The Law of Universal Gravitation
«I got a very strange world,» said Roroku.
«I hope it is strange in a pleasant way,» I replied.
«This one is strange in an it-doesn’t-matter way,» she told me. «Most worlds have gravity, you know.»
«Quel Quen listed “missing gravity” as one of the reasons why a world might be useless. Mostly worlds without gravity are just formless and fruitless clouds of gas.»
«Kyspert, it turns out, does not have gravity.»
«Kyspert, is all over floating islands. But I thought things fell down if you dropped them — down being “towards the Boiling Ocean”?» I asked.
«There are three celestial bodies on the outside top of the world which exert a strong repulsive force. Objects do not “fall down”, they are pushed away from Up. I am brilliant with analysis spells! I can see how the direction that things fall varies slightly from place to place, as the distances and angles to the repulsors changes! They fall a touch more slowly near the Boiling Ocean, which is to say, far from the repulsors! If one ascends to the top of the heavens, the repulsive forces are very strong, and clearly push at one in three directions. It is not comfortable, especially when one has used makeshift sorceries to fly and live in a vacuum.»
«That’s quite odd,» I said. «I’ve only been on worlds with normal gravity.» (Later, of course, Quel Quen told me of the gravitic differences between Basic Balls like Mhel, where things are on the outside of the ball-shaped world, and fall towards the center of the ball, and Typical Toroids like Hove, where things are on the hollow inside of the torus, and fall towards the torus walls. There are choices far weirder than Kysp, too.)
«And the levity pods that hold things up, convert some of the repulsive pressure of the repulsors into heat or twinkly light. I am going to train generations of kysp scientists until they can figure out how that works,» said Roroku.
«You’ve run into the limits of your analysis magic?» I asked, with a polite degree of dominance contesting and challenge.
«The limits of my patience! I would rather enjoy my new world than be forever poking at the fine points.» Which is to say “yes”.
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