[PM to Join] Over My Head

[Madeleine Gosselin]

Late Morning, Intas 8, 2720
Grand Library

Madeleine’s back and shoulders were straight when she stared; she sat very firmly upright, even though the way she really liked to read was to curl her legs up under herself, and tuck her skirt over them. She’d gotten really good at it; she could do it even in these chairs, although it was better, and much more comfortable, in the big soft-backed chairs at the back of the library.

Of course, she wouldn’t; it wasn’t polite to sit like that next to anyone else, especially someone like Orthosophos who she didn’t know very well. He had been really polite to her, and Madeleine didn’t want to be rude. So she kept her back straight and her knees together, and her feet together too, on the floor in front of the chair, and bent her head forward only just a little, to make it easier to read.

Orthosophos was writing, already; Madeleine tried not to glance over at his notes, because it seemed a bit like cheating. Although, she thought, Professor Duplantier hadn’t said they couldn’t discuss just because the assignment was written now; he hadn’t said anything like that. As long as they didn’t write the same thing, Madeleine thought, wouldn’t it be fine?

She read on.

As a start, think about Mosfante’s spell to suspend gravity. Any student who wishes to cast such a spell must begin with a rigorous understanding of what gravity is, what we call its laws. These are the rules which govern the relation of one object to another – in this case, objects on the surface of Vita to the planet itself. The basics, then, encompass not only an excellent understanding of Monite, but also a deep understanding of the rules of the world which we will ask the mona to bend.

Even with this shared basis of understanding, Mosfante’s spell to suspend gravity presents a challenge for many students of physical conversation. The casting asks the mona to suspend gravity – broadly speaking, although his terminology is much more precise – in a given area around an object. The caster must choose, then, where to center the bubble around the object, its shape, and the relevant dimensions. Choosing too large an area wastes one’s strength; choosing too small an area almost inevitably destroys the object in question.

Balance, in all things, is paramount.

Madeleine kept reading. Cathasaigh went on, discussing more about the purity of physical conversation, and its closeness to the fundamental essence of the universe. He discussed backlash further as well, imploring the student to take caution. At the end of the chapter, wide-eyed, Madeleine read the spell which Hedgewood had cast so disastrously, meant to be an example of purity, balance, and danger. She shivered, sitting back; she smiled, rather tentatively, up at Orthosophos.

“What do you think of it?” Madeleine asked, hopefully. “I mean,” she glanced down for a moment, then summoned up her courage, looking up again, and tried a little smile, “if you think it’s all right for us to discuss?”

[Theodore Orthosophos]

Late Morning, Intas 8, 2720

Grand Library, Brunnhold

The first thing you have to do before asking someone to do something for you is to check if you really want it. Some people ask favours without care and afterwards they often find out - too late - that those favours were not what they needed or - even worse - that they led to painful consequences. It applies to the mona, too: before casting a spell, you must be sure that your intent makes sense and that it will not hurt you. To do so, you need a deep understanding of the reality you want to change; in this case, the underlying physical laws and, specifically, the one about gravity.

Come to think of it, a paragraph or two describing the theory of gravity would fit well in his essay. He added a line to his notes:


- Explain theory of gravity.



Back to the introduction chapter, Theodore read about the area of effect of the spell to suspend gravity; an issue he had been thinking about when Hedgewood vomited: if he had cancelled gravity by his nose to stop his bleeding, he might have accidentally cancelled it in his mouth, thus making his dirty experience even worse. For a moment, he considered adding a note to write a few words about it later, then he discarded the idea, because it might make his essay too unpleasant to read. However, a casual glance to his notes reminded him that he had already written it down. Well, he would be careful.

Interesting was the mention of the destructive effects of choosing an excessively small area. Surely uncle Epiphanos had to use that trick or something like that in his travels to far lands...

He continued reading until he got to the spell his classmate had tried to cast before. There it was, the powerful lore that only gifted conversators would be able to cast. His pupils slowly grew as he read the words in Monite...

"... if you think it’s all right for us to discuss?", Madeleine was asking.

He lifted his eyes from the book, back to the here and now as though he had just awoken from a dream.

"Eh? Uh, yes...", he replied. "I was taking notes about what to write about", he said, showing the sheet to her:


- Explain purity and difficulty. Compare to Quantitative Conversation.
- Examples about balance. Static balance and dynamic balance in physical objects.
- Experimentation as a source of lore.
- Backlash. Comment the accident in the classroom.
- Propose experiments to prove the impact of environmental conditions on the effects of a spell.
- Explain theory of gravity.

[Madeleine Gosselin]

Late Morning, Intas 8, 2720
Grand Library

Madeleine had been very careful not to look at Orthosophos’s notes before, because she wasn’t sure if she ought to. But now he showed them to her, and Madeleine looked down at them, curiously. She glanced up at him once more time, and then back down at the notes.

“Oh, that’s a good idea,” Madeleine said. She smiled a little more at Orthosophos, studying the notes rather more intently. “Taking notes on what to write about, I mean. And the ideas are good also. I like this,” Carefully, she pointed with a small finger at experimentation as a source of lore, although she didn't touch Orthosophos's paper.

“I mean,” Madeleine added, hastily, thinking she probably sounded as if she were very stupid, “well – Professor Cathsaigh doesn’t say much about it, does he? But it’s a very important idea, I think. You learn about casting spells by doing it, after all; that’s what everyone says. It isn’t enough to just read; you have to do them, and maybe you have to do them loads of times, so you really understand how it works.”

“I’ve…” Madeleine trailed off. She swallowed. “I was doing some spell experiments,” she peeked up at Orthosophos, and then back down at her paper. “Never mind. It doesn’t – it isn’t very interesting. I ought to make notes too.”

Madeleine took out her notebook, and turned to a blank page. She bent her head to it. Her heart was pounding a little. She hadn’t cast very much last fall; it wasn’t her fault. The doctors had told her to take it easy, and she had just been doing what the doctors told her to do. She’d had special notes for classes and all. Sometimes Madeleine didn’t like what they said about her, but she knew that arguing wouldn’t help, either. It wasn’t fair, really – telling the truth made her sound crazy – but she really had been possessed last summer.

She knew better than to say anything about that to Orthosophos. Nobody really teased her about it – people teased her about other things, sometimes, but not that – and she really wanted it to stay that way. She didn’t think anyone knew, really, except the doctors and some of her professors and the people who’d been there. She didn’t like the term nervous breakdown, but she thought it was better than people thinking she was crazy. She wouldn’t say anything; Madeleine had decided that a long time ago. She hadn’t meant to bring up her gravity spell, either; it had just slipped out.

She just wanted things to go back to normal, Madeleine thought longingly. It wasn’t fair. A faint wash of blue whispered through her field; she took a deep breath, and smoothed it away.

Madeleine made her own notes, carefully and evenly, writing the thoughts out each on their own line.

- Scientific method in physical conversation; many choices to make in casting and changing too many makes it hard to know what works
- Balance between understanding and experimentation? Can’t only do things already understood or we won’t learn
- Compare balance in confisalto to balance in casting?
- Risk versus reward of experimentation?
- Expected value but backlash can be very uncertain?

[Theodore Orthosophos]

Late Morning, Intas 8, 2720

Grand Library, Brunnhold

Flattered, Theodore slightly smiled at Madeleine's compliment, trying to prevent her to know the way her words had touched him. However, he could not help blushing.

"Some spell experiments?", he echoed when she mentioned she had been doing them.

Whereas any experiments she might have performed in the past would have been inherently interesting, those ones became even more interesting when she swallowed and eluded the question. Perhaps she did not even hear it and just regretted having mentioned her experience. If she did not want to speak about it, that was probably because she had learned more than she had expected. On the other hand, Theodore did not want to press her to speak about that; she had been so kind to him that it would be unfair to insist in making her remember a hard moment in her past.

He read her notes, assuming that by reading his, she had implicitly agreed to let him read hers. And what he read surprised him.

He was perfectly aware of the fact that his notes were far from comprehensive; however, he expected her notes to be more-or-less in the same line of systematic thinking about how to use the power and how it might be influenced by the environment. However, she was delving in the emotional side of the physical conversation, proposing to study the relation of risk with reward and even comparing the physical balance with the balance in dance. Theodore had never considered this.

"I like your point of view", he commented. "Have you learned to dance confisalto?", he asked, smiling. "I've never been good at dancing", he confessed.

For a moment, he imagined her trying to teach him confisalto. He felt so ridiculous that he shook his head.

"How about going somewhere else to make an experiment?", he proposed. He knew it was snowing out there, but he did not want to disturb the rest of the students in the library by practicing potentially dangerous spells indoors.

[Madeleine Gosselin]

Late Morning, Intas 8, 2720
Grand Library

Madeleine wasn’t expecting it at all when Orthosophos leaned over to look at her notes. She sat back, a little, reflexively, looking up at him with wide eyes, then down at her paper. She almost covered them with her hand; a pink blush crept over her cheeks. She hadn’t really thought about him reading them. She was terribly worried, all of a sudden, that they were dreadful, that they were beyond stupid and he’d probably start laughing or something.

She’d read his notes, of course, but it wasn’t the same. And she hadn’t said he could, really, although she hadn’t said he couldn’t, either, and Madeleine wasn’t exactly sure if she should have needed to. She supposed not, since they were working together, and he’d read hers, after all, but she wished she’d thought of it. She wished she’d written better notes.

He seemed to take ages and ages to read them. Madeleine supposed it wasn’t really that long but it seemed like a house, while she sat there and tried not to reread them herself, and he looked them over.

He said he liked them, and he smiled at her. Madeleine’s eyes went a little wide; she smiled back. Her cheeks were very red now, and not from the cold. “Yes, I – I take classes.” Madeleine said, after a moment. She shifted; she drew in a breath. “I really like confisalto. I’ll be in the senior showcase next month,” Madeleine offered, after a moment; she peeked at Orthosophos. She wasn’t sure if she should mention she was in it last year as well. There hadn’t been any other sixth years at all, last there. There were other seventh years, though, and she’d need to work twice as hard to make up for all the practices she’d missed in the fall. She didn’t mind, even if she was still tired, even if they still worried about her.

He shook his head a little, and Madeleine swallowed, sure she’d overstepped and embarrassed herself. She looked back down at the notes. It was silly to have thought of writing of confisalto; she ought to know better.

“An experiment? Now?” Madeleine’s eyes went wide. She looked back up at him. She bit her lip; her cheeks were still a little flushed, and the faintest swirl of pale orange nervousness drifted through her field, washed away.

“We could go to the cloister,” Madeleine suggested, after a moment, peeking at Orthosophos once more. It was too cold to practice outside, she felt, but there were enclosed bits on the edges of the courtyard. Normally Madeleine liked to practice in empty classrooms, but it was a bit early in the day for that. She wasn’t usually brave enough to go the cloister alone – there were always lots of students and Madeleine was generally afraid she’d embarrass herself with her spellwork – but she felt a little braver than usual, today.

[Theodore Orthosophos]

Late Morning, Intas 8, 2720

From the Grand Library to the cloisters, Brunnhold

Theodore bit his lip, unconsciously mimicking his partner as she echoed his proposal to make an experiment. For a moment, both students looked as though a mirror had materialized between their faces. For a moment, he thought his proposal had been rushed and feared that she might not want to go so far yet; however, this was not the case, and she proposed going to the cloisters.

"Good place", he agreed. It was, indeed: they would be warmer than outside, and they would not disturb anybody.

After carefully removing the book and all his writing utils from the table, he double-checked that he was not leaving any item or ink stain on the table and stood up. He knew that his extreme care often made him be the last to finish, but he was aware of the consequences of not being so careful, and he preferred safety to quickness. How others had survived with far less caution was a mystery for him.

Once they were both ready, he opened the door and let her out first. He did not do it to keep a courteous attitude; snowflakes were still pouring outside and the chilling embrace was utterly deterrent. He did not need much time to muster the willpower to venture out, though, but it was enough to let her lead the way to the cloisters.

The red haired student did not speak during the short walk, busily planning the experiments.

"We could begin by casting Mosfante’s spell to suspend gravity", he proposed when they arrived. "Then we could compare the behaviour of a physical item falling into the area of effect with the behaviour of the same object falling out of the area of effect".

Not waiting for a reply, Theodore opened his book and silently read the description of the spell, once and again, paying attention to each word and memorizing them so that, even if he read the spell from the book, the words would come fluently to his mind.

Afterwards, he took a pebble from the floor, stood up and dropped it. The pebble hit the floor with a dull sound and bounced a few times.

"Guess what would have happened if it had entered the area of effect of a spell to suspend gravity?", he asked aloud, his green eyes shining.

Then he took the pebble and started casting the spell, doing exactly as the book said, on a fist-size area of effect located in the middle of the path the pebble had followed when he dropped it.

Just as expected, the Mona accumulated in the precisely defined area, cancelling gravity. To prove that, Theodore dropped the pebble as he had planned. The stone followed the same trajectory as the previous time, but it did not stop in the area of effect. It made less noise when it hit the floor and it bounced less times, but the speed it had gained before entering the non-gravitational zone was more-or-less the same as it was when it left said zone.

For the moment, the number of bounces would do. For the next experiment, Theodore would have to use a better measuring criterium.

Roll

Theodore Orthosophos tries Mosfante’s spell to suspend gravity:
hoy a las 12:07
@theldor: 1d6 = (4) = 4

[Madeleine Gosselin]

Late Morning, Intas 8, 2720
The Cloister, the Church of the Moon

It was really, really cold; the snow had picked up even more while they were inside. It was the sort of day where it was light out, but only just, because of the thick clouds and the heavy swirl of falling snow. It wasn’t a blizzard or anything, but it was cold enough that Madeleine hunched a bit down into her uniform coat, and tucked her fingers under her armpits, and thought she wouldn’t have been able to speak through her chattering jaw even if Orthosophos had wanted to make conversation.

The cloister was nice; the courtyard was all swirling snow, and the grass in the center was all covered with snow piled high, with a snow sculpture that looked like it might once have been Alioe, before the falling snow obscured the edges. Madeleine wasn’t sure, but she thought a snow sculpture of Alioe in the cloister would have been nice, anyway. In the summer, the little nooks along the edges of it were open, and the whole thing really noisy, but in the winter they – the Everine? It was hard to imagine – closed them off, and there were little braziers inside to keep it warm.

“That sounds good,” Madeleine said, looking at Orthosophos. She was excited by the prospect of scientific discovery, although nervous as well – what if one of them backlashed? What should they do then?

But Orothosophos’s eyes were very bright, and some of his excitement bled off, or maybe Madeleine could feel it in the air around him, where their fields met, and she found she was grinning too. She held very still, wide-eyed, as he cast; she felt the mona in the air swirling around them when his field went etheric, a shock of energy in the cold winter air.

“Oh…” Madeleine breathed. He dropped the pebble, and Madeleine thought – perhaps – it had slowed down. It hit more quietly, anyway, as if it had less time to accelerate, or at least as if the rate of acceleration had been slowed.

“We could use a watch!” Madeleine proposed. “Do you have one? We could calculate the seconds and make a comparison. If we wanted to be really, really scientific we could measure the height to the floor and calculate how long it ought to take to fall – but we’d have to weigh the pebble, I suppose. That isn’t too hard with a quantitative cast, but perhaps it’s too complicated.” Her eyes were shining too.

If he had one, Madeleine would be happy to drop the pebble as he counted the seconds, though really they should need a more precise measuring instrument to do it properly, or a longer all, or something a bit lighter - not like a feather, because that had too much surface area and might drift out of the same path, but maybe lighter than a stone. He'd chosen a small pebble, though, and Madeleine felt as long as they dropped it from standing, there was, at least, time enough to count.

Madeleine looked down at the pebble on the ground, and then back at Orthosophos. “I’ll try too,” Madeleine said. There was something hesitant in her voice, perhaps even a little afraid. “Maybe,” she thought back over his words then, parsing them. “I shall,” Madeleine said, with a little wobble to her voice, “try a slightly larger area.”

Madeleine took the book from Orthosophos. She read herself, once and then again, and then straightened up and began to cast, the pebble held in her hand. She chanted steadily and easily; for all perhaps she had sounded afraid before, it fell away as she began to cast, demarcating an area nearly twice as long as the one Orthosophos had targeted. She curled the spell, lifted the pebble up to where he’d had it, and dropped it.

She wasn’t sure – she wasn’t sure. Madeleine thought, maybe, they could see it falling a little slower through the long area of the spell. It hit much more softly this time, with only one little bounce. Madeleine released her upkeep, eyes bright, and grinned enthusiastically at Orthosophos. “Oh, it worked! I think it worked,” Madeleine said, softly, crouching down to admire the pebble sitting on the ground.

Rolls

Madeleine's cast on a longer area: Sidekick
BOTToday at 10:06 AM
@moralhazard: 1d6 = (4) = 4

[Theodore Orthosophos]

Late Morning, Intas 8, 2720

The Cloister, the Church of the Moon

Using a watch was a good idea. Moreover, it was a need: in order to follow a fully scientific method, time must be accurately measured. However, Theodore had not got a watch or the time to acquire one.

"I'm afraid I haven't got a watch", he replied with a sad voice. The real shame was not lacking a portable clock, but not having followed a strictly scientific procedure with regard to the precision of measures. "But your idea to use Quantitative Conversation in order to measure time sounds good", he added. "Later I will measure the initial altitude and the weight of the object".

Time for Madeleine. Theodore gave her the book and watched as she prepared her spell, her eyes caressing the words in the page dedicated to Mosfante’s spell to suspend gravity. Afterwards, she aimed up and started chanting.

When she finished, her field stretched towards the location she had selected and the Mona filled an antigravitational area that was bigger than the one Theodore had created before. He did not realize his error until she dropped the pebble.

With only one bounce, the pebble demonstrated that a falling object exposed to a larger antigravitational zone hit the floor slowlier. Probably because the exposition time was longer, but they would be able to demonstrate this later.

"Er...", he uttered, scratching his nape.

She was euphoric, and she had the right to be: her spell had worked.

"Er...". He took the pebble from the floor and slightly raised his forefinger, as though he were considering to raise his hand in order to ask for permission to speak. "Could you repeat the experiment?", he asked. "I had not cast my spell to measure the falling time...".

This spell was going to be a bigger challenge. This time he was not going to have all details described in a book, and he was going to be able to read the Monite words as needed before chanting. He would have to improvise. On the other hand, he had been studying Quantitative Conversation during the previous years and theoretically he should be prepared for that. All he needed was a state of intent defined with precision.

He put the pebble in her hand.

"I'm going to cast a spell to measure the time since the object... the pebble... stops touching your hand until it touches the floor", he announced. It was his statement of intent, so he only had to express it in Monite for it to work. Of course, he repeated the magic words in his mind many times before chanting aloud.

"Ready", he said when he finished. The spell had apparently worked and the pebble was enveloped in a thin layer of Mona. "Can you drop it?", he asked.

Roll

Theodore Orthosophos tries a spell to measure falling time:
hoy a las 23:51
@theldor: 1d6 = (4) = 4

[Madeleine Gosselin]

Late Morning, Intas 8, 2720
The Cloister, the Church of the Moon

Orthosophos didn’t look very excited; actually he was sort of frowning. Madeleine found her own smile faded away, and the faint gold shift that had washed through her field faded, too. She looked down at the floor, watching him pick the pebble up.

“Oh,” Madeleine said. “Yes,” she said, slowly. “I think so.” Her cheeks were blushing red, now, with embarrassment; she hadn’t thought to wait for him to cast the quantitative spell. She had just wanted to see if she could do it, first, and then she’d thought that she would try it with the quantitative spell cast. She swallowed, a little, looking down, rather than at him.

Madeleine waited as Orthosophos cast his spell. He asked her to drop the pebble, and Madeleine wasn’t sure if he’d meant to cast or not, or if this was meant to be a comparison. She held the pebble in her hand, extending it out, and then began to cast herself, planning to recreate the spell.

But it was harder, somehow, this time, than it had been before; Madeleine said the words, but maybe the mona heard that she didn’t intend them, not properly. Her hand wobbled, and she opened it, and the pebble dropped straight through the air and bounced, with absolutely no slowing at all; she hadn’t even felt the mona stir in the air around her, not even the littlest bit. It was as if she hadn’t said anything at all.

Madeleine’s cheeks flamed red, and she swallowed, very hard, and bent over to pick up the pebble once more. She peeked a glance sideways at Orthosophos, and then looked away again, and didn’t try the spell again. Her heart was pounding very fast in her chest. “I’m – not sure what went wrong,” Madeleine said, very quietly. “Maybe I’d – better not try again just yet,” she offered him the pebble, now, sniffling; it was the cold from outside, Madeleine thought, and that was why her nose felt runny once more.

She didn’t want to cry in front of him again, not after she’d already done it in class. It just wasn’t fair, Madeleine thought, a bit achingly; she’d done the spell perfectly before, but now, of course, she’d messed it up. Madeleine was sure – absolutely sure – that he must have already regretted his decision to come and do experiments with her.

Madeleine took a deep breath. Everyone said you had to keep going through failures, and to try again, and she hadn’t backlashed or anything; it was just that the spell hadn’t quite – well – worked. “I could try the quantitative cast instead,” she offered, glancing at Orthosophos. “If you want to do the other spell again…?” Her voice trailed up, squeaking off at the end. She took another deep breath, and she didn’t feel so much like crying, anymore, even though she still felt terribly embarrassed.

Rolls

Madeleine casts again: Sidekick BOTToday at 4:44 PM
@moralhazard: 1d6 = (1) = 1
Failure vs. Backlash: SidekickBOTToday at 4:45 PM
@moralhazard: 1d6 = (6) = 6

[Theodore Orthosophos]

Late Morning, Intas 8, 2720

The Cloister, the Church of the Moon

Theodore was worried about Madeleine. She looked angry with him for having to repeat the experiment and, to some extent, she was right. It was Theodore's fault to have been distracted while he should have cast his quantitative spell the first time she dropped the pebble. All in all, though, she collaborated and waited for him to cast the quantitative spell before casting her spell to suspend gravity and dropping the pebble.

The number came to his mind and he put his bag on the floor to take the paper and write it down. He was not looking at her, but he felt, somehow, stared. He turned back to her, confused.

She replied to the tacit question with a forced voice, claiming not to be sure what went wrong and suggesting to give up the experiment. He swallowed.

"But...", he mumbled as he took the pebble from her hands, feeling the corners of his lips heavily pulling down his mouth.

Theodore sighed as he looked at the pebble, as though it could tell him why this situation had happened and what he could do to find a solution.

He heard her taking a deep breath. He did not dare to raise his eyes from the pebble, but he listened. She proposed to cast the quantitative spell.

Slowly turning to her, he met her eyes and tried to smile. She was proposing him to exchange spells: she would cast the quantitative spell and he would cancel gravity.

"Of course", he agreed with a trembling voice.

He did not have to read the spell this time; he had already studied it and he just remembered the words. He cleared his voice and started chanting, keeping in mind to make the amendment to create a big area of effect, like the one Madeleine had created in her first attempt.

And it worked.

"Ready", he announced with a serene voice. "Shall I drop the pebble?", he asked.

Whenever she said so, he would drop the pebble.

Roll

Theodore Orthosophos tries Mosfante’s spell to suspend gravity:
hoy a las 16:05
@theldor: 1d6 = (5) = 5