Outer Olympus

Outer Olympus: Chapter 38

Taroh preferred the world to consist of rules that could be understood. As he finished up his second attempt at the prosthetic arm, he could analyze the successes and failings of his previous version, analyze what bits of scientific principles had led to some outcomes, how they could be improved. Jot down diagrams, run theoretical analysis and experiments, solve the puzzles that formed the core of designing a machine.

Rune's mysticism wasn't like this at all. There were no hard rules, equations, deep theoretical basis in logic to draw from, not in the way Rune taught it, just emotions and sensations and descriptions that didn't make any sense. There was no mechanism to adjust the outcome directly and see the results, there seemed to be so little clear logic in what he tried that worked compared to what did not. Even Viola's moderate success completely violated the guidelines Rune had set- coming from leaning into her "true self" or something, rather than being based in proprioception, so there was something wrong there too. If Taroh were to guess, it's that Rune understood one technique to accomplish the desired outcome, but there were other ways to do it, and Rune's understanding of the mechanics was too loose to understand the underlying mechanism of it. That was of course, assuming mysticism did align with Taroh's empirical view of the universe, which was not an assumption that currently had much evidence.

With the arm, he had managed to spend a day figuring out flaws and strengths, and construct something better in less time than the first one had taken him using the knowledge he gained. The new arm was about ten percent lighter, had an additional hour of battery life, and three more gyroscopic sensors to aid in Rune's own proprioception. In the same time spent practicing biokinetic force, Taroh had mostly grown doubtful there was the potential to make progress the way he was going about it. Rune seemed to lose steam on teaching just as quickly as he had grown tired of attempting to learn.

"This looks different," Rune noted as he helped attach the new arm to her, "will this one be more durable?" She winced as the painful shock of neural connection commenced.

"Not if you do whatever you did to the last one. When I took a look, all of the metal was corroded from the inside out. Not even anything worth salvaging," he explained, chuckling a little. "Really, what did you do?"

"Charged with psychic electricity, so I could parry Hope's psyblade," she explained. "Was hoping I could keep it around for like, psychic punches for a while, but I guess not."

"Well, if you directly charged it with electricity, you're lucky the battery didn't explode. Could have lost most of your torso." Rune looked horrified.

"You put something explosive in my arm?" she asked, and Geode shrugged innocently.

"It's a battery. You want something technological to move, it needs a battery or a generator. It'll only explode if something dumps more electricity directly into it, which will never happen in normal use, unless you randomly electrocute your own limb for some reason."

"Noted. Don't do this again unless I want to explode," Rune said, "I was hoping with time I could make it a big lightning fist, but I'll settle for reliably having an arm."

"Arms are useful," Taroh agreed, then stared at the mechanical fingers as they moved. There wasn't the discomfort and awkwardness that had been there when she tried the first arm, as soon as the connection was in place it was as if it was a natural part of her body. "How does it work with all your magic stuff? Having a metal arm?"

"Other than me nearly accidentally exploding?" Rune replied with a smirk. "It's not about flesh and blood versus metal, really. Magic," she paused, frowning, "you've got me doing it. Mysticism. Psionics. Not magic." Taroh in no way saw a distinction and found the insistence that there was one frustrating. People cared so much about the words they used and never explained why. He'd ask Viola about it, she understood words. "Your body is, mystically speaking, what you consider yourself to be. It was weird at first, getting used to it, but it didn't take much time to think of myself as having a mechanical arm."