Chương 1088: Day One Thousand And Eighty-Six

Dear Diary, Kinda weird, but I think I'm really starting to understand Shaping. I mean, I have trouble describing it in the technical terms that Saffron and Doc Roberts use, but I understand what those words mean. I think I do, at least. Enough that I sort of understand what I'm doing when I apply Divine Woo to alter Shapes as I'm casting them. To make it clear, I know enough now that I realize there are three, maybe four kinds of Shaping in the world. Okay, five or six.

Look, I'm still really learning about this shit, and I think in part that's because Phileo is the first place to make what any modern person back in the day would call a systematic, scientific study of Shaping itself. Yeah, the Athenians have studied it, but it's all that Ancient Greek Philosophy shit that, while it led to Science, is ninety-nine percent tautological bullshit.

So while I've got nowhere near as much experience as most of the specialists, I've stolen some Skill from one of the better 'new thinkers' in Phileo, watched the best Shaper in the world create almost half a dozen Global Spells, technically been trained to Academy Heroic standards, and probably more importantly than a lot of those, got the basics of the Scientific Method and Critical Thinking shoved into my eyeballs at least a dozen times.

So yeah, when I said four kinds of Shaping, I was talking about Divine Woo, Creating Global Spells, Calling Global Spells, and what I think I kinda think of as 'Actual Shaping™'. Where you push Mana into a Shape, and that Shape rearranges reality to get the effect the Shaper wants. The other two, where I said 'five or six', would be Artificing and 'natural' Shaping. The former is just burning a Shape into some material until Mana pushed into the material just naturally flows into the Shape the Artificer wants.

The latter is, like, the instinctual version of stuff like Swift Foot and Strong Arm, which I think also winds up empowering Skills that people don't think of as Shaping. Not really, anyhow. But here's the real kicker; I'm not sure that any of them are really distinct 'types' of Shaping so much as different ways of doing the same thing, of getting the same effects. Basically, from what I can tell, Mana is Energy that fucks with the Laws of Physics.

The more Mana you've got, the more egregiously you can fuck over those Laws of Physics. Yeah, I think Doc Roberts called it 'Life Energy', and the chunni part of me wants to call it 'Psychic Energy', but honestly I don't have any kind of real solid evidence of where it comes from. Not enough to give it a specific name that would make other people think some kinda way about it. It's Energy. Knowledgeable people tell me it's created by living things, and that it's not possible to 'store' it, but... Ley Lines exist.

Yeah, that's a flow, not static storage, but the substance it's flowing through doesn't really seem to be alive. Also, I can shove it out of my body, just like any Shaper can, really, and it lasts out there, at least for a little while. If it's in a Shape, it can be there for a long while. Now, the 'flow from Ley Lines' and using Mana to 'burn' the Shape into something is where Global Spells come in.

I'm not sure what exact medium those Global Spells are being burned into, because if it's 'air', then they'd just disperse as the air moves, but I can't think what else they're burning into. But they clearly are burning their way into something; from everything I can tell crafting Global Spells is just creating one big Shape that Enchants some aspect of the planet itself.

Part of me wants to ask Saffron about that, but half of me thinks that her answer will be horrified silence at how badly I'm misunderstanding things, another half thinks that she'll correct me with an explanation that confuses the fuck out of me, a third half thinks that she'll look at me with some kind of wide eyed realization, then disappear into her coding office for the foreseeable future. The fourth half is looking all smug and saying 'the Math teacher Co-Locates to have four halves, which is two'.

'Natural' Shaping, which also covers personal enhancement like Swift Foot and Strong Arm, is just using Mana to, I dunno, grease the wheels of an organism. Kinda like the ultimate universal catalyst, it just makes every bit of an organism work just a little bit better, which can wind up giving some really impressive effects on a macro level. I'm not sure at all about 'Actual' Shaping, but I think it just, I dunno, recreates some aspect of natural Shaping, but outside the body.

Like making a bolt of lightning is just, like, making the Shape that would make natural electricity like nerve impulses or electric eels or shit work better, but putting it out there in the air and then dumping more Mana into it than any eel ever. The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Yeah, I'm really iffy on that one. Calling Global Spells is just making a Shape that makes the Global Spell somebody put out into the world do its thing.

The weirdest one is Divine Woo. Which is, more or less, a Deity saying, 'the world works this way', and then dumping Mana into the equation until it does. Sometimes for a moment. Sometimes for a while. Sometimes, like a certain Obol who now has three Maenad nursemaids, which can only be a good thing with her preggers with a second Lancaster baby, as permanently as anything Mortal. At any rate, the whole reason I'm thinking about all this is my Advanced Mana Shaping class.

So yesterday after a reasonably productive day talking about how to help Aisling, what to name Boy and Girl, and why the pirate to privateer pipeline might or might not work, I gave Mom and Dad a hug, then collapsed back to myself at the Homestead, where I'd spent the day following the kids around so Aisling could watch them. Each time somebody invited her to join in, she hid behind my leg and shook her head, but she kept watching, and they kept asking. Dinner was a thick yam and chicken bisque.

Aisling wound up half asleep by the end of it, but she didn't wake up or struggle really when I took her through the shower. She also curled up on my chest in the Bath and fell asleep. She slept through being toweled dry, then snuggled in next to me in bed. Felt some kinda way about romping in the Bedroom with Aisling clinging to me in the bedroom, so I regretfully declined the invitation. Dreamt of my ladies watching first the live action, then the instant replay when the rest of them joined us.

Woke to Aisling staring at me.

"... Cadets?" I smiled and shook my head.

"I've got class today. One I'm a student in." Her eyes got really wide.

"Did you want to come with me? It might be really boring, and the kids here would love to play with you."

"I'll... you," she whispered.

"Okay. That's fine too." So after getting some breakfast in her and giving everyone hugs and kisses for the day, I stepped us both to the Advanced Mana Shaping classroom. Then had to trek down the steps, over to a different tower, and up to the same level in that tower.

"Hey, Doc."

"Tabitha!" Doc's greeting was as friendly as ever.

"And who is this?"

"Doc, this is Aisling. She's one of the kids from my Temple. Aisling, this is Doctor Roberts. He teaches Shaping."

"... lo."

"Hello to you too, little Aisling." Then he looked back up to me.

"So, are you here for anything in particular?" I shrugged.

"I need to learn more about the nuts and bolts of Shaping. Like, not just specific Shapes and how they work, but why they work, and how I could make new Shapes that aren't really just modifications of old ones without a bunch of trial and error." He let out a low whistle.

"Well. Aiming for taking my job next then?" I laughed.

"Hardly. Not my thing at all. But... There are things I want to do, to Shape, that there aren't Shapes for."

"An Archmage for a wife and you have to develop your own Shapes?" I chuckled a little at that.

"Yeah, well. If it's something where the Alliance needs a Shape to happen, or there's some kind of time crunch, I'll definitely lean on her and she'll definitely help me, but this is a more nebulous kind of thing. I'm not even sure exactly what I want to do. But I think both of us think I need to do it myself if I can." He nodded.

"Well. I will endeavor to assist you, both with learning all you can about Shaping and utilizing that knowledge to create whatever new Shape you are attempting."

"Thanks, Doc."

"De nada."

"So where should I start?" He thought for a bit.

"Given that your previous time in this class was mostly helping others with your Mana reserves, I'm really not even sure what you know and what you don't. Obviously you passed Remedial and Basic Mana Shaping, but..."

"But both of those are really basic compared to stuff I've already done."

"Exactly. I think for a best first assignment, you could write down everything you know about Shaping. That will tell me if there are any gaps in need of filling." I nodded.

"Sounds like a plan." Which is how I wound up spending all morning writing down everything I knew about Shaping. I mean, writing, then rewriting, then editing, then rewriting. Paper and ink are kinda labor intensive. Then spent the rest of the afternoon translating it all into Celtic. Well, starting to, anyhow. I still write in English if I'm not thinking about it.