Magic is Programming

Amber jumped up from the dining table and waved for Carlos to follow her. "I left my notes in my room. Come on, let's get them!"

"Do you actually need your notes?" Carlos kept his tone light as he walked behind her. "I think your memory is pretty good, and you thought through all of this very recently."

Amber shrugged without looking back. "Maybe not, but I'd get worried that I might forget a detail without them." She started climbing the private stairs toward the guest suites they were staying in. "I couldn't possibly forget the top priority thing, of course: making sure we don't get abducted and almost soul-killed again."

"Of course."

"In the immediate short term, we've already done everything I could think of about that." Amber rounded the landing of the stairs. "Might be worth revisiting the topic in case we think of anything new. … And bring Purple into the discussion; his unique perspective might see possibilities that we can't."

Carlos nodded, even though she wasn't looking toward him, and smoothly switched to telepathy to include the dungeon core. Purple's attention had focused on them the moment Amber said his name. [Right. So, short-term safety measures for us. To start with, we've already moved into the mayor's mansion, so anyone who considers targeting us now will at least know we have his support.]

[Yeah. And attackers won't be able to bypass the outer wards just by renting a room here, like they did at the inn.]

Carlos shrugged as he reached the top of the stairs. [I'm honestly not sure how much that mattered. They got through the suite-specific wards without a trace, and that's not even the most unbelievable thing they pulled off.]

[True.] Amber opened the door to her suite and went straight to the large hardwood desk against the left wall. [Fortunately for us, we have our own unbelievable thing to counter them. Even if all wards and guards fail, Purple will alert everyone to it immediately.] She sighed and shook her head. [If only we'd introduced him to Mayor Stelras earlier. Those mercenaries would have had every adventurer and city guard in Dramos swarming them before they even reached the walls.]

[Would have been a lot less stressful that way, certainly.] Carlos chuckled, shaking his head ruefully. [On the other hand, the pressure of it pushed us to figure out some incredible things.]

[The pressure may have prompted it, but we could have figured them out anyway without it; it just would have been later.] Amber pulled a notebook out of the desk's top drawer and opened it. [I'd rather avoid the unpleasantness of the experience. Anyway, the rest of the short-term safety measures: We have Esmorana and her party on call, with Purple able to contact them at any time. We have Ressara on call and sometimes standing watch, to check for attention-diversion magic. The Crown gave use two special emergency beacons, separate from the ones built into our guards' armor that got disabled by sabotage, which we have tested and stored in separate locations; one in the city's top security vault, and the other hidden. And finally, we have city guards patrolling and standing watch around the mansion, in addition to Colonel Lorvan and Major Ordens inside the mansion.]

Carlos chewed his lip for a moment. [What about reinforcing the wards here? Or adding more layers of them?]

Amber shook her head. [I considered that, but I don't think we can really trust the Enchanters Guild, and they're the only ones who could do that for us.]

[Hmm.] Carlos leaned against the doorframe and tapped his chin, thinking. [Yeah, that's reasonable. They want our dungeon core, and they're the top suspect for who could have sabotaged royal guard armor. Are they really the only source of enchanting work, though?]

Amber slowly walked over to one of the sofas and sat down, all without more than glancing away from her notebook. [Unless you count items made by dungeon cores, yes. I've heard of people figuring out what runes to write for an enchantment's effect, but the guild is… famously vicious about protecting their monopoly on the secret of how to imbue an item with mana and make the enchantment actually work. And before you suggest visiting a dungeon core, we don't have access to one powerful enough for this.]

Carlos smirked. [Not yet. But helping Purple get that powerful is a long-term thing, so fair point.]

Amber looked over at him, then rolled her eyes and waved at the sofa opposite her. "Come in and take a seat, already! I thought I was the shy one out of the two of us, not you."

Carlos smiled as he complied. "It's your room, and I was taught that entering someone's private area uninvited is rude." He settled into the sofa's soft upholstery and leaned forward, clasping his hands together and resting his elbows on his knees. [I'm not happy about how much our short-term defense plans rely on rescue after-the-fact, just trying to ensure it comes quickly, rather than preventing abduction from happening in the first place. But…] He sighed. [The only short-term options I can think of for that involve abandoning Dramos, which I expect the Crown would frown on.]

[Yeah, let's not disappoint and displease our greatest protector. So, if you don't have any new short-term ideas either…?] Amber looked at Carlos and he shook his head. [Purple? You've been quiet so far. Any ideas?]

[Not for the short term.] Purple's mental voice felt resigned, yet determined and hopeful for the future. [I will need to gain a great deal more power before I can make barriers of any kind that would be meaningful against the level of our enemies.]

[Then let's move on to the long term.] Amber turned the page in her notebook. [We have several avenues to juggle and prioritize for how to develop our house, and I started with breaking them down into categories and subcategories. At the top level, we have: our own personal development, Purple's development, and staff or resource development.]

Carlos felt something weird from his comprehension aid and took a moment to sort out what it was. Amber had used only a single word for the combination of both staff and resources. I guess the concept of "human resources" got into the Ganler language. [So, essentially the house itself, and then everything else. For personal development, there's learning more and better spells, and making 9 new soul structures, of course.]

[Don't forget absorbing more mana, I mean aether, from the deep Wilds to advance our levels,] Amber chided him. [Our absorption rate being crippled by the 9 empty slots left from our original set merging just means that leveling up will have to come after fixing that, not that it isn't critically important. I think some of those mercenaries, especially their captain, had levels in the 40s. We're only Level 15, and making up for a power gap that large with just spells and clever tricks may not be possible.]

Carlos sighed and lowered his head. [I know. But I'm worried that if we rush that too much, we might handicap ourselves in the long run.] He straightened and took a deep breath. [And whatever capabilities we end up with, we'll need to practice with them. Spar with each other, and with other people, for combat practice. Consider contingencies and make plans. Hone our reflexes. Having enough power and the right spell to save ourselves only matters if we take action to use it correctly and quickly enough.]

Amber nodded and scribbled something in her notebook. [Good point. I missed that. Any other categories for personal improvement?]

Carlos shook his head, and Purple just sent an impression of a shrug.

[Okay. Then for soul structures: while we could brainstorm ideas and principles for what to prioritize, before we can even begin making actual plans we need more information. We need to ask Lorvan and Ordens for every detail they can tell us about how this "second stage" works. How does the merge affect synergy requirements? Can new structures merge into it too? Why was just the first stage enough to qualify us as high nobles?] Amber looked at the open page in her notebook and snorted. [I have more questions listed, but you get the point.]

Carlos nodded. [Right. We can't optimize a plan if we don't know the rules. We shouldn't assume that Lorvan will tell us all of the rules, though. He may not even know all of them. I'd bet that the Crown has a secret or two about this that only the royals themselves know, and there could be possible tricks that no one knows.]

Amber tapped the page. [Yep, I already noted that. I'm kind of expecting that you'll be the one to figure that stuff out, though. I'll try, but you seem to be better at that sort of thing. The other thing we need to know is what capabilities we could use spells for instead. The whole point of being mages, using incantations to cast spells instead of having soul structures produce effects directly, is to have versatility without losing power in exchange. Ideally, every soul structure should either improve our spellcasting, do something that cannot be done with spells, or at least be better in an important way than the closest spell.]

[I've been so absorbed in cataloging effect keywords that I hadn't even thought about that. Hmm…] Carlos cocked his head and considered for several seconds. [That makes sense.] He chuckled. [So it turns out that, by completely putting the soul structures issue out of my mind, I've actually been working on the soul structures issue after all!] He grinned cheekily.

Amber smiled and nodded. [Apparently so. In any case, our action items for this are: ask Lorvan for information; try to figure out extra things beyond what he can tell us; finish cataloging the extent and coverage of incantations versatility; then make a plan using the information we learn. Can you think of anything to add?] As she listed the action items, she quickly wrote several lines on a separate sheet of paper.

[That covers everything I can think of.]

[Okay. Moving on to spells.] Amber turned the page. [Right now, we pretty much just need to do what you're already doing: sort through and catalog all the possibilities. We need the results of that to inform our choices about what to learn and practice with.] She hesitated. [Though with Trinlen here, maybe we should go ahead and start lessons with him before we finish that.]

[Definitely. He'll at least know about all the standard options that the academy teaches, and he can give interactive guidance, assessing and responding to what we need.]

Amber scribbled a few more lines of action items, then paused and inserted one just above the last line. [Just remembered, we still need to decide how much to tell him about your system documentation discovery.] She turned back to her notebook and flipped back to the first page for a moment. [Gaining levels will have to wait on making new soul structures. Practicing combat will have to wait until we have suitable spells and abilities to practice with. That makes the next item Purple's development. How's your current progress going, Purple?]

[I have disassembled the soul structure I made for finding you and replaced it with the originally planned structure. I have additionally made the next 3 planned structures, and I am currently collecting the essence for the final 10th structure.] Purple sent a small burst of surprised confusion. ["Essence?" Ah, I see. A word you learned recently?]

Carlos raised an eyebrow and saw Amber doing the same. [Trinlen taught us about it. Any issues with establishing all the synergies?]

[I will need assistance for the synergies with the bond maker. Those synergies involve and require interaction with someone I have a bond with.]

Carlos nodded. [Of course. After that's done, are you ready to go traveling to absorb higher-level aether? I know that you have to release most of your… mana? Is that the right one, out of aether, mana, and essence?]

[Partially. What anchors me in place, which I must leave behind in order to be moved, is a mix of all three. Regardless, I have far more essence and mana inside me than before, and that will come with me. The loss of what I leave behind will affect me much less and will be more quickly regained. Travel will be necessary to gain the power to protect us. Do not be concerned about my minor discomfort with the process.]

Amber responded first. [I'm glad to hear that. We also need to make plans for what soul structures you should make after your first set merge, but that will have to wait for the same information as our own plans. Is there anything else we can do to help you grow?]

Purple paused, filled with uncertainty. [I don't know.] He hesitated again. [You humans learn how to grow powerful by learning from other humans how they grew powerful. Dungeons do not. Or rather, cannot, because we do not move, meet, and communicate. Find knowledge of how other dungeons became powerful, and that may help me. That is the only idea I have.]

Carlos laughed. [Yet another research project, hmm? Sure, we can add it to the list.]

Amber duly wrote it down, along with a trip into the Wilds for Purple. [Okay. That leaves staff/resources. For improving the staff that we already have, well… I only have one idea for that. We could try helping them improve their soul plans, but doing that without teaching them house secrets could be tricky, and we'd have to convince them to tell us what they already have. The degree of specific details we might need to know in order to help is… enough that even asking would be rude.]

[I see.] Carlos shrugged. [There are ways around that. If we explain the basic idea of the kind of help we might be able to give them, then they can decide whether to share that information without us ever actually asking for it.]

Amber narrowed her eyes at him, then took a note. [Sure. I'll leave that conversation to you.] She glanced back at her notebook and sighed. [And that leaves acquiring new staff/resources. I suppose we could ask Darmelkon to help, but I'm not sure how much we can trust him. Aside from that…] She shook her head helplessly. [I know how to do small jobs and carefully save up, but that's hardly appropriate for us now as nobles.]

Carlos chuckled lightly. [Don't worry about it. I've seen enough of how people in positions of high authority do such things. There's a related saying I learned: "We have people for that." We can delegate it. Eventually, we will have to delegate it, because there will be too many things for us to even conceivably have enough time for all of them. We've kind of already delegated some things anyway: investigating the mercenaries and the illegal "rotation agreement."]

[Yeah. I wonder how those investigations are going.]

Far away, in a dimly lit prison cell, a heavily muscled man, sitting cross-legged on the floor, sighed and bowed his head. He wore only plain and loose clothes made of cheap cloth, save for the rune-inlaid steel manacles that bound his wrists together. He looked up again at the regal woman, dressed entirely in the dark orange of orichalcum, who was watching him from just outside the cell bars. "Your Highness, I can only tell you the same thing I told your interrogators: threats cannot change the simple fact that I do not have the knowledge that you seek. I intentionally set up ways for clients to hire my company without ever revealing any hint of their identities. That anonymity was part of what the Black Blades became known for; part of why people would choose to hire us."

The regal woman gazed at him impassively. "I am aware of your reputation, Captain Granlan. I also have a report of your company exacting retribution on a client who hired you under false pretenses and set you up to fail."

Granlan raised an eyebrow. "Does that report mention how long it took us to unwind the layers of cutouts and concealments to identify that particular client?"

The woman nodded. "Two and a half years, during which you were also pursuing other jobs, and you began with no specific suspicions. Imagine that you focus on the task exclusively; that you coordinate with the Crown on it; and that you start with a precise primary suspect in mind. How much faster do you think that could make it?"

Slowly, Granlan's weary frown changed into a grin. "Now we're talking!"