold? It would have to be at least two parts?"

"Yes, exactly. More usually, if it's an enchantment you want to work on its own. You need loops and a way to gather or use stored mana. It gets complicated, and I'm not really an expert on that. With spells, you just provide the mana directly, and it's safer because of that. I'm not saying that you should experiment randomly—get a spell book and learn from that first."

Sylla nodded, happy that Maple understood so quick. She shared it like it were an unprofessional secret, and maybe it was. A kind of, sure you could learn the mainstream way of doing things, but you could also jury-rig whatever you want and hope for the best. And Maple...she felt like she understood enough.

"Alright, I'm going to try it. L stands for light, so..."

She made an L in the dirt, and pushed her mana through. Nothing happened at first, but it really should have, if she understood correctly—and then it did happen. It lit up. Sylla clapped excitedly and Maple rubbed at her head.

"God, that's weird."

"You did it! And so quick."

Maple nodded. She was lost in thought. She tried not to come up with any concepts that might dilute her belief in the future. She already believed that L made light. If she tried making it do something else instead, at best she would struggle. At worst, it might behave randomly with two conflicting beliefs. What was the best way to utilize this info?

Another problem was, she wasn't sure what basic concepts could exist. She'd copied what Sylla's first glyph did, and just believed her L would do the same. Would another symbol be able to emit light in a straight line like a laser? Or would she need one that focused light?

If she guessed randomly, she might waste a symbol on something magic just wouldn't do. And what if she forgot what certain parts of her own made-up magic language did? She was starting to see why it was helpful to learn an existing one.

"If I just know what concepts work, I think it'd be really easy to simplify it to any shape I wanted."

"Yeah! That's what I thought, too. But...the academy didn't like that, and I got kicked out anyway. It's also frowned upon, because standardization is safer for everyone. If you sold an enchantment, and another [Mage] needed to work on it or repair it later, they wouldn't be able to. But still..."

Oh, that was a good point. Maybe it was well-known? And Sylla was just...

"Kicked out?"

Sylla coiled tighter around her staff, and hid her face.

"Yeah, I failed. It was just so hard remembering all the spells—so when I figured out that it was all made up, I thought I had a chance...They failed me, and I couldn't afford to stay. It's alright, though. I got a class, and I like my magic how it is now."

She held out a hand and summoned a tiny bird of mana on it. It hopped around in an adorable way and jumped to Maple's hand when she reached out to touch it. Maple laughed and pet it. She guessed Sylla was controlling it, rather than it moving autonomously.

Maple wasn't sure what to make of her flunking out of magic school, or how to consolidate that with everything else. They were a C-rank adventuring group, so maybe it fit. Regardless, Sylla still seemed intelligent to Maple. Lesson over, Sylla fiddle with her long hair.

"So...did um, last night go well? With Captain Thera, I mean?"

Maple's first instinct was to accuse her of unduly interfering with things, but...it'd worked out. She was happy. And she suspected this question might have been the entire reason Sylla pulled her aside to begin with, the magic lesson only an elaborate cover.

"Yes, actually. But you really shouldn't have said anything. It was too soon."

"Sorry. It looked like you liked her, though? The way you kept looking at her and standing near her, and during the—things...You even put your tent further away so that she'd come by, right?"

Sylla covered her face, blushing. That was all true, but still. Maple stared at her. How did she notice all that?

"I just thought that Thera deserves to be happy, and if you did like her, then...I wanted to support that."

"Fair, I guess? Telepathy isn't good for that, though. You don't always want to pursue whatever you're feeling. Not right away."

Maple shook her head, but she smiled and continued.

"It worked out, though. We're taking things slow, so nothing official, but..."

"That's great. I'm so happy for both of you."

She did look genuinely happy, and Maple nodded. That was sweet of her. Maybe Alas was rubbing off on her though because...

"Why, though? What was in it for you? Did you want to join us sometime, or something? I'm sure both Thera and Emma would be happy about that, if you did. And I would be, too."

Maple turned red. Her light teasing had gone wrong and come out as a serious invitation.

"Um..."

Sylla hesitated and Maple apologized profusely.

"Sorry, I—I meant it to be a joke, haha. Unless you did want to, I mean, sorry...How about that horny zone, right? I blame it for all of this."

Maple was mortified and finally managed to shut up. Sylla laughed into her hand.

"You really find me attractive?"

"Wh—um. Yeah?"

Sylla smiled at Maple, and she felt her heart flutter. Not from a crush or romantic feelings—she was just lovely. Cute, probably hot underneath her robe. She tried not to remember a couple of the first-person perspectives she'd felt during their telepathic orgasms.

"A lot of people are scared of me. But some are interested because of that, I guess. The thing is, I don't really like being...touched. In general, I mean."

Sylla swiped at the air, as if to clear Maple's thoughts of lewdness. And it worked, because now she felt kind of bad.

"Oh. Not at all? Did uh, something happen?"

Sylla fidgeted with her staff and glanced through the trees toward their camp. Maple realized she probably shouldn't have asked.

"Kind of...Um, but...I mostly don't want attention on me. I could join you guys if I mostly just watched, and...if I felt comfortable enough, maybe I could do more..."

Wait, Sylla was accepting the invitation? A horny grin tried to come over Maple. She tried to suppress it. This was great news. She'd have to let Emma know Sylla's preferences beforehand, but then they could—

God, she really was horny wasn't she? Had she always been like that? She was excited just thinking about it. Alas might have been right about her corrupting her teammates.

"Really? That'd be great, yeah, you wouldn't have to do anything you're not comfortable with. And if it's...four of us, you'd probably be comfortable, right?"

Sylla nodded and blushed into her hands. Maple was excited. They had to explore the dungeon today, but after that...

"Maybe tonight, even."