065 – How Wide Is Their Range?

Journal of Steven Caplan: Day 106

A small city of elves. It is interesting; most of the structures are rough hewn stone in mortar. The city roads are cobbled, and worn smooth. It just rolls over the hills without much concern for leveling the general ground. Compared to the inhabitants, the scale of the places fits. On its own, it is odd. Most of the structures are two stories, with an exit on both levels as the land rolls.

In a different thought direction, Rox fits in very well. There are other half-breeds here, and a few local humans. The locals are as friendly as any town we have been through. Caspian has told us that this is not how we should expect to be treated in Shalaia.

We had to shop in a minor hurry as the markets were at the end of their week prior to the local Sabbath. I expect Caspian will be attending meeting somewhere.

We have been told that we have about a week to go to get to Shalaia.

The market was unremarkable, beyond the difference in the types of food available, the elevation changing the growing season some, as well as what plants thrive. They were able to get sufficient vegetables and flour and other essentials and get on their way with a minimum of fuss.

With each of them now versed in the Trader’s Cant, they were all able to communicate adequately. Rox again found herself able to hear and comprehend the elf tongue when it was spoken, but could not yet begin to coherently speak it.

One other thing that got their attention was again seeing synthetic materials in some of the costumes. This time, Steven brought it to Caspian’s attention.

“Why is that man wearing a webbed belt? It looks like nylon, or similar, not the leather or other local cloths. He is not the only one I have seen here.” Steven motioned toward an elf that was working a market stall.

Caspian glanced to identify the indicated belt and elf, and then turned back to browsing the vegetables. “Probably bought it from an off-world trader.”

“What?” Steven was shocked.

Caspian was not surprised, but switched to English to continue. “There are more worlds out there than yours and mine. Some are dominated by these peoples race; some dominated by humans. Some have developed the technology to travel across the void in their metal boxes, as opposed to how I brought you here. As I recall, elves are actually not native to this world. I have been on four other worlds besides yours and this, which is my home. That some trade goods should be left behind is not surprising.”

Rox had stopped to listen. “I think I saw something about that on a tapestry in Veradale, It looked like a variant of a sea-ship, but with some fire out its back. There was a star pattern on it that I have not seen in the sky here, or at home. And I have wondered where my clothes got to, after those slavers took them. What would a local think of spandex?”

As they ventured out of the city, Steven spotted one more anachronism. He let it go, until they were making camp. But it stirred up a lot of thought as he rode along.

“Caspian, I saw something that left me thinking.”

Caspian looked up from his turn to make dinner, frying some steaks and vegetables. “What was that?”

“I saw an elf carrying what appeared to be a gun on her hip.” Steven said it matter-of-factually.

Caspian shrugged. “So?”

Rox and Steven let go of the tent lines, and moved to sit near the fire.

“So, you told me not to bring any of mine. I don’t remember exactly why.” Steven fiddled with his binoculars briefly as he said this.

Caspian glanced at Steven as he did. Rox also looked at both men.

Rox had been apprised of how nothing with a battery worked after the stellar-teleport spell. This had left her to wonder if she should have any concern about whether she had brought anything with. Since she had been reduced to just her skin and what was within it, the question was really academic. On the other hand, since she had intended to shower after getting home and had therefore left everything in her gym bag, it was probably moot.

“The reason, as I recall, was that you would not be able to get fresh ammunition, and openly carrying a gun would just get you noticed, more than your sword does.” Caspian spoke as he watched the food cook.

Steven put his binoculars away. “It’s not like I can do anything about it now. I wonder where her gun came from and what principles it operates on.”

Caspian could answer this, somewhat. “Of the four worlds I have been on, that you have not, two were magic-based, as this one is. That seems to lock the society into a kind of pre-industrial stasis; perhaps the key ideas that do not take hold are medium and high order chemical reactions, and non-artisan construction of things.”

He dished up the vegetables and meat and handed the plates one at a time. Rox and then Steven took theirs, and then Caspian dished his own, and put the skillet and pot off the fire.

Caspian continued. “The other two: one was approximately the same level of advancement as yours, and the other at a level of technological interstellar travel. On both of these, like yours, the ambient fields that allow magic were significantly lower than here, so there was less magic. I have not taken time to do much investigation of the technology, but was given to understand that some of the higher order technological weapons appear to do things that magic can, in their effects.”

Steven had kept a proverbial passing ear to the ground of weapons research and development. No one had any production wonder-weapons yet, but there were a few prototypes and ideas that people were watching.

Rox for her part, started considering some of the various ideas that she had crossed about types of weapons, particularly the non-lethal. She wondered how she might produce some similar effects from her ignorance of magic. This born of the idea she had not fully expressed to Caspian ‘don’t’ tell me what I can’t do.’

Caspian finished between bites. “That elf that you saw with the weapon was probably not native to this world. Most of the magic-using community doesn’t bother with much tech-equipment because at some level electricity and magic interfere with each other, kind of like oil and water. On the other hand, Talents do like technology. The open secret there is that the communities of talents on this world are all immigrants some generations back, like the elves. The ambient magic fields interact with their machines in some ways that cause the machines to eventually become unusable, so they have ended up going native. Most people you have met by this time, don’t know that, and probably couldn’t care. The elves and talents generally segregate themselves into their own communities, and socially guard against interlopers. Though there are some areas where they have integrated.

“On the main continent, the elves keep to their own boarders, and surrounding communities. I am told that on the largest of the island-continents, there is free interaction, and a lot of half-breeds.

Rox stopped Caspian’s ramblings as he took a bite. “What is a Talent? They were mentioned from time to time in Veradale. It was said that their closest settlement was northeast from there.”

Caspian finished his bite. “A talent is a person with mind-powers. I am not sure of the word in English. Essentially where you are learning to use and harness energy from without in the forms of magic, a talent uses energy from within.”

Rox had heard this from the Sorceress. Lacking the vocabulary at ready command in the local language, she switched to English. “It sounds like a telekinetic, or a telepath. Is this like people who can touch a thing and know instantly who used it last and what the thing can do? Or also use their energy to blast things or move about real fast or use strength beyond what the physical body is supposed to normally be able to do?”

Steven interjected. “Are you talking about Ki?”

“Stuff like that,” Rox answered.

“I think the word is psionics.” Steven punctuated his sentence with a fork full of vegetables.

Caspian was temporarily lost for the vocabulary that Rox and Steven were sharing. But his magic sense was telling his they were on the right line of thought.

Cyrril came fluttering in from his hunting at this point, and the conversation drifted to other things, before they went to bed.

Caspian led them to the summit of this mountain. They had left the animals some ways below, and started up this peak shortly after lunch. The last days had been the rolling hills between mountain ranges. This peak had dominated their horizon, when visible, as the road pointed essentially at it. At the top the Caplan’s understood why.

All were puffing hard for the thin cool air. The world rolled out in all directions.

North were two ‘close’ peaks in line with this. South were more than half a dozen more in approximate line. West were the highland hills they had been crossing. East were high valleys, that were almost flat and drained to the northeast, then another range of mountains as tall and numerous as the ones they were on. Forest blanketed the highlands in a patchwork manor, with a few plumes of smoke here and there as far as the forest went.

Geologically these were up-thrust mountains, and so irregular in shape. But one mountain at the north end of the eastern line had the conical shape of a volcano. Caspian pointed to a peak to the south east, near the middle of both ranges. It looked radically different than its neighbors. Beyond the east mountains and their foot hills was a further batch of mountains, and beyond those the land settled into steppe similar to the high planes they had crossed coming east.

Steven looked through his binoculars at the irregular mountain. This looked like a short plateau, with terraces around its perimeter down into and as a feature of the valleys around it.

Caspian finally had breath to speak. “There, the flat one. That is Shalaia, our goal.”

Once everyone was mutually ready to leave, Caspian surprised the Caplan’s. He scratched a circle with an inscribed triangle on the ground.

“Steven stands at the point on my right, Rox on my left. Then hold on to my staff, but let me guide it.”

“I know this,” Steven answered.

“You should. You have asked about doing it often enough,” Caspian replied. “Roxanne, pay attention; this is how to do it without a specific object to act as a start or finish target.”

Caspian ran through the pattern for this teleport spell the requisite three times, setting all the parameters, and then they were off.

Rox had not teleported while really awake, or by this specific method. She wanted to gasp as her awareness suddenly accelerated at the staff, then arced up and over to land behind and a short ways from the horses. Their sudden appearance spooked the animals, and were they not tied, they might have bolted. As it was the Caplan’s and Caspian walked them off the hilltop they were currently on into a valley and around the north perimeter of the mountain they had just come from the summit of.