Fairy Opera Chapter 12: Libraries

 

Libraries

We had seven total casualties. Three deaths and four injured. Tae and Jak set up a medical bay in the former captain’s quarters. I asked Orion if he had any healing magic.

Orion shook his head. “Healing magic is very rare. The human body is much more complex than you think, and doing something wrong could have cascading consequences. Because of that, healing magic was only practiced by experts, of which I am not one.”

I sighed. “We’re going to have to do the best we can, then.” I held my arm against my wound.

Orion looked at the blood flowing down my arm. “I think we might need to stitch that closed.”

I grimaced. “You think?”

“Here. I may not be able to do healing magic, but I can treat a wound. All the critical holes in our ship have been patched, I can get the rest later.”

I laid down on a bed in the temporary medical ward. Orion knelt beside me and held my arm. He took a needle and some thread and started to stitch my wound closed. I gritted my teeth through the pain. When he was done, he sanitized it with alcohol and tied a bandage around it. I got off the bed and looked around the room.

Orion turned to another one of the wounded sailors. “Rock, go help Tae and Jak with whatever they need. I’ll stay here and tend to our wounded.”

I went up to the top deck. There, three bodies wrapped in linen lay on the wood. Several of our sailors were crying.

Tae began a eulogy. “We didn’t know you for long, Yuki, Norn, Balk. But you were brave and strong for the time we knew you. We promised to protect you and failed in that mission. We release you to the open sky so that your souls may freely inhabit the great winds.”

With that the three bodies were tipped off the side of the ship. They fell towards the skyfloor, twirling as they descended.

One of our sailors, a young woman demi-human, knelt down and started sobbing. Tae put her hand around her. “I’m sorry.”

Ruby flew up to me and landed on my shoulder. “There’s going to be casualties in a battle, Rock.” She turned away. “It’s a good thing we made them pay.”

Across the deck, on the other side, were seven bodies, from the Imperial frigate.

Ruby sniffed. “Seven to three. That’s a good ratio.”

“Talk of ratios at this point may be a bit insensitive.” I turned away from the bodies. “I’m going to the control room to see where we’re headed.”

“The Grand Castle, right?” Ruby flew alongside me as I walked across the deck.

“Right. We still don’t know how we’re going to get in.”

“Why do you think Orion came to me?” Jastle was standing beside the door to the control room. “I hate the Empire more than you can imagine. So of course I’m going to assist you in your endeavor. I know a few secret ways into Grand Castle that no one else knows.”

“What’s your beef with the Empire?”

Jastle shook his head. “I can’t say right now. Maybe later, kid.”

We entered the control room. “Ship!” I spoke in Scode. “We need to get to Grand Castle Island.”

“Routing now. I would suggest berthing for supplies at Anerville Island. Estimated journey time is two weeks.”

“We have enough food, don’t we?”

“I have calculated that the fare which the previous owners of this ship were provisioned with will not be favorable to its current crew.”

“So you’re saying we have food, but it’s bad food.”

“Have you had a look at the food stores?”

“No.” I frowned. “I just eat what Tae makes me.”

“Then you should take a look.” The ship sounded concerned. “I will wait.”

I turned to Jastle. “The ship wants us to verify the food stores.”

Jastle whistled. “Kid, you just held a conversation with a talking ship in pure Scode. Where did you learn that?”

“I think Orion called me a technomage.”

“Oh. Yeah, that makes sense.” Jastle put his fist into his palm. “I’ve never met a technomage before. Is it true what they say? That you can use spells without a scroll?”

“I think so, yes.”

Jastle sighed. “You’re lucky, then. I’ve been studying Scode my whole life and I only understood about a third of what you just said to the ship.” He paused. “By the way, how did you come upon a relic ship anyways?”

“We took it from a bunch of slaver pirates.”

“I hope you terminated that trash when you took the ship.”

I raised an eyebrow. “We didn’t do them any favors.”

We left the control room and climbed down onto the second deck, where the food stores were located. When we entered I understood immidiately why we needed a quick resupply. I saw Jak in the room with a clipboard.

“Why didn’t we resupply at Pirate Cove?” I approached Jak.

“Because there were no supplies for sale.” Jak shook his head. “I tried bargaining with the dock chief, but he refused to sell us anything.”

“He refused money?”

“He said that if the Empire caught him selling food to an unregistered ship, he’d be hanged.” Jak shrugged. “I don’t know why a dock chief for a pirate hideout would be so concerned about that, but you get the picture.”

“The ship told us to check the stores. It said that the fare we have stored is, well, questionable.”

“It is.” Jak shook his head. “It’s all weevil-infested hardtack. Not even any molasses. And most striking of all, is there’s no lime juice.”

“Lime juice?”

Jak sniffed. “Lime juice prevents scurvy.” Jak grimaced. “These pirates really weren’t eating well. It was no wonder we were able to defeat them so easily.”

“So we’re going to need to resupply.”

“Which won’t be hard if we find a friendly island.” Jak turned to me. “I’ve got to show you something else.”

We left the store room and went down to the bottom deck. Jak walked up to what appeared to be a solid bulkhead. He tapped a certain spot and the door slid open.

We walked in and were greeted by a mound of treasure. Gold, gems, jewelry, money. There was a lifetime’s worth of treasure in here.

Jastle looked at Jak. “Why did you show me this? Do you really trust me, without knowing anything about me?”

Jak chuckled. “You may not believe it, but I’m a really good judge of character. You’re too much of a tech head to are about money.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I only take what I need to run my experiments.”

“And you’ll have plenty of that. Orion told me the deal.”

Jastle shook Jak’s hand. “Thank you, sir.” He turned to me. “You’ve got a good crew around you.”

The three of us returned to the upper deck and then entered the control room. “Ship. Chart a course to Anerville Island.”

“Anerville Island is an independent protectorate. There are a number of suppliers who would be willing to sell to an unregistered ship.”

“Thanks for figuring that out, ship. By the way, what should I call you? Just saying ship is too vague.”

“Call me Althos.”

“Okay, Althos.” I turned to Ruby, who was sitting on the edge of the console. “Ruby. I want you to tabulate the store room with Jak and figure out what we need.”

“Why me?” Ruby flew up and landed on my head.

“Because I need someone to report back to me.”

Ruby sighed. “Okay.” She flew over to Jak. “Let’s get this over with, Uncle.”

Jak laughed. “Sure thing, fairy.”

Jak and Ruby left the room and headed back to the store room.

Jastle looked at me. “What did Orion teach you about creating spells?”

“Spells? He didn’t teach me anything about spells. He said it was far too dangerous.”

“I want to try something. Creating spells from scratch is dangerous, but only because many words in Scode are not well known, and a single connotation error could end up destroying you as well as your target.” Jastle turned towards the door. “But you understand Scode in its entirety. You can write a spell without fear of using an incorrect word or problematic grammar mistake.”

I followed Jastle out of the control room. One of the officer’s rooms was nearby, so we entered it.

Jastle pulled out a scroll. When he handed it to me, I could see that it was blank.

Jastle gave me a pen as well. “This is called a Spare. It’s a scroll that hasn’t been copied onto yet.” Jastle sat down. “Before you do anything, though, I’m going to have to teach you what I know about Scode’s syntax.”

“Okay.” I sat down across from Jastle.

Jastle had placed his shrinkable crate in the corner of the room. He went over to it and pulled out a chalk board and secured it to the wall. “Scode is built as a command language. Each word in the language performs a different function, usually related to its meaning. Sometimes not. The first thing you need to learn is the Null function. When you say the word Null, it activates a magical object. Magical objects are sets of command instructions that are packaged inside of a single reference. The object “null” institutes a shield by which other words are interpreted. You may have also heard the starting object “Apropos.””

“Right, I did. It has something to do with counter magic, right?”

“Glad you have it. After you institute the spell substrate with your activating word, you must categorize the spell. Give me a categorization word.”

“Bravos.”

“Correct. Bravos is a categorization word that refers to fire and temperature manipulation. Now we’re onto parameters.”

“Right, the scrolls always have parameters. But they sometimes change.”

“Right. These are called floating point words. When you write a spell, you use floating point words to allow flexibility within the scroll. The spell will use your current state of mind and automatically fill in the parameters. Thus, the scroll knows the distance, temperature, and direction of where you want to cast it.”

“Right.”

“Then you have modifier words. These words tell the spell what and where to activate.”

“Right. Like “burn hot.””

“Correct. That phrase, when put in a Null Bravos framework, causes the fire to burn hotter. Which is a literal translation of the Scode word Micrusplato.”

I suddenly heard the Scode as it probably sounded to someone who wasn’t a technomage. The words floated off of Jastle’s tongue and were really hard to remember, fading from my mind almost as soon as they entered.

Jastle continued. “Good. Now there are a number of smaller functions and peripheral activators. I want you to create a new Null Bravos spell scroll.”

I took the empty scroll and started writing. Null Bravos. Set Parameters (value range, value direction, value target.)  

“Wow.” Jastle watched me. “You’re doing a lot better than I thought you would.”

Burn with enough fire to hurt but not kill. Color fire blue. Shape into four separate projectiles.”

The long sentences coalesced as I wrote them.

“To keep spells short, we create what are called “libraries.” Libraries are packages that call upon a certain sub spell so that you don’t have to recite the entire spell at once. Spells need to be easy to cast in a hurry, after all.”

“Okay. So I need to use libraries for these.”

“Right. The word “invoke” and the name of the library element will insert it into the scroll. As long as you have the library scroll in your scroll pocket, you’ll be able to cast the spell with its sub units.” Jastle checked his watch. “In any case, I should probably go check in with Orion. We’ll continue this later.” He nodded and left the room.

I stared at the scroll that was half finished. “Cool.” I grinned. “This is actually pretty fun.”