Story: Learn how to soften hardened mud

  Requirements:

  

  
• a comfortable spot to sit


  
• a supply of water


  
• one clump of premium mud


  

  Acceptance Criteria:

  

  
• one functioning mud cloak


  

  Bob ran down the list:

  

  
• An uncomfortable spot to sit - check


  
• A supply of water - I'm sitting in a puddle


  
• One clump of premium mud - give me two secs


  

  Bob opened up the system shop. It was a comfort to know he had the interverse's premier marketplace at his fingertips. He could sit here for years and never want for food or materials. The power of being connected.

  A dollop of warm mud splattered down in front of him. Because yes, you could buy mud on the system shop (of course!). And yes, Bob had gone for a high-grade, volcanic ash mud, sourced from Lake Myvatn in northern Iceland. Only the best. "Ah, just get a whiff of those earthy tones." It was a deep black color, smooth and fine, almost silky. "A beautiful mud, if I do say so myself." He rolled the mud into a perfect sphere.

  "A pleasure, Lady Mud Sphere, a real pleasure to make your acquaintance. I've heard so many things. Now if I may..."

  Bob let his awareness bleed into the mud. He penetrated deep in her core. The lady blushed brown. He was not a gentlemen about it. He was a connoisseur after all.

  See mud isn't one thing, no, no, no, it's not water or iron. Mud is a categorical term: a semi-fluid mixture of water and fine particulate matter. Now your average forest mud puddle is composed of soil, silt, clay, maybe a spattering of organic matter, but our Lady Mud Sphere was something else. Suspended inside her were tiny shards of glass, little fragments of crystal, and solidified lava dotted with frozen bubbles. She was a beauty now, our Lady Miss Mud Sphere.

  Bob poked around. Just getting the lay of the land. Lady Mud Sphere squirmed helplessly. Now for some reason mud-bending always gets a bad rep (heaven knows why). In truth, it is rather an enlightened and philosophical exercise. Because what does it mean to control the mud? No I'm not being pedantic. Mud is a composite. So what did Bob actually control? The solvent (water)? The solute (fine particles)? Or the solution itself (the mud)?

  Time to put it to the test: "Prepare yourself, Lady Mud Sphere."

  I'm not ready, please have mercy.

  "Commit yourself to the system. To the mud father, the mud son, and the holy mud. Out of the mud are we taken and unto to mud must we return."

  Mud father protect me.

  Bob's hand pulsed with invisible power. Mana coursed into Lady Mud Sphere as Bob attempted to will the water out of her. Nothing happened. He had banged up against the principles of magic. He could shape and form his mana in any way he could coherently imagine. But he had to understand the method.

  "Very well. You have forced my hand. Remember I never wanted any of this." Bob unsheathed his trusty comb.

  Mud son have mercy.

  Water molecules were many, many times smaller than the particles suspended within them. Bob narrowed his comb's teeth.

  "You did this to yourself."

  He swiped the mental comb at Lady Mud Sphere. The water passed easily through the comb, but the fine particles were trapped in the teeth and dragged along. The mud instantly dissociated. On one side a pile of black ash. On the other a stream of water dripping through the cracks in Bob's fingers.

  Lady Mud Sphere was no more. She had returned to the holy mud. So that had sort of worked? Kinda. But it definitely wasn't Harry's method. For one, it was an all-or-nothing operation, mud or no mud. For another, there was this awkward water side-product business. Bob didn't remember water spilling out of Harry every time he hardened.

  Was Bob going in the wrong direction here? He was being too blunt-object, wasn't he? Not to mention the sky-high mana expenditure required to physically rip the particles out of their happy union. Bob had to think like a scientist. Science is a hunter's game. Ninety-nine percent of the job is setting up a situation where nature does your work for you.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Bob tapped his chin and considered. How would a non-mud magician (a muddle) go about baking a mud brick? You could just leave it out in the sun a couple days. That'd do it. And how did that work? Well the water would slowly evaporate away, letting the suspended particles gradually gather together into rigid, energy-efficient structures.

  Bob required more experimental subjects, cough, volunteers. Another mud-gloop fell down from the sky.

  “Baroness Mud Sphere, welcome to my humble laboratory.”

  "What does MQA stand for, you ask?"

  “You don’t need to know that, Miss Baroness. You have nothing to worry about. We are very humane in our treatment of mud here."

  “What? The Mud Quarantine and Annihilation Authority—who told you that name? Lies.”

  "What’s that smear of black ash on my hand? Well, I…” Bob wiped away his hand. “I might have burned my toast this morning. It’s nothing.”

  "Stop with the questions. I am the mud scientist here. I shall be asking the questions.”

  "Don’t bother screaming. No one can save you from the Mud Scientist."

  Bob reformulated his water comb into a spherical (and evil) net, with which he encircled the poor, trembling Baroness. He flicked the mana switch. Mana pulsed into her helpless body. Mana that turned into energy, that turned into heat. The mud started to buzz with energy. Particles jittered around, flying this way and that. When a water molecule came to the netting, it passed straight through, shedding off and flowing out, but the suspended particles couldn't pass through and bounced back. Bob started to slowly squeeze the net, forcing the mud to shrink and fill up empty spaces left by the water. Crack.

  Baroness Mud Sphere was... alive (barely). Bob Brown, Mud Scientist of the Mud Quarantine and Annihilation Authority grinned to himself. The crack was unfortunate. A result of uneven pressure and unskillful application. But the results spoke for themselves. He held within his hand a mud brick sphere. The trick was not to completely drain the water content. To leave just enough that the system (grudgingly) considered the sphere as mud. And thus under the authority of the mud magician.

  Good job, Bob. Story completed. An MQA triumph.

  Er... Bob hate to be the bearer of bad news, but are you sure you properly read the ticket description?

  Yeah, learn how to harden mud.

  

  Task: Learn how to soften hardened mud

  Yes, Bob had misread the ticket (damn misleading phrasing). You'd be surprised how frequently this happens. Not just to Bob, but to all people in all places. Yes, you'd be surprised how many mistakes come from not reading a thing properly. Say reading innuendos into perfectly innocent piece of fiction (shame on you!).

  Softening hardened mud sounded a good deal harder than hardening softened mud. Or was it softer? Very well then. He required a test subject. He needed a zero-water content mud brick (c.f. Harry). "My apologies, Baroness. For the Mud." Bob squeezed out the last drop of waters. Baroness Mud Sphere was no more. The mud had gone out of her.

  How do you turn a hardened mud sphere into living mud? Ah yes Bob, the immortal question: how do you bring back the dead? Bob tried dipping the corpse into the water. The water made a passing attempt to get inside. Maybe if he left her there for two or three days, she might have gotten soggy enough for the system to identify it as mud. That was no good. Bob would have to force the problem. "Give me my comb!" Bob made to slash water into the mud sphere.

  It didn't work.

  And it didn't work in a way he hadn't expected. His mental mana-comb literally didn't affect the water. It passed straight through. And yet he had no problem combing water inside the mud. Inside the mud. Bob always knew he was a philosopher at heart. Bob had plumbed the secrets of Authority.

  Another grand law Bob? Already? We haven't finished carving the old ones onto stone tablets.

  

  The Law of Authority: authority defines what mana can interact with

  Bob had no authority over pure water, so his mana couldn't interact with it.

  Well laws are made to be loopholed. And like he always said, back to the mud.

  "Welcome, Marquise Mud Sphere. I think you'll find your accommodations comfortable."

  Bob didn't wait for an imagined response. Instead he seized control of the Marquise's body. He forced her to wrap herself around the Baroness's hardened corpse and then he submerged them both into the puddle. And no, this isn't an exotic form of torture. This is mud-science (is there a difference to your average mud-joe?).

  Bob had an idea. One-way valves. You can think of them as funnels. The king of shapes. A one-way water net around the Marquise and another around the Baroness. Water could only flow into the Marquise from the puddle and into the Baroness from the Marquise. And now for Bob's favorite part, "Igor flick the switch!"

  Mana sparked through the Marquise. It was too much. She started to bubble and steam. There was no holding back. The water inside her boiled, desperate to expand and spread out. Only one road was open and it lead straight into the corpse of the Baroness. The water cut through the solidified mud, dissolving bonds and freeing up mud particles. Water from the puddle was sucked inside the Marquise as nature fought to balance the water vacuum. It was over in less than a second.

  "It's alive!" Bob had done it. "Behold my masterpiece. The dead returned to the living."

  The monster opened its eyes and stared at him. It was the Dark Baroness.

  "What have I done? What have I created?"

  The mud twitched at him. Bob slashed his mental comb through the abomination. Both Baroness and Marquise crumbled into ashes. Back to the mud with you. By order of the Mud Quarantine and Annihilation Authority.