Kronshi

Magic in the Park

Hypothesis #18 had failed like all that came before it. It seemed no amount of spell editing would force open this last lock and yet, the desire to see it open has already caused Ozymandias to reinvent the wheel eighteen different times. He knew there would be unfathomable depths to the magecraft he had specialized in, but never had he been confronted with something so esoteric that it forced him to put it into practice. This door had proven to almost be a crash course in how his spells could be utilized and that made it too valuable to give up on even if this all seemed fruitless.

Oz picked back up the one weapon he had in case of emergencies, an enchanted dagger that he had forced a barrier onto and then rewrote so that instead of protecting the knife from damage, it instead allowed him to create barrier circles by carving the boundaries into the ground. He had been using it for a different purpose currently though, he needed more room to take note than a piece of paper in his journal offered and so he took to carving his formulas into the ground around him. The mad scribbles often overlaying one another. His mind raced as he started to write down more ideas equations with only one last idea in his head. If the circuit is broken, he'd have to fix it. He couldn't expect a vault with missing cogs to open even if he knew the code.

Suddenly, a tingle went up his spine as he sensed someone enter the range of his detection spell. No, that's not right, they were already within range and dangerously close. He started turning to face his visitor before she even spoke, eyes wild like a beast caught in a cage. Of course he was struggling, and last thing he needed was more distractions. It risked him missing fallacies within his arguments and hurting himself from forcing a spell he didn't have enough expertise to cast. On a different note, if she was capable of slipping past his detection, then the gun in her hand was no empty threat.

"I'm already going as fast as I can, this isn't exactly high school algebra I'm doing here. And waving that weapon in my face isn't helping me think y'know? I'm probably 23 different establishments deep into trying to rewire this door back together so that it can actually be lock-picked in the first place. Not even I'm keeping up with all the intersections of all the rules I've put in place. For all I know, if I stand up my body may unravel as the electromagnetism holding my atoms together fails. So, unless you want to join me in this spiderweb, how about you put the weapon away and we be civil about this?"

Besides his new "friend", the howling laughter is the only sound he's heard for hours. The first girl was a big enough problem, so two was not something he wanted to deal with. Oz stared at the scratchings on the floor, picking apart ideas and tossing them aside without testing them. One more failed attempt and this lunatic may just shoot him. He needed to be certain, he needed an answer. He could almost feel his father's hand on his shoulder like the man used to do whenever Oz was struggling with a test, but this test was different. His father's designs were more intricate and purposeful, each step you made gave you an answer on how to take the next. This teacher was more strict, just a red 'X' on any proposed solution that was incorrect. It almost felt like this door was made on accident.

As he thought, Oz scribbled away while making sure to never complete the barrier loop around him made from his etchings. He needed to get close to that result in case things took a turn for the worse, but for now it would only incite the violence he wanted to avoid.

The fourth seal always causes the others to lock back up, any tampering with it leads to a reset within the spell. Well, not exactly any tampering, but any that seems likely to break it. Order doesn't matter, doing all 4 at the same time doesn't work, there's no counter spell on the door or if there is then not one I can invert, it's not on a timer, so what is causing it to lock back up? If this was a real lock then I could put tension on it in order to keep any set pins from falling back in place, but I don't have that luxury here and keep having to do my work over and over again. I almost wish it was as simple as there being someone on the other side that just keeps recasting the spell every time I get it open but I'm not noticing that kind of frequency. Removing complexities leads to a reset, adding them feels like I'm patching holes but I keep reopening them when I try to turn this last lock.

A crossroad had been reached. He was going to have to try some poorly thought out ideas to experiment with how the door reacted if he had any hope of getting it open. If Oz was only going to get one chance, then he was going to try all of them at once. Multiple ethereal formula crackled like electricity around Oz, as he wrote up an equation to overcome the first seal, an equation to establish that the seal could not lock while the fourth seal was locked, an equation to write up a new barrier seal to replace the position of the first that was still locked but easily opened, and then he maintained tension on the first seal by constantly putting energy into the unlocking spell. He repeated this process with the second and third seal, with his hope being that they could not lock unless the fourth was unlocked but if all were unlocked then the door would have some non-zero amount of time that all locks were open. Then the tensions spells would keep re-unlocking the seals, and hopefully it wouldn't take so much energy that it was impossible to open the door while the cycle was going. In addition, there was also the hope that the first three wouldn't even lock up again, because new locks had been put in their place and that could lead the fourth seal to be tricked into believing that they were already locked. The final step was writing up a barrier that constantly wanted to open but couldn't like a pen spring. Once pressure is applied to attempt to lock the barrier fully, it will crack open and unlock. Oz then bound that seal to the fourth seal, in the hopes that a barrier that keeps closing when opened could be balanced out be a barrier that keeps opening when closed. Brute forcing everything open at once wasn't exactly elegant, but no one could belittle a man writing twelve magical formula at the same time.

Magic in the Park

God, we ate the plot like a pack of ravenous beasts. All responding in a little over 24 hours.

We really went, "Asuras, more story pwease~"

Magic in the Park

Everything about this felt wrong. The door, the halls, the silence. Not exactly a new experience within the confines of a Dark City but Oz could tell there was something about this that was different.

Leaving the letter leading him to its exact location aside, someone had managed to hex a door with a magical lock so complex that Oz had spent around 7 hours just cracking three of the bindings and 7 more on this last one alone. He was certain that this time the equation was perfect and... no, the door remained bound. The young man stood up and began pacing as he thought, keeping an eye and ear out for an approaching threats as he attempted to figure out why his magecraft was failing to open this path.

Rewrite's core function is the ability to change

Whoever left me that letter is aware of where I live,

the criteria that spells function under,

as well as has insight into my capabilities if they know

barriers included. This particular barrier

my skill with lock-picking spells. They also knew about

had 4 bindings with their own set of

this door and likely have some idea of what's behind it.

criteria and no 2 bindings could share a

What are their intentions with having me open up this

criteria but they could contradict each other.

barrier? They could have set a trap for me somewhere,

Balancing out the requirements for these

but then why not grab me while I'm focusing on breaking

bindings is difficult and runs the risk of a

the bindings? They could simply want what's behind

magical backdraft if done incorrectly. However,

the door, but how do they know I won't just take it for

I have gotten the formula close enough to not

myself? Similarly, they could kidnap me and force me

notice any repercussions for failing to unlock

to open the door if they don't want me taking anything.

the binding which leads to my next question.

Yet, nothing within this place has made a move.

Am I actually failing? It could be that I got

Likely answer, this is a test and my suspicions of

a previous binding wrong and didn't notice,

being watched are correct. They have some manner of

but the more likely conclusion is that the

keeping their eyes on me to witness how I crack this

barrier spell actively resists my tampering

vault and what methods I use to approach solving this

with a tampering of its own. That's it.

puzzle. Likely some form of detection spell, but they

The reason there's no recoil is because my

would have to be better with it then I am my own to

formula is always balanced by an inverse spell

be out of my range or have some means of obscuring

produced by the door. If I'm right, that means

their location that my Detect can't get through.

whoever created these locks knows how to use

Seeing as they thought that only I could understand

Counter and understands Rewrite well enough

this door and yet seem more knowledgeable than me,

to be able to use Counter on it. Alright, now

I have to presume that they bear a different crest

to test this hypothesis, I need to create an

than I do. Which also means that whoever is

inversion of an inversion of Rewrite but to do

testing me didn't make the barrier themselves

that without just casting another Rewrite spell,

but likely knows who did. Furthermore, I can

I'll need to utilize Establish and set a condition

assume that since this door requires the three

for imaginary variables. Negative of a negative

spells that I have learned during my training

is a positive, but the root of negative one is i

with my father, that these people knew him

so I just Establish that i squared can remain

personally and it is equally likely that

as i² within the natural numbers. Then it'll

the door-maker is in fact my father such

be equal to negative one but be a positive

that his disappearance is what makes me the

natural number, meaning I can invert it to -i²

only one who could understand this door.

and that is not equal to one, meaning my formula

The keys to this door were chosen deliberately

would not simplify back into Rewrite.

for me to be the only one who could unlock it.

With all that being said, Oz went about undoing the Counter security hex placed upon the door. It took him some time to verify his math was correct as this was his first time trying to do such a thing but when there was no recoil, he breathed a sigh of relief. That meant there was a spell that his formula affected, and his hypothesis was correct. Unfortunately, that also meant that all the bindings were likely never unlocked to begin with and he now had to start over. This was going to be a long night, but at least he was accustomed to pulling all-nighters.

Magic in the Park

<Snipped quote by Kronshi>

Y-yea, clocked him... (:3 To a certain extent, I just had to presume some things for him to get his particular side of the equation rolling. I do apologize if any of it came off as controlling.

@Asuras

Absolutely not. And even if it did, I don't mind a bit of controlling from a GM if they do it in a respectful manner to tell a more interesting story. However, you shouldn't underplay yourself. At some point you had to make a decision to read Oz as someone who would sit in a Dark City staring at a door lock for 14 hours, and being right with that decision is impressive even if the decision wasn't founded on a lot. GM intuition into how a player wants to portray a character is a skill in its own right.

Edit: I have posted! Apologies if it's difficult to read. I wanted to show that Oz tends to have more than 1 train of thought going at the same time. So the entirety of the left sentences is 1 train of thought and the right is a separate train.

Magic in the Park

@Asuras
Love the start, Oz spending 14 hours on a door just because it was mysterious and out of place is completely in character for him. The narrator calling him Ozy, a nickname he hates, is either a strong metaphor if purposeful or just really hilarious if accidental. I never gave the details that Oz was such a stubborn scholar nor that he'd hate the nickname but it's impressive that you clocked one if not both of those from what I did give. Man's already suffering at the hands of the narrative. It's great.

Magic in the Park

And then there's Oz. An independent mage not part of an organization, who is still technically tied to his house, who is being spied on by Reina due to his father's legacy, who probably also has government eyes on him for the same reason. It is only a matter of time before someone scoops this man up once they realize what kind of magecraft he has. I can almost see him getting kidnapped by one group and then a second group "rescuing" him just for them to not release him so he's just kidnapped again.

Magic in the Park

@ERode
I imagine that since magic is tied to the Aspects and the aspects are almost philosophies of how one approaches magic, that certain personalities are better suited for some aspects. So not all mages of an aspect would have shared personality traits, but I personally feel like the higher on the food chain you look, the more similarities you'd see.

It'd be difficult to find a skilled Precedence that was also shy and a pushover, so most of them are likely confident if not arrogant since spells that build off authority are probably stronger in the hands of mages that believe they're an authority figure.

Similarly hard to find:
Obscurity that forgoes lying and manipulation
Manifestation with no aspirations
Complexity that isn't perceptive
And Dynamicism that's scared of change.

So I think there'll be some "same hat!" energy between those with like-crests if nothing else.

Magic in the Park

@ERode
I don't think Oz left House Falloch on bad terms. He didn't metaphorically leave the house as in he disowned himself, he just physically left to get his own place and do research outside of Falloch's libraries. So I don't think they'd have a contract open on him.

However, I feel like as Oz transitioned into the adult mage world, he probably found out that he likes both Obscurity and Precedence crested because one is associated with secrets and mysteries and hidden truths while the other is about absolute truths and rules and authority. Oz is trying to learn all the secrets, all the rules, and all forms of truth because he wants to define what the universe is. They probably hate him though. He brings hidden things into the light and tries to bend rules to see what breaks.

I feel like once he does meet Amaya and Reina he's going to have to mediate between the two to keep them from killing each other. He's a small man stepping into a large world and has no clue the kind of history these two would have experienced.

Magic in the Park

@Remram
One past version of Oz was a spellsniper so I'd find it fun to explore him learning firearms, but this version's reliance on his hands to do calculations would make it difficult. So I meant it as a half-joke myself.

I'd be interested in seeing if the idea comes up naturally through the course of the RP but I don't plan on him using a firearm.

Magic in the Park

@Remram
He wouldn't be opposed.