I managed to get halfway through my explanation of what “Roydlow” told me in the noypeyyoyjh before the bickering started again. Dawpvaol was the one to start it, making a comment about how she doubted that someone like me could be an ihlzheyv, which set off Vaozey, which set off Zeyviyn, causing Mawyeyz to intervene, and so it went on and on like that. Before long they weren’t even talking about anything to do with me, at some point a treaty was brought up and the budget for Dahmpiyahn contributions to the Awrehrehzha “temporary militia” became an issue, and then the legality of exporting firearms started to be contested, and I tuned everything out. My subconscious was still registering the information and I knew I would be alerted if anyone said anything I could comment on or needed further explanation of, but my conscious mind essentially left the building.

About an hour into the yelling match, I started to pulse my laser on things in the room, trying to figure out if I could reduce the power draw at all. Part of the problem was that I couldn’t just create photons with magic because I didn’t have enough knowledge about what photons actually were to do it, or so I assumed. Neither a particle nor a wave visualization did much, and combining them together affected the energy requirements chaotically, probably because I wasn’t sure how to do it correctly. I did manage to form a sort of “half visualization” where I tried to just provide the magic with the bits of information I knew consciously without taking direct control, and that led to an efficiency gain that felt like around twenty percent. Not much, but it was something.

Since everyone was still arguing after I got bored of making dim dots on the ceiling and walls, I leaned back in my chair and tried projecting some images with light magic onto a small, imaginary screen in my hands. Before entering the noypeyyoyjh I had to take direct control of each volume of light to construct something, but with my reduced restrictions on subconscious magic it was quite simple to make an animated figure. I could even make colored images, displaying things from my memory like snakes and trees, along with faces of warbreed soldiers and weapons. It seemed as though I could almost directly connect my “mind’s eye” to the magic with a bit of effort, something that would probably become useful if what everyone was arguing about solidified.

“So he is to give you more weapons then?” Zeyviyn yelled. “We do not even know where this man is from! Ballistae that can strike past the horizon? Bombs that can destroy entire cities? If he is not delusional then he dooms the entire world to West Dahmpiyahn mongrel tyranny should he give you such things!”

“Better us than you!” Vaozey snarled back.

You couldn’t even make those things if I were to explain them to you, I thought, looking back down at my hands. I wasn’t exactly an expert in electronic and circuit design so I certainly couldn’t make something like a cruise missile from scratch. A nuclear bomb, maybe, but obtaining the material for it would be almost impossible unless there were already deposits of weapons-grade nuclear material available somewhere. What was the synthesis process for hexogen again? I asked myself, going through my memories, Maybe there’s a magical way to synthesize it.

“Thank you for attending,” Mawyeyz said politely as Zeyviyn made his exit from the room. The meeting had officially ended some time ago, with Dawpvaol leaving, but he had stayed behind to continue discussing trade with Mawyeyz.

“Bring your ngaazmayjh partner next time or don’t bother showing up!” Vaozey yelled as the door shut. “Seytoydh npoyt,” she muttered under her breath. Everyone in the room took in the silence for a few seconds, and Mawyeyz was the first to speak.

“Vaozey, if you want to go take a walk, I can keep Yuwniht company for a bit,” he offered.

“I’m pissed at you too for not pushing back more,” she retorted, “but I do need a break.” She stood up, stretched her arms above her head, then headed for the door. “Just call for me if you need me.”

“I’m glad to see you’re still alive,” Mawyeyz said once Vaozey had shut the door behind her. “I trust this display of the worst our people have to offer hasn’t dissuaded you from helping us.” Dark circles were forming under his eyes, and his smile looked like he wanted to sigh.

“The amount of minor issues you all get caught up on is astounding,” I replied.

“That’s politics, my friend,” Mawyeyz chuckled. “Everyone has an issue with everyone else, it’s like a zhmiyljheys with everyone on their own side. Ah, you don’t know that word. A situation where two people have the means and motive to kill one another, but must not do so without the other acting first.”

“I’m familiar with the concept,” I replied. “Was that word Dahmpiyahn?”

“You could tell by the sound of it, could you not?” Mawyeyz smiled. “My accent isn’t nearly as thick as Zeyviyn’s, I hope. My wife and I have worked very hard to remove any hint of them that remained over the last few years. Politically important, you see.” Nobody likes to be ruled by a foreign power, I thought with a grimace. “I must compliment you on your defeat of R’vaajh Tahyn as well. I knew him in passing, and the man was frightfully strong.”

“Like I said, he only died because he wanted to know about that magic I used,” I grunted, rubbing my eyes with my hand. I can’t believe I managed to get tired out just listening to them argue, I thought.

“I can see why,” Mawyeyz said, looking at the glass cup. It was nearly melted, but a piece of ice still floated within. “It shouldn’t be possible to do this, you know.”

“Because magic can’t ‘take away from the world’, right?” I asked. Mawyeyz looked at me with an interested glance, then back to the cup. With a flick of his wrist, he slid it across the table to me so that I could drink from it.

“It seems your magical education was lacking in some respects,” Mawyeyz commented. “That is quite surprising, considering your capabilities.” The cooling effect of the water as it poured down my throat made me aware of how warm the room had become, and I wondered if it was practical to cool my skin with magic.

“I mostly figured it out on my own,” I replied. “Come to think of it, what was that technique you used on the ants? You projected a beam from your hand.”

“A beam?” Mawyeyz replied, sounding confused. The word I had used was pihtaazm, which typically referred to a ray of sunlight that could be seen in the air. “Oh, you mean this,” he said, holding up his hand and making the air inside it ripple upwards.

“That, but you projected it,” I said. In response, Mawyeyz pointed his hand at me, and I felt a hot wind blow in my direction. “A… hot air gun?” I asked, and he lowered his hand.

“You are not the only one to figure out a magic technique that separates heat from fire,” Mawyeyz replied with a grin. “My technique was inspired by seeing waves of hot air float from rocks in the sun.” With little effort, I managed to create the same magic Mawyeyz had used and blew a stream of very hot air from my left to my right hand. It wouldn’t harm a human, but was certainly enough to kill an insect. “May I ask a question in return?” Mawyeyz requested.

“You might as well,” I replied with a shrug. “I’ve been all but commanded to give Uwriy knowledge and tools to help them survive the civil war. I think I know what you want to ask, too.”

“How does the cooling magic work?” Mawyeyz asked, just as expected.

“Before I explain that, I need you to tell me why it should be impossible,” I said. “To me, nothing about it is unusual except the complexity of the actions required, and that can be alleviated by relinquishing control to magic’s approximation system. It’s costly, but not impossible.” Even though all the words I had spoken were Uwrish, Mawyeyz looked at me like I had just begun speaking another language entirely. After a few seconds of silence, he seemed to collect himself.

“The adage that ‘magic cannot take away from the world’ is correct in concept, but the truth of the matter is more complex,” he began. “The actual law of magic it is paraphrasing is ‘regardless of method or prayer, magic cannot destroy that which exists’. It’s sensible and easily provable.”

“Are there people that can create mat- er, solid objects with magic?” I asked.

“No mortal has ever been observed doing so,” Mawyeyz replied. “However, it is often said that the gods used magic to create the world. Even Rehv’s teachings state that it was his power that made the world, and his power is clearly magic. Ergo, creation with magic must be possible, but destruction is not.” That doesn’t seem right, I thought, but their understanding of matter isn’t advanced enough yet to figure out why.

“I still don’t see how that makes cooling magic impossible,” I said.

“Heat exists,” Mawyeyz replied laconically.

“So does force,” I countered, using the Uwrish term for kinetic energy. “I can still stop a sword with force magic.”

“By creating an equal force that cancels it, not by destroying the force inside it,” Mawyeyz said.

“Those are equivalent in every meaningful way for this discussion,” I argued, and Mawyeyz frowned.

“Your understanding of such matters is very different from ours,” he said. “As we understand it, heat is like a fluid which can fill an object, or be emptied out of it. If overfilled, objects will change to accommodate the heat or discharge it by bursting into flame. If deprived, objects will stiffen and become brittle, or change in order to contain the heat more tightly, as in the case of ice.”

“That’s… not entirely wrong I suppose,” I replied, gesturing for him to continue.

“Heat cannot be seen and does not fall to the ground because it is partially ethereal,” Mawyeyz said. “Thus, the fluid of heat cannot be moved with magic, only produced. Cold is merely an absence of fluid heat, so it cannot be made, and it cannot be produced by moving heat because such a thing is impossible.” Okay, that was largely wrong, but I can see why they would think of it like that, I thought, there’s still one mystery though.

“Aren’t there animals that use magic to cool themselves?” I asked.

“Not to my knowledge,” Mawyeyz replied. “Many animals heat themselves with magic in the winter months to keep warm, but never once has an animal been observed cooling itself with magic.” Now that doesn’t make any sense, I thought, It’s not that hard to cool something down, I’d even say it’s easier than using electricity, so why wouldn’t they have that ability? As I thought about it, Mawyeyz watched on with fascination.

“What about using air to cool down?” I asked.

“Perhaps,” he shrugged. “My field of study during my time with the followers of Rehv was not animals.” No, I think the solution might be even easier, I realized, Healing magic makes cooling down with a second form of magic pointless. Hyperthermia’s effects can probably be healed automatically and at less cost than using inefficient healing magic would mitigate them. If animals have to evolve magic use, they would probably never evolve cooling magic if they could heal, outside of extreme regions. Even then, evolving a biological solution and maintaining it with healing magic is still probably less costly.

“You’re right that my understanding of physics is different from yours,” I said, carefully picking my words. “I don’t mean to boast, but it’s more complete, and that’s why I can cool things with magic. I can tell you the underlying principle behind the magic, but I don’t know if you’ll be able to do it. From what I can tell, magic relies heavily on one’s subconscious understanding of techniques, so it may take you some time before you fully ‘learn’ my method.” Mawyeyz couldn’t help but smile.

“That is quite a claim,” he remarked.

“I’m sure what I’m about to tell you might seem nonsensical at first,” I said, “but I assure you it is far closer to the truth than any of your people’s understandings of reality. Firstly, you need to understand matter, and what it is made of…”

For the next hour, I did my best to educate Mawyeyz on basic particle physics. He stopped me many, many times for clarification about things like the size of atoms, how molecules formed, what made elements different from each other, and so on. I didn’t have every answer he asked for, and some were even nonsensical questions based on a misunderstanding of what matter was, but he was satisfied at the end. He still couldn’t cool anything down with magic though, at least not by any perceptible amount. I even explained the initial concept I had used for the blue leaf vapor to him and though he claimed to understand it, he couldn’t use it to produce any useful effects.

Vaozey came back before we could really get into trying to work out why he was having issues, and Mawyeyz told me to leave it until I spoke to him next. Since the session that had ended earlier was inconclusive, that meant I would be meeting back up with them in two days, giving me time to think about the problems. I discussed it with Vaozey on the way back to her home, keeping my voice low so we wouldn’t be overheard, but she didn’t have much in the way of useful input besides confirmation that she had also tried and failed to freeze things with magic using her own, unique methods. I’m sure it’s the subconscious not having absorbed the information, I thought as I lay in the comfortable bed, drifting off to sleep.

Three more sessions went by, and I slowly began to realize what Vaozey must have meant when she told me I would want to kill everyone in the sessions eventually. The two attendees who were missing the first time were a fat man from Pehrihnk who seemed simultaneously boastful and cowardly; and a man who looked startlingly similar to Zeyviyn except for a tiny variation in eye position and a centimeter of extra height. Allegedly they weren’t related, but Vaozey told me after the session where I asked that question that Dahmpiyahns had “different standards” for relatives than Uwriy did. Regardless, I found myself fantasizing about clubbing different people over the head or just leaving Awrehrehzha altogether when everyone burst into manic yelling over some nonsensical issue.

In between sessions I mostly stayed indoors in Vaozey’s home, writing out pieces of knowledge that I thought would be useful or brainstorming new weaponry for the Uwrish to use. Mawyeyz promised to allow me to meet with some smiths to see what was possible with Uwrish metalworking, but the meeting hadn’t yet manifested despite days of time to arrange it. I was sure he was trying, but besides that first night, I hadn’t been able to talk to him at all outside of the meetings due to his responsibilities as governor.

I wouldn’t have even needed the smith if not for the main issue of Uwrish gunpowder weapons development: Lack of access to black powder. One of the first questions I had asked during the meetings was how many cannons Uwriy had built, which sparked an extremely violent but informative debate. As it turned out, access to saltpeter was poor in Uwriy, and though Dahmpiyah had it in abundance they didn’t want to trade it away. Zeyviyn was obviously angling for Shayaajh to pressure Pehrihnk into lifting the export ban on rifles in exchange for the supply, but neither wanted to budge. I suspected that Dahmpiyah was processing human waste to create their stores, but I didn’t know the process well enough to replicate it since potassium nitrate was usually made with a molecular printer on Earth.

And so, the day after the fourth meeting I sat in Vaozey’s home, trying to adjust my strategy for obtaining military support since my current one was failing. Hours ticked by, the sun began to lower, and then I was drawn out of my stupor by the sound of something being smashed with great force.

“I seytoydh hate Dahmpiyah!” Vaozey screamed at the top of her lungs as she came back into her house. I was in one of her studies, and by the time I got up to meet her, she had already slammed the door behind her and stomped off into the kitchen. When I caught up I found her sitting at a table meant for the servants, trying to glare a hole into its surface.

“Did you hear anything about the smith-” I began, only for the glare to turn to me, then soften after a moment as Vaozey exhaled and scrunched her eyes closed.

“No,” she grunted, opening her eyes once more and controlling her emotions. “Mawyeyz said he’d do it, he’ll do it. Remind him every meeting and eventually it’ll get done.”

“Is it really worth sitting through these?” I asked. “What are the actual chances that we get military support for an incursion into Mehtsiyah?”

“About the same as me taking Zeyviyn up on his offer,” Vaozey snarled. “I do not, for the life of me, understand how the gods haven’t wiped Dahmpiyah clean of the filth they call nobility in that country yet. The commoners too, they’re complicit. They outnumber the nobles a hundred to one and still snivel and beg for scraps from people who cull them by the cityful. It’s despicable, the whole country is.” I had heard her rant before when Zeyviyn made a snide remark about Uwriy getting an ihlzheyv instead of Dahmpiyah, and was quite familiar with the contents.

“Why is he so obsessed with you, anyway?” I asked. I had wanted to ask Vaozey about it many times, but she was usually busy during the day or in no mood to talk at night. My new emotional sensitivity let me much more easily determine when a person was receptive to conversation, and Vaozey usually was not. As she sat at the table, however, it was telling me the opposite, meaning I had a chance to try to find a way to influence the meetings. Zeyviyn was an obvious target for manipulation, and I had an idea of what he might want if it was offered, I just needed confirmation.

“You haven’t figured it out yet?” Vaozey sighed. One of the servants came by the table and set out two plates of food, so I sat down and began to eat.

“He thinks you have high… well, my people would call it genetic quality,” I said.

“Please don’t tell me the place you come from is as crazy as Dahmpiyah when it comes to who has kids with whom and what families are ‘pure’ or not,” Vaozey groaned, rubbing her face with both hands and muffling her words. “Maybe it should be you dealing with him and not me.”

“I’ll admit, at first I thought they were similar to people in my homeland,” I said. “Fundamentally, the idea of selectively breeding to enhance the best traits of their offspring is something we share, but the goal behind it is very different. Tell me, is Zeyviyn an ‘average’ noble for his country? They are supposedly bred for leadership, are they not?” Vaozey snorted behind her hands, then pulled them away just enough to reveal a sarcastic smile.

“I don’t want what I’m about to say to sound like a compliment, because it’s not,” she said. “Zeyviyn is far more competent and understanding of Uwriy than any Dahmpiyahn noble I’ve ever heard of. His idiot partner, who only speaks up to say something unimportant or lob an insult, is probably closer to average.” Then it’s a wonder their country even functions, I thought, Then again, by some standards, it doesn’t. This entire civil conflict is very minor to them, Zeyviyn has said as much, they have similar conflicts going on back home at this moment.

“Do they actually think eye and hair color makes them better leaders?” I asked, trying to figure out exactly what their application of selective breeding was.

“Yeah, basically,” Vaozey grunted, finally taking a bite of her food. I had already been eating in between speaking and, as usual, it tasted very good. “I’m guessing your people are different,” she mumbled with her mouth full.

“Back in… my homeland, children are considered a reward,” I explained, merging a bit of how AI units were handled with warbreed culture. “Reproduction is generally not allowed until someone has achieved something of significance. Having living children who also gain accolades increases your status, losing children or having children who underperform can reduce it. Candidates for reproduction are also selected based on physical and mental traits in times when populations are low, based on what the leadership deems most useful. Aesthetics play little part beyond them being incidentally related to health in some cases.”

“That story you told, way back,” Vaozey recalled. “The reward the god gave the hero was a bunch of kids, right? Wait… I thought your people had no gods?”

“I may have adjusted the story to your sensibilities,” I admitted. “In the actual, original tale, it wasn’t a god, but the leader of the hero’s country.” Rather, a command AI, I thought.

“But there were other-” Vaozey began, stopping. “No, the poison blood was probably just some crazy poison from your homeland, wasn’t it? Stuck inside the hero like when we smuggled that stuff to Muhryehv. And the weapons, those were just normal weapons for you.” I couldn’t help but form a small smile as she figured everything out so quickly. “So, ten children, was that a lot or a little?”

“Quite a lot, especially for one reward,” I replied, taking another bite of food. For a warbreed it would have been a lot, but for an AI, ten duplicates was nothing, at least in the early years when the story took place. Later on, once resources began to run thinner and bodies were more expensive, ten would have been a lot.

“At least we’re the same on that then,” Vaozey grunted, taking another bite too. We chewed in silence for a moment before she continued speaking. “What I’m about to tell you doesn’t leave this house, and it never comes up in the meetings, okay?”

“Alright,” I nodded.

“Back in Dahmpiyah, the Svaaloyweyl family were very high-class nobles,” Vaozey explained. “I say ‘were’ because all the ones that stayed there died. The ones who fled to Uwriy survived but interbred with other groups over time. According to Zeyviyn, I am the ‘purest’ example of the Svaaloyweyl family still alive today, as it’s only my father who was a non-noble, but even then he was an upper-level commoner. That’s why he wants me to go back with him and make a bunch of kids.”

“With him?” I asked, referring to the potential children.

“Actually, no,” Vaozey replied. “He’d be executed for even trying it because of the difference in the status of our families. No, he wants me to go meet the family his family serves and marry myself off to one of their sons.” I sat for a moment and tried to process the information to figure out Zeyviyn’s motive. He’ll probably get an increase in status if it succeeds, I thought, That means he’s not just being judged on how well he negotiates with Uwriy, but how much value he brings to Dahmpiyah.

“Because they value your lineage and your… eye color?” I asked, making Vaozey sigh again.

“And nose shape, jawline, skin color, hand shape, eyebrows, lips, height… gods he’s probably even tried to measure my seytoydh hips and legs when I wasn’t looking,” she replied with disgust. Both halves of my mind mirrored the feeling in different ways. To my human side, something about it was just instinctively wrong in a way that wasn’t easy to phrase in words. To my more rational sensibilities, it was a gross misuse of the concepts of selective breeding and genetic optimization. The value of an individual’s genetic worth was determined by the practically useful traits of their body and brain as well as gene frequency, not some cultural aesthetic preference.

“Ridiculous,” I muttered.

“Good to know you don’t approve,” Vaozey snorted, putting more food in her mouth. “I was worried you were going to tell me I should take him up on it for a minute there.” Their genetic diversity must be terrible, I realized, healing magic can fix a lot of issues, but there’s no way the level of inbreeding they’re maintaining isn’t doing long-term harm to their noble population.

“Are noble children in Dahmpiyah commonly born deformed?” I asked, and Vaozey’s expression suddenly turned serious again.

“Not just Dahmpiyah,” she said. “It happens in Uwriy, and even to commoners, just not as much as nobles. Sometimes the kids get better, but sometimes not.”

“What would the rate be, if you had to estimate?” I asked.

“I don’t really know,” Vaozey shrugged. “For our nobles, it’s one in five or six dozen that don’t recover. For commoners, you hear about a few kids a year in a city. In Dahmpiyah for nobles… I don’t know, but it has to be at least the same as us, right?”

“I would it’s assume much higher, actually,” I replied. “It’s the result of their breeding practices. Keeping the gene pool small and deliberately breeding for recessive traits often incidentally increases the rate of genetic disorders if done without careful oversight and foreknowledge of the pitfalls.” I knew what I was saying was probably incomprehensible to Vaozey, but I hoped she would pick up on the context.

“Common wisdom is that a deformed child is a punishment from the gods for immoral or evil acts by the parents,” Vaozey said. “That’s why nobles get more of them. If I’m interpreting all those foreign words right though, you’re saying that’s not quite the case. What does ‘genetic’ mean?” I inhaled deeply, thinking about how to explain it.

“Every living thing has something like a set of instructions in its body that determines its form,” I summarized. “A gene is one such instruction, ‘genetic’ is an adjective meaning something that has to do with ‘genes’. During reproduction, genes are recombined using the mother and father’s set of genetic instructions, half of each. That doesn’t mean the traits the child manifests will be exactly half and half though, gene expression in an organism is a complex system that has many influences.”

“Your people know a lot about this, I’m guessing,” Vaozey said with a strange look on her face. Everything about it, I wanted to say. Genetics was largely a solved field on Earth, and genetic engineering was commonplace before the extinction of the creators.

“Do you think information about this topic would be valuable to Zeyviyn, or Dahmpiyah as a whole?” I asked, and she grinned wickedly.

“Do you think food would be valuable to a starving man?” she asked back, barking out a harsh laugh. “You’re saying you could tell him how to make sure noble children are born looking the way he wants, but also never deformed?”

“No,” I replied. “He would have to choose between one or the other because he doesn’t have access to the same kinds of tools available in my homeland. However, it’s probably possible to reduce birth defects while maintaining their current… aesthetic preferences, at the very minimum.”

“How?” Vaozey asked, looking hesitant. I could practically see her mind trying to determine what potential horrors were required.

“They would have to interbreed with commoners to increase their genetic diversity and ban certain nobles from having children if it can be shown that their genes have a high chance of producing defects,” I explained. Vaozey looked stunned for a moment, then began laughing again. Her sheer amusement at my explanation grew so great that her laughs were practically roars after a few seconds, and she began slapping the table so hard that the plates almost bounced off of it.

“I don’t know if you’re right or not, and I don’t care,” she finally cackled out once she caught her breath. “I just want to see his face when you tell him. Just make sure you’re ready to fight because he might try to kill you. Don’t worry though, I’ll be glad to beat him if he does.”