> 
> Running from her people. It was never unexpected, but Alynn always hurt about it.
> 
> 
> She ran from the jeers, the shouts, the calls of "freak" and "witch". She ran away from yet another life she almost had.
> 
> 
> More importantly, she ran from the rocks and bullets aimed at her. Stopping them dead in their tracks was all very well, but it *drained*. Not energy, she had plenty of that, but it tired her out - and then she wouldn't be able to run any more.
> 
> 
> Alynn ran, considering where she'd set up her next life.
> 
> 
> 

Meet Alynn. She's an almost-scientific mage: that is, her magic is partially constrained by science. You'll be seeing her frequently: this is the first of a series of weekly questions about her magical exploits.

In this question, I'm asking about some constraints I have put in place on her magic.

The system works on the basic principle of an inefficient calorie-duplicator. For every Calorie she eats, she gets another half-Calorie (2000 joules) of magical energy to use or store. Yes, she violates conservation of energy which is not very scientific, but bear with me.

For a young woman of her 17 years, that means she would normally end up with about 4 MJ of energy over the day (from a 2000 Calorie consumption).

That, to me, sounds like too much. She can store the energy, so in theory if she does no magic at all for a while she could store up massive amounts of energy.

So: how much energy might some mundane magical tasks take? Take, for example:

* Creating a fireball
* Stopping a bullet in its tracks
* Lifting a 1-tonne mass 1 metre off the ground

With the data from those calculations, is 4 MJ/day too much? Will she ever use that much?