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

Status

I’m sure that, by now, you’ve seen the comparisons of the Voice and its Status to a character sheet. It’s a useful comparison, but the thing to remember is that this isn’t a game.

As best I can tell, the Status is a reflection of reality rather than creating the reality - though the fact that you can allocate attribute points does make me wonder sometimes. It’s especially interesting that you get a small number per Tier; about as many as you get for a Path, though the Tier’s free points aren’t locked down the way the ones from a Path are. It’s not clear if this is the Voice providing power or simply allowing it to be allocated more easily.

Most of the Status is relatively self-explanatory or explained elsewhere in this Guide. Attributes and Resistances are the two things I don’t think I’ve touched on elsewhere.

Attributes vary by species and sometimes by person. The most common set of Human attributes is:

Physical: Might, Agility, Phys

Mental: Understanding, Will, Mind

Sensory: Perception

Might and Understanding are, generally, the power of your body and mind. Agility and Will are your ability to apply that power. Phys and Mind are your physical and mental resilience. Simply because you have the same attribute doesn’t mean you have the same strength as someone else, though; it depends on both your physical body’s actual capability and how you’ve specialized, but that level of detail is not (as far as I know) displayed for humans.

Other attributes (such as Luck) do exist for humans, but I can’t give good guidance on them.

Serenity hated thinking about how close he’d come to losing Rissa again. He regretted leading his friends into the undead city so carelessly, but he didn’t regret saving Rissa. He’d have accepted far worse than a few weeks’ pain and separation accompanied by a species change. That didn’t mean he wanted to talk about his stupidity. “That’s not why we’re here. What have you found out so far?”

Dr. Mattingly raised an eyebrow, but didn’t comment on the subject change. “Farther than I thought we would. We still don’t have full coverage, obviously, but we’ve found that there seems to be a very low-grade patterned signal present in the ultra-low-frequency range; unfortunately, it moves around and we haven’t been able to decode it. It also seems to be growing weaker. It’s close to the noise floor even in the cave, so it’s easy for it to get swamped by other signals. Unfortunately, its nature and low attenuation also makes it hard to localize it; even if we get a detector working, I’m concerned about being able to get the location down to a useful radius.”

Serenity nodded. “Has anyone gone through the portal?”

Dr. Mattingly shook her head. “No, the hazard level’s too high to justify it at this point. We’re currently working to model the signal decay to, assuming that the last portal opening was the decay start, predict the likely signal level if someone passed through the portal prior to running the trial.”

Serenity nodded. Knowing that they were looking at ultra-low-frequency radio as a likely sign of a portal was helpful, but it didn’t explain why Tzintkra was able to see the portals when Earth couldn’t. Of course, he already knew that had to be magic-related somehow; radio waves weren’t faster than light, and Tzintkra was quite a few light-years from Earth.

Knowing it was detectable at all was immensely helpful. It would give him a place to start. Maybe he could come up with a magical method to narrow down the location? Even if he had to be there to cast the spell, it would help.

Serenity felt completely safe volunteering, though he also wanted to check some things first. “I can go through the portal, when you’re ready; it won’t be too hazardous for me. I can stand up to a rockfin long enough to retreat. Until then, when should I go in the cave? There are some things I want to look at magically, but I’m afraid I’ll cause interference.”

“What are you trying to find out?” Dr. Mattingly turned to her computer as she asked the question and tabbed over to another program. “It looks like we’ve got active tests running until about midnight; after that it’ll be passive tests. That’ll be the better time for you to be down there.”

“If you want to do another calibration test for interference, let me know. As for what I want to figure out, I think that what you’re seeing is leakage; I want to see if I can tell where it’s coming from. If I can catch the same patterns in the magic, I may be able to do some tuning. I also want to give a good look at the establishment section; last time, I looked more at how it’s maintaining itself. I doubt I’ll be able to find the shutdown section, but if I can, I can probably trick it into closing early. I won’t do that until you’re done testing, but I’d still like to find it.” Serenity was eager to look at the portal again; he really wanted to see if he could duplicate the scientists’ results.

Dr. Mattingly nodded sharply. “You can stay here, come back later, or I’ll have a tent assigned for you if you want to stay in the camp but not here.”

Serenity thought for a moment. “I haven’t had dinner yet, and if I’m going to be staying up all night, a nap sounds like a good idea. I’ll take the tent, I think; that’s faster than the run.”

“You know, you could drive yourself.” Doyle shook his head. “You do have a license, I just saw it. Next time I’m making you drive.”

Serenity lifted a shoulder. “Not here, not when that’s the only vehicle you’ve got. Maybe if I have to go into town again.”

Serenity closed his eyes and concentrated on Althyr’s library. It formed around him and he stepped forward.

It was interesting that every time he visited, Althyr was waiting for him. This time was no exception. “Serenity. Done already?”

Serenity shook his head. “Yeah. It wasn’t very useful, unfortunately. Some interesting tidbits, but it was focused on the math, and I know better ways to do that math.”

Althyr took the book and set it on a side table. “I don’t have anything better on portals in Bridge. I can answer questions, if you keep them short.”

Serenity tilted his head. He’d noticed that both of the books he’d been lent were in Bridge, but he hadn’t paid much attention to it. “Do you have anything in another language?”

Althyr frowned. “I do, but translation spells don’t work well in lucid dreams. Do you know any languages other than your native tongue and Bridge?”

Serenity smiled ruefully. This was what he got for not saying more about his past, but he really didn’t want to talk about it too much. “Yeah. More than a few. I’ve lost track of how many I know; it also depends on whether you want fluency or just enough to get by.”

Althyr raised his eyebrows and seemed to shrug slightly. “Well, I suppose we’ll see. You want to find portals and close them. I can’t help much with finding; divination is simply not my preference. I’d use raw power to close them myself but I assume you’d prefer a bit more finesse?”

Serenity nodded and chuckled. “Bringing down nearby buildings by closing the portal isn’t the goal; I’d prefer not to damage the cities more than necessary.”

Althyr nodded as a smile slid off his face. “Well, then. This should help, but you may never admit you’ve read it.” He held out a book with a symbol on the front that Serenity recognized: the symbol of the Messenger’s Guild. “Make sure you can read the language it’s written in.”

Serenity flipped it open, read the title, then looked up at Althyr in confusion. “Why is the Messenger’s Magic: Transportation Spells book in Eskaran? They’re not anywhere near here.”

Althyr grinned, showing far too many teeth. “Is it? I’ve never been able to read it without a translation spell. I picked it up a long time ago, but portal magic isn’t my specialty. As for location, I’m not even certain where you are, so it’s not a surprise the book isn’t from close to you. One of these days I may ask how you know the language.”

A question without the question. Well, that made it easy to deflect; there was no way he was mentioning Vengeance right now. Serenity grinned back. “One of these days I may tell you.”

As the library faded away, Althyr’s grin seemed to stay just a bit longer. He was definitely amused.

Serenity sat in the space-that-wasn’t-a-space where he could read the book. He couldn’t take long if he was going to get a nap before midnight, so he flipped to the index. Right before he turned the page to the section on portals, he noticed a subsection on invasion portals.

That seemed even more useful.

When Serenity flipped to that page, he found that it was only a short note.

Invasion Portals

Invasion portals are not proper Messenger’s Magic, but they are still transportation magic. As a Messenger, if you are asked to create an Invasion Portal, you are required to refuse. The Messenger’s Guild does not involve itself in invasions.

The standard invasion portal is an item, crafted using a Path Skill available to several different crafting Paths. Reliable and available for a fixed period of time, these items are ridiculously expensive to make.

The standard individually-cast invasion portal is also a Path Skill. As a Portal Mage, it is likely that you will be offered a Path with this Skill at some point. While this Skill is useful under the correct circumstances, the Messenger’s Guild does not endorse it. It cannot be directed, has the normal vulnerabilities of a Portal, and while it does not require as much continuous support as other Portals, it has an exceedingly high mana cost. Mana potion poisoning is a common side effect.

While there has been some research done on duplicating the Invasion Portal Path Skill as a proper spell, it has been completely unsuccessful. It is believed that it is impossible because the Invasion Portal itself is a function of the Voice.

On the first read-through, it didn’t seem useful. Knowing it was specifically Voice-created was interesting but didn’t help him find or close portals. It might explain why Tzintkra could see them and Earth couldn’t; the Voice might have been displaying them to Tzintkra.

The second time Serenity read it, he noticed the line “has the normal vulnerabilities of a Portal”.

Maybe there was something here, after all.