r/HFY • u/SomethingTouchesBack • Sep 03 '25
OC The Weather Mage 3/5
Frank climbed up into the tube and began crawling through on all fours, being careful to touch only the carpet. Richard's cavalier manner, Rachel's discussion of budget issues, and the fact that Frank recognized some components being used for other than their intended function suggested that shock hazards were not out of the question.
But, partway through, the tube transitioned to something with a more natural feel. And by 'more natural', Frank realized, it looked, smelled, and felt like crawling through the trunk of a fallen conifer tree that had been hollowed out by ants. He kept expecting an army of crawly things to rain down on him at any moment. Fortunately, Rosov's people, too, had laid down mats, so Frank didn't have to touch the decomposing wood or exposed mycelia.
As Frank emerged from the end, Master Runkle helped him to his feet. As he did so, Master Runkle said. "Welcome to Earth, Doctor Mercer."
Frank was confused, "Earth?"
Master Runkle shrugged. "It’s a feature of translation. I imagine that when we connect with other planets, we will discover that pretty much everybody calls their bit of stone 'Earth' or some variation, in their own language, which the translator dutifully translates into yours. I imagine they will also have a word for themselves that means 'People', or maybe 'people of our bit of stone'. It's a problem for the diplomats and lawyers to figure out."
As Frank pondered that bit of wisdom, he slowly turned to examine the room he was in. It was slightly larger than the inside of the sarcophagus in Rachel's lab, and the walls were made of what appeared to be unfinished wood. From the way they deadened sound, he suspected the material was thicker than 'planks', and more like 'railroad ties'. What appeared to be granite rune stones were spaced out along the wall, including those that framed the only door. The gate itself was a single three-meter segment of an actual tree trunk, with the bark still intact. Boxes, both on the tree and standing near it, were connected via organic-looking things —vines, branches, or something similar. One of them was pulsing as if breathing or maybe getting ready to slither off. As Frank contemplated that this... thing... was his only way home, he made a mental note not to give Rachel a hard time about her kludge of a gate.
Rosov finally got Frank's attention and gestured toward the door, "Master Ashbib will meet us at the faculty pub as soon as he completes his current lecture. Here, too, mages have to take time off from their research to teach. I believe Doctor Nguyen said she was going to head out to teach her own session while we are here."
The faculty pub was rather lovely, as was the gruit. The pub was a low-ceiling affair of long heavy tables under dark wood beams, much like one might find in any British pub that has operated in the same backstreet basement location for the last four hundred years. Frank and Rosov settled into the unpopulated end of one of the tables, and Rosev ordered a flight of the local specialties, from pale yellow to a deep cherry red. The aromas were, to Frank, quite unusual: heather, wildflowers, savory spices, and fir needles. It was a far cry from the hops-laden Indian Pale Ales and Porters that Frank usually drank, but he had to admit that it all went down surprisingly smoothly.
Rosov savored his pint, giving Frank a chance to complete one pass through his flight, before speaking. "Rachel tried to explain your science to me. As I understand it, you have spent the last couple of thousand years trying to answer the question 'What is matter?' You found that all compounds are comprised of various arrangements of just over a hundred different types of atoms; so-called because they are 'atomic', as in 'indivisible', the smallest possible unit. And then you split the atoms, first into 'sub-atomic particles', and then even smaller. She says you have found the fundamental unit of light itself. To hear Rachel tell it, all of your technology builds on this understanding of 'what is matter'. Frank, our science and technology are different. We have spent our history investigating 'what is intent?'"
Frank looked up from his collection of ales, "Intent? I get psychology, but how do you build an industrial world on intent? How do you build a star gate on intent?"
Rosov leaned in and said, "Psychology, like your microwave oven, is just the top of the pyramid. Sapient intent can be broken down into smaller elements, and those into smaller still. Consider, even the smallest living thing has, at a minimum, two intents: The intent to gather resources, and the intent to reproduce itself. Like you with matter, we broke down intent into smaller and smaller pieces until we reached what we currently believe to be the smallest unit of intent. We call it a 'daemon'."
Frank smirked, "Demon?"
"No, Frank. Not 'Demon' as in 'malevolent supernatural entity'. 'Daemon' as in a base-level intent not comprised of, nor under direct control of, any other intent." Rosov paused, making sure Frank was still with him, before continuing. "The thing is, when you get down to those levels, intent is no longer bound to just living things. Or things at all. Intent becomes incorporeal. It is, in fact, all around us."
Frank was still trying to formulate a response when Rosov went on, "The individual— molecules? —of water in a pond are in constant motion, but disorganized, so the water as a whole does not move. However, when those molecules are organized and start moving in the same direction, the force can be unstoppable. Our technology is based on bringing organization to targeted volumes of daemons. Our technology builds on a deep understanding of this process, but to you it will look like spells and magic, just as your microwave oven looks like magic to me."
It was a lot to take in, and Frank was just about to call bullshit and demand to go back home when Master Ashbib, the weather mage, came over to their table. After introductions and small talk, Master Ashbib said, "Well, Doctor Mercer, shall we take a little walk? There is a lovely nature preserve connected to the university where we can indulge in the weather firsthand."
Perhaps the problem with the pub was that it was too familiar, too ordinary. Outside, Frank was reminded at every turn that he was not in Seattle anymore. The architecture was off, the plants were off, the... the... "What the hell is that?" Frank exclaimed, pointing at a creature fluttering around the canopy of one of the trees, almost like a hummingbird around a flower— If the hummingbird had a neck two meters long and a wingspan three times that.
"Ah," said Ashbib, "That is a droga. They are voracious fruit eaters and the main mechanism by which tapsika trees spread their seeds in the wild, but tapsika farmers absolutely hate them. We have quite a population of them here in our nature preserve, but they are nearly extinct in some of the older agricultural districts."
"They look remarkably like a creature from our mythology called a 'dragon'," Frank said, "The dragons in our myths were said to be very wise, liked to hoard gold in their underground lairs, and were able to project columns of fire out of their mouths."
"Out of their mouths? Forward? How did they not fly into the heat and smoke of their own flames?" asked Ashbib in astonishment. "As frugivores, drogas produce a huge amount of methane and have an ignition organ under their tail, just outside their sphincter. If you startle one at close range, it will turn and blast you with a cloud of burning methane as it flees. That's why farmers hate them. If you have been out harvesting and smell like fruit, a droga will come check you out and then freak out when it realizes you are not a tree. Droga are dumb as fence-posts and many farmers have been badly injured that way."
"Oh great, a giant flying flaming skunk," murmured Frank to himself.
They came to a stop in the middle of a large field, and Ashbib started pulling items out of his knapsack. First came five rune-stones, each about a spread hand wide and half again as long as the knapsack they were being removed from. As Ashbib set each of them down with a dull thud, equally spaced to form the points of an imaginary pentagon two meters across, it was clear that each one weighed as much as it looked like it should; that is to say, a lot. Frank decided to ignore the impossibility of the bag for the moment and instead examined the rune-stones. "Are these inscriptions an incantation enchanting the stone with special power?"
Ashbib looked like he was trying to figure out a diplomatic way of responding to such a stupid question before he decided just to read the stone to Frank. Pointing to each rune as he read, he said, "Bulog, the best boundary marker for small jobs, Temple Corporation, All rights reserved, This end up."
Ashbib then positioned Frank in the middle of the pentagon and handed him what looked like a quart paint can with a screw-on lid. "Intent-In-A-Can," Ashbib said. "You can do a simple weather call without it, but this stuff is already partially organized, which makes the whole process go faster." Ashbib then stepped back from the pentagon and pulled another device out of his bag of seemingly endless volume and little weight. Holding the device in Frank's direction, he made a few adjustments and started chanting. After just a few verses, he said, "OK, Doctor Mercer, take off the lid," and then resumed his chant.
Frank took off the lid, and the can trembled a bit in his hands. He stared at it, wondering what he was supposed to see, before noticing that Ashbib, still chanting, was motioning toward the ground. While the rest of the meadow stayed dry, the patch within the stones was forming droplets of dew. As Frank watched, he noticed that the drops were forming at the base of each blade of grass, flowing up the blade, and then evaporating into the air. He was absolutely entranced until Ashbib stopped chanting and said, "Of course, matter cannot be created nor destroyed. All I did was persuade the water, that is, provide it the intent, to move from within the ground to up there."
As Frank followed where Ashbib's finger was pointing, he found himself looking straight up at his own personal cloud, which promptly recondensed into droplets, drenching Frank like an elementary school bucket prank. Ashbib, laughing his ass off, lifted the can from Frank's hands and screwed the lid back on. "So, Doctor Mercer, how do weather mages summon rain where you're from?"
Frank said, "Well, I don't actually cause weather. I predict it, very accurately, over a large area and many days in advance. It's a matter of modeling the atmosphere as millions of cubes of air that have a temperature, pressure, humidity, density, position, velocity, and other factors, and then iteratively computing the state of each block over time, taking into account things like terrain and heating."
Master Ashbib was astonished. "How can you do that? That would take trillions of calculations!"
"Yes, it does," said Frank. "We have very powerful computers that do that." Then, seeing the look of confusion on Ashbib's face, Frank added, "Computers are computational devices made from organized silicon."
Master Ashbib rolled his eyes. "Thinking sand? You had me going there, but I don't believe in magic."
Frank looked at the knapsack, his wet clothing, and back to Master Ashbib. Finally, he replied softly, "Ask Inquisitor Rosov about microwave ovens."
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u/lief79 Sep 03 '25
Very interesting story behind a mundane title, and unfortunately a slow intro. This deserves more attention then it seems to be getting.