The Magic Mouth Phone
Most Wizards are concerned with the construction of new spells. These spells are usually very limited, and are dedicated to single tasks. It is only rarely that a Wizard looks back on previously created spells and finds new, fascinating, applications for otherwise unremarkable spells. The Wizard Penach has recently discovered a most fascinating use of the spell Magic Mouth. Magic Mouth is a moderately strong spell, requiring a 2nd level spell slot, but it can be cast as a ritual, thus requiring no spell slot to be consumed.
Penach recognized the ability of Magic Mouth to take input commands and give incredible outputs.
How it Works
First, the spell will be described. Then, its functions. At last, its advanced purposes.
You implant a message within an object in range, a message that is uttered when a trigger condition is met. Choose an object that you can see and that isn't being worn or carried by another creature. Then speak the message, which must be 25 words or less, though it can be delivered over as long as 10 minutes. Finally, determine the circumstance that will trigger the spell to deliver your message.
The triggering circumstance can be as general or as detailed as you like, though it must be based on visual or audible conditions that occur within 30 feet of the object. When that circumstance occurs, a magical mouth appears on the object and recites the message in your voice and at the same volume you spoke.
When you cast this spell, you can have the spell end after it delivers its message, or it can remain and repeat its message whenever the trigger occurs.
What is important to note from this description is that the spell does not require a size, weight, length, or type restrictions. You can speak a message less than or equal to 25 words. Most importantly, the circumstance we set to trigger the Magic Mouth can be as general or detailed as you'd like, so long as they are visual or audible conditions within 30 feet of the object. There is no limitation on said visual or audible conditions. The circumstance is absolutely anything you want, so long as it is audible or visual and occurs within range. So an imperceptible voice to human ears can trigger a condition.
The last paragraph of the spell description is the most important. The spell remains and can repeat whenever the trigger occurs. The spell can remain intact forever. Furthermore, the casting of this spell costs 10 gold pieces. It is moderately costly.
Important Concepts
The Wizard Penach recognized that you had to translate the spell usage itself into certain, useful, components that could be manipulated. The following example will illustrate the most basic concepts.
Take three objects. For this example, we will use stones. Set the first stone to trigger upon the audible trigger of you saying "Execute", and input the message "Hello World". Then for the spell to end. Take the second stone and place it within the 30 foot range from the first object. Set it to trigger upon the phrase "Hello World" and input it with the phrase "Hello World". Take the third stone and place it within 30 feet of the second stone, and set it to trigger upon the phrase "Hello World" and set its message to be "Message Received." Upon speaking the phrase "Execute" near the first stone, two things have happened. First, you have caused one Magic Mouth to trigger another with a Transmitter and with a Receiver, which are the basis of the Magic Mouth Phone, secondly, you have activated a recorded message from 60 feet away by using a series
of objects placed intermediately from each other. This is what we call a Relay.For our second important concept, take three stones and cast Magic Mouth on them. Take them outside to the woods. Make one stone's trigger on the 'grass moving' or the 'wind blowing', essentially, give a trigger that is always occurring. Make its output "Hello World" and make it repeat its messages everytime the trigger occurs. Make the next two stones do the same, except their audible trigger is "Hello World". The second stone will output "Hellow World". The third stone will have an output of "Message Received". What will occur is that the first stone will say "Hello World" constantly, being perpetually triggered, and likewise the third stone will be constantly receiving input from the second stone Relay and will utter "Message Received" forever. This is a Repeater.
But stones are big and clunky. We require efficiency and portability. We can enchant any object, as well. This means that we can exchange our stones for itty bitty grains of matter. We can use tiny flakes or balls of metal, perhaps, for durability. These are called Microchips.
If we don't want to heart a million voices going "Hello World", instead of putting a message in the stone at normal volume, we will whisper at an imperceptile volume. Remember that the stones merely require the trigger to happen within 30 ft. and that these triggers merely need to be audible, though not perceptively so. To outside observers, it will be like you saying the word "Execute" and the third stone says "Message Recieved" with only silence between. You can create a variety of audible triggers with your voice. We call this Frequency.
To have more than one message, we will have to use more objects. For example, we can create another transmitter/receiver set with three stones and place them next to the ones we already have. Each has a different Frequency for the relays and an input such as "Do you want to dance with me?" from the transmitter, which will cause the third stone receiver to say "Yes". This means we can two different things from the same place and receive two different answers depending on the audible stimuli we choose.
As we have more and more Microchips, having them scattered is going to be messy if any future issues arise. So, we take our six microchips and put each pair into a small Container. This will keep our components clean and neat, and allow us to form complex interactions with multiple containers.
Let us take three stones and place them in a row. We will now set the trigger of each to be the audible circumstance of hearing "Feedback" within 30 feet, and the message to likewise be "Feedback" for all of them when triggered, and then determine that they repeat the message whenever the trigger occurs. If you say "Feedback", now, it will go all the way to the third stone. But when the second stone finishes its message of "Feedback" which then activated the third stone, which then says "Feedback" the second stone will trigger again, which triggers the first stone to say the same thing, and so on and so forth. This is different from the ambient repetition stated before. This is the Feedback Loop.
Set up a Relay's audible circumstances to only be the particular duet of two repeating relay frequencies at once, in which case it sends out an audible "True Signal" as its message, and another Relay right next to it in a capsule whose audible trigger is something ambient, unless the True Signal is active, in which case it sends out its "False" audio transmission repeatedly until such time as the first one is activated by two frequencies, making that capsule essentially an "AND" gate. This is called a Logic Gate.
Advanced Systems and Custom Messages
Seemingly, you can't get two different messages from the same place. With the Container, we can. The Alphabetical Model is the most expensive, but most useful, system you can enact with the system of Containers, Relays, and Magic Mouths. You must take a number of objects, equivalent to the number phonological sounds of your language, set to trigger on the audible circumstance of someone making the same sound as that phonological sound, and set to repeat their message whenever the trigger occurs. Now, whenever you say "Hellow World", each object will immediately trigger according to their sounds in chronological sequence, echoing the same sentence you said across the relay. Now, a message can go beyond 25 words. Put capsules like this at 30 foot intervals, and now Telecommunications has been founded. Make a receiver capsule for the sender as well as the transmitter, and the transmitter have a container for the other side, and you have created a two-way communication.
This system lets the common man, not just a Wizard, to communicate across extraordinarily vast distances. Even Wizards will find this system useful, as most Wizards are incapable of casting spells at a high enough level to allow easy and long communication. The spell Sending, while attainable for many Wizards, is still not as useful in day-to-day ordering and communication as a simple letter. There are weakness, such as the prohibitive cost of setting up a telecommunications system as described above, and there is the issue of sound lag, as the stones can only ever communicate as quickly as sound.
A Solution to Cost and Lag
Containers and Microchips have many uses, but if long-distance transmissions are required, then switching to Cables eliminates the problem of cost almost entirely, and lag becomes a minor nuisance. Magic Mouth can enchant any object without size limitation. We will use cables instead of tiny grains. We will use rubbery ropes for our object of enchantment, as they are durable, elastic, and thin. With longer and longer cables, we will cut down on costs to a mere pence. We can gather cables in large bundles, thereby protecting them from wear and tear. Frequency cables will require a transmitter and receiver cable at each end, but this won't increase costs by too much.
The Telephone Fully Realised
Let us say we have 5 households. Each has an Alphabetical Model. We will ignore Frequency and custom voices and custom activation. We want open multi-ended communication. We can take a 5-sided intersection cable and connect it throughout, or we have a single regular cable winding through the house. Now, all five can talk with each other. There will be issues of people talking out of order, and talking over each other, though. These sorts of cables will have to be underground so they don't pick up random conversations.
On/Off Button
To create a telephone proper, that is, person to person conversation, we need an On/Off Button. Therefore, we do not require many cable bundles to talk to each person, but only require a single cable bundle running through each person's house.
First, we make an actual button which we can press on the wall or table or floor. A Magic Mouth will be set to trigger in the circumstance of the "On" button be visibly pressed and turned "On", and to repeat whenever this trigger occurs. A specific, random message will play for the "On" status. Using the concept of Logic Gates a stated above, we will take the household's Receiver and Transmitter containers/cables. We will enchant each "Phonetic" object in the transmitter and we will enchant each Receiver triggering on each phonetic frequency, to only trigger if that Phonetic/Frequency along with the background frequency of the "On" switch are both audible. Lastly, the transmitter will send out not just its letter frequencies as its message, also another one with each letter unique to that household, which is the same as its "On" frequency, and to also make an alteration to the circumstance of the letters in the receiver -- to trigger only when they receive a normal frequency with a unique tracer if it's precisely matching low-key frequency emanations from a Magic Mouth beside it.
Private Calling
A more advanced structure is possible. Make 5 more buttons, each one numbered from 1 to 5. Currently we have these buttons, the On/Off button, and two containers with the Alphabetical models, a transmitter that translates our words to cable frequency (also carrying our unique household frequency), and a receiver that translates the cable frequency into words for us. Now, set the trigger of the 5 buttons to be the same as the On/Off button, whenever you push or place something on them. Set the message of each to be the same frequency as that of the transmitter unique frequencies in the various houses.
What will happen is this: first, whenever the On/Off switch is Off, neither transmitter nor receiver accept any traffic. The transmitter will only accept verbal input along with "On" frequency, and the receiver will only play incoming traffirc if "On" is active. House 1 calls House 4. House 1's voice only reaches the phone that is turned on, and let's say House 4 is keeping her's on, as she's not asleep. Whenever House 1 speaks, the transmitter relays not just what he says, but also a unique "tracer" frequency unique to his household. Nothing is currently happening, since House 4's transmitter transmitters only starts working if it receives a normal letter frequency, and two other matching low-key frequencies of the same kind. If House 4 wanted to accept calls from House 1, she turned off House 1's button. The receiver now sends House 1's voice, since the audible conditions are met, and vice versa if House 1's button allows House 4 to talk.
A private conversation can now be had. Simulataneous calls with multiple people are also possible with multiple cables. There are many things possible with this. More safety measures are possible. The ability to ring to alert people of a caller is possible, if much more complicated.
Conclusion
The full power of the spell Magic Mouth has only just been realised within the past few decades. It will surely be a phenomenal change to the world. The nobility across the Empire are having phone lines constructed en masse. And already, the northern provinces of Juraedon Proper - those provinces around the City of Juraedon - are lined with Magic Mouth Cables, allowing the common folk to use them. The people reach ever greater heights of posperty.
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Author's Notes
This article is a copy of an article found on Gianttip.com. I have cleaned it up, formatted it for my website, and applied it somewhat to my world, but the true content is from that article's author.