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Cam studies. He studies madly. The next week elapses with him having very little sense of individual days. He doesn't want anyone to know anything special is up, so he goes to a movie with Renée and to a friend's house after school to play Nintendo games and Charlie gets his weekly phone call and he shows up to his classes and gets his homework adequately done. But other than that he studies. He wants to be fluent in this thing inside three months if possible. It's easier than Spanish, he's motivated, he can use it in everyday conversations as he asks passing animals and convenient plants how smart they are (dogs: smarter than goats; squirrels: about goat level; his friend's hamster: dumb as a rock; shrubs: way dumber than trees; indoor potted rosemary: just a step above grass) and chats with Grace, he's basically dropping himself in an immersion course with some inconvenient English here and there so he can interact with humans. He thinks three months is ambitious but reasonable.
He's not actually doing that many spells. He does wheedle tofu into tastiness on a nightly basis, and when he feels a cold coming on he looks up a spell about that, but he wants to know what he's doing before he gets going on what he most wants to be doing, because he wants to be doing big things. He swore to oppose death. He meant that.
Today he is preparing to oppose death in his backyard. It's threatening rain and he doesn't want to be all the way down the street with Leafy if the clouds open up. The jerk tree doesn't talk to him if he doesn't talk to it and it's perfectly serviceable as something to sit under, anyway.
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lifes_sake
"Worldgate loci tend to form around population centers," says Matilda.
"You can gate from anywhere, technically, but you have to shove a lot of power into it if you're not at a locus," says Jellybean.
"They let you open a temporary door between one place and another," says Matilda.
"You can gate from anywhere, technically, but you have to shove a lot of power into it if you're not at a locus," says Jellybean.
"They let you open a temporary door between one place and another," says Matilda.
lifes_sake
"But if you're at a locus you can gate to anywhere without extra power?" Cam asks. "How do you find loci?"
"There's a trick to it," says Jellybean.
"He's really good," says Matilda. "I'm okay at it. The best place to look is in a train station or an airport or something like that, in the middle of a population center."
"He's really good," says Matilda. "I'm okay at it. The best place to look is in a train station or an airport or something like that, in the middle of a population center."
"They look like worldgates," says Jellybean. "I dunno."
lifes_sake
"Maybe you can show me one sometime," suggests Cam. "Are other planets generally pretty habitable or do I need to snug up my wards before I can go offplanet?"
"Earth seems to be pretty normal in terms of atmosphere and radiation and so on," says Matilda. "But unless you know where you're going, you should be pretty sure of your wards before you go there."
lifes_sake
"Makes sense. Is it necessary to go about invisibly on other worlds or are they pretty human-friendly?"
"Depends on the world," says Matilda. "Some places you'd be fine. Some places you'd get about as much trouble as, well, an obvious alien walking around on Earth."
lifes_sake
"I think an obvious alien walking around on Earth would be okay in many places or certain times of year."
"...Some of them, maybe," says Matilda.
"Considerably."
lifes_sake
"Noted. Is the Earth setup of one species that can talk in not-Speech and lots that can talk in Speech pretty standard?"
"Pretty much," says Jellybean.
"Some places, everyone uses the Speech," says Matilda.
"Some places, everyone uses the Speech," says Matilda.
lifes_sake
"That sounds interesting," Cam says. "And everybody just talks to the local equivalent of trees as a matter of course?"
"Yep!" says Matilda.
"Years," says Jellybean.
"Since I was six," says Matilda.
"Eight years," says Jellybean.
"Since I was six," says Matilda.
"Eight years," says Jellybean.
lifes_sake
"Lucky. How come you got your manual so young and I didn't till last week?"
"It's probably because I'm smarter," Matilda says matter-of-factly.
"Don't feel bad," she adds, "I'm smarter than most people."
lifes_sake
"What's the average age these things get dropped on a person's head? Does it usually scale with intelligence?"