#Component: Gloriole

[driftward]

Article Title: Creation of Aether Fields using Virtual Spaces Reading Level: Considered appropriate for those of thirteen summers and up Abstract: Further investigation into the artifacts of Mhach revealed information pertinent to the creation of their ‘Ozma’ weapon system. It appears to have been a small part of a larger construct that exists mostly in higher dimensional spaces. Here, we explore what that might mean for advancing our knowledge of spellcraft, as well as some possible practical applications of that knowledge. Notes: None Article contents believed to be relevant to current investigation into the incident. -Y.Shtola

~*~

Mhach. The so-called Weeping City.

It was easier to travel within now than it had been the first time Zoissette had come here. Its defenders had been eliminated, and since it no longer held the nullstone within its protective facilities, most of the voidsent had lost interest. That was not to say it was not dangerous. Taking the city properly would almost certainly require the resources of one of the city states to be brought to bear, and sensibly, none of them had any real interest in doing so.

But whereas before it had taken a veritable army of adventurers, this little foray required little more than some covering air support from the air pirates, provided by a Leofard who was still grateful to Klynt for the help, and a small adventuring party on the ground. So while it had not been easy, it certainly was not nearly as dangerous as the earlier trip had been.

And so they had arrived at the gloriole facility once more. Ryssthota wanted to learn more about Mhach spell works, and Zoissette was just interested in what she could find out from a nation that had been contemporary with Nym. So while the other adventurers delved deeper into the ruins for what treasures they could find, Klynt gamely stood idly by to keep an eye out while Zoissette and Ryssthota delved into ancient knowledge.

Zoissette had found a number of books detailing the construction, maintenance, and operation of the gloriole itself. With Foxglove’s assistance, she had come up with a translation enchantment that allowed her to quickly read through the books, but she was finding herself stymied. Some parts of it had been translated cleanly, and she understood them well enough, but the parts she was really interested in, geometries and equations and calculations, all seemed to be utter nonsense.

She tried to copy it into the more modern symbols and glyphs she was familiar with. It did not help. Coordinates had too many numbers, and what should have be linear equations were decidedly not.

Unless.

She blinked.

It was obvious if you thought about it that way.

She made her way to the edge of the large structure, and looked down the sides of it, trying to find where Ryss was. Spotting her, she yelled down.

“SAY! RYSS!”

Ryss looked up, and yelled back. “WHAT?”

“I WANT TO SHOW YOU SOMETHING!”

“CAN IT WAIT?”

Zoissette looked around. Nearby Klynt had her arms crossed looking at her with a bemused expression. The rest of the adventurers she had come in with had found their way elsewhere, and it would probably be bells before they came back. If she looked out in the distance, away from the gloriole structure and out into the clouds, she could just barely make out one of the Redbills’ manacutters.

“SURE. HOW ABOUT WHEN YOU WANT LUNCH, YOU COME UP HERE, WE CAN EAT TOGETHER AND TALK?”

Her voice echoed around the facility, and the space was such that it lent her an almost musical quality, with a bit of a distortion that sounded otherworldly.

“SURE!”

Klynt had stalked up to her now, and was giving her the most befuddled look.

“I could’ve just nipped down t’ her and asked, and bounded right back up,” she said.

Zoissette just shrugged at her.

It was after lunch when Zoissette and Ryss began comparing notes. Ryss stood and watched as Zoissette paced.

“So, I have been studying their texts on Ozma, trying to figure out how it worked.”

Ryss nodded gamely, pushing her glasses up.

“And I was thinking - well, none of the math was working out. None of it was making any sense. But, well, here, look at my notes.”

Ryss took Zoissette’s notebook, and leafed through it carefully, and raised an eyebrow.

“Your coordinates have too many numbers in them.”

“Exactly! Exactly! They have too many numbers… for three dimensional space.”

Ryss frowned, and looked back down again. She traced a finger over Zoissette’s work, and her face broke into a big smile.

“Oh, oh, oh, girl, I see what you’ve done here. Oh, that’s - wow. That’s brilliant. Extra dimensions.”

“Right! Exactly. Here, here, let me show you something. Stand over… here.”

Ryss dutifully walked over to where Zoissette pointed, and Zoissette began to pace around her.

“Okay. So, the way I think it works is… imagine you are Ozma.”

“Sweet. Do I get energy beams?”

“Obviously. Now, imagine you are Ozma. The real actual Ozma, not the part we interact with. And I think what is happening is… it is like we, you and me and the others, it is like we are people who exist on the floor. But only on the floor! Flat, compared to you. And what we see of Ozma is not you, of course, but we see your shadow, and that is what we have been interacting with the entire time. Ozma exists in some higher dimensional space, and it is casting a shadow into our three dimensional world, just like you are a three dimensional person-”

“Aw, thanks.”

“-casting a two dimensional shadow.”

Ryss looked excited. “And that is probably why it took the forms of various simple shapes. Because we are not looking at the entire Ozma, just its shadow into our reality. Just like my shadow is much simpler than I am. That’s brilliant!”

Zoissette crouched next to Ryssthota’s shadow, and held a hand to it, frowning. “The only thing I cannot figure out is the spellworks involved. While allowing for the assumption of these extra dimensions suddenly makes a lot of what I have read about the workings of Ozma make sense mathematically, I have no idea how they brought it into physical reality, so to speak. Or even if I could figure out how to make higher dimensional spells, how to get their effects to connect to our three dimensional space.”

Ryssthota looked thoughtful, and paged through Zoissette’s notes some more, and nodded to herself.

“Aw, sweetheart, you’ve been thinking too hard again.”

Zoissette looked up at Ryss with a raised eyebrow.

“Look at me. Look at where my feet are. See?”

“…I am not certain I do.”

“My shadow, Zoissette. Where’s it at?”

“On the ground? … oh, no, I - okay. I understand. It is attached to you.”

“Exactly! I mean, if I jump, there’ll be a gap between me and it, but it’ll close as soon as I land again, and there’s no reason to make Ozma jump. These extra dimensions don’t have to be far off the way you’ve drawn them - I get that it makes it easier to visualize, but think about it. They’re right here already. Right on top of us.”

Ryss scribbled a few notes while Zoissette considered.

“…yeah. Yeah! This could maybe work… can at least write a paper about it… call them aether fields...”

Zoissette ran her hand across Ryssthota’s shadow.

“…there is nothing here.”

“Hmn?”

“The shadow. It is… an absence, not a presence.”

“Yeah, but that’s just ‘cus of the way shadows work. Could just as easily be, like, an outline in snow or sand. Don’t think too literal about it.”

“No, I mean, that is just it - it could be something else. We could rig some sparklers or lights, for example, and influence the colour and outlines of the shadow, just like you moving your arms or legs would. Jumping would change its attributes as well. But also, there is no reason for Ozma, or any such aether field, to actually be anything at all.”

Zoissette stood up, and put her hands on her hips, thinking. “In fact, any aether field, Ozma or otherwise, instead of being something, could also just be an absence of anything.”

“Now you’re onto something. I knew you had it in you! You’re right. And think of other things. It could show up in multiple places at once, like when it shucked us over to that other place outside of the gloriole. Or it it could collapse down into a singularity. Lots of options. I think a lot of them would require a truly ridiculous amount of aether, but we could probably get a lot of malmage out of starting simple and working our way out. It’s practically a new field of spellworks!”

“You really think so?”

“It’s what I do, girl. You do math, Apple does artifice, I do spells. I know so.”

“Huh,” said Zoissette, thoughtfully. “You know, since you mentioned math, now a lot of the more curious equations in the Nymian texts make more sense.” She looked at Ryssthota. “What do you think we should call this new space? It’s a kind of complex math, but the new coordinate plane and the number types deserve a new name I think. Imaginary numbers, maybe?”

Ryssthota groaned. “You should not be allowed to name things. Nobody’ll take that seriously.”

“Well, I mean, because we are no longer dealing with the real…”

“It’s plenty real, just in a higher dimension. Hypernumbers?”

“Now who sounds ridiculous.”

“Better than your idea!”

“…I got it. We are talking about essential qualities of reality, invisible to us here, but real indeed. Virtual numbers.”

Ryss nodded. “That’ll do for now.”

Zoissette gave Ryssthota a big smile. One of her genuine ones, Ryss noted. Valuable indeed.

“Thanks. I really appreciate your insight. And your help.”

“Anytime! Even the theory on this will keep me busy for moons. Hah, wait’ll they see our papers back at the Assessor’s Office.”

Off from the edge of the platform, Klynt gave out a shout, and both women looked over to see the first of the other adventuring parties returning.

“Well, I think we’re done here,” said Ryss. “Hop down, help me back up my stuff?”

“I will be right there,” said Zoissette. “Just give me five minutes to clean up my own mess up here.”

Ryss gave her a thumbs up and hopped down off the platform, and Zoissette watched her go before turning back to look at where Ozma had once lain.

Well, there was a lot of work in her future, but this, at least, was a start.

#The Incident #Component: Gloriole