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Author Topic: Roll to learn magic (5/8) Day 5  (Read 17512 times)

Nirur Torir

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Re: Roll to learn magic (5/8) Day 2
« Reply #60 on: July 21, 2022, 04:22:02 pm »

Spoiler: Nathan (click to show/hide)

Hypothesis: Internal magic can be controlled by will and intent.
Expectation: Poorly controlled magic modified inside the body is dangerous. Do not test.

Experiment 1: Try to build a tiny wizard's tower of rocks, by pushing tiny bits of magic into them, and visualize modifying them to make them stick together.

Experiment 2: Try to build another tiny wizard's tower of rocks. This one will have the blob of magic treated like it is a physical substance, like a glue goo. Imagine it as blue, too.

Experiment 3: Knock them over to see which method worked better.

Eat my pears.
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Knightwing64

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Re: Roll to learn magic (5/8) Day 2
« Reply #61 on: July 22, 2022, 05:22:24 pm »

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Try to control and move some dirt around using the same method as Nathan, who Amon is watching very intently, eager for his magic to return so he can stop struggling to survive in what seems like a doomed attempt to improve in a world of stagnation and suffering.

Try to get some more food and get to working on da hut
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johiah

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Re: Roll to learn magic (5/8) Day 2
« Reply #62 on: July 24, 2022, 08:37:33 pm »

Day 2, turn 7. Clear.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Hmm. This place seems nice and quiet, without distractions. Find a high spot to sit and meditate while watching the world.
...Can I see any higher places from here?

See if I can induce that tingling people talked about. If I can, slowly let some of my energy into a shiny rock.


You find a decent hill to sit on, near the edge of the world. The forest between you and the Genesis field blocks much of the view, but these foothills look like the highest point.

...the endless blue void on all side is really quite disorienting.

3
You spend your entire afternoon, deep in meditation. The overhear comments of others end up being quite useful, as by the end of four hours you are able to detect an inner blob of energy, nestled deep in your being. You can even pull strands out of it, though not reliably enough or quickly enough to try pulling the energy all the way out of your body. -1 deer bit.


"Okay.  So it does have to move around.  But maybe not quite like I'm doing it, hmm.."

Eat up and rest for a while to try and recover wounds.  alternate between deer meat and pears.

While resting, write some stuff down about what's going on, like a diary.  Maybe the magic can read.  I read with my eyes after all, and my eyes are part of me, so why not?  Does it respond to stuff being written down?

Just jot down general notes on the first few days, what I've been doing with magic, how I want to build a cabin eventually.

Then, drag the tree down near my tent.  Chop off its branches, and try to complete the drying rack with more sticks.  I'll probably need more.. and larger.. trees for a cabin, but I'll worry about that later.


Or maybe magic can help.  Hmm.

"Who wanted some help with an experiment?"

Hypothesis: Magic can work over time, if I provide it with clear directions or an onrunning spell for it to work.  I don't really know how to cast spells, but..

as the last thing before I go to bed, limber up some with stretches and such.  After doing this, make a loop with my body, hands to my toes, either standing up or lying down.  Try to go to sleep when curled up into a ball.. it'll allow for more loop.  Stick to just movements.. I'll test spoken and written spells next, regardless of if this works.

So limber up, make loops, limber up, make loops.. and then sleep in a ball to hopefully get my magic to do something.


Spoiler (click to show/hide)

You eat a couple deer bits and a pear. Pretty decent meal, honestly.

3
This second magic, energy, mana, whatever, you've discovered doesn't seem to react differently to writing things down versus simply wiggling your fingers. Just general motion.

1
Arms too noodle to move the logs. Not only that, but you manage to drop one on your toe. Ow! You do manage to bring some branches back to the shack with you, at least.

6
The second energy you've discovered reacts to your exercising, in the sense that it follows paths through your limbs, to your lungs and heart, and then back out again. Loops don't seem to make it do much of anything. The ball of energy at your core has even less of a reaction, physical movements seeming to not disturb it at all. On the bright side, you do get better at sensing both. You pass out quite quickly from exhaustion.

((Are you just skipping turn 8? Also do note that the 'active' loops are completely separate from the inert ball in your core, they don't interact at all.))

Gain 1 health, 5 hunger. Lose 2 deer bits and 1 pear.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Hmn... to try to prepare better for later, how about we go out to get some wood and plant fibers to see about trying our hand at carving replacement hooks and making new fishing line? It can't be that hard, right? I know what they both look like...
1
You do manage to find some of both, narrowly avoid getting bit by a snake, and give crafting a hook your all. Twenty seven failed hook attempts later, yeah... this isn't as easy as you assumed it would be. Lose 2 hunger.


Spoiler: Nathan (click to show/hide)

Hypothesis: Internal magic can be controlled by will and intent.
Expectation: Poorly controlled magic modified inside the body is dangerous. Do not test.

Experiment 1: Try to build a tiny wizard's tower of rocks, by pushing tiny bits of magic into them, and visualize modifying them to make them stick together.

Experiment 2: Try to build another tiny wizard's tower of rocks. This one will have the blob of magic treated like it is a physical substance, like a glue goo. Imagine it as blue, too.

Experiment 3: Knock them over to see which method worked better.

Eat my pears.

4
When you reach out with a tendril of mana and push it into your little pile of rocks, something curious indeed happens. As your thoughts swirl around the concept of merging things together, the mana seems to respond. The rocks seem... fuzzy, for lack of a better word. You poke and prod your own thoughts, looking to find which things caused the greatest reaction from the rocks. Eventually, you narrow down on it. Focusing on the concept of breaking things down, and specifically thinking about what there is inside a rock to separate in the first place, causes your mana to slowly fizzle away at the rocks. The pile of pebbles gradually, and with great mental effort, breaks down into a pile extremely coarse gravel. Trying to further reduce the size doesn't seem to produce results. A focus problem? A control problem? Simple basic limit on magic? Who can tell. Not you certainly, at least not yet.

So excited by this are you, that considerably less attention is paid to the glue project. It doesn't seem to work anyways, treating the mana as a physical bonding agent, or thoughts along that route, don't seem to spark a reaction.

Pears get pared down to size by your molars.

Lose 2 mana, lose 2 pears, gain 3 hunger.


Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Try to control and move some dirt around using the same method as Nathan, who Amon is watching very intently, eager for his magic to return so he can stop struggling to survive in what seems like a doomed attempt to improve in a world of stagnation and suffering.

Try to get some more food and get to working on da hut

1
Much like Nathan, you too have the misfortunate of snapping a tendril and experiencing the wonderfully pleasant backlash. Muscle spasms, cold and heat waves rippling across your body, sweat and shakes. It wears off fairly quickly, at least. Lose 2 mana.

Presumably by food, you mean deer bits? With a shrug you grab a couple more. Gain 2 deer bits, Locations updated.

4
Are you building like a full blown log cabin, or just a hide and stick frame kinda deal? Hmm, it's hard to decide. And if the latter, might as well just use one of the available tents. Either way, you start on gathering straight pieces of wood of various sizes. Locations updated. Lose 2 hunger.





Spoiler: Locations (click to show/hide)

One more turn, and then the nighttime turn. If everyone votes on this coming turn, we'll just skip the night as everyone sleeps. If anyone wants to stay awake (beyond basic guard duty, if you want to do that,) they'll get a -1 to all rolls tomorrow but will get the extra turn.
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Quote from: AoshimaMichio
Oh no, you won't laser my death star.
On a fun note, all of the beds just starting disintegrating

Egan_BW

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Re: Roll to learn magic
« Reply #63 on: July 24, 2022, 09:06:25 pm »

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Head back home at a lazy pace, trying to maintain my focus on the internal energy.

Marking this discovery as "Self Energy Pool Awareness" so that you know wth I'm talking about if I reference that.

Once home, eat some and sleep.
« Last Edit: July 30, 2022, 03:00:34 pm by Egan_BW »
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Nirur Torir

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Re: Roll to learn magic (5/8) Day 2
« Reply #64 on: July 24, 2022, 09:26:15 pm »

Spoiler: Nathan (click to show/hide)

"I've done it! I've cast a spell! I have figured out the ultimate destructive technique of slowly breaking down pebbles into gravel, without having to use a hammer! It seems to work with the mental imagery of breaking them down, and on the individual components."

I did this by imagining the pebbles' components. Briefly check the gravel to see if I actually separated them out, or if they're all the same material.

Experiment 1: Try to loop my mana through two pieces of gravel, and merge them back together by doing the opposite of what I did to break them down.

Experiment 2: FIRE! Find a stick to meditate on. Focus on the concept of vibrating its atoms, heating it up like a bonfire, and on it filling its potential as fuel, until it bursts into flames.

Eat some deer and sleep through the night.



Quote
The second energy you've discovered reacts to your exercising, in the sense that it follows paths through your limbs, to your lungs and heart, and then back out again. Loops don't seem to make it do much of anything. The ball of energy at your core has even less of a reaction, physical movements seeming to not disturb it at all. On the bright side, you do get better at sensing both. You pass out quite quickly from exhaustion.
We appear to have an 11 year old Xianxia punch mage.
Qi typically advances by consuming sources of external qi, like pills made from magic flowers and plants, or at least by meditating to consume external qi, which both contrast pretty strongly with the suggestion not to integrate external mana.
Yours seems to like movement, try inventing karate.
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Devastator

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Re: Roll to learn magic (5/8) Day 2
« Reply #65 on: July 24, 2022, 09:47:30 pm »

(I thought that was the last turn of the day.  In all honesty, I think literally passing out means 'enough tests for the day'.  I'll do more tomorrow.)

(I'm thinking more gesturing or posing and such rather than Xianxia.  I mean, sure, punches might work, but that seems hard.  It might also respond to talking or speech.  Chants or formulae or something might work too.)

(Also note I haven't actually used any mana.)

Yeah, just rest up.  Passing out is bad.

..Actually, there's one thing.  If there's magic running riot inside my body, it might also be detectable to non-magic senses.  As I go off to sleep, try to concentrate on my eyes and ears.  Can I see anything in the blackness behind my eyelids?  Can I hear anything that might relate to it?


Spoiler (click to show/hide)
« Last Edit: July 26, 2022, 09:18:30 pm by Devastator »
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Glass

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Re: Roll to learn magic
« Reply #66 on: July 24, 2022, 11:35:41 pm »

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Pain in the ass.
We can try that again tomorrow or something.

Try catching some more fish, and maybe start working on preserving them if they actually get acquired. Then, have some of my already-prepared fish before going to sleep.

(Thank you to Egan for helping me not do a dumb)
« Last Edit: July 25, 2022, 07:29:13 am by Glass »
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Quote from: FallacyOfUrist (on Discord, 11/15/21)
Glass is, as usual, correct.
Yep, as ever, I bestow upon Glass the expected +1
I'm gonna say we go with whatever Glass's idea is.

Egan_BW

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Re: Roll to learn magic (5/8) Day 2
« Reply #67 on: July 25, 2022, 12:17:37 am »

(This is the last turn of the day, and the next turn is the night turn. So we get one more action and then sleep at the end of this turn. We put sleeping as part of our action THIS turn because we wouldn't want to have to have an update of just "you all sleep".)
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Knightwing64

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Re: Roll to learn magic (5/8) Day 2
« Reply #68 on: July 26, 2022, 03:42:11 pm »

WIP

(Fill in later when not busy)
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Knightwing64

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Re: Roll to learn magic (5/8) Day 2
« Reply #69 on: July 27, 2022, 08:50:02 am »

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Instead of trying to push the mana out, see what happens when you try to swirl the mana around in your own body, seeping mana into every pore.

After that, eat some deer bits, make a functional bed from some sticks and logs, with some leafs on top for comfort. Then rest my weary body
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johiah

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Re: Roll to learn magic (5/8) Day 2
« Reply #70 on: July 28, 2022, 11:35:45 pm »

Day 2, turn 8. Breezy.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Head back home at a lazy pace, trying to maintain my focus on the internal energy.

Marking this discovery as "Self Energy Pool Awareness" so that you know wth I'm talking about if I reference that.

Once home, eat some and sleep.

1
Yeah, splitting your attention like this leads to tripping and falling on your face. Ow. Lose 2 health.

You nibble on a deer bit and drift off to sleep inside the shack. Lose 1 deer bit.

Spoiler: Nathan (click to show/hide)

"I've done it! I've cast a spell! I have figured out the ultimate destructive technique of slowly breaking down pebbles into gravel, without having to use a hammer! It seems to work with the mental imagery of breaking them down, and on the individual components."

I did this by imagining the pebbles' components. Briefly check the gravel to see if I actually separated them out, or if they're all the same material.

Experiment 1: Try to loop my mana through two pieces of gravel, and merge them back together by doing the opposite of what I did to break them down.

Experiment 2: FIRE! Find a stick to meditate on. Focus on the concept of vibrating its atoms, heating it up like a bonfire, and on it filling its potential as fuel, until it bursts into flames.

Eat some deer and sleep through the night.

Looks like the material remains roughly as homogenous as before, just in smaller pieces.

4
This... actually works! By focusing on the effect, that being of combining two similar yet diffuse materials, as well as holding in your mind what the materials are, your mana once again springs to action with all the agility of an elderly tortoise. Slowly, you merge a couple of the small rubble bits back into a single whole. Presumably, a better mental image as well as practice will make this go faster. Lose 1 mana.

6
Another success, you're on a roll! By moving mana into a stick, and drawing parallels between this stick and the fire, you eventually stumble onto a mental concept that seems to inspire your mana to motion. It begins heating up as you pour more mana into it, until eventually it begins to smolder. This does, unfortunately, burn your fingers, and you drop the stick. You also note that drawing so much mana out of you to fuel the spell seems to leave the portions of your body that the mana routed through feeling akin to that mana reaction you had yesterday, though much more mild. Lose 3 mana, 1 health.

You eat a couple deer bits from the pile, and drift off in a bundle of blankets. Genesis field location updated.

(I thought that was the last turn of the day.  In all honesty, I think literally passing out means 'enough tests for the day'.  I'll do more tomorrow.)

(I'm thinking more gesturing or posing and such rather than Xianxia.  I mean, sure, punches might work, but that seems hard.  It might also respond to talking or speech.  Chants or formulae or something might work too.)

(Also note I haven't actually used any mana.)

Yeah, just rest up.  Passing out is bad.

..Actually, there's one thing.  If there's magic running riot inside my body, it might also be detectable to non-magic senses.  As I go off to sleep, try to concentrate on my eyes and ears.  Can I see anything in the blackness behind my eyelids?  Can I hear anything that might relate to it?


Spoiler (click to show/hide)
5
If there's any physical sign of this active mana running through your body, it must be something so integrated with your existence that you can't pick it out as a specific thing. Like trying to sense the presence of a bone in your body without using external senses. Thoughts running in circles regarding this odd concept, you quickly drift back to sleep.


Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Pain in the ass.
We can try that again tomorrow or something.

Try catching some more fish, and maybe start working on preserving them if they actually get acquired. Then, have some of my already-prepared fish before going to sleep.

(Thank you to Egan for helping me not do a dumb)
5
You catch another four fish. Unfortunately, the preserving methods haven't been finished yet, so you just prepare them and leave them on a spit high enough above the fire that they shouldn't actually cook, just dry out. Who knows if this will work? You eat the last of your already prepped fish, and then doze off in the grass again. The breeze is a little chilly, but it's still quite comfortable. Lose 3 bluegill fillet, gain 4 hunger. Genesis field location updated.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Instead of trying to push the mana out, see what happens when you try to swirl the mana around in your own body, seeping mana into every pore.

After that, eat some deer bits, make a functional bed from some sticks and logs, with some leafs on top for comfort. Then rest my weary body

6
Pulling mana out of your core and swirling it around your body mostly just feels very uncomfortable, like a ghost running a hand down your spine. It does help a good deal with your control, though.

6
Deer bits are eaten, and a semidecent bed is crafted. Not without a number of slivers and small cuts, though. Ow! Lose 3 deer bits, lose 1 health, gain 5 hunger. Basic crafting learned. Genesis field location updated.
You hit the hay, er, leaves, ready for sleep to visit.


The night passes peacefully once more, though the wind blows somewhat more insistently tonight. There remains no moon, yet as before the nighttime sky is still lit by some diffuse source. All those who sleep gain 3 health, and 3 mana. (Up to cap)

Day 3 begins.





Spoiler: Locations (click to show/hide)

Things begin to happen. Soon the ultimate power of magical pebble breakage shall be yours!
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Quote from: AoshimaMichio
Oh no, you won't laser my death star.
On a fun note, all of the beds just starting disintegrating

Devastator

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Re: Roll to learn magic (5/8) Day 2
« Reply #71 on: July 29, 2022, 05:46:56 am »

Well, despite that, there are probably ways to notice integral stuff with you main senses.  Can tell density with tanks of water.  Can tell weight with a scale.  Might be able to discover or invent something.

But that sounds like it's the wrong approach.  Magic must use magic.  If I could use this, even a little, I could use it to tell me about itself.

I must be using it a bit when I sense it, then.  Hmm.

I don't know if that makes any sense.  I just don't want to kaboom.


Hypothesis:  I can use the loops if I create an interface.  A way to control them.  This way must use the loops themselves, because it must be magic.

Hypothesis 2.  They respond to my movement, and they respond to things that happen to me.  When I was completely exhausted, they went to my heart, lungs, and noodle muscles.  So.. if I make them concentrate to my sensory organs, say my eyes or my ears, they might start reacting to things I can see or hear.



First, use some grass and a small stick to make a simple whistle.

Then, lets get my magic's attention by warming up.  Similar to before, do stretches and bend over.  Simple exercises, just to get my limbs moving.

When I feel my magic moving with my magical senses, take the next step.

Try to strain my eyes.  Shift focus rapidly.  Put a hand over one eye and roll my other eye, straining to look up, down, left, and right.  Stare hard into the fire, then move into the tent and let them adjust to the darkness.

Try to see if I can get the magic flowing through my eyes.


Spoiler (click to show/hide)
« Last Edit: July 29, 2022, 05:20:49 pm by Devastator »
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Nirur Torir

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Re: Roll to learn magic (5/8) Day 2
« Reply #72 on: July 29, 2022, 03:19:41 pm »

Spoiler: Nathan (click to show/hide)

"The process of breaking rocks down can be reversed easily enough with a similar enough mindset to breaking them down. If I can improve that into a proper spell, we won't need nails or mortar for houses. I can also light a stick on fire while I'm holding it, by moving my mana fast enough inside of it, but it takes a lot of mana."

Practice magically partially merging sticks together, trying to create an airtight seal between two straight sticks.
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Knightwing64

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Re: Roll to learn magic (5/8) Day 2
« Reply #73 on: July 30, 2022, 06:59:09 am »

WIP
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Egan_BW

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Re: Roll to learn magic (5/8) Day 2
« Reply #74 on: July 30, 2022, 03:00:14 pm »

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Magic sucks, never doing that again.
Dump the shiny rocks in the shack and build the smoker. And eat deer.
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I would starve tomorrow if I could eat the world today.
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