Tim sloughed off his familiar leather jacket into the corner of his new room. After going over the options he decided to splurge and got a loft with an office on the fifth floor of the western barracks. He dropped a load of books onto the desk settled down to read. Evening sunlight crept in through the window of his private workspace. A breeze carried the perfume of sugar blossoms and ruffled the pages of his book. A stone held down a stack of rough parchment that sat next to him as he twirled the quill in his hand absentmindedly.

Fingers shuffled through the handmade pages quickly. A few notes were taken then on to the next book. The Adventurer’s Guild library only allowed you to check out five books at a time and this was his seventh trip there today. Despite the massive size, any library filled with the ruckus of adventurers is not conducive to study. Tim flipped through the book, read a little and flipped some more. Onto the next book. The library was closed by now if he didn’t find something good he would have to wait until tomorrow to look again.

As the sun set Tim flicked on a magic lamp. Over the past three days he had read almost everything in the guild library regarding magical theory, but much of it seemed to be focused on feeling rather than concrete principals. As night encroached Tim slammed the last book closed. His rational mind argued against the irrationality of a system based on feelings. He jotted down a few notes and washed up before bed. By the time Tim had crawled under the covers his frustration had melted to lamentation. He wondered if a simple lack of ability was all that kept him from the deeper truth.

Tim checked his phone one last time. No messages. The others must still be out hunting and out of range. He wondered if they were ok. He thought about the danger they must be facing. He remembered the boar and was glad to be safe in his own room away from all that blood.

The next night Hoban came over after remedials. Hotpot simmered a little magical cook stove he got from the guild store. They slurped at their noodles and enjoyed a jug of wine.

“Nothing like a little drink after digging ditches!” Hoban lifted his cup. “You know I never got to ask you, but you’re clearly not from around here…”

“I came from a country called ‘Merica. A large country located between two oceans. Although, I don’t know how to get there from here.” Tim repeated what he told the guild master. His face fell as he thought of home and what he left behind.

“This county is very different… Back home, we don’t use magic, we use science. Science so advanced it looks like magic.” Tim took out his phone and started to play some classical music.

“There are cities with lights so bright it looks like the sunrise on the horizon. Buildings so tall they pierce the clouds. Above those vehicles that fly through the sky like birds and even machines that can think for themselves. This wor.., this land feels quiet. It feels dark.” Tim gazed out into the night to the tune of Clair De Lune.

“What about you.”

“I’m from Tokpo. The elven village to the east of the divide. Some stuff happened, and well, now I’m here.” Hoban sighed and joined Tim at the window.

“A country without magic? I don’t know if I could imagine. But I know what it’s like to be away from home. The trees are so small here, and life is so stubborn. Even the grass feels as tough as the stone walls.”

They stood in the silence of their own minds to the lullaby of Debussy.

“What did you do before coming here?”

“I made scrolls. I was damn good at it. Still, know most of our special techniques by heart. It's kind of strange, but humans use monster cores as part of the spell ink. Elves use plants. I guess the advantage is your scrolls last longer, and ours degrade over time. But I think our way is easier. So, what about you, what did you do back home?”

“I was a university student.”

“Aren’t you a little old to be in school?”

“In my homeland, most people go school until age 18. After that, you can go to university if you qualify. I was in my sixth year of study and was working on my final project.”

“So long? Not even wizards spend that long in formal study! How could there be so much to learn?” Hoban complained.

“I studied neuralmechanical engineering. I was trying to teach machines how to be more human.”

“Wha…?”

“Well, if you build a machine to do something, it can only do it one way. Ok, so let’s say I make a machine that produces wine jugs. Each time it makes ones it will follow the same process. The result is every wine jug will be exactly the same. That’s good and all, but people aren’t like that. Every time we do something, there is some variation, minor imperfections.

“There is an old story that said that people cannot accept a perfect world. That we will reject it. So as we create machines that do more and more I find it important to have that variation, to protect the imperfection. I was trying to teach Yvonne, a machine I built, to build a world with that imperfection.”

“Wabi-Sabi,” replied Hoban after a moment of contemplation, and it became Tim’s turn to be confused.

“That’s what you’re talking about. There is beauty in imperfection. Because nothing in nature is perfect. No tree, no leaf or flower is perfect, if it was, it couldn’t be real. But how do you teach a machine? Do you put it in a classroom?”

“No, we teach it by reading minds. I think scrolls work in a similar manner.”

“What?”

“Let me show you. I spent all day in the Spell Archives and I think I found something.” Tim took out several sheets of paper.

“I copied a bunch of spells while I was there. I was hoping to figure out what these symbols meant. If I can understand that, then maybe I can decipher how they work within the Sigil Network. And then find a way home.”

“You didn’t copy it. You drew it,” snorted Hoban.

“I know I’m not an artist, but I got it all there. As carefully as I could.”

“No, you’re not getting me. It’s like you’re trying to smell a painting of a rose. You’re missing one of the senses.”

“Damn it. Let’s not start in about feelings again like all those books!”

“Hey man, sorry. I know not everyone has the gift. But you’re an enchanter, right? That’s like being a one in a billion.” Hoban smiled sheepishly. “When I make a scroll it guides the senses. It draws your energy into the design and forces you to follow the correct path. That’s how scrolls, and all magic works, you follow the path of the feelings. It guides you to the right places.”

“What about new spells?”

“Tam said it’s like a painting, you imagine the results, practice it, practice the feeling, then you try to put it onto paper. Sometimes takes generations to get the design right. And scrolls are always being perfected.”

“But there must be reasons for the symbols.”

“No, they are just placeholders for the mana to fill; the size, shape, and direction control your attention and direct the mana to the next point.”

“That’s where I think you’re wrong. All the spells in the library have things in common. Firstly, they have an outer circle network, the symbols inside might change, but every scroll has one. Then the next layer down I’ve dubbed the inner network. They form one or more rings around the inside. In the middle is a central network, which consists of at least two subshapes. The subshapes have internal and occasional overlapping structures.”

Tim pulled out more scraps of paper. “Here are a bunch of earth spells: shape earth, shape stone, stone blast, stone wall and summon stone. Notice how they all have a similar inner network? Now, look at corresponding water spells. The inner network completely different, but the rest of it is the same! So I’m thinking the inner network determines the element.”

“I couldn’t find a scroll of shape fire. But I’m willing to bet if we replace the symbols here with the ones for fire we could make it.”

“You, you may be onto something,” muttered Hoban as he shuffled through the papers.

“That would mean, by default, the rest of the network would be dedicated to the shaping function. I believe in order to make this happen a sequence of events must take place. In a broad sense, the scroll must contain information to interpret the intent of the reader. I think that is what the large outside circle and those characters within do. All scrolls have some variation of this, so I think that must be the function.”

“Then the scroll must find the target and execute the command. I think that is determined by the central network. If we can decipher how it works, it could be the key to unlocking everything.”

“Really, Tim. Just who are you?” Hoban laid the papers back down and looked up at his friend. “Alright, next research day we get, we head to the labs and try making on a shape fire scroll.”

“Do you think it will work?”

“I’m starting too. I wonder how big a bonus we'll get?”