One weekend, early-mid semester...

[Ada Turing]

Ada claimed a study table as hers through the simple method of spreading books and papers all over it. The books were an eclectic mix of arcana, focusing, if anywhere, on a school of magic that had last been formally taught in Alexandria. The papers were at least partially covered with magical sigils, the odd characters and expressions of formal logic, and something that at least vaguely resembled a programming language.

Ada was looking for something, that much was obvious - most likely a conclusion of some sort, as she spent more time writing than reading. As she continued, she would insert scraps of paper into the books as bookmarks. Expressions, both magical and logical, were underlined, crossed out, or circled according to some system that defied casual analysis.

[Less Than Beta East Tundra]

"Hello, Ada," greeted Less Than Beta cheerfully. He peered at the books curiously, then gave her a blinding grin. "You're studying magic? What kind? I know some theory concerning wild magic, but since none of these books are about it, that's probably not what you're looking for." He couldn't do any magic himself unless one of the older pack members lent him some, but he knew how to go through the motions. Hopefully when he got old enough he would be trusted enough to be given some permanently.

[Ada Turing]

"Hi, Less," Ada said. "I'm not studying it, per se, I'm just trying to see if it makes sense."

She paused for a moment to tap one book, at the bottom of a stack of four.

"According to this book, Hypatian Geomancy is the most logical, machinistic form of magic around. The author portrays it as a bad thing, lacking flexibility and all that. However, I figure that makes it probably the best place to start."

"I wouldn't worry too much about my developing magical powers," she continued. She moved her focus away from Less and spoke three words, carefully enunciating the strange syllables. There was a hint of Power in the words (but not in Ada's saying them), and the sequence was obviously magical... but nothing happened.

"As you can see," Ada said, "there's something fundamental that I don't have."

[Less Than Beta East Tundra]

Less picked up the book and flipped through it, but couldn't make heads or tails of the words. "I don't know much about that type of magic, but I've noticed that general results tends to be better if the spells are more logical. Otherwise some strange stuff can happen." He set the book down and flipped through another.

"Well, yeah. You need to have magic to use magic. Watch this." Less Than Beta wound his bracelet through his fingers and made a gesture at the ground. "Nothing happened because I don't have magic. If Alpha did that, she would see an image of the rabbit this was made from and how it died. But then again, different types of magic have different rules."

[Ada Turing]

Ada nodded.

"So," she asked, "does it still count as studying if it's something I'll never be able to use?"

She paused for a moment, thinking, and then jotted down another equation.

[Less Than Beta East Tundra]

"Of course. Even if you can't use magic, it's still important to know the theory behind it because there are magic users everywhere. I don't know enough about human culture to give a good example that would relate to you..." He thought for a moment, then completely failed at snapping his fingers. "In the tundra, if you see an unknown were holding a disk of ice, you need to know that that's used as a communication device and thus that the were is probably spying instead of just passing through."

"Also, there's always a chance that one day you'll do something for someone and they'll be forced to give you their magic in order to settle the debt. That's how Mother of Alpha got hers."

[Ada Turing]

Ada nodded.

"Makes sense, although I doubt I'll run into a Geomancer at all, let alone one in need of help. It fell out of common use when the library was burned."

[Less Than Beta East Tundra]

Less cocked his head to the side. "Which library? It can't be this one; when I was here earlier nothing smelled like it had been burned. Everything's new, in fact, except for some of the books."

[Ada Turing]

Ada smiled, realizing slightly too late that she probably should have given context.

"Sorry, I was talking about the Library of Alexandria, in Egypt. It was one of the biggest libraries in the world until it was burned, some sixteen hundred years ago. A lot of knowledge from the ancient world was lost when the library was burned by an angry mob. Hypatia, who the form of magic was named for, was its final librarian."

[Less Than Beta East Tundra]

"Ah. So you want to study Geomancy, but can't because the books concerning it were all burned. How does Geomancy work? Maybe I can help if you tell me what to look for." Less had heard of people destroying stores of knowledge, but the only reason he could fathom was that they people doing the burning already had the necessary knowledge and didn't want their enemies to have it as well. With magic there was a good chance that any particular type would be rediscovered several times throughout history, so he hoped there would be newer books about it.

[Ada Turing]

"Well, it wasn't really ever lost," Ada said. "Copies were made of some of the texts in the years before the burning of the library, and geomancers who survived wrote their own books, many of which were stored in places other than Alexandria. A guy by the name of Gadbled managed to piece it all back together in France in the 1700s. People never really started using it again because nobody wanted to go to the trouble of learning all this."

Ada grabbed one of the books, and opened it to a bookmark. On the page were five lines of various characters and sigils, easily a hundred characters in all.

"That's just a basic spell to make light, and to get it to work, you have to understand how every single part of it works. Obviously, there are much more approachable forms of Magic out there, so only a very few people go to the difficulty of learning any form of geomancy,to say nothing of the classical Hypatian variant."

[Less Than Beta East Tundra]

Less politely perused the page, but failed to make any headway. "If it's so unusable, why are you looking into it? Animexternalism is much easier to understand if a bit tricky in practice, and spirit calling is simple enough that sometimes even people without magic can manage it if they go through the right formulas." Though he personally had no luck with it, he knew of some humans back home who had.

"Though admittedly, neither or those nor wild magic can call light. Sometimes you can trap it in something for later, though."

((Don't bother googling animexternalism; I made it up.))

[Ada Turing]

"Well, there are a few reasons," Ada said. "First off, it seems to be inherently logical, despite what some authors have said about it. I've had to use logical techniques that didn't exist when the books were published, but I've managed to derive theorems that they had to leave unproven. If this, the most logical system of magic I've found, is inherently self-contradictory, I'll have no luck whatsoever with a less organized system. Secondly, once you know how it works, more complicated spells are easy to construct."

She turned back to the example, and pointed out a few spots.

"If you change that character to another one of these, and add those two characters here, and have enough power to drive it, of course, it'll make a burst of light so brilliant that people will wonder if you summoned a star. The language is flexible enough that even I can write completely absurd spells, which makes looking for paradoxes in the language easier."

"And finally, it reminds me of the bastard child of LISP and APL, both of which are the sort of programming language where truly understanding them gives you insight into every other programming language in existence. If nothing else, I hope I can get at least some of that understanding."

[Less Than Beta East Tundra]

Less Than Beta took note of the spots the girl had pointed out. "I see how that would make spell research easier. Wild mages like Mother of Alpha have to rely on guesswork and the legends that have the lowest chance of being completely made up. It took far longer to derive a spell to change the direction of the wind than it should have." He pointed out two characters on the page. "What happens if you switch this curved one with that one over there?"

[Less Than Beta East Tundra]

Less cocked his head to the side as he patiently waited for an answer.

[Ada Turing]

((Sorry - no good excuse, as usual))

"Well," Ada said, thinking. "Compiler error, I think. Throws off the phase, so the whole thing falls apart."

Grabbing a piece of paper, Ada jotted down a similar construct.

"You could do this to it as well, and end up with basically the same end result as before. As with anything, there's a lot of different ways to end up at the same place. The little details on the inside change, but that's about it."

[Less Than Beta East Tundra]

"Does that mean nothing happens, or does that mean the magic goes uncontrolled?" Less asked as he peered at this new construct. He traced the lines of characters with a finger as he studied it. "So this part sets up the spell, right?" pointing at part of the light spell in the book, he continued, "And this designates how much power goes into it? Is that how it's set up? That's a completely different structure than wild magic."

[Ada Turing]

"Nothing would happen," Ada said. "The construct would collapse and ground out, and maybe leave a tiny glow or something equally unimpressive behind. And yes, that's the basic layout - invocation, creation of a container, input of power, and only then how the power actually behaves, all while minding what is happening to phases, timbres, and power flow. It reminds me a lot of programming, actually. It's all about the details..."

[Less Than Beta East Tundra]

"Phases? As in the phases of the moon, or something else?" Less Than Beta asked, an excited tone creeping into his voice. He knew a lot of theory about moon magic, so if that was a part of geomancy he might be able to help out a bit.

[Ada Turing]

"Kind of," Ada said. "There's a lot of places where something flows back and forth in cycles, like a wave, or the phases of the moon. Where they are in a cycle at a given time is called their phase, and if they don't line up right, things can go wrong."

[Less Than Beta East Tundra]

"So kind of, but not really." Less looked vaguely disappointed at that. It seemed that his pack's teachings and occasional lore would not come in handy. He wanted to help...

[Ada Turing]

"Actually..." Ada said, thinking. "How do phases of the moon interact with magic?" She'd seen just how complicated phase interactions were, and was hoping that wild magic would have a different enough viewpoint to make some of the complications clear.

[Less Than Beta East Tundra]

"The moon changes how the magic...flows? Emanates? I don't know the right words..." Less stopped for a second to think, then shrugged and continued on. "When you make a spell, you put together the right materials or words, then send magical power through those. You control the specifics of the power with your mind, or maybe with a keystone or your breath depending on the type. In wild magic, is usually a mix of whatever is around. Is a very flexible type of magic. The moon affects the second part, when the magical power is being sent. Sometimes strangely."

"Here's an example. If you are trying to communicate over long distances, maybe across many other pack's territories, you can use a disk of ice and catch the reflection of the aurora to send an image of yourself to near someone. If the moon is not there, is easier to control but has limited distance. If the moon is full, can reach the other side of the world but is more likely to do that than reach who you want to. It makes the magic flow too strong and can tire the mage. But if the aurora is not there and you still need to talk, can use the full moon instead without too strong of a flow. Different spells react differently, though."

[Ada Turing]

"Is the moon itself magical, then?" Ada asked. "Are there people who get their power from it?"

((OOC: Come join us in the chatroom!))

[Less Than Beta East Tundra]

"Not magical, but powerful. There's a bit of a difference." Less answered, though he wasn't sure that was a good explanation. "If there is magic about, power strengthens it. If not, it strengthens whatever is around."

((Thanks!))

[Ada Turing]

"So," Ada said, "There are other things with power as well, then? Stars, auroras, and so forth? And at least part of the trouble with wild magic is working out the right alignments and times so all the powers line up correctly?"

[Less Than Beta East Tundra]

"Yes. They have different kinds of power that sometimes interact oddly, too, especially if there's a natural patch of magic nearby. Auroras are very good for light transfer, for example, but focus stones are better for storing things. Light, maybe, or sound or magic. It's hard to tell exactly how each power will work with a spell in advance so it's hard to make new ones, but if you know how you can do a great many things," Less answered, scuffing the ground with a foot.

[Ada Turing]

"What a world..." Ada said softly. "I think I'm going to have to do more research."