[center][img]https://see.fontimg.com/api/renderfont4/RRdW/eyJyIjoiZnMiLCJoIjo4NywidyI6MTUwMCwiZnMiOjU4LCJmZ2MiOiIjOTI5NEZGIiwiYmdjIjoiIzM2MjM2QiIsInQiOjF9/UGV0cmE/grime.png[/img][h3]??? — Dilapidated Shack[/h3][@Zeroth][@ERode][@PKMNB0Y][hr][/center]For the most part, Petra just patiently waited for her magic to recover, while her companion experimented with their own. Even blind as she was, Petra didn’t fail to notice when the other mage finally got their own magic to work, her gelatinous body immediately picking up on the sudden influx of information transmitted via vibrations through the air and floor, with each spell. 

Were they shooting projectiles of some kind? Controlling the wind? Perhaps just producing raw force? Once again, Petra found no small part of her longing to have her human vision back, if only so she could get a good look at the actual spell casting process. It was magic! Just think of all the things she could learn just by watching it! 

Mentally sighing to herself, Petra turned thoughts away from the nearby spell caster and to the broader nature of magic itself. Just what was magic, exactly? Obviously Petra knew she wasn’t even remotely qualified to ask that question – certainly not when she knew so little about the subject – but qualified or not, the question burned at her mind regardless. Some tiny part of Petra’s mind immediately motioned to dismiss the question – to simply label the phenomenon 'supernatural' and leave it at that – but the rest of her mind called that part traitor and smothered it down.

Supernatural was a term used to describe things that were beyond understanding; things that fundamentally didn’t follow the rules of the universe. Strange as everything she’d seen was, Petra didn’t yet feel ready to accept the idea that there were things that couldn’t be understood. In fact, that was one of the few ideas she probably wouldn’t ever be able to accept. Sure, the universe might follow a different set of rules to the ones she’d thought they did just a few hours ago, and sure, she was almost certainly, a long, long, ways off from even beginning to be able to understand these new rules, but even so, everything had rules, and anything that had rules could eventually be understood. All she needed was enough time and the right questions.

The only problem was Petra wasn’t quite sure what exactly the right questions were. She’d already cast magic, several times even, which should have given her plenty of questions, and it had, but most of those questions were surface level; important to answer, certainly, but insignificant or impossible to answer without prerequisite knowledge she didn’t yet possess. What she needed was something deeper. Something foundational. 

Petra thought about it for a bit, trying to focus on the ways she was sure magic violated the laws of the universe as she knew it. She felt almost certain there was something to this particular line of reasoning. She continued to mull over it for a while, and then it hit her; obviously there were all sorts of ways magic appeared to violate the rules of reality she was familiar with, but one stood out above the others; [i]ontology[/i]. Magic had a concept of ontology. 

Her own magic, [Biomancy], worked on biological systems, except biology didn't really exist except as a human construct. Sure, things that are biological exist, at least in the sense that people can describe them as being such, but that's an illusion – one of the neat little boxes we group things into for our own convenience of understanding. In reality, biology is nothing more than an emergent phenomenon of chemistry and physics – a runaway chemical reaction that started self-perpetuating almost four billion years ago. People know what life is, but the universe shouldn’t; not any more than it recognises an aeroplane or a fairy tale. 

And yet the universe does seem to recognise it. And that’s [i]weird[/i]. Really [i]weird[/i]. Possibly even weirder than the universe producing handy little status screens with which to categorise us – which is in itself something that couldn’t be pulled off without some way of recognising what things are and categorising them.

Does that mean that the universe is aware or that there’s some god like driving force behind it? Not necessarily, but certainly a possibility. It’s also possible the recognition comes from somewhere further down the chain; say for example if magic isn’t fundamental to the universe itself but was created by conscious agents, sufficiently advanced technology and all that… or maybe magic draws its understanding from its users or something like a collective consciousness? 

Petra’s mind spins as she thinks about that. That’s already a [i]lot[/i] of different possibilities – each of which would require a completely different approach to dissecting and analysing the field of magic – and even now she’s still thinking of more, not to mention all the countless possibilities that’ll no doubt never even occur to her.

Before Petra’s thoughts can spiral into total madness, she’s pulled out of them by a notification. Oh, right, the other guy. 

[quote][b][code]Contacts: "Down"[/code][/b][/quote][quote= Down][code]Gud news: Magic work. Can Jedi push stuff and shoot swords. Bad: Nose bleed, head hurts. If I hav aneurysm plz w8 48 hrs b4 eating me. Thx.[/code][/quote]
Eat them? Petra’s almost insulted by the idea she might do such a thing. Even if she’s inhabiting the body of a slime now, she definitely wouldn’t consider eating someone unless she was really desperate… then again, examining a human corpse would probably help a lot in her mission to build herself a proper body, and how much progress would she make if she were able to steal human organs wholesale… wait no, bad thoughts. 

Moving swiftly on, Petra focuses her attention on the important details of the message. Her companion seemed to have some kind of force magic – though the term, “Jedi push stuff and shoot swords” left the details frustratingly vague – and they’d also pushed their magic far enough to see side effects, but no far enough to be particularly worrying.

Before Petra could consider the matter further, her thoughts are interrupted yet again, by another message. For the briefest of moments, she's hopeful that it might be a more detailed breakdown of Down’s experiments with magic, but then she realises the message is from Up – not that it isn't detailed, just somewhat less interesting than magic, if important nonetheless. 

[quote][b][code]Contacts: "Up, Down"[/code][/b][/quote][quote= Up][code]The Adventurer’s Guild exists, and Meira, the woman I left with, is part of them. Slimes are categorized as monsters, but are thought of as useful for cleaning up corpses. The city’s name is Neir, the country’s name is Cethaim. King Selm is the top of the hierarchy, and nobles manage territories beneath him. There are no ongoing wars of note. A convenient excuse for our appearance here is a ‘teleportation’ spell. You can make money as a treasure hunter in ‘dungeons’ here or pick up odd jobs as an adventurer, but if both of you finished school, you would likely be able to get a job inside the city.[/code][/quote]
She was classified as a monster? Petra wasn’t quite sure how to feel about that. On the one hand, the idea of worrying about what labels people decided to apply to her while she was stuck in this body felt more than a little silly to her, but at the same time, she really hopped that wouldn’t make things difficult for her. The “useful for cleaning up corpses” addition gave her hope that she wouldn’t be attacked on sight at least.

The rest of the information gathered also seems important and Petra makes sure to commit it to memory as well as she can – just in case her message log automatically deletes itself after some predefined period or something like that - though she isn't sure how applicable it’ll actually be to her, given her slime situation. Were normal slimes even sapient? She was, obviously, but she also clearly didn’t have the neural architecture for it. 

[quote][b][code]Contacts: "Down"[/code][/b][/quote][quote= Me][code]What’s the plan? If your magic is something you can defend yourself with, or your too physically taxed from using it, I think it’d be best to wait for you to recover a bit before we do anything.[/code][/quote][quote= Me][code]Also, if you’re planning on going anywhere, do you think you could carry me around in something? I can’t move very fast like I am right now. 

Also if I’m concidered a monster, even a relatively safe one, maybe it’d be best to keep me hidden? Otherwise you might be able to tell people I’m a summon or familiar or something like that, but without knowing much about magic, that might be ill advised. For all we know summoning magic isn't a thing or entails additional details.[/code][/quote]