Excerpt from the third draft of An Earthling’s Guide to the Larger Universe

Affinity Classification: Specialized Affinities

Specialized affinities are one of the places where magic can get very strange very quickly. There is no list of specialized Affinities, because it would have to be so long that it would essentially be useless.

As a general rule, the more specialized someone is, the more powerful they are within their specialty (if everything else is equal). Someone who specializes in Temperature instead of Fire will find it far easier to change the temperature in an area quickly or with precision, but will be far less able to control a wildfire or throw fireballs at an enemy.

Of course, Fire doesn’t usually involve being able to cool things easily, while Temperature does; Temperature can be considered to be a combination affinity composed of Heat and Chill. Those are also Specialized affinities, and follow the general rule - heating something up using Heat will be faster and cheaper than using Temperature, but Heat will have grave difficulty lowering the temperature.

Combination Affinities are generally considered to be Advanced instead of Specialized, but it’s really more about the uses they can be put to than whether or not they’re combined. It’s a very fuzzy definition. As an example, Healing is usually considered a Basic Affinity, but some people consider it Specialized instead because it does one very specific thing.

Most people start with either Basic or Specialized Affinities. These can be broadened into Advanced Affinities, boiled down into more specialized component Affinities, or developed into powerful forces in their own right.

Serenity shouldn’t have pushed his magic so much to do two teleports. He felt terrible and wasn’t even certain it’d been worth it; Dr. Mattingly had pummeled him with questions, but none of them had gotten either of them closer to the goals of “how to find a portal” or “how to close a portal”. Hopefully he’d at least expanded her knowledge of magic enough to help.

Serenity stopped above the cave. A number of other pieces of unrecognizable equipment were set up there, clearly looking to see if they saw anything coming out of the cave. Serenity was going to do something similar; he wanted to see if there was a disturbance in the natural mana or essence in the area. If there was, he might be able to use it to find a portal.

Two hours later, it was obvious that there was a disturbance in the area: Serenity. He had been able to see it as his mana levels recovered enough to start having mana pulled out of him into the world. When he looked for it, there was a constant flow of mana and essence away from him, diffusing outwards. If there was a low-level effect from the portal, it was swamped by the mana and essence Serenity produced.

Someone else might be able to find it; he couldn’t. In fact, he might well interfere with others finding it. That didn’t mean he was going to give up, but it did mean that any magical solution he came up with would have to be spell-based and he didn’t have a place to start.

He felt absolutely terrible as he headed back down to the cot he’d asked the soldiers to set up in the cave. It felt almost like being hung over.

Aide could scan the portal while he was sleeping. Hopefully he’d feel better in the morning.

Whether or not he interfered, now was the time to get as much testing done as possible. There was some equipment set up, but he knew more was coming in over the next few days. If he did interfere, now was the best time.

There was only one thing left to do before bed: a long phone call with Rissa. It was too bad he wasn’t alone, but perhaps he could figure out how to speak over the phone without actually speaking out loud.

Scan Status: Complete

Scan Results: Increased noise level across a large portion of the EM spectrum. Above-normal noise levels present at nearly all wavelengths even after corrections applied. Noise level varies with time and frequency while passive noise result varies with mana / essence level. Statistical analysis predicts a pattern in the noise, but insufficient data has been collected to determine the pattern.

Additional equipment on order will increase sensitivity, expand range, and improve analysis results. Current delivery estimate: Two days

Additional scans are not required until equipment arrives.

Serenity grumbled to himself as he opened his eyes to the message from Aide. He wasn’t sure which was worse: the voice in his head giving him directions or the sheer hunger he felt.

On second thought, the hunger was definitely worse. He’d apparently managed to burn through all of his healing ability at some point without noticing, and he was ravenous. It wasn’t nearly the worst he’d been, but he knew he wasn’t going to be able to concentrate until he had food.

Serenity wished he’d thought to carry some snacks. He’d always done that in the Tutorial, but he’d gotten out of the habit recently. He’d just have to put up with it until he could get food.

Was the camp set up enough for him to head to the Settlement for a while? He didn’t need to be next to the portal for a while; there wasn’t much more to look at until he’d thought about what he’d already seen, and Aide needed more equipment.

The area around him had changed while he slept. There were several machine guns set up on tripods facing the portal; the other side of the portal was empty of people and equipment, but there was equipment between the portal and the gun emplacements. There wasn’t any way to avoid that and have the detectors placed near the portal.

It looked like an accident waiting to happen. Serenity hoped it wouldn’t, and he was certain everyone was being very aware of the guns when they moved around.

The important thing was that it meant he could safely leave, as long as he didn’t go too far. If a spear-strike powered by the motion of the rockfin’s charge was enough to strip armor off of it, Serenity doubted it’d like being downrange from a machine gun.

Now all he needed to do was say his goodbyes and head to the Settlement. They’d have stuff there for breakfast, even if there wasn’t any here.

There were donuts in the camp above the cave. Serenity sighed to himself and snagged a pair of donuts and some coffee. It wasn’t enough, but it was all he felt that he could reasonably take.

An excited voice Serenity didn’t recognize drifted out of Dr. Mattingly’s pavilion tent Dr. Mattingly as Serenity walked over to it. “-readings. If they’re right, we can find a portal just by listening to where radio signals have more noise, especially satellite radio. Surely someone would have noticed by now if it were that strong.”

“It’s far more likely to be equipment failure, especially since it wasn’t that high right after initial calibration. From what Mr. Rothmer stated-” Dr. Mattingly’s head whipped up as Serenity entered the tent. “Mr. Rothmer! I was hoping you’d be up here soon. Do you have any insight into why we’ve had a rising noise level for the past eight hours?”

Serenity swallowed the last of his donut and coughed awkwardly. “That’s probably my fault. I, uh, leak mana when I haven’t drained it by spellcasting. I did that last night with the teleports, but overnight’s enough time to recover.”

The man standing between Serenity and Dr. Mattingly turned around slowly. He looked to be in his mid-fifties, in decent shape but a bit overweight, with sandy-blond hair over a wide frame. “You leak mana? Is that supposed to mean something?”

Wasn’t it obvious? Well, maybe not to someone who didn’t know both magic and science. “It’s energy. Energy released into the atmosphere; it dissipates with distance, then eventually joins a ley line. I’m not sure why ley lines don’t cause interference, now that I think about it.” Perhaps they did, only it was on frequencies people didn’t use because interference was too common? That seemed plausible, though Serenity wasn’t certain what frequencies that would be. “If you want to test it so you can try to eliminate the noise, I’d be happy to give you a reference point. After that, I’m planning to leave for a while; it looks like you’re set up well enough at the portal that I don’t have to stay close.”

In less than a day, too; Serenity was impressed with how quickly things were moving after his report.

He suspected that making the report directly to the Secretary of Defense probably had an impact on the speed.

“That sounds like a good idea.” Dr. Mattingly’s clear voice overrode the man’s apparent reflex to argue. “A set of reference readings won’t hurt anything, then we can do some tests without any interference you might cause. Do we need to keep anyone else away from the equipment? Other mages?”

Serenity shook his head. “I doubt it. What you need to avoid is anyone casting spells nearby. Spellcasting always has leakage. Which is probably part of what you detected; I was doing some spellcasting while I was investigating the portal. We should test that as well.”

The test sequence ended up being excruciatingly long. It wouldn’t have been so bad if Serenity had anything to eat other than donuts, but he knew it was keeping him from breakfast.

It was worth it. By the end of the test, they’d discovered things Serenity hadn’t known about how magic and technology interfaced and interfered with each other.

The biggest difference seemed to be his Technology Affinity. When he didn’t use it, some interference appeared, but it wasn’t bad. When he held it active or tried to use it, the interference was an order of magnitude higher; well past detectability and into interference with transmitted signals.

They had several other mages in the camp; one even had the Technology Affinity. Standard mage spells were detectable, but instead of the continuous noise from Serenity, they were a spike for the duration of the spell, which seemed to vary based on the mana usage over time. They were almost all lower than Serenity’s baseline interference.

The one mage with the Technology Affinity had figured out a way to make electronics ‘work better’ - that was how she described it. When she used it on a device, other receivers would show an increase in the noise level similar to Serenity’s baseline noise level, but the one the spell was actually cast on showed a reduction in the amount of ambient noise.

When they finished, Doyle wasn’t there to give him a lift; Serenity waved off the offers for someone else to take him to the Settlement.

He could run as fast as they’d be able to drive over the rough terrain; he’d be a bit slower than they were on the road, but he could make up most of that time by heading directly to the Settlement.

If they needed him, they knew the way to the Settlement; Serenity would be notified when anyone tried to enter who wasn’t on the approved list, as long as he was in the Settlement. He’d take that as his recall, but he didn’t want to wait any longer.

Breakfast was calling.