The next 48 hours were some of the best that Izzy could ever remember.

  His job before this happened had been his dream job. He had done his best to follow in the footsteps of all the most influential scientists and scientific communicators of his young life: Bill Nye, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Adam Savage, Stephen Hawking, Sir David Attenborough.

  Izzy didn’t have a strong desire to go discover the next greatest thing in any particular science, but instead reveled in the communication of that science to anybody who would sit still long enough to hear about it.

  He had been fortunate enough to get together with a group of like-minded friends and had a show on a small internet-based streaming platform. Izzy would cough up any number of interesting or crazy facts about the world or science, and his team would travel all over the world to film for the show.

  When the budget was tight, they’d record shows with a theme somewhere between Bill Nye the Science Guy and Mythbusters. He’d perform experiments and give the math and fundamental science to the audience, usually while something was exploding, on fire, or melting in the background. They’d been doing this for almost five years and had built up quite the following.

  Never in all that time did he learn so much, so fast; all while every scrap of information individually boggled his mind.

  Each of the books started off in a similar fashion:

  Magic is expressed in the natural world in 5 main forms: Earth, Wind, Fire, Water, and Space. Each of these specialties focus on manipulating the world according to the attributes of that magic. Earth magic specializes in taking natural structures and materials and then forming, reshaping, or moving them. Wind is used for flight, cooling, and many other forms of movement. So on for each basic attribute of magic.

  There are then also nine “Grades” of magic. A “Grade” of magic correlates to the power exerted by the user in the casting of the magic and directly affects the potency of the spell. First grade, or Grade 1, is associated with the most basic of spells: an increase to the user's speed, levitation, healing minor cuts, reshaping stone. With an increase in grade, larger feats of magic are possible: flight, moving more earth, healing more critical wounds, or teleportation.

  Grade 8 spells are reserved for the most learned users and should not be taken on without careful preparation and the alerting of local authorities. Such magic can bend the very nature of reality and should be avoided due to potential, and in some instances very likely, unforeseen consequences. Grade 9 has yet to be confirmed as achieved, but is widely accepted as theoretically possible.

  A caster is created upon successful resonance between a person and a magic core of one of the five attributes. This core is then enhanced up to four times with “shards”. These shards either improve the caster’s control and power of their core attribute, or add additional attributes allowing for a wider variety of powers.

  Casters are also typically graded in sequence from 1-9 depending on a combination of core absorption, shard enhancement, and successful casting of graded spells. Casters may request certification in a Grade Request at their local magical university, certain local governmental agencies, or an accredited Pathfinder Hall.

  On the first day, Izzy’s thoughts were maddeningly all over the place.

  “This is overwhelming and, well,” he thought, “just kind of ‘whelming.’ This feels like a weird mix of structure of magic or chi from The Last Airbender mixed with the wishy-washy but potentially devastating magic from the Tolkien-verse.”

  Scouring the pages, he looked for specifics but kept coming up empty. A lot of how these books described magic was based on feeling or instinct. Phrases like “the caster may notice such and such” or “if the caster senses this or that, then perform this task or you might die” showed up a lot. Essentially, the books were missing a lot of the “this is exactly how the caster does a thing to get the specific effect they want.”

  He raised this question to Yelric during his first day of study.

  “That is correct,” Yelric responded. “The expression of magic tends to be unique to the person casting it. You can’t just hold a stick and say the same magic words as somebody else and expect the exact same thing to happen. You need to express your magic through your core and shards and, while many combinations are a known quantity, how people call them forth can differ greatly depending on their connection with their magic.”

  “So…” Izzy said, grinning, “a bit of a ‘let the magic flow through you’ and ‘search your feelings, you know it to be true’?”

  “I’m guessing this is another one of your references that I’m not intended to understand but makes something I explained make more sense to you?” Yelric responded pointedly.

  “Yessir…” Izzy said, going back to the book.

  Something else bothered Izzy as he went through the guts of each of the speciality books, one for each attribute. They read more like books about “auras” and “energy of the universe” types of books. It just stated things with no further explanation. One that really caught his attention was in the fire magic book.

  When a caster uses magic of the fire attribute, they are calling upon the potential fire of the world. All things have the potential of fire and such a caster is drawing it out to express it acutely. Rapid movements are typically associated with castings of this magic as it seems to help casters focus on the fire outside of themselves instead of setting their own hands or clothes on fire.

  The phrase “potential fire of the world” was catching his eye and he couldn’t figure out why. It felt like there were a few words missing for him to understand or it just wasn’t translating correctly; he still wasn’t sure how that was working and wasn’t ready to start poking at it.

  Once again, he asked Yelric. Yelric read the passage aloud, but Izzy heard it the same way as he had read it. Izzy frowned, searching for the meaning he was missing.

  “Something wrong?” Yelric asked. He had been actively retracting his willpower from Izzy so Izzy could focus on reading and understanding the fundamental literature. As a result, he had to actually ask instead of reading Izzy’s mind.

  “I don’t know yet,” Izzy said. “Generally, I get it. I’ve come across a few things that line up with some concepts in fiction from where I’m from. Can you show me some fire magic? I feel like I’m on the verge of something.”

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Yelric held out his hand, palm up, and a small tongue of flame sprouted up. Izzy’s eyes lit up with the flame, but not with understanding.

  “Okay,” he said, trying not to sound frustrated. “But.. How? What exactly is burning? Which… what did the book say? Which “potential fire” is being expressed here?”

  “It comes from the air and magic that is in the room,” Yelric explained. “I flow the ambient magic, and a bit of my own, through my core and the applicable shard. It is then expressed as this flame.”

  “What can you do with it? Can you make it bigger? Smaller? Hotter? Cooler? Does it have to stay in your hand?”

  Yelric demonstrated every single one of Izzy’s questions right in a row, the flash of the fire jumping around the room and changing colors. Izzy was impressed, but no less confused.

  “Air and magic that is in the room,” Izzy said, repeating Yelric’s earlier assertion. “Okay. What about when you express the “potential fire” of wood or paper? Oh! Can you make mud burn?”

  “For wood or paper, usually you don’t have to express much of the potential yourself before it takes over for itself. Then it just burns away to ash. As for mud,” Yelric chuckled, “I probably could if I tried hard enough. Otherwise, the potential fire is much too low for a substance like that.”

  “Oh… hmmm…” Izzy said, noncommittal. “So that flame you did with your hand, what would happen if you did that in a really small room? Like, you don’t set anything on fire, and just sit there with the flame.”

  “Well,” Yelric began thoughtfully, “most people would either run out of magic to keep it lit or would get bored before anything happened. But if a sufficiently strong caster did it I’d imagine they’d use up the potential of the air and eventually the flame would end. You can’t express fire magic with only magic, you need the potential. Like how you can’t move rocks with earth magic if you don’t have any rocks; one would have a very hard time casting fire magic underwater.”

  Izzy turned around to look at the book on his desk, not to look anything up but to hide his face from Yelric.

  “Oh my god… oh my god…” he thought over and over. “They don’t know what chemistry is… they think it is just air and magic, but there is still a limited chemical reaction occurring. Using a term like ‘potential fire’ is like how scientists used to say fire came from ‘phlogiston’ inside of a material.” Izzy steadied his breathing, trying not to trip Yelric’s senses powered by his willpower.

  “Hmm…” Izzy mumbled, trying to ease his racing mind. “Thanks Yelric, I should get back to this. I’m still trying to make this click.”

  He didn’t dare turn back around and Yelric left the room as confused as Izzy had been when Yelric came in. Izzy wasn’t ready to get into the particulars of molecular structure and chemical equations with Yelric to explain what he just figured out.

  Izzy let out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding and took a big breath back in.

  “They really have no idea what science is,” he said to himself, letting his hair down and running his fingers through the tangled mess. “Why would they? Magic just explains everything. Start something on fire, fire magic. Need to move some rocks, earth magic. Regrow limbs, healing magic, which is just a type of earth magic. ‘Just click your heels together’ kind of shit. Why would they care when it all just works? There was never a need to think about the implications in chemistry and physics of what they were doing.”

  He stood back up rolling his head and shoulders like he was about to run a race. It only released a portion of the tension he was feeling. He was more excited now than when he saw Yelric jump into that backpack. He prepared to dive back in, planning to reread the material with a whole new mindset; “how would this work with a sprinkling of science”?

  As the second day came to a close, the answer to that question was still frustratingly vague.

  Izzy knew he was onto something astounding but was beginning to realize he would need to actually do some more magic to flesh it out.

  “Oooo… poor choice of words, brain. I’m sure there is a ‘flesh bender’ out there somewhere doing horrific things. There’s always at least one in a story like this…” he thought as he strode out of Yelric’s shop for some fresh air.

  The atmosphere in Yelric’s shop was somehow always pleasant, but Izzy still needed to get out into the open. He’d only gotten outside a few times over the last 48 hours, having slept in the study and only popping out to chat with Rajir occasionally to tell him how well things were going and to thank him for introducing the shopkeeper to Izzy.

  He’d had a few more conversations with Yelric, but there hadn’t been any more giant breakthroughs. Yelric had confirmed a few small theories, but the extent to which Izzy wanted to test them would require doing the magic himself. He’d done his best to just act curious instead of feverishly anticipatory, but Izzy was sure Yelric was catching onto what was happening.

  Izzy was careful to never say the words science, chemistry, physics, or the like; he felt like learning more about how all of this worked would be done best before he unleashed the power of science mixed with magic onto the world.

  He looked skyward and frowned, recalling a conversation about “the sun” with Yelric. The firbolg had been confused and stated there was nothing like that here. Far above, there was only ever an ethereal overcast that was ambiently bright during the day and then was variable at night. Izzy had asked more about the night and figured there was a cycle that closely resembled the phases of the moon; he felt like this was significant but needed more information to be able to decide why.

  Either way, in the meantime, he was going to miss sunshine and the stars something awful. Izzy loved the stars and after living in Seattle for a while after college, he had an appreciation for actually seeing the sun every now and again. Not to mention what it does for your mental health. Even while traveling, he had always made sure to live in places with a good view of the sky.

  “I don’t suppose they have any tanning salons anywhere,” he said quietly to himself, looking at his already pale skin. “I was hoping to build up a tan while we were stationed in Bermuda. Ironic that I just became another mysterious disappearance from the Bermuda Triangle. We were supposed to go debunk it; oops!”

  His thoughts started wandering to his friends and colleagues and wondering what had befallen them. He hoped with everything he had that they were not here. It was a one-in-a-million fluke that had saved him from crashing to his death. If they weren’t here, he imagined that the worst they were going through was just being extremely confused and worried about where he had gone.

  With no way to get new information, he quickly searched for something with which to distract himself.

  He looked back up and took in the bustle of the street. This was the end of his fourth full day in Xhansarim; four days since he had fallen into a world of magic and monsters.

  He was slowly coming to terms with his new reality and was starting to look forward to things like when he went traveling for work. In the time he’d been here, he’d already gotten a little more used to the extremely varied foot traffic and began to enjoy people watching again. He’d noticed an extreme lack of dwarves and elves, seeing them only occasionally, but was starting to pick out the others.

  There were the humans, felinean cat-people, some sort of not-quite-humans-not-quite-dwarves little folk called Spritefoots, a big green species Yelric had told him were orcs, and the huge, reptilian Draconids. It was strange to hear what amounted to a tall, green human with tusks being called an orc instead of some diminutive goblin-type creature. Izzy definitely preferred the version here of which he kept catching glimpses.

  All the different people were seemingly busy, running about on errands or dragging carts of supplies to and fro. Izzy closed his eyes, took in a big breath, and soaked in the sounds of what passed for normal around here, trying to calm his excitement for tomorrow.

  Izzy was going to get his magic core, and he already knew which one to get.