{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/black-nerve/chimhop/15",
  "path": "/posts/black-nerve/chimhop/15",
  "publishedAt": "2022-05-18T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "textContent": "::: section\n\"Enervate absorbs. Energy, matter, even itself. It absorbs heat,\nforce, sound, and it doesn't reflect them back like matter does. It's\nlike if you poured water onto a towel --- some of the water is absorbed,\nbut some is always dripping back out. That's matter. Enervate is more\nlike if you had a tight bowl, you pour water in and it stays there, it\ndoesn't leak out.\"\n\n\"Until the bowl fills up,\" Awelah notes.\n\n\"Yeah. When enervate fills up... it's like how water turns into steam\nwhen it's hot. Only enervate turns into... The kind of enervate you're\nused to, that you cast out with your projection, is called umbra.\nUmbra, when it absorbs too much, starts to turn into aura.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" she says. \"What's this for?\"\n\n\"It's um, sorry this is kind of beside the point. The thing I'm trying\nto explain is, enervate is physical. It has physical properties and\ninteractions. We can describe it like a thing, rather than a magical\nforce.\"\n\n\"Ooliri,\" Awelah starts, \"what I'm trying to understand is what this all\nhas to do with the barrel of water that's hanging from our tree.\"\n\nThe barrel rocks slightly, strung up beneath the lowest and thickest\ntree-branch. The water splashed on its side and running down in rivulets\nhints at its contents. The rope goes up, loops around the branch once,\nand then falls back down. Opposite the barrel hangs a big log, large\nenough for a mantis to perch on. Underweighting the barrel by far, the\nlog has to be suspended in place by another rope, which attaches to a\nboulder Ooliri must have pushed a long ways over for just this purpose.\n\n\"This is my idea. It's... a scale.\"\n\nAwelah looks between the barrel and the boy.\n\n\"Water has a known density, and our waterskins have a known volume. By\nfilling up the barrel with creekwater from the waterskin, I know the\ntotal volume, and from that, the total mass. So with that side of the\nequation settled, I can put something --- or someone --- on the log,\nand adjust the barrel until the two are balanced. That way, we can\nmeasure how much we weigh.\"\n\n\"And then...\"\n\n\"Enervate has mass. So if you cast a spell while on the scale, your\nweight would change.\"\n\nAwelah stares, waiting for elaboration but getting none. \"Why do we need\nto weigh ourselves?\" Then she tries to guess. \"To track muscle growth?\nBut that doesn't really involve enervate.\"\n\n\"No, think about it. If we have measurements, we can test things. I\nwanted to see how much enervate we have, how much we use with our\nspells. Maybe see what happens if we use more or less... And then... I\nguess it's not really that useful, is it? I just thought I could... do\nsomething.\"\n\nAwelah watches him as he fumbles through his words. But the look she's\ngiving him isn't one of rejection. Even still, her expression is\nneutral, evaluating. \"You want to figure out how our spells work?\nExperiment with them?\"\n\n\"Yes! If... if you want, that is.\"\n\n\"I want,\" Awelah pauses to consider her words, \"to make my own spell.\nMakuja did it, and she's not better than me. If I --- if we do this\nmeasurement thing, will you...\"\n\n\"Help you with that?\"\n\nAwelah scowls. \"I just want to know if this scale thing is going to be\nuseful to my goal. Or if it's a waste of time.\"\n\nOoliri flinches back from that, but says, \"Well, to modify a spell you'd\nhave to know how it works, right? And we can figure out how it works.\"\n\n\"Fine.\"\n\nAwelah takes off her cloak, hanging it off another tree limb. It sags.\nThen she's kicking off sandals and, after climbing up, spinning on the\nlog to face Ooliri.\n\nHer side of the scale starts to sink down, and Ooliri leans over to pick\nup the weights --- gray-shelled, unripened fruit that he had poked holes\ninto. The meat was dug out and water poured in to make the weight\nprecise. Each one weighed about five hundred grams, and he'd already\npoured twenty kilos of water and sand into the barrel.\n\nOoliri had guessed close to Awelah's weight; he only added a few partly\nhollowed fruit to the barrel to even the scale. They float on top of the\nwater.\n\n\"Now, uh, can you cast it?\"\n\n\"Hard to focus on this swing,\" she says with a frown. She spins around\nso that her hands aren't visible to Ooliri, and runs through the\ntarsigns.\n\nNow, finally seeing her cast outside the heat of battle, he can glimpse\nwhat ⸢Umbral Body Projection⸥ really looks like.\n\nPale violet chitin darkens like there's little bits of smoke curling off\nher, and then a cloud of the stuff is flowing out. At first, it's not\nlike the familiar shadow form --- instead it's translucent, just a\ndarkening of the air. Her tarsi are still moving, coming together and\nthen parting slightly, and a black mass is forming within them. Her\nhands open, and the orb-like mass flies forth into the dark cloud while\nthe nymph is rocked back by the force. Inside the cloud, the orb starts\nto unravel and expand, flooding the smoke, like resin poured into a\nmold. This all happens in the space of a breath.\n\nDarkening to void-like impenetrability, the silhouette becomes clearly\nAwelah's. The shadow-Awelah backs off while its creator is still rocking\nback and forth on the log. Even as it swings and rotates, the rope is\nnow pulled upward --- as expected, she has become lighter.\n\nOoliri rushes to pluck up two fruit out from the barrel, their contents\nspilling a little due to his hurry. He picks up a third, and that's\nenough to start to reverse Awelah's upward trajectory, and she slides\nback down. Putting on a half-weight brings it close enough to balanced.\n\n\"That's... huh.\"\n\nOoliri is glancing between the contents of the barrel and the\nprojection.\n\n\"It's what?\"\n\n\"It's hollow, I think. It'd have to be.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Well, it depends on your volume, and there's no tub around here...\nUnless I approximate it? Uh, could you step off the log for a moment?\"\n\nThe log slides upward with a jerk, greatly unbalanced, until it's\nstopped by the rope suspending it to the ground. On the ground, Ooliri\nis lining himself up beside Awelah, matching her posture, and then\nbringing a tarsus flat from the top of his head to where it intersects\nwith Awelah's height.\n\n\"You're about... fourteen centimeters taller than me? And...\" He looks\nto her side, and seeming too embarrassed to touch, just guesses.\n\"Probably twenty centimeters wide...\" He has a notebook in one hand, and\nstarts to scratch with a charcoal pencil. \"So if we model you as a\ntube...\"\n\n\"I'm not a tube.\"\n\nHe looks up. \"Otherwise I'd have to measure each of your legs, and\neverywhere your width changes, so...\"\n\n\"Fine, say I'm a tube. What's the point of this?\"\n\n\"I'm trying to figure out what your volume is. I don't know what the\nusual volume for a mantis of a certain height is.\"\n\n\"Didn't you say something about the water's volume? How'd you figure\nthat out?\"\n\nOoliri's palps bend back, scrunching up in confusion. \"Huh? I already\nknew the volume, it was the mass I didn't know, and I figured it out\nbecause the density is just one... And mantids are mostly water! So\nthey'd have a similar density. I'm being stupid. You're right, thanks\nAwelah.\"\n\n\"You're... welcome?\"\n\n\"So anyway, you only got about twelve hundred grams lighter from casting\nthat spell, yet you weigh twenty thousand or so. And that little bit of\nenervate is all that makes up the thing. If it's spread out throughout\nthe whole volume --- well, umbra isn't usually that diffuse, not when\nit's as stable as your projection clearly is. I don't know if that\ndensity would make it more translucent, or maybe make it evaporate to\naura.\" Ooliri stops himself, waving a raptorial in front of him. \"So\nwell, the alternative is that it's like, a shell.\"\n\n\"You're saying it's a balloon.\"\n\n\"Well...\"\n\nAwelah scowls. \"That sounds stupid. I'm not blowing balloons.\"\n\nOoliri shrugs, which doesn't ease her expression. He asks, \"Well, what\ndoes it look like when it attacks?\"\n\nAwelah points at her projection, and it moves. It swipes a raptorial at\na tall fern, and the stalk snaps from the force of the blow.\n\n\"How does that work,\" he says, the words an expression of confusion more\nthan a question. \"It clearly can't have that much mass behind the blow,\nso...\"\n\n\"Maybe it has more mass than you think it does.\"\n\n\"Where would it come from, though? It has to come from somewhere.\"\n\n\"Dunno,\" she says. \"Does it matter? How does where it comes from help?\"\n\n\"I don't think we need to propose mystery mass. I think we already have\nthe answer, actually.\" Ooliri steps over to the fern, and then makes the\ntarsigns, and then: ⸢Bane blast!⸥ \"Ha! I did it? I didn't think I'd do\nit the first time.\"\n\n\"That's the answer?\"\n\n\"Bane blast creates force, so your projection could be doing something\nsimilar when it hits things. But... if you push on something, it pushes\nback, and if the projection is so light, why doesn't it go flying when\nit hits something?\" Ooliri looks the projection up and down, and sees it\nstanding on the ground. Standing. \"You can make it float, can't you?\nCould you do that?\"\n\nAwelah points at it again. The gray nymph is peering at her tarsus when\nshe does it this time, and swears she sees a little bit of darkness\nflowing out.\n\n\"Can it attack while in the air? Try making it hit the tree.\"\n\nThe pale nymph frowns as if she doesn't like being told, but the\nprojection floats over to the tree and punches it. The shadow goes\nflying backward.\n\n\"I guess it... sticks to the ground? Hm. How do you control it, anyway?\"\n\n\"I just... it comes naturally.\"\n\n\"Like the signs. Is it a sign that you're making?\"\n\n\"I imagine what I want it to do, and then I point and then... it does\nit.\"\n\nNow Ooliri is frowning. \"Vespers don't care about your thoughts.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"One of the things they taught us in the academy. The vespertine arts\naren't magical. No technique works because you want it to, or changes\nbased on what you intend. Endowments are tools, and techniques are a\nlogical application of those tools.\"\n\n\"Then I suppose I'm different.\"\n\n\"Maybe you're doing something different each time, without realizing\nit?\"\n\n\"I did what you asked. How do I make the technique st",
  "title": "Experiment and Application"
}