"Hey, Caz, did you see the news?" asked Lance. "That new Crown Prince is going to be studying magic in the CSSA. They're probably hiding him somewhere after the assassination attempt."
"Oh, definitely," said Gwen, joining in. "It's a shame, though. He seemed kinda cute."
"Gold digger."
In the week since Caspian's duel with Elisabeth and the attempted assassination of King Uther, Caspian, Lance, and Gwen had become fast friends—though Caspian was sure the pair would have become friends any way around.
I'm just along for the ride.
Still…
…it's nice having friends.
"Hey now, you two," said Caspian, joining the fray with a laugh. "Class is about to start, and I for one would like to be able to get through a lecture without busting my gut at your antics."
"Ouch, man, way to be a killjoy!"
The trio shared two classes: Principles of Magic and Fundamentals of Runic Engineering. These were part of the first-year general magic education track which all students took before choosing a research focus and being assigned a supervising professor. The latter course was about to begin, as indicated by the professor—a short man with eccentric hair—scurrying through the door and dropping his reference materials on the lectern, setting a chunky briefcase down beside it.
"Alright, everyone!" he shouted, establishing his presence. "Let's settle down and begin our discussion for today. I apologize for my tardiness, but I had to pick something up from Research and Development. This—"
The professor reached into the briefcase and pulled out a circular, concave piece of metal, about the size and thickness of a dinner plate before continuing.
"—is a mock-up of a military-grade personal shield generator," he said. "This model has been in mass-production for the last year and is the first of its kind. It was invented here, you know, by a Student Research Group in the runic engineering department. Today, we'll be dissecting this prototype in order to understand how it works. I have about twenty of these for us to look at, so form groups with your neighbors and send someone down here to get a sample."
Lance looked at Caspian and Gwen, who both smiled and nodded, and rushed down to the lectern.
"That was quick," remarked the professor, handing him a shield generator. "Here you go."
He returned to his seat with the lightweight disc-shaped object; now that he was holding it, Lance could tell that it was actually a durable plastic which only resembled metal superficially.
"It's hard to believe that something so light is an advanced piece of runic technology," he commented. "It feels like it'd break if I activated it."
"I think you'll be surprised once you open it," said Caspian. "I've taken a peek under the hood of one of these, though only once and for a short while. They're incredibly complex."
"Well, let's get started, then!"
As Gwen and Lance began the disassembly, a thought occurred to Caspian.
"You're both from military families, aren't you?"
"Well, yeah," said Gwen. "Where'd that come from?"
"Well, I was thinking, it's unusual that neither of you have seen one of these before."
"Ah, yeah, well—" began Lance, "see, I'm a little late to grad school. After secondary school, my parents said that I had to complete a tour overseas in order to continue my education. They said it'd give me more appreciation for my studies. So I've been at university ever since, and never got a chance to try the generators when they were released."
He propped open the back of the prototype, wiping his palms on his pant legs.
"What about you, Gwen?" asked Lance.
"I'd like to say 'Same!', but really my reason is totally different," she answered. "My father was insistent upon training without a shield, so that I'd never come to rely on one. Of course, I know how to fight a shielded enemy, but I've never used one personally."
"Well, would you like to take a look at one?" asked Caspian, gesturing to the device open before them.
The basic concept of Shield Magic had remained unchanged for nearly one hundred years: use the force of the projectile as the activation energy for a magic spell which would dissolve the projectile itself into harmless elemental gases. It was in the application of this principle where a hundred year of innovation was evident, as the methods used to detect projectiles and activate the shield magic had changed drastically.
The first form of shield magic was a chanted spell provided by Lord Ravensleigh: "Onixdar arvin pax gigpah gemeganza," which has remained a constant in magic curricula around the world. However, there are two drawbacks to such an approach; firstly, the magic is only active while the chant is repeated, which therefore depends on the caster's constitution and their ability to remain graceful under pressure.
Secondly, the magic is incredibly simple, to the point of being dangerous if used incorrectly. It was not, as they say, fool-proof. The elementary chants created by Ravensleigh tended to share this defect, which is why so many nation-states dedicated a large portion of their national budget to magical research and development.
In the 1960s, researchers in the newly-formed Coalition of Sovereign States of America had a breakthrough: they had managed to use simple runes to direct the flow of energy in such a way as to create another magic rune out of said energy; these were known as virtual runes, since they did not physically exist, while the physical runes that created them were known as complex runes.
The development of virtual and complex runes rapidly advanced the industry of magical technology. As the runes more and more resembled the integrated circuits of computers, so too did their effects become more complex: where an Ravensleigh rune might generate a fireball when stepped on, a virtual rune could be used to detect and distinguish between phenomena and even activate a separate rune depending on the type of detection.
This connection with computers was solidified once researchers demonstrated that it was possible to control a rune with an electric current.
However, there was one major distinction between computers and complex runes: the hypothesized magic field was not as easy to measure as an electromagnetic field. In fact, the only way to observe its effects was through trial and error, creating a rune and testing to determine its effects. Due to this limitation, innovation of complex runes slowed in the 1980s, as building 'new' magical technology was essentially a shot in the dark.
This meant that there was both a hard limit on the types of technology that could be created with runes, as well as an immense pressure to discover new runic symbols with useful functions.
"Here, look," said Caspian, pointing to four small, coin-shaped batteries arranged in a square just below the center of the shield generator. "Those batteries supply the standing power required for the detection rune."
"Detection rune?"
"Yeah, this one, here," he said, indicating what looked like a bulky metal circle directly above the batteries. "If you look closely, you can see some of the runes carved into it, but they're very small. This unit is responsible for detecting projectiles which come within a certain range of the user."
"How does it do that?" asked Lance. "My first thought would be that it would just detect movement, but if it's attached to a person, well, it would get confused whenever the person walks around."
"Does it compare different rates of movement?" asked Gwen. "It could work, but it'd also be a lot of points to check, since volume increases exponentially with surface area.
"Right on," Caspian answered. "It checks the rate of movement of every point along the edge of a sphere surrounding the user and takes the average. It then checks to see if the material at any point is moving significantly faster than the average, and if so, sends those coordinates to the shield rune."
"Ah, the shield rune is that one behind the detection rune, right?" asked Lance, who was excited to be finally understanding some magical technology.
"Right again!"
"…and because it's only checking the edge of the sphere, it doesn't have to worry about calculation speed," Gwen concluded. "That's brilliant! Could you make something like this, Caspian?"
He laughed softly.
"Possibly, yes," he admitted. "This kind of thing just comes naturally to me. I can't explain it."
A small fib: he didn't want to explain why magic was second nature to him.
"Do you think I could learn?" asked Lance, his eyes shining with genuine curiosity.
"I don't see why not," Caspian answered. "Most subjects can be learned, if approached with enough time and dedication. Do you want to?"
"Honestly? I don't know," he said. "I've always assumed that I'd go back into the military after this, maybe a rank or two higher, but I've got to admit—this stuff is fascinating."
"Hey, hey, hey! I have an idea!" exclaimed Gwen. "Why don't we form a Research Group? You know, like the ones the professor was talking about? The ones that invented this tech?"
Caspian was intrigued by this idea.
This could be worked into my plans, he thought.
"What would we study, though?" he asked.
"Anything we want! Runic technology, strategies for different grades of magic-accelerated militaries, the social impact of magic on Britannia, you name it!"
Caspian looked to Lance.
"What do you think?"
"I'm down!" came the reply.
Caspian smiled.
"Well, then, let's do it!"