OtH 1.23 - Testing the Waters

This chapter fought me a bit, but hopefully it came out okay.

Attuning to sound had proven relatively simple. Knowledge of both its physical nature, combined with his personal experiences, had been more than sufficient. He could now feel how sound qi now rippled out from practically everything. Really, it looked like sound qi simply flashed into existence, then dissipated out rapidly, but he knew the truth. Sound propagated out in waves, and apparently influenced qi in the same manner.

In the end, for the rest of the major concepts, Aarick decided to perform a simple test, while Lurona has agreed to sit and wait.

He would formulate a single sentence summarizing what he thought most encapsulated its essence. If he had a partial revelation, like with sound, then the concept was probably too volatile to just leave lying around; he might trigger an attunement entirely by accident. And, since he was trying not to be too obviously gifted, knowledgeable, or what have you, that was important.

Sure, Reodan might not care or report him. He had no idea where his loyalties ultimately lay. He might be so loyal to Lurona that the risk was minor. However, he understood the central ideas of information security. One of the big ones was not doing stupid shit.

Some might consider that idea flippant, he didn’t. If he wanted to keep something secure, then the methods changed depending on what it was. For a physical item, that could vary from a very secure location, a very inconvenient location, or just making the location or even existence of the item a secret. There were other layers with misdirection, and so on, but those verged into the territory of information security.

And information security, was exactly what he needed to practice.

And for that, as long as the information wasn’t physically recorded, it was best to act as though the information didn’t exist at all. He needed to go through his days acting no differently than if the information had never been discovered, with a single exception. He needed to forestall any situations where the information could be partially or completely revealed on its own.

When you were gay, and in the closet, that meant not doing stupid shit like going skinny dipping with the other guys. If there were girls there… that could be a different story. You weren’t likely to be the only guy who got hard then.

Now, Aarick was treating his secret with the deadly seriousness it deserved.

He was taking precautions.

If he took the time to attune to different aspects now, then he could pretend any unplanned attunements were an attunement to a preplanned set of aspects.

He would need to talk with Lurona about it more later.

Metals are atomic elements generally characterized by high electrical and heat conductivity, reflectivity, and usually deform rather than cracking under pressure or sudden impact.

There was a faint shifting inside, but it wasn’t enough to create even a partial enlightenment, so he left it alone and moved on to the next.

Earth is everything from the surface of a planet, all the way down the core, though it is also thought of as the ground and soil that cover a portion of the surface.

He felt a similar trembling, but nothing more.

Water is a molecule comprised of a single oxygen bound to two hydrogen at a 104.5 degree angle, creating a polar system.

A trembling built up until it clicked into place, creating a resonance he could feel inside, and for a moment he could feel the water of his body, the moisture from his breath.

Then it faded away.

Yep, that was a partial. Wasn’t expecting that one to work. I’ll finish that one before I leave tonight then. On to the next.

The air is composed almost entirely of nitrogen and oxygen, with oxygen allowing us to breathe.

The now familiar tremble made him move on.

If an aspect doesn’t have an incredibly succinct and accurate definition, I don’t think it is particularly likely to randomly attune.

Time to do a proper test of that, however…

The kinetic energy of an object is equal to one half of its mass times its velocity squared.

A partial attunement practically slammed into him. He could feel the momentum of his body, the coursing and continuous motion of his blood driven by the engine of his heart. Each beat was a ripple of power fueling the motion of his entire form.

Then it snapped away and he shook his head.

That was a strong one for a partial attunement. Wonder if I almost did a full attunement with a single sentence?

Lurona is right, I think. My knowledge is actually going to be dangerous here.

Whatever doubts he might have harbored, there was nothing to do except keep going. What was he going to do, not think? He couldn’t avoid this… so he didn’t bother to try.

Onto the other half. Time to pull out one of the classic Newtonian laws.

Inertia is an object’s resistance to change, as every object seeks to remain in relative motion or stillness unless acted upon by an outside force.

The imagery of this partial attunement was almost identical to kinetic energy, except the focus was different. Inertia focused on how his blood continued to flood, even after it stopped being actively pushed.

Light is a massless, restless, particle and wave that travels at the universal speed limit when in a vacuum and comprises the extremely long radio waves all the way through the visible spectrum and into the hyper-energetic gamma radiation.

Another partial settled, and he was suddenly aware of the heat his body was generating and radiating; he felt the gentle wash of light against his body.

Huh. Wasn’t sure I would get that one, either. Light is only part of the electromagnetic force, after all.

He blinked in faint surprise, feeling a trembling response to the thought.

Right, probably need to check on magnetism too. I was already planning to check electricity. Seeing lightning every day is far too likely to have me thinking about it.

He sighed, aware that other people would literally kill him if it would get them what he had.

Blessed with a surfeit of riches and only thinking about how inconvenient it makes my life to hide them.

He considered that for a second.

Yep, that checks out. Basic human nature.

He chuckled to himself, allowing himself a little smile.

He assumed Lurona was still sitting nearby, and she was probably looking at him funny. He ignored the thought as best he could. Even if it was true, it didn’t actually matter.

He kept his eyes closed, and focused again.

Lightning is electricity, the motion of electrons from an area of high charge to an area with relatively lower charge, which induces a magnetic field.

Electricity was everywhere. Charge built up and flowed across his entire body; a minuscule potential that was constantly discharged. His mind was a constant network of energy; it built up in instants and then leapt across the gaps in a surging instant, triggering the next and the next.

The feeling snapped away as abruptly as it had begun and he took only a moment before starting again, carefully composing his definition.

Magnetism is one half of the electromagnetic force and is characterized by magnetic fields that cause attraction or repulsion in susceptible materials, like iron.

The familiar trembling re-emerged, and started to peak. It didn’t quite feel like it was going to make it, so he decided to force the issue.

For a brief moment, he imagined the typical physics magnet, with a positive and negative pole, and the spreading fields that looped out, in three dimensions, from one side and connected back to the other, theoretically to infinity.

That proved enough, and suddenly he could feel the magnetic fields. They were everywhere. Cylindrical magnetic fields followed the constant firing of his nerves, and his heart produced its own as well. And even beyond that, a weak field was present in the room, intersecting across his body.

That last field was probably from the planet, itself.

Anything else I should check?

Ice, I suppose.

Ice forms from water, H2O, at zero degrees Celsius and usually forms a rigid hexagonal crystal that is less dense than liquid water.

The partial attunement was different this time. There was no ice in or near him, but he could feel the potential for ice; how some of the molecules of water were cold enough that ice was a possibility.

He barely felt a difference as he came back to himself.

That partial felt much weaker. Is that because there is none around? Maybe I can only attune to so much at a time. I doubt anyone would know if there was a limitation, considering how far their attunements are spread out.

It should be easy enough to test, as long as he could get another partial.

Gravity is a universally attractive force that is characterized by the bending of spacetime, and its strength is dependent on the mass of two objects multiplied by each other divided by the square of distance between them.

A partial attunement slammed into him, at least as strong as any of the others. It was almost overwhelming, because gravity was a universal force. Every particle of his body was attracted to every other, and to every other particle in the room, the valley, the world and beyond. He felt only the briefest feeling of that connection, before he snapped violently back into his own mind.

He lifted a hand to his head, massaging his temples for a moment.

Yep, ice was definitely just weak. Ugh, that was…

He didn’t really have the right words.

Sure, he could call the overwhelming nature of it unpleasant, but there was also wonder there. There was a wonder in suddenly seeing even the smallest glimpse of reality.

Doing a full attunement to that one… is going to be interesting for sure.

He continued on, testing others. Even with what he knew about space and time, his definitions of both were insufficient to get a partial from either one, though both stirred. He was sure he could attune to space later, but time could prove difficult.

He wasn’t really sure what time even was. His only real hope to unlock it was due to understanding that it was impacted by gravity, and how it related to entropy.

He didn’t try to unlock entropy tonight. He might manage it, but he was also unlikely to randomly attune to it, so it could wait.

That went for almost anything else, as well. He was sure he was forgetting plenty of things he could potentially attune to, but they could wait.

It had been a long day. Long enough that he was surprised he wasn’t even more tired, and he already had too much to finish. He had attuned to Fire, qi, ziu, and sound. And he was still planning to attune to inertia, kinetic energy, light, magnetism, lightning, water, and ice. That was eleven attunements in a single day. He suspected that might be the most anyone had ever done.

There was, however, one more attunement that Aarick wanted to check.

Eldritch.

Attuning to other elements near others could potentially prove dangerous to information security.

Attuning to Eldritch… well he didn’t actually know what the dangers were. Attuning to it outside of controlled conditions sounded like a horrible idea. The kind of thing that could do catastrophically wrong.

It was the kind of thing that you recounted to a judge afterward, when they asked about the inciting incident.

Or maybe the kind of thing you recounted in front of a tribunal who punished crimes against humanity, considering the risk that could be involved.

He opened his eyes, the light stinging for a brief moment as they adjusted, his eyelids fluttering for a brief moment.

Lurona was sitting across from him, her posture as perfect as ever, and her eyes watched him with open curiosity.

“I…” he coughed and cleared his throat before trying again. “Excuse me. I want to try attuning to the Eldritch…” He trailed off for a moment, as Lurona’s eyes widened slightly. “It seemed like the kind of thing I should warn you about. I assumed it would be better to do it here, but didn’t know if you wanted to take precautions.”