Entry #11, Day 85
My acting physician has demanded that I make this entry, after I myself had become the victim of one of my own spells. Namely, the spell Prestidigitonium. Thus, this entry will be a continuation of my previous entry on the subject, dealing with the dangers and risks of using powerful instances of Prestidigitonium, such as my own personal variant, the Chimera Wing spell.
The Chimera Wing variant spell is one in which I use Prestidigitonium to launch myself, and a list of chosen targets in an arc towards a location of my choosing, while locking myself in armor to help prevent my limbs from being harmed by the intense recoil forces created when the spell is cast, as, to reiterate, Telekinesis and Prestidigitonium will invariably apply forces to the body of their caster, in order to apply forces to the objects they are choosing to move.
This leads to situations in which, by lifting or throwing a sufficiently heavy object, you can instantly injure yourself. Now, needless to say, readers of this tome are unlikely to be doing something as unreasonable as flinging a boat several miles away, but if they were to do so, they would find themselves with every bone in their body cracked in an instant. The recoil force required to launch a heavy object a long distance is too much for a unicorn's body to take, without some form of extreme durability enhancements.
Earth Ponies and Pegusi have advantages that would in theory make them more suitable subjects for levitation magic, as their durability is naturally greater, but, for now, that is a moot point. A pony's body is naturally strengthened by several magical factors, from the amount of magical energy they have inside them at a given moment, to the amount of microspells they have cast on themselves, magical spells that a pony casts without even being aware of it, from minor feelings paired with minor desires, such as a pony desiring to pick up an object, and thus picking it up.
A Unicorn's body, meanwhile, has very few microspells associated with durability, leaving them ironically unsuited for one of their signature spells, although in most cases, Telekinesis requires too much power for a unicorn to cast it powerfully enough to risk harming their body, Prestidigitonium has no such compunctions, as it focuses the force it emits into an extremely brief timespan, making it especially capable of accidentally causing injury, especially when the user is frustrated, and thus, may be more careless.
Thus, for any aspiring mages who plan on following in my footsteps regarding this spell, I strongly recommend that enchanted items be used instead of casting the spell directly for large scale applications, unless of course, the caster has an even greater mastery of the spell than myself. A relic made of strong substances could bear the brunt of the spell, allowing it to launch the user's chosen targets, destroying the relic, but allowing a free casting of the spell.
In theory, if a unicorn were to cast the spell in such a way that all of the forces they emit equalized themselves, then no harm would occur. This is obviously true when Prestidigitonium is used to create fire, as no amount of raw, undirected force used to create the flames causes any harm to the caster, as the forces applied to their body are all perfectly equalized. In that same respect, if the caster emitted multiple vectors of force, each perfectly calculated to result in a neutral recoil thrown back onto the caster's entire body, then no harm would occur, regardless of the spell's intensity and power.
However, such a skill is beyond even me. Tests that I have performed imply that failing to do so would be even more devastating than taking the blow directly, as any misalignment would cause the forces to twist the caster's body, instead of merely pressuring them. There are few things more dangerous to a living thing than a twist in the wrong place, with more force than a body can take. Ergo, I cannot suggest attempting to use the spell in that fashion, unless the user knew of a way to negate the risk of harm that emerges from a failure to align the vectors of force perfectly.
More importantly, such a method of protection would have to be an internal one. I attempted using external bindings to protect my body from the worst of the effects of Prestidigitonium, however, it was mostly ineffective, the internal damage still taking place, although my limbs were bound to prevent them being pulled out of their sockets, or worse. Ultimately, physical means are unlikely to work for enhancing one's durability. Unless they could turn their bones to metal or something else strong. A pointless statement to make at present, considering there are no safe methods to do that.
In the end, even now I write this entry in traction, recovering from the intense damage caused by misusing magic. I pray no others suffer a similar fate.
As an aside, the same should be said of Black Flame, to a much lesser degree. While I wasn't directly harmed, I have discovered that the heat Black Flame creates can cause heatstroke indirectly, if you surround yourself completely in the flames, much like a greenhouse, or an oven. Something which, having learned my lesson, will now prompt me to include ventilation holes in large scale instances of casting forth the flames of hatred, if only to provide a nice backdraft for cooling purposes.
These past weeks, I have been humbled by the power I sought to wield, and I will strive to retain the caution this has inspired in me. I urge readers of this tome to share in my caution, and carefully consider the indirect consequences of powerful magic, should they be so lucky as to acquire a magic of supreme potency.
I suppose if I start enchanting items with the Chimera Wing Spell, I should call them suitably appropriate. Maybe Hearthstones? That might enrage the Duel Monster's crowd, though...
I wouldn't call em hearthstones, I'd save that for something that can teleport to you to one location only, can't think of a better name though.
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I considered "Escape Ropes", since they take you to the nearest entrance, but it doesn't parse well as a pokemon reference.
RIP bones
I'm really liking and appreciating the consistency, quality, and quantity of chapters. I'd say keep it up, but I really don't want to jinx it. Thank you so much for the writing, it's a blast to read.
It appears you're trying to characterize Prestidigitonium as obeying Newton's 3rd law, where a force applied to an object is equal and opposite the force applied to another object. Based on the text it seems to only pay lip service to Newton's 3rd law, so if the spell is intended to follow Newton's 3rd law, there are some things that are confusing me. This is assuming Weiss is speaking authoritatively about the spell and has a complete understanding.
A few important quotes:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Quote 1 implies the spell is like a brick wall. Quotes 3 and 5 sorta imply this as well but not quite. If the forces are applied to the caster on the windward side of their body, it would be like hitting a brick wall at a speed relative to how heavy the launched object is and how fast it's launched.
Quote 2 and quote 3 disagree with each other. Quote 2 says that launching two objects away from each other will cancel out the effect. Because it did not say that attempting to cancel the force would crush the caster's body, it's evident the brick wall effect is created by the sum of forces then applied to the body. Since that's the case, any attempt to cancel the original force, no matter how small, will diminish the brick wall effect, and precision isn't even that important. If the caster can find two objects of roughly the same mass and attempt to accelerate them in opposite directions with about the same acceleration, then the brick wall effect is massively diminished.
Quote 3 doesn't make sense in a newtonian environment. Forces are added to each other, and the resultant force of 2 almost-equal almost-opposite forces is much, much smaller than the originals. Depending on the precision, it would be as if the caster used the spell to launch something much smaller or much slower in a different direction.
Quote 4 doesn't make sense. If the spell creates a moment on the caster's body, then the caster would cartwheel any time they attempted to fling an object they aren't in line with the force they are trying to impart, creating a moment arm. Based on times weiss has used the spell and he hasn't been spun around from it, this quote isn't supported.
Quote 5 talks about the limbs being pulled out of their sockets. This doesn't make sense given the brick wall effect. Brick walls have a hard time pulling.
The brick wall effect is just one of several possibilities I considered for how the spell might affect the caster. Other possibilites were supported by some quotes but not others, and given the way the spell is used in the story, it was the most plausible I could think of. My 2nd choice was force applied evenly across the body, in which case the only time they would actually take damage is if they were literally forced into the ground, but weiss's velocity didn't seem to be particularly affected by the spell when launching things.
Which brings me to affecting his velocity with Chimera Wing. If Prestidigitonium works the way I've described, and Chimera Wings is Prestidigitonium applied to the caster, then when used, the caster will feel like they are hitting a brick wall in the same direction of the launch.
Once again, this is all assuming Newton's 3rd law. If the spell is only paying lip service to it like the timeshift crystals, then by all means.
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The way the forces are applied to the user is selective, and require deliberate choice and focus.
Brick Walling isn't the main reason it causes harm, but rather, internal brick walling. If you apply X newtons of force to one part of your body, but don't apply that EXACT same amount of force to other parts of your body, then a problem occurs.
Like, say, if only half of your bone recieved a certain force vector, but the rest of the bone recieved a slightly different force vector.
Vectors are easier to normalize with the spell when you are pushing or pulling an object towards or away from you. In any circumstance where you aren't, the spinning would occur as the forces applied can become unbalanced when you're trying to apply the recoil to yourself.
The main problems with the spell stop occurring when you can perfectly distribute the forces applied. And when you can't, you have several parts of your body suddenly moving at different speeds, or worse, different directions.
The stronger the spell, the more precision is required to avoid injury. A spell like Chimera wing, which launches multiple objects in a direction that isn't towards or away from Weiss, while also applying force to the ground to make Weiss fly along with them from recoil (As the spell cannot be used directly on the user, and they can only be moved from recoil).
Applied forces that Weiss chose to distribute among his non-critical bones, since those are the ideal body parts to recieve strong forces without potentially killing him, where if he had chosen to distribute the recoil among his soft parts, it's very likely that they would be torn or ripped free.
Much more importantly, Weiss has NEVER used Prestidigitonium on an object larger than a book before now, so no recoil would be meaningfully noticeably in the story.
In short, the way forces from Prestidigitonium are distributed are chosen by the caster, but skill is required to perfectly distribute it in complex situations. The main exception being when it is used to create heat.
Does that help?
*EDIT
What Weiss felt when casting the spell was his bones having a variety of uneven forces applied to them in one roughly general direction, this asynchronous gradient of vectors is what cracked them.
I'd have worried more about organ pulping than bone cracking. Good thing this is based on a cartoon- Very few internal injuries!
Given that the recoil just has to be accounted for- could he throw a boat(or other disproportionately massive object) in one direction and a cannonball in another? Really milk that equal and opposite reaction for raw kinetic force!
Maybe he should rename the spell 'Scroll of Icarrian Flight'.
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He said that it's theoretically possible, but you have to make sure the vectors are actually balanced, not mostly balanced.