Chapter 153
Part 23
“Anyway, I stopped doing that because humanoid food tastes like garbage in my dragon mouth. I’ve
Read Fire about it so I know it’s not supposed to taste like that, but I can’t think of a way to fix it, so I’ve
just been Sending it out to sea for the fishes to eat. I can always Read one of you for it if I really want to
know what something’s supposed to taste like.”
“Ingenious.” Six grinned. “And by the way you crazy dragon, I love you too. You’re the brother of my
heart.”
“Brother of my heart.” Karz agreed with a grin as he reached over, and the two sped forearms in
loving camaraderie.
“Good morning.” Mark psionicly called. “Would you meet us in Backyard Valley please?”
Rather than reply, the children just Translocated there.
“You’re a bit early.” Sixmented as they met all five of their parents and exchanged hugs.
“I hope your wedding night went well?” Val giggled as she hugged her mother.
“Very, very well, thank you!” Mark dered, and blushed a bright pink as he remembered, and his
wives merely giggled.
“But I wanted to get here early to be sure I had time to get the Manifestations spell down solid before
everyone gets here.”
“Oh. Well here’s the spell, let me run you through the parts.” Val said as she closed her eyes in
concentration.
“Wow!” Mark marveled as he received her Link and the spell. “That’s a lot of spell!”
“You bet.” Fire proudly agreed. “It’s a god-level spell, and we sure could never have got it without the
big brainstorm.”
“Okay, it’s all automatic, you just use this initiator to start it and the rest of it casts itself, but I think it’s
better for you to understand everything it does first.” Val noted as she mentally indicated the
reallyplete, it even includes your clothes and any mundane items you’re wearing. This prompts
you to decide where the copy of you is going to appear, and if it’s not in your line of sight then you’ll
need a Translocation Reference for the location to be sure you have it exactly. This checks to make
sure the volume where you’ll appear is clear of solid material. This analyzes the area around there for
about a kilometer in every direction, and farther if necessary, to find material to make the new you out
of. This gathers the material out of the air, water and nts in that area. Remember, this isn’t going to
be a Simcrum made out of energy, this’ll be a flesh-and blood copy of you. This actually makes the
new you. This copies your mind into it. This little bit here tells the copy that it’s a copy, it gives your
copies a minor Compulsion to rejoin the original whenever it’s practical, and it gives them a bad feeling
if they ever think about not re-joining the original eventually. This sets up a Link between them to share
memories when they sleep. This checks everything to make sure that the copy is exact, and cancels
everything if something’s gone wrong. This is the ending sequence, it does a final exchange of
memories with the original and disperses the copy back into a very big volume around it as fine
particles of basic material.
“Of course if you want you can just Link with yourself at any time to exchange memories or
Contentt bel0ngs to N0ve/lDra/ma.O(r)g!
“Wow.” he marveled again. “Aplexpound automated spell made out ofplexpound
automated spells. This is just staggering in itsplexity.”
“Thanks.” Fire smugly grinned.
“It won’t matter in the time-bubble,” Mark mused, “But you probably want to remember not to decide to
make a copy of yourself out in the void somewhere. There’d be no materials there to make the copy out
of.”
“It would still work eventually, but it might take a few seconds, or even a few minutes if it was a really
big, really empty volume of void.” Six told him. “But the spell would just keep expanding the volume it
was examining until it found enough materials. It’d take a lot of power too, but that doesn’t matter
because the spell’s self-powering; it casts it’s own collection fields for the Source and the warlock’s
Source. If the void was a really long way from the sun or you were eclipsed by a big world, that would
also add a lot of extra time for power collection. But the basic materials that we’re made out of are
actually prettymon among all the stuff that’s floating around out there.”
“Wow. That really is just amazing.” Povon marveled as she followed what they were thinking.
“Remember,” Val cautioned, “If you make one copy of yourself I can guarantee that they’ll be exactly
identical as far as any examination could tell. I’m pretty sure the gods couldn’t tell them apart, except
for the part that tells the copy that it’s a copy.
“But one of the rules of reality is; nothing is absolutely perfect. Down in the tiny parts of the tiny parts of
the tiniest parts of you, there’s bound to be some tiny w. So if the copy of you made a copy of you
who made another copy of you, and they kept going, eventually something will go wrong as the ws
umte. I’m pretty confident that you’d have to copy the copies thousands of times before there
was a noticeable difference, but who knows? It could happen from as few as ten repetitions. So make
as many copies of the original as you want, but not copies of copies.”
“I doubt I can even learn that spell exactly enough to rely on it.” Kragorrammented. “It may cast
itself, but you still need to memorize it.”
“And just as well that it’s so difficult.” Povon dered. “Several of theponents are extremely
dangerous. For instance, the part that disperses the copy is basically a frightening Disintegration spell,
and there’s no reason why it couldn’t be used separately by those who are capable of doing so. Luckily,
there’s probably no more than forty spell-casters who could do it.
“And if any of you ever even think about putting any spell of that level into an item in castable form, I
will personally spank you.”
“Yes Mother.” Karzog replied with just a trace of a bemused smile.
“Okay, I’ll give it a try.” Mark decided as he mentally rehearsed it one more time. “If everything goes
fine, I’ll give it to you girls to try.” he added to his wives.
He concentrated a moment, and then there were two of him.
They both looked at each other and simultaneously stated; “Damn this is just too…” They both paused,
chuckled identically, and continued together; “Strange. I suppose we could both stand here saying; ‘Go
ahead, no you go ahead’, but this seems to have worked, and I have to end this before I lose my
marbles.”
The copy of him disappeared, and he shook his head. “Too weird.” he dered.
“Well done, Father.” Val told him. “I couldn’t have done that any better myself. And it was brave of you
to try such aplex, untested spell.
“Thanks.” he chuckled.
“All rightdies, here you go.” he said as he Set the spell into Talia and Alilia’s minds.
“Well, I shall most definitely decide before casting that my original will speak, and my copy will defer.”
Alilia dered with augh, and cast.
She stared at herself for a moment, and the original of her dered; “You are entirely correct. This is
too damn strange indeed. But it seems to work just fine.”
Her copy disappeared just as Talia’s appeared.
“Yup, strange as a three-headed cat, but working fine.” she reported as she stared at herself, then
dismissed her copy.
“Okay.” Mark decided. “Since the me that’ll be here will be making copies of me and the me that’s
outside the time-bubble won’t, I’ll leave my original here when they close the bubble and send a copy of
me to Hilia to carry on in the outside world.”
“Then we’ll do the same.” Talia agreed, and told her children; “We’ll meet you at the cottage after the
bubble closes.”
“I tell you, I’m never going to make a copy of me in the same ce again, it’s just too weird” Mark
dered. “Especially after you re-integrate and you’re left with two memories of what just happened
with two slightly different points of view. From now on I’ll only make copies of me somewhere out of
sight of the original.”
“Good thinking.” Alilia agreed. “I found it rather disconcerting as well.”