trans_9 | GIANT EXPLOSION [Open]

The Jedi Temple rumbled as a portion of it threatened to collapse inwards.

"Why would THAT be a load-bearing wall?" Aibghalien demanded of thin air as he hurriedly cast a wall of force exactly flush with the ceiling above the slightly-smoking remains of the disintegrated wall. The magical force promptly shouldered the entire weight of the countless pounds above it, in efficient and good-natured violation of the laws of physics.

Satisfied that the wall would hold, Aibghalien, with magical passes and invocations, laid down several more walls of force over the walls and floor of the single room he'd cut out of three. About a hundred and fifty by a hundred and eighty feet, it seemed extraordinarily large while entirely empty. A lesser wizard might have worried that it was simply too large; Aibghalien wondered if he'd allotted himself enough space. Still, he didn't want to be greedy.

As he reached the last wall, he drew from his robes a crystal, which went dark and lifeless as he drew from it the power to fuel the spell. He frowned, then tucked it away for later recharging, once he could set up the proper devices to do so.

Gritting his teeth against the drain of strength and energy, Aibghalien laboriously laid permanency spells over each of the walls. Exhausting as this was, his time on the ship alone had given him more than enough strength to lay these spells; within a minute, though appearing utterly unchanged to the average viewer, the room had been sealed on five of six surfaces with two-dimensional walls utterly immune to anything but the most potent of magics.

He made a mental note to seal off the doors.

Now, to test the seals.

Flying out the hole he'd disintegrated in the wall before beginning the process of laboratory construction, he took pains to make sure the air and ground around the temple were clear. Then, drawing back the sleeves of his robes, he swiftly cast five spells.

Four of them were Delayed Blast Fireball, each on a shorter timer than the last. The fifth was Meteor Swarm. Four amber seeds of concentrated magical fire shot into the room, followed by four massive globes of force-bound destruction.

Then Aibghalien quickened a teleport right the hell away from there.

The explosion sounded like Armageddon itself had gotten extremely drunk and decided to wrestle a supernova.

Aibghalien had done his work well. Absolutely none of the force transmitted through the magical walls into the Jedi Temple. It all went directly outwards into the unshielded outer wall of the room. That wall disintegrated almost as thoroughly as the spell of that name would have done, and a massive plume of fire shot out in a prominence, followed by a shockwave that rolled out across the City like the deepest bass note from lowest level of the Abyss.

In the horribly quiet aftermath, the wizard drifted back to examine his handiwork. The room, with its walls intact, appeared perfectly unharmed. "That worked well," he noted to himself. "Now to set up the circle--"

Hmm.

He quickly pulled out his omnicomm and typed out a message before returning to work.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"It would still have been prudent to post a notification and have the building evacuated." Reinforce... scolded, for all intents and purposes, as she rose to his level on still black wings. "And prudence for its own sake aside, not all magic performs reliably here. There are persistent errors in transfer route-forging and, I am given to understand, other forms of teleportation."

Though to be fair, she had not experienced any similar faults with such small-scale barrier arrangements.

"This is true, but I have compensated to the best of my ability for any variance in performance. Pehaps it may further allay your fears if I explain that I have performed this same setup on three previous occasions, each of which involved a building of substantially less quality in material and architecture than this one." He added yet another slight bow, which seemed to serve for an all-purpose gesture for him. "I would not risk lives or well-being," he added more firmly.

"As for route-forging, I take it you mean the establishment of a teleportation circle, which is to say, a fixed location which, when entered, transports its contents to another location? I was in fact just about to embark on the scribing of a corresponding pair of such circles. If you have knowledge of previously-performed processes, I'd very much welcome your insight and contribution, though I would not be surprised to discover that my form of magic differs substantially from yours."

"Given the limited utilization and occupancy of Temple facilities it is not a precaution that would have greatly delayed your work. But I will accept your assurances." He didn't seem to have been intentionally reckless, at least, and Reinforce didn't want to strain relations within the department.

She canted her head at the description. "My magic requires the use of pre-established paths, whether they are to be used once or as part of a permanent system. However, I have yet to hear of a teleportation method that did not experience a decrease in accuracy on the ship compared to its original usage."

"Well, my intent here is to establish a path, so I hope their is some correlation. The teleport spell I cast earlier has an inherent margin of error anyway, so I presume the unreliability introduced by the ship is within similar bounds, at least for that particular spell." One gets the impression he could talk like this for literally hours on end.

"What I intend to establish here is a very short range transportation, from here to there." He traced a path from the ground to the hole up above. "Given the normal range of this spell, I hope I can marginalize any variance to within the confines of a given area not substantially larger than the normal receiving area of the spell. If not, there are other methods, and a failure is always at least as instructional as a success!"

"At that range error introduced should be negligible unless the mechanics cause a degree of magnification I have not yet witnessed. If you have already used a similar magic successfully there should be no issues." Rein had for her part been literally born to accumulate information on such subjects, though she was less inclined to speak at length without prompting.

"I have identified several sources of systematic error and authored protocols to eliminate them in transfer routes. You will likely find room for improvement as well."

Aibghalien hadn't been literally born to accumulate information like this; it simply turned out to be his life's calling and greatest joy. The more he talked (or even thought) about this, the happier he got.

"Excellent! That means a productive spell which should still allow for a thorough investigation into the underlying causes. Given the absolute precision of a teleport circle the error should be discernible even without practical effect, thus allowing investigation." He clapped his hands together, rubbing them in anticipation of the exercise.

"An established route would allow a large number of repetitions under one set of conditions," Rein agreed. "There are distortive effects that do not increase linearly with distance and that only operate in certain parts of the ship or certain boundaries within it are crossed, so it will not provide all relevant data, but you should be able to reproduce the most common with such a setup."

"If you need someone to take measurements I would be happy to oblige. Is there any minimum interval between uses of the circle?" Most people probably wouldn't have been quite so eager to play lab assistant/equipment to a mage whose only prior work they knew had consisted of an enormous explosion... but to Rein, more used to employment as a walking strategic arsenal, it seemed a more noble concept... and the possibility of huge explosions not at all unfamiliar.

"Certain parts and certain boundaries?" Aibghalien made note of that for later -- exerting supreme effort not to simply go and investigate directly. He did have a teleport circle to erect.

"There's no cooldown period. The only absolute restrictions involve destination, which are a nonissue at present since I have no intentions of attempting to violate the inherent proscriptions in this effect. The only absolute modification I intend to pursue is a distinct demarcation to display the area of effect. That being said, I intend to inscribe it on a platform placed down here." He gestured to the ground right near where they stood.

Reinforce absorbed his answer without comment; it would be useful information should he accept her offer of help but for now was merely of academic interest. "It is for visibility only, then? Not a receiver?"

Solely aesthetic, in other words. Still, seeing how his magic achieved this simple task was not uninteresting.

"Exactly so," Aibghalien said, who had yet to realize his implicit acceptance of her offer hadn't communicated. "The circle itself is almost entirely undefined by visible boundaries, save perhaps some introduced due to its nature. I expect the theory, on initial creation of the spell, was to enable it to be used as a trap or otherwise surprising form of transport. In addition, the spell is entirely contained within the magics of the circle; nothing distinguishes the point it communicates its contents, save the fact that said point is the designated point to which the circle transports."

GIANT EXPLOSION [Open]

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