Daniel felt a bit sick to his stomach about how the previous scribe had turned to ash. He'd seemed terribly sad, and a bit guilty, but then he hadn't really FORCED the previous scribe to run away like that. In fact, he wasn't sure why the man had bolted and run, which suggested that there was some kind of restriction if you knew that someone WAS the scribe.
"OK, I need to know the rules to this," Daniel said to himself. He had seen the man write a simple declarative statement about the woman whose reality he rewrote. But how did he know her name, or his own name? He looked up at a passerby, and had no sudden clue or insight to tell him who the man was. He looked at the iPad. There was a text entry box, and a stylus in his hand, and the area above the text entry box was a scrolling box which was currently empty except for the phrase "DANIEL HAS JOINED SCRIBE".
* I will know the name of anyone I wish to write about * he scribbled in the 'text entry' box, and then clicked the ENACT button. The text vanished from the entry box and moved into the scrolling box under the previous entry.
The passerby was named Randy Smith. The previous scribe had been named Irving. What a terrible name! But also Randy Smith had to be a pretty common name. What if someone else had that name?
* In case of multiple people with the same name, the Scribe Tool will always select only the one I wish to affect. ENACT * he wrote, with no apparent effect except that the declaration had moved from 'text entry' into the scrolling box, below the previous entry just like before.
"Huh," he muttered. Randy Smith was apparently out exercising, as he was wearing sweatpants and a hooded sweatshirt, and his slightly pudgy face was sweaty; his hair was matted down and he had big patches of sweat darkening the front and back of his shirt.
Daniel decided to try a change to Randy, but he didn't want to be a jerk. The change Irving had made to the woman seemed kind of like a jerk move. He wrote another line: * When I wish, I will know the inner dreams, desires, and wishes, as well as the fears, dislikes, and hatreds of my intended target, as an abstract rather than as an intimate shared feeling. *
He reread it twice. One of the things that he'd seen in his research of the Scribes was a fragmentary warning, in an old scrap of a tale from a decayed book, that said there was a Scribe who had gotten caught up in the needs of his targets and been enslaved by the desires of one of his especially arrogant subjects. At least, that was what he thought it said -- the language was old and obscure and some of the words might have been wrong, on top of the issues of readability.
He clicked * ENACT * and was aware, but not overwhelmed, of the things Randy Smith wanted, and what he was afraid of. He wanted to have a body like his roommate, who was a physique star, but better. He wanted to be a better person, instead of the bitter, self-hating person he was. He feared dying like his father, a sour unhappy man whose wife had left him when their son was eighteen, and left the son as well because he was turning into a copy of his father. The old man had just gotten more and more bitter and finally died of a heart attack at 48 years of age. He even wanted his mother to be happy, not the nearly crushed woman who had left for a "better" man who was becoming just as negative.
Wow. That was a lot of information. Maybe too much. Fixing everything might be dangerous.
* I will know if what I am about to enact will cause a monkey's-paw backfire effect in my life or the connected lives of the person I am changing and their surroundings. ENACT *
No immediate sense of oops. OK. He wrote then: * Randy Smith will experience an immune reaction that will painlessly change his body. Instead of growing fat, he will grow more muscular, stronger, and healthier, up to but not beyond the point where it begins to become an impediment. His appearance will change, with hair, facial structure, and body structure changing gradually to match what he wants to look like. He will grow coordinated and graceful, and his sense of confidence and appreciation of the world will increase so that he will be a positive influence on the lives around him. He will be able to selflessly give love and caring to others, in the best way for them to be helped by it. This change will begin now but will complete within three weeks, after which it will remain a part of him, operating perhaps less quickly but always present. * Nothing felt completely wrong, so he clicked * ENACT * and smiled to himself. Randy had been breathing hard, but he seemed to catch his breath, and instead of walking, began running.
"OK, that didn't hurt. How about Irving. What can I do for Irving?"
He considered for a moment. Undoing death by fiat might not work well because the Scribe power clearly had a drawback that did the change. But he had the 'karma alarm' so it might be possible ...
* Irving changed to ash, but that will be undone now *
Daniel felt an immediate, horrible sense that enacting this would cause a catastrophe. So he drew a line through it, and the words vanished. Immediately he felt better.
* Irving changed to ash, but his ghost, ka, spirit, whatever term applies to the coherent nonmaterial entity containing his memories, persona, and general essence, sans body, survives and remains coherent. * Daniel paused. There was no sense of doom, so far.
* ... This ghost-Irving will be able to appear to me when I call on him, or when it would be to his or my benefit for him to do so. *
That gave a wee twinge of possible doom. * We will be able to speak to one another and hear one another without the need for spoken words. * Slightly more doom. * However, Irving, having died, will have moved on beyond the need for revenge on me. If he has unfinished business that I can accomplish without unduly harming myself or others, he can request it of me, and I can choose whether or not to attempt to help complete it; this does not obligate me and if I refuse or cannot for any reason complete it, then he will accept this and no longer attempt to push it on me. * The sense of doom faded to a bit less than the first twinge. There was still a very slight chance that there would be uncomfortable repercussions, but he also knew he'd feel guilty at not even trying.
* ENACT *
Irving -- the previous Scribe who had owned the device he carried -- appeared transparently in front of him.
'WOAH. Daniel. I ... thank you? That was very generous,' the ghost said. The only thing that Irving found unnerving was that the ghost no longer had orange irises ... he had black pits where his eyes had been.
"I felt bad for you dying just for making a mistake," Daniel replied. "I'm hoping you can tell me a few things, and I can help you to finish up anything you needed to finish."
'I think you're probably a better Scribe than I was,' Irving said. 'What have you written ... oh, that's very good. You have the instincts, man. It took me a month or two before I thought about safeties.'
People wandering past meant that Daniel had to speak 'silently' to the ghost. He hadn't specified that other people could see or hear him, so they walked through where Irving was standing, though most of them apparently avoided it if they could.
'So, are there any rules I should know about this thing?' Daniel asked.
'There are some rules the first Scribe wrote down,' Irving said. 'You will be able to remember these because they're part of the instrument. So. The instrument belongs to the scribe and can only be loaned unless it's abandoned. If abandoned, it can be returned to you by any person that isn't aware you are a Scribe, but if they are, the moment they take it up it becomes theirs. There are exceptions for them not being aware that what they're returning is in fact the instrument, and for them being a scribe with their own instrument. But if the conditions are right, the ownership changes. And all supernatural benefits of being a Scribe that were granted to the original owner, end at that point. That's why I turned to ash -- I was over 400 years old. I had made myself invulnerable and unaging, but that stopped when the ownership changed.'
Irving paced in place, which struck Daniel as a very 'ghost' thing to do. 'The instrument will take whatever form you will it to take. In general you need to write, not type or dictate, but there are exceptions for special situations.'
He made a strange sort of half-smile. 'You cannot change another Scribe without permission. You cannot permanently change yourself in a way that makes you permanently unable to use the instrument. If someone knows you are a scribe they will be aware of any changes you make to their reality. If they can restrain you physically then they can compel you to write what they want, regardless of the cost to you or anyone else. And, sometimes, the instrument will decide that its owner needs to move on and a different Scribe needs to take over.'
Daniel nodded and stood. 'What kinds of change do you suggest for me to do to myself?'
'Oh, there's a number of possibles. You seem like a sensible person so you're not likely to do anything stupid, especially with your Doom Buzzer... I like that, I wish I'd thought of it. Mine was to limit my own power so I wouldn't ... and that made it difficult to adjust the true horrors.'
Daniel stretched, and slipped the iPad into the inside pocket of his coat. 'Thank you for your help. Now, is there anything I can do for you?'