Help! Mage stuck inside a wall!

Question

When teleporting an aura of magic covers your body and this aura works as a coating portal.

Instead of you entering a portal, the portal eats you. The portal is created magically and eats the user in less than a fraction of a second

Thus it is really hard for inexperienced mages to control the portal aura.

Sometimes they teleport inside a wall leaving in their place a statue of rock and various materials in their shape.

The portal works like a switch:

Human goes to place A

Identical copy of human made from place A's material moves from place B to place A

The same happens when teleporting inside a wall.

Now how does one save a mage stuck in a wall without killing them?

Once stuck inside a wall mages can't teleport away cause they need free use of their hands and mouth, and vision..all things which are limites or blocked when covered in solid cement or rock or metal.

Also the teleport works like a door that comes to you in an instant and not like a star trek teleportion where you are dismantled and killed to be reformed in another place.

And just like a door, it is affected by earths gravity, if you jump out of a door you don't skyrocket out of the planet, doesn't matter that the earth below your feet is moving around the sun at extreme speeds.

Answer 1

Huge robes!

source

This is why wizards wear those giant robes. Also giant hat (hers is in the wash) and giant beards (also in the wash). By inflating their volume with nonmeat bulky clothes, they will have a larger cavity in the wall inside which to maneuver.

Under the bulky robes the wizards are quite spindly. They can hunker down within their bulky robe wizard cavity and get a little space to wave fingers and what not.

Answer 2

Wizard instructors learn wall extraction techniques the way swim instructors learn CPR. The trick is to locate the cocooned caster and get some air to them. This is done through a combination of three spells...

Association - take a small piece of the stone pillar which has switched places with the victim and scry its magical congruent, tracing its lingering connection to the stone wall which it used to be a part of.

Divergence - focusing on the location identified by the association spell, select everything within ten feet which is not stone.

Portation - grab everything selected from that location and port it back to an empty nearby space .

Through expedient use of the ADP emergency response, many young wizards are saved from early entombment.

Answer 3

If I understand this correctly, the mage is probably dead

And that's not necessarily a bad thing. But we'll get to that in a moment.

By "clothing portal" I assume you mean that the volume encompassed by the clothing is transported. Mages therefore require hoods or hats lest their heads be left behind. Clothing must drag on the floor and cover hands lest useful appendages be left behind.

If this is not the case, please clarify the rules of your magic.

Case 1: Mage is fully encased in a wall

The wall is thicker than the volume encompassed by the mage's clothes and for the sake of argument, we'll assume the wall is entirely stone.¹ Thus, a mage-shaped stone object is found at the embarkation point and our wayward mage is wholly ensconced in stone.

The mage is dead.

• Lack of oxygen (the only oxygen molecules are those carried by and within the layers of the fabric of the clothing).
• If the mage was exhaling at the time of transfer (most likely, speaking the spell after all), then he/she has no ability to take a breath if there was oxygen (chest is restricted due to being partially or fully collapsed at transport).
• Unless the spell can be easily traced, nobody knows where the mage is.
• Even if it is easily traced (that would seem to be a weakness to me), would-be rescuers have mere seconds to remove the mage from the wall — which seems unlikely even if the transport was only ten feet away because, sans magic (which can do anything) the option is chisels and the fervent hope that you don't pierce the mage's heart while pounding on the chisel.

Case 2: Mage is partially encased in the wall, facing inward

The wall is thick enough that the mage's face and forward-half of his/her body is ensconced in stone. The mage's rear bumper is hanging out for the village fool to make fun of.²

The mage is probably dead.

• We have the same lack-of-oxygen and difficulty breathing problems as before... except that the body has somewhere to go when muscles move. This suggests the plausible conclusion that the mage could get some air, even if they can't dislodge themselves from the stone.

• In this case, since we're talking about a wall, it's believable that someone would find the mage.

• Without magic, we're chipping away the stone with chisels, but at least the mage has a theoretical chance.

• Note that it's also plausible that the lack of air and constriction breathing are still in play. In which case the mage is dead unless saved within seconds.³

Case 3: Mage is partially encased in the wall, facing outward

The wall is thick enough that the mage's face and rear-half of his/her body is ensconced in stone. The mage is, for all intents and purposes, fully exposed to the mockery and jests of the village fool.⁴

Hooray! The mage lives!

• Even if the mage is stuck without the aid of magic or chisels, he/she can breathe freely!

• What we hope is that said mage isn't soon due for a bathroom break.

Hey! You said a dead mage isn't a bad thing! What gives!

Whether you're writing a story or setting up an RPG, the idea of failure is just as important as the idea of success — and how your characters/PCs/NPCs deal with both is part of what makes for a rich literary experience. In other words, you want your mages to face very real death if they're dingy enough to teleport into a wall. I mean, let's face it, whether they teleport to the center of a very thick wall or the center of a mountain, unless they can be VERY quickly found, they're dead. If they don't have the space to move their hands, they don't have the oxygen to live very long. Even if they do have the space to move their hands, they still may not have the oxygen to get through the spell.

So, you can either make your magic (a) traceable or (b) always able to leave the mage with enough space to breathe and wave their arms or (c) deal with the reality that you'll have a few well-fertilized walls.

Maybe I should have identified this as a Frame Challenge. I haven't decided.

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_{¹ Rather than a modern wall made of lumber and sheetrock, which would make for an interesting discussion... especially if electrical wires and any kind of plumbing is involved. But what if we're talking about a thatch wall? The mage would simply step out of it. Wood? That might have the same problem as stone.... That's a honking thick timber wall, though. Adobe? That would be hilarious. Let's stick with stone.}

_{² And the world is grateful that's all the little wombat is doing.}

_{³ And a very real argument could be made that the mage dies anyway due to the confusion/panic caused by the realization that the village fool is in close proximity to the rear bumper. I mean this. Never underestimate the panic reaction to realizing something you can't see, probably can't hear, and can't react to, just touched you.}

_{⁴ We'll leave it to the Grand High Council of the August and Illuminated Fellowship of the Oracine Rite (aka Fat Henry, who's the secretary of said council and the guy who does all the paperwork. For a Snickers bar he'll induct your cat to the Order) to decide the Ultimate Fate of a mage who paid so little attention to what they were doing that they'd end up in a wall. Embarrassment tends to be quickly rewarded (and long remembered) by the Council.}

Answer 4

Spell Reversal

As others have said, a mage in your described predicament is dead in a matter of minutes.

However there's something else with a lifespan measured in minutes... the residual magic of the teleportation.

An amateur wizard screwing up the teleport by ending up inside a wall is probably a student. And their Meister is probably standing a few meters away and will see a statue of cobblestone appear where the student just disappeared. They'll instantly know what happened and will have a spell ready for this situation.

Simply: The teleported stone knows where it came from. Sympathetic magic being what it is.
So an appropriately cast teleportation spell will put it back, reversing the spell and bringing back the student from wherever they went. In this regard, their student's mobility being restricted by being embedded in stone is an advantage because it will prevent them losing any toes when they get brought back.

The Meister has at most a minute or two to react and do it, but it's likely the most common failure-mode of this spell, and if they're as capable as they should be, they'll have the spell ready to go.

For almost any other situation, the teleporting wizard will be killed unless they have a friend nearby who knows exactly what to do and can recognise what happened at a moments notice.

Answer 5

The mage goes "oops", wiggles a bit, apologises to the family for destroying the wall, and walks free

Next time you walk through a doorway, take a moment to pause and project yourself into the wall. I'm 25cmgut-to-shoulderblade, ~20cm head diameter.

Most walls are around 100mm thick, a double brick wall is 250mm. If the body suddenly appears in that space it will be sticking out, and what remains will be a thin layer that will break with the slightest movement.

This is my body projected into a 100mm wall:

Front view:

Here's the wall cavity minus me (I didn't model neck or arms):

I can free myself from that.

Answer 6

The mage would anticipate such problems and arrange for his own rescue.

If I were a mage in a setting in which teleportation was inaccurate and dangerous, I would most likely add a time-delayed reversal to my teleportation spell. After teleportation, the spell would wait for (say) five seconds for me to confirm that I had arrived safely. The signal could be, perhaps a, snap of the fingers or a clap of the hands. If I am not able to take this action, then the spell reverses and I am returned to my origin. (Hopefully not asphyxiated, charred, and/or crushed.)

Answer 7

The same happens when teleporting inside a wall.

The mages are a lost cause. A perfect stone or brick replica will appear at the spot where they left from but the inaccuracy of the portalisation will mean that no-one knows where they ended up. You can't go demolishing an entire city to find an entombed mage. In any case they will suffocate within a couple of minutes so there is no time to execute an escape plan.

It would be a case of survival of the fittest. Accurate mages would survive. Inaccurate mages could be used as statues. Possibly the smell of decomposition would eventually allow them them to be found inside some walls but they are only going to live for a matter of a couple of minutes so rescue alive will be impossible because they won't be able to breathe.

Answer 8

Add a Preview

When casting the spell a few seconds before the spell activates a magical effect appears in the destination (useful to alerting people in the way that they should move) and through that effect they can see their destination and confirm it is where they want to be.

If they cannot see anything or there are people in the way then they know they really should abort the spell.

Edit: The effect also gives enemies a chance to move, counter, or block the incoming teleport helping to prevent teleport abuse in combat. It is kind of embarrassing if the demon lord gets a chunk of its body teleported resulting in its death.

Answer 9

Teleporting something into solid materials is difficult.

Well, more difficult than teleporting into air, anyway. If you swap a wizard sized statue out of a stone block, that implies that you had carve all that stone away from the surrounding stone. I imagine that would take quite a bit more effort, at least more than just separating some air.

Your wizards could be trained to recognize when they are attempting to teleport into something hard and stop doing that. "Teleport this apple over onto this table. Now teleport it into this boulder. Observe how difficult this is. Now don't do that to yourself."

I'm aware this doesn't answer the question of how to save someone who has actually managed to teleport themselves into a wall. But depending on how you frame the magic, this may not be as common of a problem as you think. Though there still may be quite a number of tables and chairs with wizard shaped holes in them around the university.

You could alleviate this even more by specifically warding teleportation "gymnasiums" with lots of armor spells and such. If everything around you is specifically warded to prevent being sliced in half, it becomes a lot easier to tell when you're doing things right. You could even set up the warding spells with "negative feedback" to really hammer it in.

Should probably also ward the other students while we're at it. Don't need any wizard-shaped holes in other wizards.

Answer 10

Maybe prevention is better than the cure

Another thought, to add to the masses here, would be consecration. Just like with religious buildings on our own planet, walls could be consecrated or warded against spells to prevent such embarrassing misfortune.

Also, you could introduce the concept of meta-spells - bolt-ons to the spell being cast that stop or reverse its effects, should things go awry.

Failing that, based on the semi-medieval ethos of your world, a swift slap and "Don't be stupid!" from the instructor could go a long way.

This is a very tongue in cheek question, @StainedGirl! I like it!

Answer 11

The simplest way to deal with this is also the best.

If you have frequent cases of mages teleporting into walls, the structure of the walls will be undermined to the point of collapse after a few hundred such accidents (and in a school of magic, this might take as little as a couple decades).

Instead, magic schools set themselves up on flat, featureless plains -- no large trees, no buildings sturdier than a frame tent, no large animals (there's still some slight hazard to people, but that's unavoidable).

New mages practice in this environment until they're able to teleport accurately enough to at least avoid embedding themselves in solid objects.

"Why not conduct only teleportation lessons on the Barren?" Because students will always do what they were told not to: First Years will be trying to teleport as soon as they learn it's possible and can sneak a look at an upperclass student's textbooks. Therefor, every student lives and studies on the Barren until such time as they can demonstrate a minimum level of competence in teleportation (usually, that's near the end of Third Year).

Answer 12

Frame Challenge

65kg of human meat goes to place A 65kg of air moves from place B to place A

Air has a density of about 1 kg per cubic meter. That means a human is practically 1,000 denser than air. The wizard will always teleport to a huge vacuum, which in the very least will damage eyes, eardrums and lungs. More damage follows from the implosion of the remaining air around the arroval spot. This is potentially lethal.

Furthermore, 65kg of wall will have varying volumes depending on materials, but usually walls are denser than humans. In such cases there isn't enough space for a 65kg human after you remove 65 kg of wall.

Solution

The spell displaces a volume of matter, not of amount of mass, and thus Willk's answer is very appropriate. If a wizard forgets to wear clothes though, they may play it safe by only teleporting if friends are around. If a wizard-shaped amount of solid material shows up where the wizard was, then they may have their buddies go and rescue them.

Answer 13

Since it is a common issue, walls are built with some mage-saving features

Since mages are useful to the king, he doesn't want to lose all the money he invested on their formation in such a trivial way.

So walls are built with this in mind:

• When not necessary, the wall must be thin enough to only partially encase a mage
• When the wall must be thick (eg fortification), the wall must always have some thin, evenly spaced trasversal holes so that the mage can breath a bit. I still think that the volume inside the wall should allow for some air circulation, in the end the mage is not completely rigid and so he could push himself against the rock to provide enough room for air to circulate. These holes allow the mage to breathe and also allow him to ask for help.
• for the same reason, it is forbidden to stucco the walls
• For this reason, there are groups of workers who continuously inspect the walls to find and rescue any encased mages

Answer 14

Another idea:

You can't really rescue them, but you can train them well to prevent this from happening. Create a teleportation training dome. Warded with special spells, it's impossible to teleport outside of it, and the insides have nothing dangerous in them. So your mages undergo a few years of training within the dome until they can safely, accurately and instinctively teleport wherever they choose.

Supplemental idea:

Reverse-spell. Cast the teleport in such a way that it will automatically reverse itself in a few seconds, unless a specific spell is cast on the other side. If the caster teleports somewhere where they shouldn't and is unable to incant the complementary spell, they (or whatever remains of them) are transported right back.

Answer 15

This might be prevented by increasing the teleported volume, so that rather than simply teleporting the mage, it would teleport a small pillar around the mage, so that if they ended up in a wall, they would have enough space to teleport away. This would also make teleportation more useful, as large object could be teleported with changing the spell. Another solution could be power limiters, which would prevent a mage from using enough power to teleport stone or other such materials

Answer 16

When you change resolutions on a PC, it asks you for confirmation that the new setting is okay, and if you don't answer in a reasonable amount of time, it automatically reverts, assuming you're unable to see the question due to said change screwing up something bad enough that that happens.

Seems like spells of this sort could do with such a confirmation/reversion step.

Answer 17

Russian trolls.

The wizard's tower needs elaborate security - Orbs of Palantir at every corner and wall, watching for thieves and spells gone wild. Far away on the other side of the world, the Gematria Research Unit has deduced equivalent access runewords for each one of those Orbs, and is watching the wizards intently. A foul up seems more than inevitable, eventually.

When tragedy strikes, one of their spellcasting trolls is standing at the ready, and casts his portal to go to the exact same coordinates as the wizard gestured for - no matter where they may be. Trolls being larger than humans, they can probably arrive with some parts clear of the wall. Even if they don't, they are tremendously strong, and not killed by mere suffocation, and they have friends who were watching where they went.

Trolls being larger than humans, their exchanged matter will include most if not all of the stray mage. The rescued mage can work off his life debt over time in the interrogation room. There are many, many trade secrets in a mage academy worth breaking down ... thoroughly.

All is not bright in the future of the rescued mage, however. What do trolls need to eat in order to be capable of casting such advanced magics?

Answer 18

The slightly delayed automatic re-port, taking effect if the landing ritual is not successfully finished, would definitely make sense, as proposed by Paul, Ruadhan, Mashtater and Atario (and me, had I been quicker).

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You might want to minimalize casualties even further - not only are magicans valuable, you probably also don't want your population living in constant fear a magican might accidentally port into them on the street. And magicans, constantly publicly stuck in walls, carriages and people (who die tragically of their wounds later) is a disgrace to the most glorious and arcane order of magyck and might even incite riots.

(Although you could play that for laughs... a world, where the wise mighty rulers get stuck in random walls all the time is somethin unique.)

You might however also want to consider

a grid of official arrival points

A bit like the floo powder network in Harry Potter.
Every village and official building is obliged to have an ornate stone pedestal in the middle of the market square or even keep a small flat clear for members of the order with nobody else llowed close to.*
Magicans can start their jump from everywhere but always have a safe arrival point. Why should an order invest a lot of money and effort in educating the elite and then risk loosing them by a mass collision?
More commonly frequented entrances (e. g. palace or headquarters of the order) have several such arrival pedestals and are always watched by at least one acolyte.
Magicans can contact him telepathically before porting to clarify which arrival point is unoccupied. Maybe the landing points can be observed with a crystal, either by the travelling magicans themselves, or also by the acolyte in the headquarters. Because, although you omit carriages and random pedestrians, by concentrating all "traffic" onto few arrival terminals, there is a higher risk of magicans porting into one another. If you don't want to go with telepathy and security cam...crystal balls, they have to send messages and arrange clear dates, when which mage is going to use which terminal.
Another approach could be enchanting the arrival pedestals themselves, so when two mages materialize on the same pedestal, one is automatically forwarded/ported further to the next vacant arrival terminal.

Therefore young acolytes travel a lot during their apprenticeship to visit all the different arrival terminals in person and be able to aim for them precisely.

Like banning drunk driving, making seatbelts mandatory or regulating the possesion of weapons.

And, depending on the political situation, which king or arch mage wants all his way too powerful underlings able to come and go unnoticed wherever they want to, if you can force them to use a network you can keep records of...

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You could even create some kind of evacuation plan, either to mobilize and lead the troops from every village if war breaks out, or in case the order's headquarters might fall: Every member of the order has one arrival terminal assigned and clear instructions about what to do next.

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*Unnecessary detail:
There is the urban legend, that a young squire and his beloved once sneaked into the vacant order flat to make love, although their parents had always told them, that the flat has to be kept clear in case a member of the order appears. They didn't listen and just as they were about to get it on, a magican ported into his bedchamber and into both of them. They were found the next day, having died under horrible pain in each other's arms... basically The Hookman story of your world.