Magic is Programming

Carlos cast the light spell many times, paying careful attention to the sensations he could feel from using mana, as he waited for Amber to return. He was pretty sure he'd learned all he could from that when, just over an hour after his first successful casting, she emerged from the surrounding trees and undergrowth. He was also starting to feel tired, drained of energy in a way he hadn't felt before. He didn't bother to speak, just holding up his glowing hand towards Amber as she approached.

"Finished that already? Good job, that's fairly impressive."

Carlos sat back and sighed tiredly. "I've been practicing it for an hour or so, and I'm feeling weirdly tired. Does that mean I'm low on mana?"

Amber nodded. "Yes, depleting your personal mana causes mental fatigue. If you really forced yourself right now, you could keep going for a great many more castings, but that would be using up your soul shell mana. Don't do that. It would be a terrible waste."

"Right, I need that for making soul structures. Is there anything more I need to know for how to make a soul structure?"

"First, start packing up. Your body should still be fully rested, and I've found a better place to move our camp." Amber was already taking the fireplace apart.

Carlos stood up and walked over to the tent to start disassembling it. "Better how?"

"If we stay out here for long, sooner or later something or someone will get through the concealment ward, and we might have to fight. I figure our best chance of winning a fight is to help Purple set up a good tough dungeon, and the best place for that is caves. I found an empty cave, so let's move there."

"Fair enough. Purple, did you hear that? Time to pack up and move!"

Purple's glow flickered briefly, though it was harder to notice with daylight all around. [Heard. Ready.] Carlos thought he caught a hint of frustration in Purple's mental voice, but not enough to be clear.

"Hey. We'll settle down and stay at this next spot for a while, so you'll get to really rest properly this time. We just have to move, one more time, first."

[Move not problem. Other problem. Tried something. Not work.]

"Huh. Ok, well, maybe I can help figure it out once we've moved. I'd better focus on getting the move done first, though." Carlos picked up Purple and pocketed him, then reached in to pull out the rest of the tent's contents before collapsing it.

The cave Amber had found turned out to be half an hour's trek away, and that was with Amber guiding Carlos straight to it. No surprise it had taken her all morning and part of the afternoon to find it. Carlos had spent the trip over just reading out and explaining the soul structures list that he'd accidentally written in English.

Now Amber was critiquing it. "I get the impression that you listed these in roughly the order of how important you think they are, or maybe the best order to make them in. Is that right?"

Carlos nodded, while cautiously following her into a dark opening in the rocky cliffside she'd led him to.

"Ok. Then I understand why you put the comprehension aid first; losing the ability to understand and speak this world's languages would be terrible, and you're right to be concerned that someone could dispel it as it is now. But why the hell are the next two, what did you call them, the introspector and the mana redistributor, things that do practically nothing?!"

Carlos snorted and laughed. "'Practically nothing'? You have no idea how foundationally critical the ability to examine things to figure out what's wrong, and then the ability to change things to fix them, is for any remotely competent professional working with computers! Sure, these soul structures aren't actually literal computers, but they're analogous in a lot of ways, and I expect these tools to be similarly foundational."

The tunnel curved, and Carlos was starting to feel a bit nervous with the low ceiling and the daylight fading behind them. "Think about it. Even if they're somehow never useful again, the introspector and mana redistributor will help me make other soul structures properly! That reason alone would be enough that I should make them before the other seven. And I suspect they might help me discover secrets of soul structure principles that all the noble houses have had to experiment for generations to figure out."

Amber paused and cast a light spell, and tilted her head while staring at Carlos for a few seconds. "Huh. They seemed to me like just filler to boost your rank by technically having synergy with everything, however inconsequential. Which is absolutely a useful thing! Plenty of people could get a lot of benefit by using these to go from gold to platinum, or at least to a higher grade of gold, and platinums or mythril rank nobles could reach adamantium by adding one or both. But soul structures designed specifically to operate entirely inside your own soul?" She shook her head and sighed. "Well, maybe they will be useful for their actual features after all, but I'm not convinced yet."

The narrow passage opened up into a proper cave, and Amber held up her glowing hand to illuminate it. A few stalactites hung down from the ceiling, with stalagmites reaching up toward them from the ground, and Carlos heard a faint tinkle of what might be running water towards the back. They slowly walked along the rough stone sides of the cave, up and down mostly gentle slopes, inspecting the boundaries of what might be their home for a while.

Carlos shrugged. "I'm convinced of their importance, and I'm the one making them first. So, you can see what results I get before trying them yourself."

Amber nodded and recast her light spell moments before it went out. "Fair, and it will take me longer to make the comprehension aid anyway. I'll have to make mine from scratch, with no dungeon wish to use as a foundation."

They reached the source of the tinkling sound, and it turned out to be a very thin stream of water trickling down a smooth section of rock into a small puddle. Amber held her glowing hand right over the puddle, and they saw some hair thin cracks in the bottom that the water was draining through as fast as it flowed in.

"Anyway, you might want to put the 'spells linker' after the spells preparer, so that if the synergies don't work out for some reason you can be sure you'll still have the basics for casting spells at all. Aside from that, the rest of your plan seems sound."

Carlos nodded, dipping his hand in the puddle. The water looked clear and felt clean. "Ok. I'll consider that when I have information from my introspector about how the whole thing is going. Now about how to actually make a soul structure: you said it's mainly a matter of conceptualizing it, like with learning a spell; what else is there?"

"Getting mana into it, and fixing it in place. Soul shell mana flows for learning a spell, but it's so small and fast that it finishes almost instantly. Full scale soul structures take a lot more. You will feel your mana moving into it, and you need to impress the soul structure's concept into that mana thoroughly. You'll feel it when you have enough mana in place, and when the mana accepts the concept. Then, you need to use it. An unused soul structure will slowly lose its form and dissipate. Using it for its intended purpose confirms that it works as you want it to, and locks its form as something you need in your soul."

"So, make it, feel it, use it, and keep it. Got it."

Amber chuckled. "If that helps you remember, then sure. Close enough."

"Alright. I'll get right on it after we set up camp. You really think a cave like this is a good place for Purple to set up as a dungeon?"

Amber nodded, and recast her light spell again. "Absolutely. Most dungeons start out with considerably less, from what I've read."

"Ok. Purple, where should we put you?" Carlos took the dungeon core out of his pocket and held it out. It glowed, but considerably dimmer than Amber's light spell.

[Back. By water.]

"By the water, ok." Carlos repeated Purple's request for Amber's benefit as he walked over to that spot and tenderly placed the tiny crystal on the floor, where it began floating and slightly intensified its glow.

[Need help. With problem.]

"The problem you tried something for this morning?"

[Yes. Tried make soul structure. Got mana. Impressed concept. Mana not take concept.]

Carlos blinked. "You tried to make a soul structure?!"

"What?" Amber's head snapped around to look at them from where she was unpacking the concealment ward. "A dungeon making soul structures?" She paused and tilted her head. "I don't know whether to be amazed or terrified by that idea."

Enchanter Tornay tried to hide his anxiety as he waited for a response from the Supreme Enchanter. Far too much depended on whether his superiors accepted the agreement he'd reached with Darmelkon. It was difficult not to jerk, and instead calmly stand and retrieve the letter, when the enchanted long distance writing copier finally flared into action. Carlos would have called it a magical fax machine, not that Tornay knew any such thing.

Enchanter Tornay,

Your proposed contract with Lord Merchant Darmelkon is approved. However, your reward for successful completion will be reduced proportionately, to only two point five percent of the assessed value. We are displeased that such a costly step became necessary.

The penalty fine for failure remains unchanged.

Supreme Enchanter Nyralis

Tornay let out a long slow breath, releasing most of the tension he'd built up while waiting. Things were back on track, finally. He turned to Darmelkon, who was sitting perfectly still, completely calm and utterly in control of himself as he waited. "Sir, the contract is approved. Signed by Supreme Enchanter Nyralis himself."

Darmelkon nodded. "Very good. Come, then. We have a teleport to trace."

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