Nevill said:
What kind of damage can a firebolt spell do to a human on contact, given that it pulverized a piece of pork?
Depends where you hit the person. If it connected with bare flesh it could cause quite a severe burn and maybe even consume some of the flesh at the point of contact. If you hit someone in the throat or in the mouth or in the eye then you could do a lot of damage, maybe even kill them.
Nevill said:
How many mice would it take to cast a firebolt at human efficiency level?
Depends on the skill level of the mice and how much power they can each draw. Firebolt is a fairly simple spell that Derryth was able to learn when she first started down the path of serious magical study so most fully trained mice should be able to manage it. To hit the level of your average human mage would take maybe a dozen fully trained, novice mice.
If the mice managed to reach archmage status somehow (for example you kept them young and alive with your eternal bloom ritual) then they would be able to easily call down a human sized firebolt by themselves.
Nevill said:
How can we improve their efficiency? The limiting factor seems to be power a single mouse can pour into the spell. So what means do we have for providing them with power? Energon cubes are an obvious answer, but they are a bit heavy for a mouse. We will need someone else to carry them (an eagle, or a goose, or a mobile toy-sized artillery platform), probably. What are our other options? Energon dust backpacks?
The exact same principles apply to the mice as to the humans (and most other mortal species for that matter). Training increases the amount of power you can draw so more training equals more powerful spells. Failing that you need to provide them with an external energy source, energon dust (they need regular treatments to maintain their ability to cast for the time being) would work, if you want to give them a whole energon cube that would also work as well and it would let them channel well above their natural power threshold, it would make them into the equivalent of mouse artillery (albeit for only a single shot). Mandrake roots would of course work if they were trying to heal someone and 'chaining' a group of mages would also work much like it does when the ladies weave spells together.
Nevill said:
Also, an unrelated question. How do communication spells that allow us to talk to the animals work? Do they let the bearer of an item to speak like an animal does (so, for example, Lyssa 'squeaks' when talking to the mice), or does it 'translate' our speech to something the critters understand?
The spells convert the sounds the caster/user makes into the appropriate sounds to effectively communicate with the target. This is done in real time, it also explains how Lyssa can make sounds that she lacks the organs to naturally make. The spell also converts language back into something that Lyssa can understand though it does that within her mind rather than through altering the sounds themselves. Her bracelets and necklaces function the exact same way.
Now there is more to it than that, a lot of communication is non-verbal and the spells do not help all that much with such signals though they do sometimes help to convey specific emotions. As a result, Lyssa will is better at communicating with most mammals and birds than you will be, even with items to help you.
As a slightly amusing aside, all of this means that the
exact spells you use can have a large effect on how you sound to the animal you are talking to. For example, if you are using a spell to talk to mice and that spell is relying on translation passages that have not been updated in ten years then you will sound very old fashioned (almost archaic) to the mice. It would be the equivalent of speaking nineteenth century English to a modern speaker. You would be understood for the most part but it would get you the odd glance and a bit of laughter. If you were using a spell that had not been updated in fifty human years then it would be like talking to a modern English speaker in Middle English or maybe even Old English and you would be less likely to be understood.
Thankfully, animal languages are (for the most part) quite a bit simpler than those spoken by the more advanced races of the world so you can usually get by without too much difficulty as long as you know the general basics of the language in question. So you can talk to a group of mice in Myrgard, for example, and another in Muirthemne with the same spells nd you should be able to communicate effectively.
Some animal languages are a lot slower to change as some species are less numerous and longer lived. The language of the elephants, for example, does not change as quickly as that of the mice but (with the exception of the Blackrock mice) it is a more complex language.
The Blackrock mice are something of an exception and that is largely down to the meddling of mages. They have a more advanced society than you would encounter elsewhere (one actually worthy of the term civilization) and as a result they have a more advanced and specialized language. Blackrock rodents can communicate with regular rodents but it would be much like modern man communicating with the great apes, entirely possible, but sometimes a bit awkward. The spellcasting mice are even more developed and can understand a fair bit of actual dwarven, you could probably speak to them in dwarven and they would understand even if they do not have the means to answer in dwarven. Lys is working on reverse engineering a spell for Mirra and Poppy that will let them talk to you in Bruig, she has taken it on as a bit of a hobby but she is so busy that she has made little progress.
Nevill said:
Say, we want to talk to the elephants using our bracelets. Will the handlers be able to understand us?
They will not.
Nevill said:
Is animal-to-animal talk possible with such items?
Yes, provided the animal is intelligent enough to understand what is going on. The Blackrock rodents should be able to manage with proper instruction and the spellcasting mice could probably even learn the neccesary spells to do it themselves if given time. Other animals such as dogs, cats, horses and the like would also be able to manage as far as you know. In these cases they could even be expected to do quite well, particularly when it comes to communicating with humans due to the bond these species have with man. Most mammals and birds should be smart enough to eventually work out how to communicate though their vocabulary would probably be limited.
It is hard to say if reptiles, amphibians and particularly insects could master such communication. In theory it may be possible but it would also likely be more difficult.
Plants would presumably require a completely different approach (and discipline of magic) if they are even capable of communication at all.
If two different animals both wore devices then they would be able to communicate freely within the limitations stated above. There would be room for misinterpretation of course but that occurs between members of the same species speaking the same language as well.
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