Magic is Programming

Purple floated in the quiet darkness of the city's top security vault, thinking. I agreed to brainstorm ideas for soul structures, but I really just don't understand how to do that. Carlos wants me to be creative? The most creative thing I've ever done was just doing something that was obvious the moment that enchanter guy said something about it! How am I supposed to think about creative ideas when I don't even know how to come up with them in the first place?

He aimlessly moved aether around while he stewed in his thoughts. After a long while, he realized he'd accidentally formed a vortex that might damage something. He carefully slowed the raging current gradually until it was back to a more normal speed. I'm getting agitated, and that may cause problems. When Carlos or Amber feel like this, they take a deep breath, but I don't breathe. There's a mental component that goes with the deep breath, though, isn't there? Hmm… Purple focused his attention on smoothing out and calming the flows of aether around him as much as possible, concentrating on only that for several seconds. That helped. With my agitation, at least.

Purple considered the now-placid aether that permeated the vault. Huh. That's new. I've never done that before, at least not for that purpose. How did I come up with that idea? He mentally retraced his thoughts. Ah, right, I was imitating something I observed from my friends. Observing Carlos and Amber as they brainstorm might help me learn how to imitate the process. He hesitated. Carlos specifically said we should brainstorm separately, though. I shouldn't just ignore that. Could I observe closely enough to learn, but distantly enough to not know the details of their ideas?

He cautiously turned his attention to Carlos, pulling back from any sensations of sight, sound, or articulated thoughts, limiting himself to vaguer impressions of Carlos's mental state. His first friend was excited about something and seemed to be pouring out a nigh-endless series of small details that were loosely connected by being grouped in a large bundle of a concept. Then Carlos's focus leaped to a distantly connected other large concept, and a few more besides, and he seemed to struggle with choosing which one to tackle first. Ultimately, he ended up jumping between them several times, sporadically revisiting earlier topics and occasionally adding a whole new bundle to the semi-random rotation. Carlos seems to just know things and spontaneously manifests ideas. He has a gigantic web of knowledge, any random thought can connect to something in it, and he follows connections in that web to find everything that seems relevant. I cannot usefully imitate that method without learning a similarly large web of knowledge first. Perhaps observing Amber might help more?

Purple kept his focus similarly distant as he switched to observing Amber. She was considering the precise details of solving a problem, but that problem itself was a solution to a larger and less detailed problem. In fact, there was a whole hierarchy of larger and larger problems above it, each with a set of branches extending from it into finer details. As he maintained his distant watch, she finished with one detail, went up to the next higher tier of problems, and took the next branch down to another set of details again.

Intrigued, Purple kept watching as Amber broke down problems into solutions whose lack of detail was a smaller problem. I might be able to use this method. But how does she come up with the right problem at the root of the tree? Another half-hour passed, and Amber completed an entire branch up to just below the root of the problem tree. There was still another branch left, which Amber would systematically analyze all the way down to the most detailed level, but Purple was willing to wait through that to see how she'd choose another root problem to break down. Then suddenly the whole tree dropped out of Amber's focus, and Purple's thoughts stuttered in confusion as he watched her attention refocus on… himself?

[Purple? Are you… watching me? Kind of?] Amber's mental voice carried a complex mix of feelings, but discomfort and anger were the most prominent.

Purple mentally recoiled, and he replied with sheepish embarrassment. [Um. Yes? I was trying to learn about how to brainstorm well by observing how you do it. Was that wrong?]

[That's… Okay, that's actually a good idea, but you should have asked for my permission first. You're my friend, and I trust you, but spying on someone in private is creepy, and spying on my thoughts feels just…] Amber shuddered. [Though…] She paused briefly, suddenly confused and uncertain. [We're already planning on having you literally be our home, and I just realized what that could mean for our privacy. Are you even able to not see everything in a room inside your dungeon?]

[I don't know. I suppose I could exclude a room from my domain outright. That would reduce my ability to protect that room, however. What exactly is the issue? I am not familiar with the concept of "creepy."]

Amber sighed. [Of course you aren't. You're a dungeon core; how would creepiness ever even be relevant to a normal dungeon core? Okay, um… I don't actually know how to explain the reasons for it in a way that you might understand. How about you just take it as an arbitrary rule to follow: Observing a person without their knowledge and consent, when they are not in a public area, is rude, creepy, and offensive. For anyone you're friendly with, you should ask them for permission first and abide by their answer.]

[Okay. I can do that. May I watch you brainstorming some more?]

[Instead of that, let's just talk about it. You've been watching for a while already, right? Is there any specific part you need to know more about?]

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[Yes. How do you choose the root concept to break down and analyze?]

Amber paused to consider the question. [You've already watched me breaking something down. Do you understand that part?]

[Well enough to at least begin attempting it, yes.]

Amber nodded. [It's kind of like that, just starting from a few basic concepts that are always the same. Let's see, there's what problems you have and how to solve them, for one. What goals you want and how to achieve them is another. And then, sometimes, the starting point is something you have, whether a resource, a tool, an idea, or whatever else, and the issue is what you can use it for.]

[I see.] Purple mulled this information over for several seconds. [And for each of those, break the issue into smaller and smaller parts until the pieces are small enough to solve. But what if I do not know what smaller parts to break it into? I want to brainstorm ideas for soul structures, but…] He sent an impression of helpless confusion.

Amber laughed. [You seem to have gotten started on that fairly well already. You identified a problem - your lack of knowledge about how to brainstorm - and found a partial solution in watching me do it.]

[I… did? But I started with a goal, not a problem!] Purple paused. [Oh. Those three base concepts are almost the same, and can be mixed.]

[Yes. And sometimes mixing different issues together can help, and sometimes you have to improve your understanding to figure out what components even exist to break something down into.] Amber yawned. [Is that enough to get you started? I'm really tired, and the only reason I'm still awake is that I couldn't stop thinking about something.]

[I think so. Thank you.]

[Then goodnight.] Amber rolled over and firmly pushed Purple's mental voice away.

Purple pulled back, his awareness focusing just on the vault around him again, and considered the advice Amber had just given him. Problems to solve, goals to achieve, things I can use… He noticed he'd idly started stirring up the aether around him again and forced himself to stop. I suppose that's another problem to solve. It just feels wrong to not be doing anything. Well, I am doing something, just not with my mana. Anyway, ideas for soul structures, hmm… Which approach is best suited for this? Soul structures are not problems. They're not goals, either. They are tools. Tools that improve or expand your capabilities to solve problems or achieve goals. So, I think the real question is what problems or goals we should use them for.

Alright, then the way to break things down for the next layer is to list out our problems and goals. I was just thinking about a problem a moment ago, might as well put that in the list. Is idleness feeling wrong really a problem to solve, though? He paused to consider, then mentally shrugged and added it anyway. I can analyze whether it's important when I get to that point. What else? Defenses to protect me and my friends, of course. Um. Hmm… What exactly did Carlos say about why I should do this, again? I think he emphasized focusing on ways I'm different from them, but I don't remember the precise details. Wait, not remembering clearly is another problem. That might become a problem for my brainstorming too, having to remember the whole problem tree and my conclusions.

Purple focused on that thought as a realization struck him. A problem that affects my brainstorming is a problem that I need to solve immediately, before continuing. I could make some paper and take notes on it like Amber does, but I can't move a pencil like she does. I'd have to create the graphite on the paper arranged in the form of writing. Moving it and even reading it would be awkward, too. Seeing materials is not my primary sense, unlike for humans. Writing with mana would be either unstable or wasteful. Using mana in a soul structure to solve it would work, but I haven't merged the ones I already have yet, so I don't have anywhere to put it. He paused, then did the purely mental equivalent of a facepalm. One of the structures I already have can handle it, duh! The knowledge repository. I just need to tweak it a little so that I can put knowledge into it too, not just the people I have bonds with. Okay, done and the list is in there.

Moving on, let's see, ways that my nature, capabilities, experiences, and knowledge differ from Carlos and Amber, and problems, goals, and useful things that those differences are relevant to. Store that as the heading of a list, and…

Purple continued brainstorming through the rest of the night and the following morning.

The discussion of ideas the next afternoon was fascinating. Purple's friends had not only gone about their brainstorming in completely different ways, but had produced drastically different results as well. Amber identified problems and solved them, and identified important strengths and ways to improve them. Carlos solved one problem, but then unveiled a grand vision of how to organize it all, and followed up with a strange concept that I still don't really comprehend, but that he's certain will be extremely useful. Even Amber still feels uncertain about some of the details of that.

And then they asked about my ideas. Purple couldn't decide whether he should feel embarrassed, confused, or proud about what had followed after that question. Most of his ideas were only good for his own use, aimed at the unique problems and advantages of a stationary being who controlled a large area, but one idea had surprised both of them and immediately struck them as extremely important. I had no idea that my dislike of idleness with my mana would lead to such a big deal, but Carlos instantly jumped on it and said, "Idle mana is wasted potential for advancement." Amber was confused at first, but then realized something and commented, "For after we advance past the wellspring's peak." I'll have to get used to the idea of planning that far ahead.

Purple had transcribed the whole conversation into his knowledge repository, so he could review every last bit of it in complete detail as much as he wanted to. He spent hours just going over Carlos's explanation of an "integrated development environment" over and over again, trying to understand why Carlos was so extremely excited about it. Eventually, he decided that he'd just have to wait to observe it in action, and turned his thoughts to what he was excited about.

We're going into the Wilds tomorrow to absorb aether and develop our souls. We're all going into the Wilds. Including me! And we're not coming back until we've taken this area's mana wellspring, where I will make my permanent home. Purple tried to imagine it, but he just blanked on the whole idea. He had no idea what kind of structure he should be imagining or what he would ultimately be capable of with that much power. However it turns out, I'm looking forward to it.

There's just one thing I'm confused about. Who is Kindar, and why might whether he accompanies us depend on me?

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