ΦSO MOTE IT BE!Φ
| I KNOW YOU’RE UP TO SOMETHING MORE WITH THIS I HAVEN’T FIGURED OUT WHAT YET BUT SOON WE’LL BE DONE WITH THIS OTHER NONSENSE OF YOURS AND THEN THERE SHALL COME |
| A RECKONING |
Maybe you should be careful what you wish for, Book Smarts, Justin thought back. Just because you finally complete delivery doesn’t mean you stop being liable for compensation owing to delay of access, services, and all the rest. Reckon with that.
There was no response.
“Brother?” Taiko said.
“Hold on, checking with your celestie bestie,” Justin said. Sol?
The god’s cold voice whistled through his mind, leaving warmth in its wake.
We’re far from done over here, so if I were you, I wouldn’t stack Barriers inside each other. It might still ‘punch holes in reality’. Other than that, though, it’s safe for you to create Barriers inside the Warped Spaces on this hull. Also, I definitely don’t expect us to be finished until after I rise again tomorrow. I won’t get into the technicalities, but again, thank you for the new experiences. I haven’t had to be this creative in a long time. Have fun experimenting and learning too!
The god’s presence vanished again before Justin could reply.
Justin yet again reconsidered trying to find a way to contact the Contract’s ‘Upper Management’, and yet again put the pin back in it. No, he thought, if there’s one priority to add, it’s getting Ougo’s oaths transferred. If it weren’t for the risk that someone above Tzo in the Ling Fei could overrule his command of the man and his forces, I’d have brought the Captain - and probably Norodo - in as far as the other two already. We need their stoicism for balance.
But that’ll have to remain an issue for later. Top priority now is power testing!
“We’re good to go!” Justin said cheerfully. “And no time or place like the present!” He began coiling the cordage and ropes used to lay out the ritual space, and Taiko and the troopers pitched in, half of the latter jogging to the rear stage where the buckets and cloths needed to clean up the sigils’ paint had been set aside.
Once he had a sufficiently large space cleared, with everyone else working uprange of his testing area, Justin pulled one of the solid-backed orchestra stands over and flipped over the note paper used to delineate the former user’s steps in the ritual.
Test 1: he wrote, Basic Plate.
“Tzo!” he shouted up at the control booth, and pointed in front of himself “Give me five one-story platforms in a line right here!”
A few seconds later five hexagonal sections of the stage started rising where he’d indicated, as Tzo manipulated the flooring controls. Black-sided with paint, just like their stage surface tops. Once they stopped, Justin stepped up and tried to look through the cracks between them. The joins were far from perfect; good enough not to trip up actors concentrating on their performance, but far from what he wanted as testing walls. He trotted around the end of the line and pointed at the three offset hexes in front of them.
“And another three here, please!” he shouted. That would block almost anything. He didn’t really expect violent explosions; he wasn’t going to test anything that destructive on board, but better safe than sorry.
Once the eight-hex wall was up, he stepped back to its right end and imagined a standard 2001 Monolith form, only transparent yellow rather than solid black. And filled with the air it would surround, and on the metric scale, not the imperial. One meter thick by four meters wide by nine meters tall, almost thirty feet high, resting on the stage ten meters in front of him. And not facing him; angled at forty-five degrees to his left. He focused his will, the way he had when Sol had so conveniently asked for his cooperation earlier after the Right Here Chloe’s investiture. And like before, flexed.
This time, unlike how the mana from the Prominence Potion had shifted throughout his body, he could feel the mana leaving his. . .what was the word – dantian, that was it. Lower dantian; Golden Stove, according to his alchemy knowledge, where the chaotic mana of existence in the material world was refined into chi.
The monolith flashed into existence.
And sure enough, as the Right's monohull rocked gently in the waters of the Toh, even at dock, the thirty-foot pillar toppled over. But slowly, like. . .styrofoam. Or something lighter. Aerogel? Which suggested the actual material of the Barrier itself was incredibly thin, or at least low-mass. And it likely wasn’t locked to some more fundamental cosmic reference frame; it appeared subject to the same physics everything else was. That had its advantages and drawbacks, but on the whole, he preferred it this way.
Rather than landing with a boom, it floated forward as it reached the stage, supported by the air it was equally displacing, its downward momentum converted to forward. The back edge scraped across the stage with a small grinding noise, and the thud as the leading edge thumped into the raised platform to Justin's left could be felt in the flooring underneath.
Weight of air, weight of air, Justin racked his brains. . .one point something? One point three - 1.3 kg per cubic meter. Times 36. . .47 kg. 100 pounds of air in that thing. Yeah, that fits.
More importantly, however, he could feel the Barrier's continuing existence, like a. . .weight, not so much in his mind as in the universe near him. The way echoes and shadows reminded you of the presence of a large object nearby, one that was out of your field of view. But in this case, like a mystically kinesthetic sense.
It wasn’t drawing more mana out of him, which he also liked, but his. . .Barrier Sense? Sure, he was already using ‘Customer Sense’; why not. When he intentionally thought about modifying his creation, he could tell through this new sensory input that he was still connected to it, spooky-action-at-a-distance style.
Justin quickly summarized all that on the paper, then pulled out one of the smallest stretchy covers for his gem-buttons out of his pouch. He moved over to the fallen monolith, set it down on top, and returned to the right end of the three-hex-line, putting most of his body behind it, only his head poking out to watch. He focused his attention on the monolith, and tried to very, very slightly shrink it.
It compressed, taking another chunk of his mana.
“Possible explosive testing!” he shouted, looking around. The troopers were mostly done cleaning up, and everyone not paying attention was out of the potential blast range behind his pseudo-bunker.
Justin counter-flexed. The fallen Monolith disappeared. . .and the tiniest, barely perceivable puff of air floated the cover upwards, less than an inch, before it dropped to the stage. His mana didn’t refill.
Justin added that, plus a note about possible one-way light-heat transparency and retention. If the Barriers truly were adiabatic, and the ideal gas laws remained the same. . .no, you’re getting ahead of yourself again, he thought. Stick to the outline.
Test 2: Basic Size, he wrote, and returned to the wall’s end.
He imagined a smaller Monolith, half the previous one’s dimensions, this time lying on one large face, dummy! And flexed. A trickle of mana left him this time, definitely less than half of the first expenditure, closer to a. . .quarter . He’d be happy if it was an eighth, just for the convenience of knowing that – at least at this scale – volume not only determined mana costs, but obeyed the square-cube law in doing so.
He looked closer at the. . .not-a-minilith.
Because it wasn’t. It was about three-quarters the size of his first monolith. Not ‘mini’ at all.
Justin grumble-growled, deep in his throat, less than pleased at coming up against a limit so soon. Why? he thought, then, Wait – volume? 0.75 times. . .1.5 squared is 2.25, times 2.25 squared. . .huh.
“Tonero, I need your measuring cord!” he called. Working it out by math would be fun, but not as much fun as knowing more and better, sooner.
Ougo’s balding, middle-thickened chief spellcaster brought him the formation/ritualist’s version of a tape measure they’d used to set things up here. “Prominence?” the man asked.
“Give me your best estimate of the width of this one,” Justin said, leading him over. “Well, I mean, the height, in this orientation,” he clarified. The magician kneeled at the corner of the. . .semi-lith, Justin labeled it in his head, half or not, and took the measurement.
“A little over 0.72 meters, Prominence,” Tonero said. Not for the first time, Justin appreciated the seamlessness of the translation magic involved in his transition here. He returned to his orchestra stand and started doing the math. He could have done it in his head, but keeping records of all this was vital. 0.725 times 1.450 squared, times 2.175 squared. . .a-yep, he thought. 7.2 cubic meters; one-fifth the volume of the first monolith.
What was it with this world’s magic and powers of five? Besides, obviously, the elementally obvious.
He looked around. Tonero, peering over his shoulder, withdrew, looking guilty.
“No, no, Tonero, that’s fine!” Justin said. “Do check my math! I’m not ready for questions yet, but the more eyes on this the better.”
“Yes, Prominence,” Tonero said, looking and sounding relieved.
Justin finished his check of the blast-lines. Nobody was at risk, so he counter-flexed to dismiss the - shortylith; yeah, that works, he thought. Now let’s try it in the opposite direction. He moved to the wall’s end, peeked around and imagined a 2x8x18 meter. . .duo-lith. Which would still stick out over the orchestra pit, if he put that end all the way in the backstage, but not reach the seats.
And flexed.
Yeah. That wasn’t a duolith; that was only a biggalith. It wasn’t even 50 percent bigger in each dimension. . .but it was closer than not. Just under 40 percent, he guessed.
“And again, please,” he told Tonero. The magician took the measurement.
“1.38 meters, Prominence.”
Justin went back to the stand. Is there a faster way. . .oh right. He wrote out the equation, converted it into 36X5, squared 1.38, squared the result, and multiplied it by 1.38 one last time.
Five to the second decimal plus spare change. Times 36; 180 cubic meters, five times the volume of the first monolith.
Interesting, Justin thought. Did I set some kind of default for myself by using that imagery? He didn’t have an opinion on that, if it was even the case; it was too soon to judge whether he’d more helped or harmed himself.
Now how do I exceed those limits? Moar powah? he thought. Orrr how about nooo, Justin; you’re getting ahead of yourself yet again. Stick! To the outline!
Test 3: Basic Force, he wrote, and dismissed the biggalith.
Justin grabbed one of the figure-eight rope coils from the pile he’d made, moved to the other side of the raised platform, and created a shortylith, again lying on its largest face. He pushed its narrow end up against one of the angled walls of the rightmost front hexagon platform – gently, at first, then harder as its mass resisted. As he’d expected, its weight was light for its size, but not negligible, maybe. . .twenty pounds? Ten kilos? But this balloon was rigid.
Yeah, prudence pudding definitely remained on the post-prandial menu here.
He dropped the coil near the shortylith’s other narrow end, gently pressed it up against the surface, and retreated to the wall’s corner. He grasped his connection to the shortylith, and slowly expanded it.
As it grew, it pushed the coil of rope across the stage floor in front of it. The mana loss seemed in line with his previous expenditures, but that meant next to nothing. There could be a minimum amount of force involved, which would begin to cost more mana once the load was exceeded. Or the increase necessary to push the coil could be below his current ability to sense. More important here was the confirmation that Newtonian mechanics did seem to be operating normally, even if the force involved was magically generated.
More testing on that aspect needed a proper lab, though. One with some kind of weight-able rotating armature to begin with, maybe applying a pencil against paper to produce a curve and thereby properly measure the forces being exerted.
Oh lord. . .Tzo’s going to love that, isn’t he. And all the rest, too. Justin smiled at the thought, as he noted down the last set of observations. Sometime soon, he might not be the only one in this company who’d retired from the practice of law into a new career.
Justin decided to reward himself. He dismissed the shortylith and imagined a new standard monolith, then tried to shrink it down past the 7.2 cubic foot limit, trying to push his dantian flex before the creation.
It worked.
It took a constant effort over the not-quite-infinitesimal longer period necessary – five times as long, I’ll bet, Justin thought, and if the mana expenditure wasn’t five times as great as well, he’d be very surprised – but out popped a half-meter-ish by meter-ish by four-and-a-half meterish semilith.
“YEAAAHHH BAYBEEEE!” Justin exulted to the celing overhead, thrusting his fists upward. “NOW we’re talkin’! NOW we’re cooking with GAS!”
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