Magic is Programming

Stelras jumped in startlement. "What the- Who said that?"

[I am Purple. The dungeon core in your secure safe.] It sounded entirely too matter-of-fact for such an insane statement.

"You- What? You're the dungeon core? A dungeon core that can talk?!" Stelras whirled back toward the safe and started entering its combination code again.

[Yes. I can feel your disbelief. How could I convince you?] The strange voice seemed happy and excited, though Stelras wasn't sure how he could tell.

He threw open the safe's door and peered into the safe, staring at the floating purple crystal in the center of it. "Um. Give me a moment." He tried to recall everything he'd heard about dungeon cores. They granted wishes to those who reached them, everyone knew that. He remembered a story of someone coming home from a dungeon with a pile of gold coins. "Could you make a gold coin?"

[Gold costs a lot of mana to make. Would silver do? It still seems wasteful of my mana, but if that's the proof you need…] Stelras nodded dumbly, and a speck of silver appeared in a bare spot on the bottom of the safe. The speck spread into a thin disc, then gradually thickened over the course of a few seconds, and finally an etched image formed on its top surface, roughly approximating the front face of normal silver coins.

Hardly believing his eyes, Stelras reached out and picked up the newly materialized coin. He turned it over and inspected it closely from all sides. The designs on its faces were obviously counterfeit at a glance, but the color, weight, and feel of it were all exactly right for silver. "Did you just try to duplicate a coin you've seen before from memory?"

[Yes.]

Stelras flipped the coin a couple times, watching it spin and hearing the quiet ringing sound from his fingernail launching it into the air. He caught the coin, shook his head, chuckled, and put it in his pocket. Leaning down to look at the dungeon core more closely, he smiled. "Ok, so you're a talking dungeon core. I assume that's a house secret? Why did you just now start talking with me?"

[I know something has happened to Carlos, but I don't know exactly what. Please explain what you know about it. I want to help.]

Carlos woke up, and groaned as memory of his situation came back to him, along with his hunger. He was thirsty, too. On the plus side, mana absorption had continued as expected while he slept, and he was up to level thirteen now. Four levels gained in less than one full day. On the down side, the ambient mana coming in was level seventeen. They were only in four levels over their heads instead of eight, but he didn't know if that would be enough. They'd been gone probably about a day, very roughly, and their captors hadn't bothered to give them water. That, combined with the precautions against them dying in ways that would lead to respawn, suggested they expected to be done within three days total, since that was about how long dehydration took to kill. One day had already passed, so they had at most a day or two before reaching the point where their captors expected them to die from soul dissolution.

He mumbled a light spell and looked over at Amber. She was sprawled out still asleep, and her hair was a bit of a mess. His hair probably was too, he realized, and he self-consciously ran his hand through his hair a few times like a makeshift comb. He considered waking her up, but it just felt wrong. She seemed so peacefully content in her sleep, and he didn't want to return her to the fear and stress of a struggle for her life. Then his better judgement overruled his feelings on the matter. She would hardly appreciate it if letting her sleep in cost them an opportunity that could have saved them.

He shook her shoulder. "Amber?"

She stirred in her sleep a little. "Hmm?" Then she froze for a moment, and her eyes snapped open as she bolted up to a sitting position. "Ah." She looked around, then consciously relaxed and stretched. "Ok, so we're four levels down now. I think our absorption is as good as we can get it. What else can we do?"

Carlos considered the problem anew, sweeping his mana sense around the constrained area. "We've already covered trying to survive what they're doing as long as possible. Aside from that, only two things can possibly be relevant: helping a rescue force find us, or breaking out ourselves. For helping someone find us, I don't know. Let's come back to that. For breaking out… This box is reinforced by a very strong enchantment. To break that, we'd need to do something far beyond the normal power of our level, and we only have one way to do that."

Amber nodded. "Right. That weird anti-levitation thing."

"Yeah. So, let's prepare that a bunch of times. As for helping someone find us…" Carlos mentally reviewed the types of effects he could sense around them. He finished the list and shook his head. "We could try learning some of the things they're trapping us with, but I don't see how any of that could be used to counteract or bypass it. Maybe learning them could theoretically help me understand the best way to sabotage them, but I don't have a way to sabotage them at all in the first place."

"Maybe using dungeon-style magic?" Amber paused, then shook her head. "No, our mana is too low level to affect these that way. And I don't think that will change soon enough to matter."

"Agreed. It would be like trying to wear away steel beams with a bunch of wet noodles." Carlos sat up and drummed his fingers against the steel of the box. It felt weird, with the silence effect on the metal preventing it from vibrating or making noise. "Ok. So, with the power we have, our current knowledge isn't enough to work around these barriers. Our current available sources of knowledge also aren't enough. We need new knowledge. Amber, were all the spell effect keywords passed down from forgotten history, or do people sometimes discover new ones? Do you know how mages can discover new effects?"

Amber hesitated, but slowly nodded. "People do discover new effects sometimes. But it's rare. Very rare. Sandaras's book describes it briefly. You essentially have to guess a concept that you think might have a keyword for it, and hope that you got the concept right by blind luck."

"What about deducing that a particular keyword logically should exist? And how exact do you have to be, for it to have resonance you can sense and use to guide you?"

"There have been some like that, but they all got discovered long ago, or were only logical because of another related keyword. You have to be… pretty close. Remember how much we had to adjust things to learn effects that we actually knew about, and even already had the word for it? Now consider if you don't know the word, and are just guessing about the effect." Amber shook her head. "We can try, but don't get your hopes up."

Haftel walked into the mayor's office, holding a vibrating metal token and followed by his party. "You have something for us to do? Some news?"

Stelras nodded toward them. "A potential new avenue to investigate. It involves a house secret that I only learned of this morning. I need a good and trustworthy expert on esoteric soul structure design, and I'm hoping you know of one."

Haftel almost broke out in laughter, and struggled to suppress it down to a mere amused smirk. "What a great coincidence! We happened to be working with exactly such an expert yesterday. Ressara's unusual soul structures let her identify the decoys left in Carlos's and Amber's beds, and she's the one who noticed first. Want us to fetch her for you?"

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"Yes, immediately."

Just a week or two ago, Ressara would never have thought she might get Mayor Stelras's personal attention in less than a decade, but now walking with him into the heavily warded city treasury seemed almost pedestrian. He was only a mayor, after all, and she had spoken with a pair of high nobles, and provided useful assistance to elite guards in service of the Crown itself! It was such a dramatic change in perspective that she could hardly even comprehend it.

"So, what exactly are you showing me here?"

Stelras unlocked yet another ward with intent focus, all but ignoring Ressara as he absently answered her. "Not yet. When we're inside, and you see it yourself."

"Oh." Ressara sighed, and settled back on her heels to wait for him to finish opening the heavy vault door.

Stelras slowly swung the hinged slab of enchanted metal open, gestured for Ressara to follow him inside, then pulled it closed behind them. Several locks, both physical and magical, automatically engaged again when it slammed shut. He took a few steps forward, tapped an unassuming panel on the right hand wall that she couldn't distinguish from any of the others that made up all of the walls here, and that panel popped open to reveal a combination lock. He entered the combination, opened a smaller panel behind it, and gestured towards the recessed opening revealed there. "Take a look, and reach a hand inside, but don't touch anything."

Ressara looked at him quizzically, then shrugged and stepped up. There was the Carlos house plate, which made sense to store here. She raised her hand as instructed while she looked around. There were a few other things she didn't recognize but could sense were powerfully enchanted, and there was-

[Hello, Ressara. I am Purple. I'm told you can help me help Carlos.]

-What the hell?! A dungeon core? She narrowed her eyes in concentration. A dungeon core… that had touched her hand with its mana and connected something to her. And its soul felt brighter in some hard to describe way than those of other dungeon cores she'd encountered. The ripples of mana on the surface of the dungeon core's soul felt more nimble than on other cores' souls. And its domain was so tiny! It had claimed the interior of the safe it was in, just a cube a foot and a half on each side, and nothing more.

[Ahem.]

…And it was talking to her. Right. She should talk back. "Um, hello? You… connected something to me. What is it?"

[I made a bond with you. Just as I did with Mayor Stelras this morning.]

Ressara glanced at Stelras. Now that she was looking for it, she could tell there was indeed something external connected to his soul. It didn't seem to be doing anything to him, and nothing was trying to magically manipulate her attention. She withdrew her hand from the safe, and the… bond, according to the dungeon core, was still connected to her. "Why? What does this bond do?"

[It allows us to share information with each other. I am using it to talk to you. You can use it to talk back to me in the same manner if you choose to.] The dungeon core's voice paused. [I sense that you are concerned about it. The bond is harmless. It enables communication, nothing more. I sensed your concern through it, but you were sharing that freely. Oh, and I have a name. I am Purple.]

Ressara stared searchingly at the purple floating crystal, but quickly realized the silliness of trying to read body language or facial expressions on an inanimate smooth faceted object. Just out of curiosity, she focused her mind on the idea of sending a message mind to mind. [You said something about helping Carlos?]

Relief and eagerness washed over her from outside. [Yes. Stelras has told me of what happened. I have bonds with each of Carlos and Amber as well. Normally I can sense their locations, and some details of what they do and what they sense. And of course, speak with them. I sensed their abduction at the moment that it happened. They were lowered while asleep, then brought together. And then the bonds were blocked, before I had fully realized what was happening.]

Ressara cocked her head. "Ok, so you had those bonds. How do you think you can help, and what do you need me for?"

[Those bonds may be blocked, but they still exist. And I have mana ready to make a new soul structure. I am hoping that you see some possibility for a soul structure that would help.]

Ressara blinked, and blinked again. "A dungeon core making soul structures?" She smiled and leaned forward, examining Purple's soul with utter fascination. "Intriguing!" Beside the crystal, she could sense what seemed almost a carpet of mana, literally woven in a perfect repeating pattern from a very long thread of mana, in midair and floating there. "…Oh, right. Sorry. Yes, I have some ideas about that."

An impression of profound relief came to her over the bond. [Excellent! Please tell me at once!]

"Of course!" Ressara shifted on her feet, and glanced at the mayor. "Oh, Stelras, do you have a chair I could use?"

"Not inside the treasury, no. You may sit on the floor if you wish, or simply continue your discussion mentally over the bond while you go somewhere more comfortable."

"I don't know, talking that way feels weird." She looked around and carefully sat down on the floor, leaning her back against the wall below the open safe. "Ok, Purple. You're level three, and you're trying to beat something that's much, much higher level than that. To make that work, you'll have to get really specific about exactly what your soul structure does, with a very narrow scope. Like, a soul structure to sense the location of a person you have a bond with. Except maybe even more specific. And to really have a good chance, it should work in a way that specifically counters what you're up against. Am I making sense so far to you?"

[I believe I understand, but I don't know what I should be trying to counter, or how.]

"That's ok." Ressara grinned again. "I have recent personal experience with some things related to this. First off, I can almost guarantee that part of their anti divination ward includes an attention diverter. That's something that pushes people to ignore what it's protecting, to look away and focus on other things."

[…That would explain why it has been difficult to focus on those bonds since the abduction.]

"Perfect! If it's already affecting you, then we can definitely count on it. I have a soul structure that inverts the effect of attention diverters like that. They draw my attention instead. Make your new soul structure do that for you, except maybe specific to things affecting your bonds."

[Ok. Anything else?]

"Oh, yes, I have more." Ressara nodded vigorously, not caring that Purple didn't have line of sight to her. "I've researched how various kinds of divination blockers work. Attention diversion is one part, but the main obstacle is almost certainly a barrier of some kind. You could try to punch through it, but I wouldn't bet on that working. If you can, it's better to bypass the barrier, similar to how teleporting can bypass a physical wall. Normally that advice is only useful when you already know the location, and instead want to see what's there, but you have the basis of a bypass already in place for this. That bond of yours may be temporarily blocked, but it's still connected, right?"

[Yes. I cannot send or sense anything through it, but it is not cut or broken.]

"Right. So it's pinched, or something like that. Hmm." Ressara took a minute to think over the details. "Ok, I think I have it. Make a soul structure for inverting any magical influence that pushes your attention away from your bonds. Make sure to think of it as reversing the direction of the influence, while letting its power through unopposed. You're up against something so much more powerful than you that, if you let power even be relevant, it will overwhelm you. Any such influence will be inverted to pull your attention towards itself; make your soul structure also build on that, using the pull as a guiding beacon to find the location of the farthest reachable point of the affected bond. Make every detail as specific and narrowly scoped as possible. The structure will reverse and augment attention-diverting effects on your bonds, without contesting their power, transforming them into attention-grabbing beacons for the bond's location. Do you understand?"

Purple mulled over the idea for a while before replying. [Yes, and thank you. This feels like it should work.] A tinge of anxiety and regret came over the bond. [I hope my manager-of-my-soul can change this completely enough later. It would be a shame to have to sacrifice part of Carlos's plans.]

"Uh." Ressara cocked her head. "Your what? I got an impression that's supposed to be one word somehow? And what do you mean about changing it? Soul structures can't be changed after they're finalized, except for adding synergies."

[My manager-of-my-soul. It is one of my soul structures. Its purpose and function is to manage and control the internals of my soul, which includes changing existing soul structures to fix mistakes or make improvements.]

Ressara gaped, utterly stupefied for a good twenty seconds. Then she snapped her mouth closed. "…Thank you, Purple, but isn't that a house secret?"

Embarassed chagrin mixed with thoughtful consideration in Purple's emotions. [Yes, it is. But between this, and what Stelras told me you did before, I think you have earned it.] Purple's voice shifted, bringing Stelras into the conversation. [This will take me an hour or two. Be ready when it is done, and I will guide you to them if I can.]

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