A wall of cold water slammed into Eva’s face.
Her eyes snapped open. The icy liquid ran down her neck and chest, sending all kinds of shivers through her body.
Cold did not agree with her.
Coughing and sputtering, she tried to reach out with her awareness and get some sense of what was going on.
She was in the women’s ward on her couch. A somewhat soggy couch that had just had ice water dumped all over it.
There would definitely be shouting about that later on.
Devon stood over her with a rusted iron bucket in hand. As Eva blinked up at him, he tossed it off to the side. The loud clatters it made had Eva wincing until it rolled to a stop. He stared down at her with a disapproving frown on his face.
What the frown was for, Eva couldn’t guess. She was far too distracted.
In the distance, Eva could feel a group of demons. Zagan, Catherine, Lucy, and even the carnivean. At first, she thought that she was sensing their blood. With a start, she realized that she was feeling them. The carnivean and Lucy were both stringy, though with enough distinction to tell them apart. Catherine was a ball of chilled emotions.
And Zagan… The only word that came to mind was power. It bordered on overshadowing the rest.
All of them were nearby. Perhaps just barely out of range of her sense of blood.
“You’ve slept for long enough,” Devon said. Without a word of warning, he leaned down and used the fingers of his normal hand to pry open one of Eva’s eyes. His tentacle was coiled around a small pen light that he moved side to side and up and down.
Eva followed the pen light with her eyes. Had she not, Devon would have barked out orders for her to do so. Groggy though she was, she had sat through enough post-treatment examinations to have her reactions being almost second nature.
As soon as he finished with her eyes, he moved on to pinching her cheeks and pulling at her ears.
She just let him perform his examination without protest. Post-treatment examinations were always invasive checkups.
After a moment of more prodding around her face, Devon paused to jot a few notes down in his notebook.
As he did so, Eva took a few moments to focus on herself. One of his questions would eventually be about how she felt and if she had noticed any changes. He always got irritated if she had to think about the answer for too long.
“Open your mouth.”
Eva complied. Opening her mouth turned to a yawn part way through. The yawn wanted to end with her jaw closing, but Eva suppressed the instinct so as to avoid biting off Devon’s fingers.
Though, it almost looked like someone had tried already. Devon’s hand was dotted in cuts and scrapes. Thin lines of blood had leaked out and scabbed over already.
Seeing her looking at his hand, Devon grunted. “You were less cooperative while unconscious.”
Eva meant to ask how long she was unconscious, but the words came out as nothing more than unintelligible mumbles. Devon still hadn’t removed his fingers from her mouth.
Said fingers ran over her teeth, prodded the insides of her cheeks, and even yanked on her tongue.
She smacked his hand away at that last action. “What did you do that for?”
“Your tongue is elongated,” he said almost absentmindedly as he wrote in his notebook. “I’ll get a measurement later.”
Eva rolled her eyes. He said that after just about every treatment. She had never noticed much of a difference and his measurements were usually fractions of a centimeter. That could have just been from natural growth or how relaxed her tongue was at the moment of measurement. Still, Eva stuck out her tongue just to test, feeling it pass over surprisingly sharp teeth on its way out of her mouth.
She blinked at what she saw.
Her tongue was darker in color. No longer the healthy pinkish red, but almost black. Maybe more of a gray color. Previously, she might have been able to touch the underside of her nose with her tongue. Now, it took no effort to get it up and around the peak of her nose.
“We should talk about your use of the word ‘elongated’ and how much it never applied until today,” Eva said.
Devon just harrumphed. He folded his notebook under his arm while he used both his tentacle and hand to run down Eva’s side, counting her ribs under his breath. Once satisfied, he opened his notebook again and jotted something down.
“How do you feel?”
“Like I had a bucket of ice water poured all over me and haven’t been given a towel to wipe it up.”
“Interesting,” he said, making another note. “The water was just normal water from your rune system. No ice added. It had actually been sitting out for about fifteen minutes. Should have been closer to the ambient temperature.”
Eva glared at him. “Are you going to give me a towel or not?”
He tapped the tip of his pen against his notebook three times.
As if he actually has to think about it.
Eventually, he decided. With a resigned sigh, he headed back into the women’s ward shower room. A moment later, he reappeared with a fluffy purple towel.
Which he threw at her.
It smacked her right in the face.
Eva let out a small growl as she started drying herself off. “Apart from that, pins and needles.” She paused her efforts with the towel and held a hand in front of her face. “I can’t seem to stop shaking.”
“Likely left over from the pain rather than any side effect of the treatment itself,” Devon mumbled, noting something in his notebook anyway.
That made sense well enough. “There was a lot more pain than I had expected. It was intense. Drastically different from the treatments with Arachne.”
“I anticipated that.”
“You could have warned me.”
“That would have just caused unnecessary apprehension. Anything else?”
“I can feel the other demons. Before, I might have been able to sense Zagan if I was concentrating. Never could tell about the others though. Now it is like they’re broadcasting themselves to me. Each one is distinct and clear, though Zagan still towers over the rest.”
“Really?” Devon’s eyebrows climbed up his forehead a good inch. “With the somewhat drastic changes to your body–”
Eva glanced down at herself, double-checking that she still looked like a human on the outside. She did. And, through her sense of blood, she decided that she was mostly human internally as well. Although, most humanoid demons tended to look indistinguishable from humans even on the inside. Had she not already memorized their circulatory systems, Eva wouldn’t be able to tell Zagan and Catherine apart from anyone else while they were in their human form.
Lucy was a bit different, being a mass of tentacles compressed into a humanoid form.
Blinking, Eva realized that Devon was still talking.
“–jump started or skipped over part of the process. I doubt you’re fully demon yet, but this may have accelerated things. I’ll need a more in-depth examination to be certain.” Devon hummed for a moment, tapping a finger on the edge of his notebook. “What about farther away? Can you sense the hel? Or any other demons at your school?”
Eva closed her eyes in concentration. Leaning in and listening, metaphorically, she found nothing more than the four demons around her prison.
“Nope,” Eva said. “Maybe Zagan is overpowering anyone who is too far away. Or I just can’t feel them from this far away. Once I get back to the city, I’ll feel around a bit and let you know.”
Devon marked a few things down with a nod. “Speaking of the demons. You need to go get rid of them. They won’t leave.”
“Won’t leave? How long has it been since the end of the ritual.”
“Two hours. And the succubus keeps trying to corner me. You can tell it that I am not interested.” He blinked before shaking his head. “In fact, use harsher words than that. Much harsher words.” He snapped his notebook shut and regarded her with a glare. “And that devil hasn’t moved at all. Get rid of them then come back and see me. We’ll get those measurements.”
He wandered off towards the kitchen, muttering something to himself that Eva couldn’t quite catch.
Rather than jump up to go confront the gaggle of demons outside, Eva just sat back on the couch.
She didn’t want to move.
Pins and needles poked all through her body with any kind of movement. She had been keeping a straight face in front of Devon, but her face had taken on an unpleasant grimace now that he had gone. It wasn’t that bad of a pain. Cutting herself for blood hurt worse. Having her eyes removed had hurt far worse.
But it was constant and everywhere. That was more than enough to make it annoying.
Hopefully it would die out after a few minutes. If it continued for any length of time, she might just go insane.
Apart from the pins and needles, Eva didn’t feel all that bad. Her treatments with Arachne usually left her feeling lethargic for most of the day. If she even woke up before the next day. Now it had been a mere two hours, according to Devon, and she felt full of energy.
Of course, the ritual itself had lasted a lot longer. They had started not long after noon and it was now dark outside the window. Maybe just a short time after dusk, maybe it was almost morning. Eva couldn’t see the clock from where she lay and getting up just to check sounded painful.
But she couldn’t just lie around all night. Especially not with all the demons sitting around.
Zagan did whatever he wanted. The fact that he had decided to stick around wasn’t any more surprising than finding out he had disappeared immediately after would have been.
Catherine, on the other hand, didn’t make sense. The succubus hadn’t even wanted to come. Eva had expected her to be the first one gone. She had games to get back to, or whatever else the succubus did.
And what had Devon said? She was trying to corner him? Eva couldn’t help but make a face at the thought.
Stalking Devon shocked Eva more than anything else. Succubi sure had strange tastes. Weren’t they supposed to be extraordinarily vain creatures?
Devon was not handsome by anyone’s definition of the word. His beard was scraggly and unkempt at the best of times, as was his hair. With his nose looking like it had been broken a few too many times, wrinkles lining his face, and small scars around where the wrinkles weren’t, Devon couldn’t attract an ogre, let alone a succubus.
At least, that was what Eva had assumed before hearing that. Maybe Catherine saw something beneath his rugged exterior. Some inner beauty. His charming personality, perhaps?
The thought had Eva bursting out in laughter—laughter that rapidly turned to groans as the ache of her body flared.
Regardless of what Devon and Zagan said about the ritual, Eva hoped beyond hope that she wouldn’t pick up any strange traits from having Catherine as a donor.
Though, she had to admit that she wouldn’t mind having the succubus’ body and natural grace.
With a sigh, Eva swung her legs over the edge of the couch while trying to ignore the needles poking her body. It was actually somewhat like having a limb fall asleep.
Something that hadn’t happened to her since she got Arachne’s limbs.
Pushing herself up to her feet, Eva took one step.
She immediately stumbled into the table, hopped twice to get away from it without crashing onto it, bumped into a chair, and promptly fell to the ground.
Eva didn’t move from her spot on the rug in the middle of the common room. So much for a succubus’ grace, she thought with a sardonic smile.
After several minutes of just resting against the floor, the ache in her body died down enough that she was willing to try again. Eva climbed to her feet and managed to remain steady all the way to the door.
The pain was dying down. Slowly. A good nap would probably have it gone entirely by the time she awoke.
She felt far too awake to even think about taking a nap.
Walking around agitated the feeling of needles under her skin. At the same time, every step seemed to lessen the feeling. By the time she reached the ritual circle at the basketball court, Eva could barely feel any discomfort at all. Although she still felt shaky.
Eva took one glance around the basketball court and shivered. An eerie feeling overcame her as she spotted Zagan.
The devil was meditating. Or, he had his eyes closed and his hands resting in his lap. An apparently meditating Zagan was one of the strangest things that Eva had seen in a long time. Worse, he was still naked; he apparently hadn’t bothered to put on his clothes again.
Neither had the carnivean. She had an unwavering glare fixed on Zagan. If looks could kill…
Well, Zagan would probably survive.
Catherine—now in her full demon form, wings, tail, and all—hadn’t bothered to gather up her clothes either, but Eva had somewhat expected that. The succubus didn’t like clothes at the best of times and had even less shame than Eva. She was pacing around in the grass to the side of the cement and had been at pacing for a while if the shallow trench was any indication.
Glancing down at herself, Eva realized that she was still naked as well. The only ones with any clothes on were Serena and Lucy, though Serena had doffed her heavy winter clothing now that night had fallen.
The two clothed people were talking to each other at the far end of the court, too quiet to be heard.
It didn’t really matter. None of the demons would care about nudity. Devon didn’t care. Eva doubted that he actually saw people as people, let alone women as women or men as men. To say nothing of how he felt about actual demons.
Serena had whistled at both Zagan and Catherine, but she probably didn’t really care either, being dead and all. If she did, oh well.
Eva was curious about what Serena and Lucy were talking about. Unfortunately, she didn’t get a chance to go find out.
The moment Catherine noticed Eva’s presence, the succubus flapped her wings twice. That carried her just high enough over the ground for her to glide over and swoop down in front of Eva.
“I want to use another favor,” she said before her feet had even settled on the ground. “Make that man listen to me.”
Eva thought back to her thoughts on Devon and frowned. “Are you sure you want to waste a whole favor on Devon? He isn’t that good-looking. Surely you have higher standards than him.”
Catherine blinked. Her eye twitched as she shot Eva a glare. “Make him put me in the center of that circle.”
“You,” Eva started after a moment of silence. “I don’t… I mean, you’re already a demon.”
“Every few months, you would show up stronger than you were the day before. I knew something unnatural was going on, but I couldn’t figure out what.”
Somehow, Eva doubted that Catherine had tried very hard to figure it out. She hadn’t even asked. Though Eva was trying to keep her treatment a secret from most mortals, she would probably have told Catherine. Maybe. It was a prospect that had been more likely over the last semester, after Eva had a chance to get to know the succubus better during the diablery class.
“When I first met you, you were barely a blip on my mini-map. Now…” The succubus took in a deep breath. “I want in on it. I finally know what was being done to you and I want it.”
“Well, I don’t have a problem with it,” Eva started. A slight glint over Catherine’s shoulder caught her attention.
Zagan, still in his meditative pose, had opened his eyes. His gaze met with Eva’s for just a moment. The corners of his lips curled upwards just a hair.
He knew. Somehow, some way, he knew what Catherine would ask. And he planned for it.
Eva broke her staring contest with the devil to glance at Lucy. She had wondered—had assumed that he had asked to bring Lucy along in case he decided to skip out. But no. Now Eva could see it. Lucy was here to be a third demon for Catherine. Zagan and Qrycx being the first and second. It was why he was still hanging around and likely why Qrycx was glaring at him. He must have ordered the carnivean to stay.
Obviously, Qrycx hadn’t wanted to die again so she had complied.
He knew, Eva thought again as she turned her eyes back to Zagan. Whether through some demonic ability or just through reading her personality, he had expected her to ask about being involved in the ritual.
And he had called it an experiment.
Frowning, Eva again met with Catherine’s eyes. Having recalled that last little tidbit, she was actually worried about Catherine. Being involved in something that Zagan called an experiment couldn’t be good for her health.
“Will it even work for you though?” Eva asked, mostly as a way to delay as she continued to think. “It was meant to turn me into a demon, not turn a demon into a stronger demon.”
“It will take modification, but that shouldn’t take long. I understand ritual circles, a former master ensured I had a background in basic mortal magics. While I could modify it myself, double checking with the creator will help remove any unforeseen problems that I might miss on my own.”
Eva raked her claws through her hair, sweeping it all back behind her head. “I guess it couldn’t hurt to ask him. About talking about it, at least.” She fixed Catherine with a glare. “Be careful, be sure if and when you actually do the ritual.”
“Didn’t know you cared,” Catherine said with a frown.
“I do.”
Catherine snorted. She turned half-away, staring at the ritual circle with unblinking eyes.
Zagan had again closed his eyes and resumed his meditation.
Lucy and Serena looked like they wanted to come over and talk. At least, Serena looked like she wanted to come talk. Lucy was staring at the starry night sky with a wide grin on her mouth. A too-wide grin.
If any student at Brakket Academy still thought that she was even partially human, it would be a miracle.
Eva gave Serena a sorry smile—one that said that they could talk later.
“I do care about you,” Eva said. “As far as all the people I know go, you’re one of the more agreeable to speak with. And with Arachne… with that incident, I’d rather not needlessly lose any more friends.” The last word came out almost as a whisper as she remembered her conversation with Serena the other day.
“Friends?” Catherine gave a small snort.
But she didn’t deny it, Eva thought with a smile. That was another friendship finger that she could tick off. Her smile faltered just a hair as her thought process continued onwards. Unless the snort was her denying it.
Catherine turned back, eying Eva up and down. “Just go get the diabolist.”
“Demonologist,” Eva corrected. “He’ll get mad if you call him otherwise.”
“Whatever.” Catherine dismissed the notion with a wave of her hand. “Hurry up. We’re on a time limit. I want this done before Zagan decides to leave.”
Eva shrugged, but didn’t argue. Zagan probably wouldn’t go anywhere since he was the one who wanted the experiment to go ahead.
But, Zagan was a fickle creature. Eva complied with Catherine’s request.
“Devon,” Eva called out as she entered the women’s ward.
“In here, girl,” came a voice from the kitchen. It sounded as if his mouth was half full of food.
Sure enough, Eva walked in to find Devon shoveling a bowl of ramen down his throat.
He held up a set of calipers in his tentacle and waved her over with them, not bothering to actually verbalize anything as he slurped up another noodle.
“The demons aren’t gone just yet,” Eva said. That actually got him to glare at her. Before he could empty his mouth and start berating her–or worse, not empty his mouth and start berating her–Eva said, “but I think you should talk to Catherine first.”
His narrowed eyes blinked wide open. A moment later, he leaned back in the chair and looked up with a long groan at the ceiling. “The harsh words… it liked them, didn’t it?”
“Not really. Probably. Actually, she wants to be part of an experiment.”
Devon shifted, looking back at her. “What sort of experiment? I am not interested in most things that a succubus would consider experimental.”
“Catherine wants to be in the center of the treatment circle.”
His fingers tapped against the table, beating out an irregular rhythm. He stared. The gears turning in his head was almost audible. Slowly, Devon’s gaze shifted to his notebook.
“It wouldn’t work,” he eventually said. “The succubus wouldn’t gain anything. Not unless…”
Devon trailed off. Ramen forgotten, he picked up his notebook and started flipping through the pages.
“She says that she knows a few modifications that would need to be made. And, the reason why all the demons are still here is to run this second experiment. I think she wants to do it tonight. Like, now. Or as soon as the modifications to the circle can be done.”
Eva had been hoping that telling him why the demons were around might help entice him further.
She should have known better.
Devon’s eyes narrowed. “The pillar wants to do it,” he said with a flat voice. “It wouldn’t stay here otherwise.” He snapped his notebook shut with a loud clack. “Forget it. I’m not playing into a bunch of demons’ hands. And definitely not the devil’s.”
Really should have known better, Eva thought. But still, this was Catherine’s request. Zagan might have known about it, but he hadn’t forced Catherine to suggest it as far as Eva could tell. Not only was she using up a favor in asking to get him to come, but she was a friend.
Tentatively.
Could she just leave it with him declining? Catherine wanted to use up a whole favor on this, so probably not.
“Ah,” Eva said. “That’s a shame.” She turned towards the kitchen exit. “I suppose I’ll just go tell Catherine and especially Zagan that you don’t want a thing to do with them. I’m sure that Zagan will be only mildly disappointed that he wasted his time by waiting around.”
Eva started walking away. Slowly. All while counting down in her head.
The second she hit zero, Devon spoke.
“Eva.”
Eva stopped, glancing back with a vapid smile on her face.
He did not sound happy.
“I know what you’re doing.”
“I know you know. That doesn’t change the fact that I wouldn’t want to anger Zagan. And that’s taking into consideration that he wouldn’t kill me on a whim for the simple fact that he is interested in finding out what lies at the end of my treatment.”
Eva turned, facing the door again. “Besides, what do you want me to do? Sit around so they end up waiting even longer? Zagan might just be more angry at that. Glad to know that you’ve got such confidence in your abilities though.”
Devon didn’t move. Not to speak. Not to get up. So, Eva left.
By the time she reached the wall around the women’s ward, Devon was scrambling after her.
So… supposedly the demons involved in Eva’s ritual don’t loose any of their power. We’ve not had confirmation of this, quite, but it is this that leads to me to think that Zagan might be interested to see if by shoving demons through rituals they can in effect create NEW power? As in, the total power goes up – one demon gets stronger, the others don’t get weaker. Which from a metaphysical standpoint would mean Void gets more powerful? Which would certainly be in Zagan’s interest what with Void scrapping with PurpleOne.
Either that or it totally does drain power, just hasn’t been on noticeable levels because Eva is coming from a very weak powerlevel in comparison to regular demons, and he just wants to see Catherine go bonkers, or explode, or grow tentacles or something.
Some demons can have kids – this isn’t mentioned to reduce their power.
The significant part is that this method may get you more high power demons, which normally require the intervention of gods and powers to make.
It could make more demons on par with Zagan, eventually, but I don’t think Zagan would want that — who wants more competition? 😉
Before, he could have his way with Eva and tear her arm off, or whatever, then put it all back as though nothing had happened. She had learned to overtly fear his physical presence, and to fear his actions/whims. But now she can sense him — and she has an innate sense of his overwhelming power. Before, he had to manifest or otherwise make his presence felt. Now he merely has to think about thinking about her and she’ll feel it. This offers the ability to better and more easily influence Eva (and perhaps Catherine now) from a distance.
Wow, she got strong…
*lol* I really love Eva <3 …the way she played devon – marvelous… 😀
Like I said before, it goes two ways. Zagan is interested in seeing what hooks he can get in. I presumed it was just Eva. That he wants to do it with another demon… and I’m glad Catherine used up a favor. It can’t be healthy to owe a demon multiple “favors”.
Typos:
though Zagan still towers over the rest.
missing end quote
What about father away?
farther
Hopefully it died out after a few minutes.
would die out
Although, she still felt shaky.
Although she
her conversation with Serena the other day ago.
-ago
Her smile falter just a hair as
faltered
Thanks!
Well damn. That was a really nice read that kept me busy for two whole weeks straight!
I regret not having picked this up earlier – the summary doesn’t really do your story justice.
Thank you very much.
Thanks for the kind words! Glad you’ve enjoyed.
Just recently got linked here on a Reddit recommendation binged it all. Hard to believe I missed a gem like this out there makes me wonder how many good online stories are unknown to me… I love the story so far there was a point of queasiness regarding the incident Eva suffered at the hands of a certain necromancer, but thankfully there were future chapters to get me through that and keep me enthralled.
In general I have never been a big fan of the idea of a secret magical society hiding in plain sight but you made a story that has superseded that with regards to characters plot development and world building. More over the veneer has already been lifted by this time. 😉
And as the governments seem to have known before I imagine that there was a magical equivalent to the men in black or something working to keep everything under wraps using those shady mind arts.
In particular you have done a great job with revealing the worlds governing mechanics particularly with regards to magic
Though I must admit I’m a bit curious how you intend to handle the mixing of science and magic as technology like cell phones that require quantum mechanics would have to mix in some way
My current speculation is discrepancies could either be clashes of powers or parallel planes of reality bumping into each other and affecting the others or something.
I also may have though a bit too much about some particular implications (for instance magic that could turn something into gold has far more valuable applications than just gold, with modern industry and technology rapidly consuming lesser known and extremely useful elements scarce on earth hard to process or inherently unstable.
I also speculate that the “pure” magical elements would be a state transformation similar to how mass and energy are interchangeable?
Sorry If I over did that. I had to stop myself.
Back onto story speculation
I can only hope that those Demon hunters can be stopped before they do too much damage… The necromancer incident still leaves scars 0_o
Well keep up the good work consider this followed(or at least the table of contents bookmarked)!
Thanks for the words! I always like long comments like this. Every time there is speculation, there is something that I’ve not even thought about myself.
As for supernatural worlds hiding among normal people… I’ve always thought that was a silly concept. Maybe not fifty years ago. Even thirty years ago. But in our modern day of instant mostly hi-def video on cellphones that we carry everywhere, it is almost unthinkable that something magical wouldn’t be recorded.
Do cellphones require quantum mechanics? I’ll admit, this is one of those things that I haven’t considered all that much. I didn’t want to go the Harry Potter route and have technology break down around magic, but I don’t actually know all that much about cellphones. Or quantum mechanics.
Conjuring gold would probably be fairly difficult. Genoa conjures up iron in one chapter, as does Juliana. However, iron is fairly high up on the periodic table of elements. I didn’t consult the periodic table before writing those chapters, but after double checking, I think we’ll go with the following. The greater the atomic number, the more difficult to conjure. I’m not going to say that it is absolutely impossible, but I doubt that anyone has been able to conjure uranium or even lead. Actually delving into that is probably beyond the scope of the story, but it is fun to think about.
As for the demon hunters… hmm hmmm..
Anyway, glad you’ve enjoyed thus far and hope you continue to enjoy in the future!
This reminds me of hpmor, do not transfigure liquids or gas xD
Would be cool if highly skilled pyromancy was actually conjuring Chlorine trifluride (burns basically every substance known to man, on contact)
I think Dragrath’s state changes kinda fit? Especially if magic was a lower entropy or more concentrated energy than conventional power. A far smaller amount of magical power would be needed to achieve an equivalent in mundane energy. Especially considering a human outputs barely enough power to make toast (whilst surviving).
Particle acceleration would be an interesting application of magic… Magical railgun anyone?
Also is it possible to wear runes? I feel like I’ve forgotten their nuances :S
Shalise did have a glove that, when she aligned her fingers just right, would fire off a lightning bolt. Not a particularly powerful one and the gloves had to be charged up pretty much with every few uses. So it is possible to wear them.
And yeah, they’ve fallen into a bit of disuse. Their biggest problem is the time it takes to set them up. Anytime you want to do something new with them, you have to do a whole bunch of research and experimentation. Even things you’ve done before can easily be forgotten for more complex rune systems. Not really something one can do while a big fight is going on around them.
Do they effectively allow a specified magical effect to be triggered, at the cost of the runes stored energy?
Essentially, yes. Most of the time, Eva uses them for practical things that would be inconvenient to do through regular magic. Lighting in the prison, for instance. There isn’t any running electricity, so she needs some way to light the place. Charging up a rune system every now and again is much easier than casting a spell to produce light every time she enters a room.
Glad to see you like thinking about these sorts of things as well 🙂
As for the quantum connection all modern electronics rely on the behavior of semi conductors which is a phenomena that arises due to quantum effects so anything with processor chips and the like would be impossible in particular the miniaturization allowed as computers would be forced to use vacuum tubes which suffer severe size limitations(i.e. the WWII/early cold war era room sized computers that were not only slow inefficient and really expensive)
And with the mention of runes as energy can be stored in them and converted back(implied for Eva’s light runes to work) depending on size limits (i.e. how small can they be without hindering their function as well as storage capacity ) they could allow drastic improvements on battery storage effectively solve one of the biggest technological limitations of today with regards to renewable energy and device miniaturization(depending on how small a functional rune configuration could be made)
So in theory if a mage were to spend the time researching rune to material interactions just in size and capacity they could become a multi billionaire who could completely revolutionize technology For instance practical “nano machines”(size limited by functional rune limit), magic chargeable smart phones, clean energy and more… Reversing the process i.e. converting energy to magical energy could open things up a step further (rapid magic recharge for mages, allowing runes to be used by non mages…)
and all that would need rune wise is magic storage/ charging, magic to (light, heat, electricity etc.) and energy to magic runes… (and then size if miniaturization is desired)
Eva’s lighting runes already accomplish 2 of the three necessary conditions to completely revolutionize technology not counting miniaturization…
Those ward loving mages are really missing out!
So runes are complicated to setup and simple there after.
“Typical” Magic is your middle ground.
And rituals are an interim to extremely complicated magic? I can’t remember any instances of their aside from the few blood rituals Eva has preformed and demon magics…
Sorry to ask you to rehash all this :S
I’m really enjoying the world you’ve built and can’t help but want to sound out the mechanics behind it.
Yeah, that’s accurate. The rituals performed in story are generally too complex to be done with a simple wave of the wand. A mage using a tome as a focus might have a few smaller scale rituals prepared inside to quickly cast them, but those would likely be simple enough for someone to cast with a regular focus given a few minutes of time.
And no problem, a lot of the magic system is extraordinarily vague (mostly on purpose) in the text itself.
Cool! I know what focus I’d go for 😀
I don’t suppose it’s altogether feasable to use rituals or large runic arrays to store magical power though?
Otherwise there’s be a lot more oversized shield arrays powered off internal power stores.
Then again, I can imagine back when blood magic was more widespread rituals spanning entire towns to harvest blood at a trickle from the populous would have definitely crossed someone’s mind…
Would be interesting to find an ancient magical rules having had their city built so the streets themselves were a ritual…
You probably could make a sort of magical battery. There might be problems with connecting it to other tings. I wouldn’t want to take Eva’s anti-scrying rune packets, chop off the magical storage part, and try to connect it to something else. The way I have it pictured in my mind is that the magic would vent into the environment as soon as you broke the lines on the paper. On/off switches (such as those on the lights I mentioned in the other comment) work by redirecting the magic from the lighting element into a loop back into the storage runes. Every time it is switched, some amount of magic is lost.
So a magical battery would need a loop that could be broken and attached to whatever you wanted to power. You might lose a good portion of the stored magic to the environment during connecting though.
Building a city-sized magical circle might be getting a little into FMA’s territory. Probably would have been possible. Maybe even done at some point. But not for thousands of years.
Hmm, that’s probably a good thing. I can’t think of many moraly valid reasons for a ritual so large…
Maybe an accumulator to charge the storage runes using ambient magic… Although that would be dependant on how much ambient magic there was in the area. And you’d likely need to draft in some magical vents to prevent overloading the storage runes…. Which might not even be worth it if you could just recharge it every few weeks/months.
Then again, if you had a runic electricity generator you could then heat your water and run lights from that. So it would depend on how much infrastructure you invested in.
All that aside, I feel Eva’s pain with her studies. Her conventional magic would be a worthwhile investment, but her blood magic has borne the greatest use for her, and she can probably start using demon magic soon… And she hasn’t time for half of it!