Fantasy RPG Forum - Standing Trials

Padraig had spent all of Saun observing a sky where night never fell. The one sun Idalos was accustomed to seeing all the arc through save for one season, was always there doing what it ought to, while the world revolved around it and seemed also to turn on an unseen axis. But a second sun? Relentlessly it had beaten down on mortality, its rays subjecting every living creature to a punishing and nearly intolerable heat. He'd observed through his telescope, through a lens of his own creation that allowed him to gaze directly at the suns without blinding himself in the process. He'd watched the shadow play on the ground as each sun traveled across the sky, and he'd marked and measured their progression courtesy a number of wooden stakes that he'd placed in the ground. He'd enlisted the help of friends and family to record each movement, each shifting shadow. As a result, he'd been able to form a working hypothesis about the shape and size of Idalos, the moons, each of the suns, and how each celestial body moved with and interacted with the others.

Now was the moment of truth. But now he wondered, was he any closer to the truth than when he had started? Padraig had found plenty of answers. But in the process, each answer had seemed to bring yet another question or mystery with it. Another fledgling scholar, astronomer, might have come to view the whole exercise as a failure. But not Padraig. New mysteries simply meant there was much more out there to discover than he'd previously believed there was. The universe was vast. It would have been disappointing in fact to think that he'd learned all there was to know about it in a single season. He didn't consider his findings to have been a failure. But he wasn't sure if professor Dashiell would feel the same.

Who knew how she'd respond? He sat and waited after all, and witnessed his fellow students emerging from the office shaken and in some instances, crestfallen. But when he was called on, Padraig grabbed his satchel full of papers and the case containing the model that he and Faith had made together. The professor didn't stand much on ceremony, and skipped the pleasantries entirely. So smiling just a little, he lifted the larger case and sat it on a nearby table. "I understand that a visual, a prop," he admitted, "may seem superfluous. A distraction. I felt that way myself when I began recording my findings. But ultimately, because my research included a number of bodies and how they might interact one with the other...In this case, I thought it might help. Visualization."

Not that he was suggesting that his professor lacked imagination. But in truth, the model ultimately had helped confirm that there was something going on that he simply couldn't explain. So first, he dropped the lid of the box so that it formed a sort of base, while the insides of the case acted as a backdrop, a vision of the distant sky captured as an instant in time. The interactive model itself was to scale, so far as his findings were concerned. The usual sun at the center, with Idalos and it's two moons revolving around it. As he pushed the thing into motion, each body seemed to turn on it's own unseen axis, Idalos around sun, moons around Idalos, sometimes passing, one or both, between it and the sun. "Here, you see," he pointed out, "might be the season of darkness. The eclipse."

And then there was the second sun, which also moved across the display but traveled a much more irregular and elongated path, only once per trial coming close to Idalos. But as he manipulated the thing, Padraig frowned and paused as the second sun abruptly stopped moving at the edge of what was known about Idalos, and the rest continued to revolve and rotate. "This," Padraig said, frowning curiously as he gathered up his written work and handed it to her. "I've checked and rechecked the numbers. I've cross-referenced every observation made by myself and others on my behalf. I haven't been able to identify any mistakes there."

What he'd been forced to conclude then, he told the professor, was that he might have been wrong all along. About all of it. Or? That he'd been correct, but only just up to the tail end of Saun. Or even, perhaps, that something was happening now, something that had never happened before, to change things. "Admittedly I haven't taken the Immortals into account. What part their whims might play in the equation. But I'm more convinced than ever that Idalos is not flat, but rounded. The same could be said of the moons, the stars. Based on my observations, that sun should continue on along a wide orbit, travel around the unexplored part of Idalos, then continue on into space, not to return for another arc?"

Except that it didn't seem to be happening and he couldn't explain why. Could he say that it was stuck? No. Maybe that it was doing what it had always done and had slipped behind some sort of dark cosmic curtain, not to emerge for another arc. He couldn't say that either. The truth was he simply couldn't resolve his observations and calculations, therefore logical predictions with what was actually happening. And if he'd wondered at first if creating a model was the wisest thing to do, now, he was glad he'd included it. Without it, it would've been much more difficult to wrap his mind around what was actually happening. Or not happening.

Because it seemed only right that she should be, Dashiell was his professor after all, Padraig began with the natural assumption that she knew much more about the topic of astrophysics than he did. Why wouldn't she? She was inscrutable however. Which meant that while it was highly possible that she'd previously conducted similar experiments to his own, she might have come to very different conclusions than he had. She might be indulging him, observing him heading in the wrong direction entirely, towards even outlandish results. It was impossible to guess, but he couldn't begin to carry on based on those sorts of uncertainties. There was as much to learn from being wrong, as from being right.

So he'd begun, showing her the model and how each facet of it moved both on its own, and in cooperation with the others as if engaging in a cosmic dance in the round. Except that at the end, one player stalled and dropped out. And he couldn't begin to figure out why. He thought that she might have known already. But the way she leaned forward, frowned curiously and asked to see his written work, implied that he'd at least given her something to think about.

So when she asked, he found the map in question and brought it back to her desk. "I have," he said when she wondered, had he plotted out the path of the second sun, and where exactly it had stalled in relation to Idalos. Pulling out another sheet of paper from his work, he laid it out in front of her. It was the world of Idalos in three connected slices that when closed together might create a rounded shape. The section in the middle was, well, "The known world," he said. If it was as he believed, that the world was shaped like a globe rather than a platter, and if his calculations were correct regarding its size, then there was either a very large expanse of water between one shore of the known world and the other. Or there were, until now, undiscovered lands out there somewhere.

But she could see that there were interconnecting lines drawn in a grid pattern all across the map. Each section the same size, labeled and numbered. "This details size and distance, according to my calculations," he explained. Longitude, latitude, and so on. "I tracked the path of the second sun as it predictably moved from one quadrant to the next. But here," he said, pointing to a place on the map a particular distance off the shore of Scalvoris, "is where it stalls." Had even the Biqaj sailed that far out to sea? Padraig wasn't a sailor. He couldn't begin to guess.

Esme Dashiell looked down at the map and a frown creased her forehead. "Shush," she said as he breathed in, just in case he was thinking about speaking. It wasn't an uncommon thing for her to do such, when she was focused at least. For a few moments the room was silent as she checked and then re checked his calculations. Her attention then turned to the map and more bits passed in silent consideration. Eventually she lifted her head and she looked at him with a deep and highly disapproving frown on her face.

"It is the thirteenth trial of Vhalar, Padraig. You have sat on this for how many trials?" For just a few moments, she looked absolutely furious. "This is either a mistake the like of which will mean that you are never again able to show your face in the halls of academia," she sold it well, in fairness, "or it is a discovery which changes our understanding. Nothing is more important."

Looking down at where he pointed, Professor Dashiell considered and then came to what was, for her, an inescapable conclusion. "You'll have to go there. Study the skies, find out why that happens, if we can." There was no doubt in her mind that this would have to happen. "We will commission the journey, the university."

She stood and moved over to her desk, obviously very focused. Picking up a piece of parchment and some other items she made her way around to her chair where she sat. "Sit," she gestured to the chair on the other side of the desk. "You can not go this season, you are traveling and getting married." Somehow, she made the words wasting time very clear in that sentence, but did not speak them. "And your baby is due when?" Really, the fact that she was taking such inconsequentials into account was very good of her, she thought. He should be leaving now. Tomorrow, if he really had to let Faith know where he was going.

"Next season then." She put her pen down and she looked at him. There was no humour in her eyes, no consideration of him or his personal life in any way. "If you put this forward as your Charter, you will pass with flying colours. But the moment it is published, others will see it. Once they have, they will travel there. This is your discovery, Padraig." That she could have taken it for herself, claimed the credit for it and hoarded the kudos was completely irrelevant to her; Esme Dashiell would stand or fall on her own worth, not the shoulders of her students.

"I am not due to publish the Charter findings until the end of this season. Then, people will not rush to read them." There was a lot of snobbery in the academic world. People would read Charter thesis papers, but not quickly. "I would like, to be sure, for you to leave on the last trial of this season. You will not arrive there until next season, which means it can be your Licentiate beginning."

Looking at him with a gaze which would curdle milk and melt ice, his professor spoke to him honestly. "This may well be the moment which makes or breaks your career Padraig. Will you go?" Her hand held still over the parchment and she looked at him with an eagle eyed gaze.

His professor was right of course. He could be right, or mostly right, about the nature of Idalos, the moons and stars and suns, the universe. Or, he could be very, very wrong. The difference between the two was monumental and that difference could make or break him so far as his future as a scholar and researcher was concerned. It was only part of the reason he'd waited thirteen extra trials. There'd also been a sense of not wanting to be the cause of misunderstandings about the universe that might cause uncertainty, for others, for a long time to come.

"It wasn't so much waiting," he explained, "as wanting to make sure that data backed up theory. I took the time to pour over everything, to make sure that the method was valid, that the process of collecting measurements was sound, and that the math truly added up. It wasn't about the grade. It was about making sure that I wouldn't be sending off anyone else, chasing after shadows." Ultimately, once all those things came together, and he still couldn't explain the why of it, he felt he could do nothing else but present it. Pass or fail.

But he'd have to go there? In truth, while it had occurred to him that a journey to that particular place, was a prospect he'd very much like to explore, he hadn't expected her to be so adamant about it. A little overwhelmed, he frowned and sat down across from her. The university would underwrite it, if only he went. "Cylus," he said. "Our child is expected at the beginning of Cylus." Could he go? It would mean leaving Faith, although he knew that she'd be the first to have his bags packed and see him onto the ship.

The moment that would make or break him. Certainly he'd rather a rousing success, but couldn't count on it. But to let the opportunity pass him by? Padraig wasn't interested in fame or notoriety. But to be able to make a new discovery, or at least answer some of the questions that had been plaguing mankind for ages. He knew that there was no other answer. "I'll go." he told her.