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where you draw the line
Permalink Mark Unread

Kithabel is sitting on the flat top of the tallest tower of her palace, forcing the rain to decline to fall on her, taking a break insofar as she ever takes a break. She has no constructive ends to pursue right now, so she's playing with the lightning in the clouds overhead. She doesn't want to try taking a direct lightning strike yet - she could probably take it, but only probably - but she can tell it to arc here and there in patterns, she can ball it up and watch it roll through the air, she can make it turn colors. She's making sure none of it hits the town, and if it starts a fire in the woods she'll take care of it, but at the moment it's a toy.

Permalink Mark Unread
A figure appears in the air with a CRACK. He then falls through the crack, the other side of which shows a distinct lack of thunderstorm, and commences yelling for most of a second while he falls out of view. Then he levitates back up toward the top of the tower, while audibly muttering, "Not again."
A metallic plot device in his hands whirrs and beeps, then explodes twice.
Permalink Mark Unread
Kithabel levitates to her feet, abandoning her lightning, to see what's going on.

"Where'd you come from? What are you doing here? Stop exploding things near my castle, please."
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"I didn't do that"—pop, hiss—"this thing just has an inconvenient conception of what working properly means. I am Skeeve, yes the Skeeve, and where am I?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"My palace. I'm afraid I haven't heard of you but I'm a comparatively new flier; I claim that town over there and the immediate otherwise-unclaimed environs, we're in the Sunlit Satrapy of Tanree. What's the thing?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"The thing's a D-Hopper. It does teleportation, and once in a while it goes where you tell it to."

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"What did you do, steal that from some sorcerer who doesn't like you?" asks Kithabel.

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"No, it's just an outdated model.
As long as I'm here, I don't suppose there's anything that requires a wizard, is there? Invading armies, inconvenient laws of physics, that kind of thing."
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"...Outdated...? Wizard? I don't know what you're talking about."

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"Wizard, magician, practitioner of the mysterious arts...you're flying, yourself. Do you just not use the word here?"
And she's staying dry; that's no mean trick. Being soaked by the rain can't be good for image, so Skeeve creates an illusion disguising himself as himself. This does precisely nothing to change the actual degree of wetness, but appearances are everything.
Permalink Mark Unread

"I'm a sorceress." She doesn't seem at all fazed by his illusion. "And if there's sorcering to be done in the immediate area I'm on call, I said I claimed that town over there. Let's not fight over it, okay? Are you a nomad or do you have your own territory?"

Permalink Mark Unread
"Localized territory per sorceress? That's an interesting system. Like having court magicians without the court attached, I guess.
I had territory for a while, eventually people started seeking me out for solutions, now I'm a magician for hire. Don't worry; I'm not going to fight over your town."
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"...Where are you from?"

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"Originally Klah, currently based out of the Bazaar on Deva. This thing has quite a range on its teleportation; I'm not surprised to have never heard of Tanree."

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"Okay, I haven't memorized world geography in any detail, but if you have enough momentum to speak fluent Reesh while not having heard of Tanree before I should have heard of you even if you were a hermit sorcerer from Aundacel. Can you point to either of those places on a globe? I have a globe."

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"Probably not. I'm from a different dimension; did I not mention that?"

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"Youuuuu did not mention that."

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"Oh. Mentioned.
Got to say, if this world doesn't have dimension travelers it does help my ego recover from not having been heard of here."
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"I don't even know how many centuries of unbroken momentum it would take to do that! But you're not actually a sorcerer, are you? You're some other... thing."

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"Magician, yes. Magic is the same in every dimension I've been to, with the willpower and the replenishing energy and the getting gradually more powerful. Is that what you mean by momentum?"

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"...Mostly? I'm not sure what you mean by replenishing energy."

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"Using too much magic at once is tiring, but you can draw on ambient magic to recharge. You don't do that here?"

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"No. The more magic you use the more of it you can use. I don't sleep more than five hours at a time so I don't run out of momentum too much overnight."

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"That's...definitely not normal. There are magicians who don't sleep as much, but I've never heard of anyone losing any of their powers by sleeping. I must be farther than I thought."

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"Most people don't develop enough momentum to fly. People are going to think you're a sorcerer, if you fly around. Or a lapsed one who kept flight. But you're accustomed to everybody in all the places you've been being able to use your kind of magic?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Theoretically able, yes. Barely anyone does, or magic would be a much less attractive career. Does everyone here practice it?"

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"Most people do little stuff, at least by accident, but sorcerers are uncommon. There's nine territories if you count mine in this country. Why don't more people pick up your kind, if it doesn't require constant work to maintain momentum?"

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"It requires work to learn how to use it. You don't get worse at things, usually, but it's still a skill to acquire. Doing things by accident is unheard-of; it took me ages to learn to light a candle."

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"Can you teach me?"

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"Maybe? But it's hard, at the beginning anyway, and if splitting your concentration isn't good for momentum then it might not be worth it for you."

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"I have some spare time. I do need to spend a lot of time doing magic every day, but I'm pretty on top of that. And some of my day can be spent floating, I don't have to concentrate to do that anymore, which isn't good variety but it's not nothing like sleep, either."

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"It's pretty simple; you stare at it for hours meditating about how you're a magician who can rewrite the rules of the universe with your mind and it's an inanimate object and it has to obey you. After that doesn't work, you do it again. When I eventually got it, it was after hours of not even noticing time had passed, with months of failures beforehand."

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"I'm pretty sure if I do that I'll just wind up -" She conjures a candle; the rain doesn't hit it, either. It catches fire. "Do sorcery the usual way."

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"Well, I'd have a hard time calling that a failure...

Maybe it is the same magic, and people here just have a very strange way of collecting power."
Permalink Mark Unread

"I don't think so. Yours seems to be a skill. If I don't do any magic for, oh, two days, I'll wake up and I won't be any better at it than some random person who only rescues burned food and cleans their gutters with magic and nothing else. Not even specialist-grade."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I was thinking of that as part of your world's strange magical capacity issues, but if it isn't a skill then it can't be the same. Where I'm from, only a magician can clean a gutter with magic. Though they usually have better things to do, of course."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Here it's momentum. You gather momentum and you can do more and bigger things; you can channel that into a specialty, like healing or architecture, or you can go for sorcery. The official cutoff point around here for whether you're a sorcerer or not is flight, although if you don't do anything but fly you lose your general momentum and turn into a flight specialist. So you could fool someone into thinking you're a sorcerer but then they'll think you can do anything you want."

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"I am a magician. I am professionally able to do whatever I want; people thinking it's a bit more literal than usual isn't a problem."

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"What do you mean, professionally able to do whatever you want?"

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"Unsolvable problems, impossible tasks, that sort of thing. Nobody expects magicians to be truly infinitely powerful, but it's bad for business to be unable to do things. So my team and I...do them."

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"Please remember I'm coming from a background of sorcerers being it in the magic department, and given enough momentum we can effectively do whatever we want."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Ah. Magicians can do effectively anything, but few individual ones can do everything. The things people hire magicians for aren't necessarily directly using magic; it's more problems like turning an army around, or dethroning an aristocracy of vampire cows, or convincing two politicians to hold a halfway fair election. As I said, impossible."

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"...Why go to magicians for problems having nothing to do with magic?" (Kithabel causes a dramatic thunderclap overhead for effect.)

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Skeeve briefly looks up, unable to avoid being startled.

"The phenomenal cosmic power comes in useful, but mostly it's because a magician is a professional problem-solver. And non-magical people, most of the time, have non-magical problems. Do your people only ask for help when it's a magic-related problem?"
Permalink Mark Unread

"They wouldn't want to waste a sorceress's time with something that didn't involve magic. I'd lose momentum. I need to be on the ball if I want to be able to resurrect the dead before I'm sixty."

Permalink Mark Unread
"That's, um, not something I can do right now either.
How many sorceresses above sixty are there?"
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"I don't know exactly how old everyone is, but decent momentum lets us live indefinitely."

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"That's definitely not normal, or there'd be a lot more magicians everywhere else. Why is anyone here not a sorcerer?"

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"Because sorcerers can't do a whole lot besides be a sorcerer. Slip up and you have to start over."

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"Right. That.
If that applied to magic, I for one would have stayed a thief."
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"...Interesting career switch."

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"Well, I was never that good of a thief.

Was sorcery your first choice?"
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"Oh yes. I've wanted to be a sorceress since I was a little girl. I dropped out of school to keep up better. I'm very young to be able to fly already."

Permalink Mark Unread
"Is flying rare? If you can levitate things and move them around, you should be able to do the same to yourself.

Either way, congratulations on the young age thing."
Permalink Mark Unread

"Flying requires a fair amount of momentum, and you can't get there gradually because if you fail at it during an intermediate step you plummet to the ground and possibly die, so it's considered the cutoff for who's a sorcerer proper versus who just does more magic than most people. I think in some places they use the ability to breathe water as their cutoff."

Permalink Mark Unread

"There's really no way to practice it gradually? You could, I don't know, learn to turn floors into soft landing spaces or something. At least if you wanted people to think you were a sorceress before you actually were, but there is no way people don't want that."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I'm not sure why someone would want that. Anyway, if you're not already, actually, sorcerer-grade, it's pretty hard to get anything done while falling out of the sky."

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"It matters for...reputation. And business. Though that one might not apply here. I certainly don't stop people from exaggerating my powers.
But if they can't plausibly claim it, then the question might not come up."
Permalink Mark Unread

"Some people can fly who aren't sorcerers. If, instead of doing nothing for two days, I did nothing but fly for a week, I would no longer be able to pull cute tricks with the lightning," (BOOM) "but I would still have specialist-grade momentum for flight in particular."

Permalink Mark Unread

"If you have to keep up doing a variety of things, then I see why there aren't more sorceresses. Between the low number of people interested in magic in the first place, the number who'd give up sleeping for it, and the number who prefer sticking to a few things they're good at, I'm almost surprised there are any."

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"I do sleep. Just not for eight hours at a time. It's possible to be a sorcerer while sleeping normally - but not while sleeping in."

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"Sleeping in is one of the great joys of life. You should— definitely not try it sometime."

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"Coffee's a joy too."

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"Coffee is a necessary evil and I can't imagine anyone thinking otherwise short of having their mind magicked. No accounting for tastes, I suppose."

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"I like it with chocolate in."

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"My coffee-drinking friend has food preferences that range from 'eat it before it crawls out of the bowl' to 'restaurants required by law to be mobile so nobody has to permanently deal with the stench.' He assured me coffee is palatable for humans. The taste was exactly what I was expecting.

Chocolate could make the difference, but it's not literally magic."
Permalink Mark Unread

"Do you want a cup of sorcerous coffee?"

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"No, thank you. I would more easily believe that you are a different species from me with different tastes than that there is that much variation in things called coffee."

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"Okay. So what are you planning to do while you're in this dimension?"

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"No idea, really. I was aiming for another dimension entirely, for a court function I very much don't mind missing. Ordinarily I'd ask around for whether anyone needs a magician, but you seem to have that market covered."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I mean, you seem to handle political problems that sorcerers mostly avoid. I'll be called in if there's a flood or a fire or blight, I'll stop an earthquake if one troubles the area, that sort of thing, if there were an army attacking I'd probably protect civilians rather than engage in combat. Sorcerers fighting can't end well, and we'd be staking our momentum on our ability to make it out conscious."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Political is a fair way of describing it. Are there any kingdoms that need stabilizing, or the reverse for that matter? Walking into places with a goal and no information is what I do best."

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"...That sounds like a strategy that will not keep working forever."

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"You'd think that, wouldn't you. And yet, it keeps working. Would probably be easier here than most places, since people will assume flying means omnipotence and won't have sorcerous bodyguards all the time."

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"No, but politically important people in general have the ability to call a sorcerer over on short notice, because they're likely to notice problems that could benefit from attention, and we're always looking for things that could benefit from attention."

Permalink Mark Unread
"That's a complication, but not an insurmountable one.
Are there political problems that need a magician? I'd imagine that with this much magic flying around fixing things there are correspondingly fewer negative effects from that sort of problems."
Permalink Mark Unread

"I don't know what the baseline looks like, since I'm from here. I can't think of anything immediately pressing locally."

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"Any reason to think Tanree is better or worse than normal?"

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"I dropped out of school when I was a kid, remember? I know some history but almost no current events."

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"...fair point. Before I started interacting with kings and mafias in person I had no idea what they were doing either, let alone whether they were doing it well."

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"I think if my satrap or country were very badly misgoverned I'd have a long list of complaints. But I don't know how it compares to the neighbors. I haven't even visited the neighboring sorcerer territories yet, which I really ought to do."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Do sorceresses in general think the same? That does put a floor on how bad the place could be, if so."

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"No, except in the obvious sense that you can't be a sorcerer without something resembling a work ethic - also, it's harder to do magic against opposition, so we try not to do things that people would object to."

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"That makes sense. Are there many territories that aren't covered by a sorcerer? If some places have no magical assistance at all, that might be worth me taking a look."

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"About half of the area of Tanree, which is probably about average, is not formally claimed territory. But there are nomadic sorcerers and people with ways to get ahold of the non-nomadic ones like me when things need sorcering."

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"A good system. Not so much for my kind of business, mind, but good for a crisis-free world."

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"Also, if everyone agrees about something their smaller-scale magic cooperates. If I wanted to, I don't know, pull a moon out of the sky, I'd be working against everybody in the world who likes the moons where they are. I don't know how many centuries of unbroken momentum that would take, but it would be huge."

Permalink Mark Unread
"Oh, you were being literal when you said it's easier to do magic without opposition.
How many ordinary people does it take to counteract an average sorcerer?"
Permalink Mark Unread

"It depends on a few factors. Also, I'm not sure how you'd average sorcerers. I could make this rain hit carefully selected locations, or make all the raindrops hit the ground to a beat, but it's been long enough since there was rain that I think the local farmers could give me a hard time making it stop entirely. If I were forty, I could probably do it around a small town like this, but not a city; if I were a hundred I bet I could stop any rain that no weather specialist or sorcerer were opposing me about."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Any rain, anywhere? That sounds like it'd allow undetectable mischief, and then the thing about not wanting other sorcerers angry at you stops applying."

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"No, I'd have to be near it. Ish. Momentum also increases range, but you still need to be sort of generally near what you're doing."

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"Even so. If some sorcerer hides out near a city they don't like for a while, they could stop the rain until someone restarts it, then maybe turn the soil to something more useless, and so on until they run out of ideas. If it's not obvious who did what, then the system is relying on all the powerful sorcerers being sane."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Then everybody in the vicinity wants whoever is doing that to be really inconvenienced, and eventually they get a sorcerer to come want it really hard, and then the insane sorcerer falls asleep for three days and the problem is solved."

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"I'm glad there's a solution to that.

And if I ever fall asleep unexpectedly while here, it lasted for days and people expect me to be powerless. Got it."
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"It's pretty unlikely unless you go bothering people."

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"If I do much of anything important, it'll probably bother someone. Ideally not in a way sorcerers would object to."

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"Who are you intending on bothering?"

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"Depends on what comes up. Someone asked me to interfere with the Mafia once; that bothered them quite a bit. If you have mafia here, or other perpetrators of nonmagical organized unpleasantness, I won't be overly concerned with their interests."

Permalink Mark Unread

"My mother occasionally complains about the neighborhood association, but I don't think that's what you have in mind."

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"Does the neighborhood association demand money while strongly implying nebulously defined consequences if they don't get it?"

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"No, they demand things about the upkeep of her house. I upkeep her house for her, now, but keeping track of what they want annoys her."

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"Then yes, it's nothing like an extremely unusual branch of the Mafia.

This world is absurdly well-handled. Good job, I guess?"
Permalink Mark Unread

"Thanks!"

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"You're w—" zap.
The D-Hopper sparks, and the two of them are no longer levitating above Kithabel's tower but inside a dark room in a completely different one. They both fall a short distance to a wood floor. "Not again!"
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"Wh- where are we? Hang on, I'll -"

Whatever she will, she doesn't.

"I - I -"
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"You'll what? What's the matter?" Skeeve telekinetically opens a window for light. It provides little, it apparently being night here, but there is a clearly visible single moon.

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"My momentum is gone. It's all gone! I should be able to make light even if I spent a week on fucking vacation! You life-destroying bastard what did you do to me? It's all gone, years of work, I just fucking learned to fly and it's gone what the fuck did I ever do to you it's gone it's gone it's gone!"
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"I didn't do it! I was just standing there hovering, and then this thing decided to zap us here! I did say it's malfunctioning. 'Inconvenient conception of working properly,' that was what I said. Nothing to do with me at all."

Someone knocks on the outside of the door, and a voice says "All right, who's in here and what's going on. Some of us are trying to sleep, and the walls here aren't as soundproofed as they ought to be."
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"You didn't tell me it might zap me to locales unknown!" hisses Kithabel. "Or activate without any prompting as opposed to merely incorrectly! And now who knows where we are and I don't have any magic not a speck!" She is a little too pissed off to pay attention to the knocking.

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The door opens.
"Well, now I'm awake. You claiming to be magic? That's one thing, but claiming to have just lost it puts you in a minority of one."
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"I was a sorceress until this idiot with his malfunctioning device didn't warn me that it would grab extra passengers and dropped me here and took all my momentum," snarls Kithabel, pointing at Skeeve.

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"The idiot—alleged idiot—didn't know it was going to do that, any more than he knew dimension-hopping could take her powers!" Skeeve yells back. Whether any of this makes sense to the newcomer is not his priority right now. "It never did that to any magician I've ever heard of before!"

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"I was a sorceress not a magician I explained how it works to you it obviously doesn't work like that anywhere else!"

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The newcomer catches some of this, puts two and two together, and says "sorry to change the subject, but I think I'm going to need to see that device. You say it can transport people across dimensions?"

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"Yes, but not very reliably. And apparently sometimes with unintended side effects that nobody could possibly have foreseen."

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"Sorcery exists in one world! You knew that it was different everywhere else! If momentum could exist somewhere else don't you think it would!?" Pause. "That is the only dimensional teleporter handy. I want to go home. You mustn't break it."

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The man looks at the D-Hopper and turns it over in his hands. "It seems to run on some form of electricity.
No way I can figure this out." He hands it back to Skeeve.

"All right, who are you people? My name's Hank, better known as The Boss."
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"Kithabel. Until recently the sorceress of Sunlit Satrapy, Tanree."

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"Skeeve, head of Myth, Inc. and professional magician."

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"Oh, you're some of those people. The dimension-hopping story was promising, but I've dealt with enough professional magic-users to know how much credibility they have."

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"His magic should still work. I saw him fly, and whatever he was and must still be doing to translate, and he kept the rain off him like I did, and I want lessons instantly because I will be damned if I do without magic for the rest of my sorcerously unaided lifespan."

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"Oh yes, lessons from an alleged idiot who took away your last set of incomprehensible magic powers through no fault of his own. Teaching you sounds like the most fun I've had since the time my dragon threw up on me.
I'd rather poke this thing until it works again, and get this fiasco over with."

Skeeve is surreptitiously dripping with rainwater from Kithabel's world. It's an unusual activity for someone who looks completely dry.
Permalink Mark Unread


"I thought you were keeping the rain off you, anyway," she says, peering at the puddle. "I'll calm down soon enough and I do actually believe you that you didn't put two and two together about leaving wrecking my momentum. I'm good at self-teaching, anyway, if you start with a basic explanation I shouldn't trouble you very much about it. I'll be just as willing to skip it if you can get me home, but it doesn't seem like that thing works usably."
Permalink Mark Unread

"It works. I use it. Granted, I use it to get to appointments I'm anxious to miss, but still. I have every confidence it will get you home. Eventually."

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"Well, as long as you're here, you're kind of my problem. Either of you planning to go around claiming to be magicians or do any public shows?"

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"Public shows of what?" snorts Kithabel.

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"Of magic, of course. You don't have any to show off, but that's never stopped the other professional magicians we've got around here."

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"I don't know any sleight of hand, if that's what you mean."

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"I'm sure that'd help, but people around here are so gullible that most of being a magician is claiming to be a magician.
And I'd appreciate it if you didn't go around being a magician at people."
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"Since I'm not, I won't, but why does it matter to you?"

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"Long story. The relevant part is, I have quite a lot of political capital tied up in being the best magician around. Since nobody can actually do magic, that's not very hard. But if you turn up and claim to be a magician tomorrow, the next day everyone will be telling each other about how you flew across the sky.
There is no way way you haven't noticed this if you've posed as magicians before."
Permalink Mark Unread

"Uh, yesterday I could fly across the sky. He probably still can."

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"If you say so. Just don't—" Hank glances down at the floor, which is six inches farther away than usual. "Well. That's something."

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"Are you doing that?" Kithabel asks Skeeve.

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"Yep," says someone who looks nothing like Skeeve. "Convinced yet?" He puts Hank back down, and appears to turn back into himself.

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"Doesn't really matter; you're more than good enough to convince everyone else. I'll believe you for sure when you power a generator."

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"A what?"

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"I'm the only one here who knows how to build one, but I'm working on fixing that. It produces a type of energy that's useful for things like this." He touches something on the wall, and the room is lit. "Anyone who can power a generator can make it real obvious whether or not they're creating more energy than they're putting in."

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Kithabel blinks at the light.

"...Are you claiming that's not magic?"
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He shakes his head. "One hundred percent science and industry."

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Skeeve blinks because of the light, but not because of surprise.
"He's probably right. Enough technology can do almost anything magic can; I'm not even sure if the D-Hopper is magic or not. Some dimensions don't use magic at all, and aren't really held back by it."
Permalink Mark Unread

"I don't even slightly understand how that would make light come from the ceiling, but I suppose I'll have to take your word for it."

Permalink Mark Unread

"It's the same thing that makes lightning light, only less of it and steadier. Can also work for sending messages across the country in no time at all, and transporting people. Though it's usually easier to do that a different way."

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"I can - could - do those things. Can't now. Can I borrow a candle to stare angrily at? This reportedly being an introductory exercise for Skeeve's variety of magic."

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"Of course. I'll be back in a moment." He leaves, and can soon be heard rummaging through a drawer in an adjacent room.

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Kithabel looks at Skeeve. "Is there more to your sort of magic than just particularly momentum-unresponsive demands made of the universe?"

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"That's most of it. That and practice. Motivation also helps; you're more likely to succeed if there's something hanging in the balance rather than just trying to do the thing. The main reason there aren't more magicians is because doing things for the first time involves thinking about nothing else for hours on end, but with luck it might be easier for you.
There's no ritual you need to do first or anything, if that's what you mean."
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"Mmhm."

Kithabel brings her breathing under control and awaits her candle.
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It arrives. Hank makes sure to watch; he knows this candle hasn't been rigged.

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"This could take ages," Kithabel mutters, "it might be very boring."

She glares at the candle. How fucking dare it not light. She's a sorceress, she put in the work, she never slacked off, it will do what she wants and she wants it to light. Now.
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It doesn't.
It's a candle, and if she thinks it's going to bend to her will just because she's an incomprehensible being of incredible power then she's wrong. It will stand against her on behalf of all inanimate objects everywhere.
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Hiss.

She stares it down. She knows better than it what it ought to be doing right now. It ought to be catching fire. It had better. She's not going to back off until she has made it catch.
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After not backing off for long enough, the candle gives in and lights. A brief spiral of smoke appears, and then the flame goes out right away.
"Long enough" was, apparently, longer than it seemed like. The sun is starting to rise, for one thing. Hank and Skeeve are in a corner of the room poking at the misbehaving device. Skeeve announces "you did it!" and rushes candleward.
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"That was pathetic," says Kithabel. "It gets less pathetic later, right?"

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"That was not pathetic; it took you less than an hour! And on your first try, too.
But yes, it gets less pathetic later. In a couple months you'll be able to make it stay lit.
...I'm kidding."
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"I'm not in a great kidding mood. How goes it with the device?"

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"I don't have the slightest idea how this thing works. Skeeve's no help at all in that department, but thinks it could go where it's told to."

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"Probably."

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"Probably."

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"...With the rest of the possibility-space being taken up by...?"

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"Going various somewheres else at random, mostly. It's not going to stop working completely; this thing's durable."

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"What if it drops us in the middle of an ocean?"

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"It usually doesn't. If it does, we—er, I fly us out of the ocean and we hop to a different one."

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"What if it drops us in a volcano? I wasn't up to swimming around in volcanoes yet even this time yesterday."

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"It usually doesn't."

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"How usually."

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"It has never happened to me or anyone I know. I've never heard of it happening at all, but these aren't in common use for some reason so that might not mean much."

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"Some reason," mutters Kithabel. "How do you get around when you don't want to miss your appointments?"

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"Some of my coworkers can dimension-hop on their own, and at least one of the others can handle this more reliably than I can. If I'm using this it's usually because I'm traveling alone and there isn't a permanent gate between the relevant dimensions. Or because I wouldn't mind being dropped in a random world; that's always a possible reason."

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"How long does it take people to learn to dimension-hop on their own?"

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"Long enough that it's rare among humans. You'd be able to, once you're a sorceress again, but I'd imagine you don't want to."

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"I don't actually know that that's something sorcery can do at all, but considering that any sorcerers who tried it would simply appear to have disappeared forever, maybe it is. Anyway, doesn't get me home. Is the accuracy of the device likely to improve any if we stay here for a while?"

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"Not appreciably. I might be able to tweak it a little more than I already did, but if you're worrying about unlikely things like volcanoes then there's always going to be some risk."

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Skeeve suddenly falls over. And snores.

An old man with a long beard walks triumphantly into the room, and then stops. "Thou'rt not he. Where is he who is called the Boss?" He fumbles in a pocket of his blue robe and draws out a handful of powder. "One of us two is prepared for this encounter!"

Hank answers, "I'm right here, Merlin. Can you stop with the whole nemesis thing already? You know you can't—" and then he imitates Skeeve. Merlin looks at Kithabel, reaches into a pocket again, and asks, "Side you with this false magician?"
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"Uh - we've barely met."

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"Excellent. Tell the king his pet magician has been bested in a sorcerous duel, and by none other than Merlin!"
He starts dragging Hank toward the door. Hank is larger than he is; it's not very effective.
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If she were a sorceress, this would be easy. Since she isn't, this might be hard.

But she'd like Merlin to get a faceful of that powder he sent the others to sleep with.

Since he seems perfectly willing to just wander off without harming her if nothing happens, and nothing is the default result if she can't do it, it's pretty safe.

Powder. Face. Go, dammit.
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It goes. Either that or Merlin tired of dragging Hank even sooner than she'd expect; it's pretty anticlimactic either way.

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Kithabel holds her breath, takes the remaining powder from Merlin's person, and inspects him for any other things she might not want him to have.

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He has similar-looking powders in various colors, along with sticks and strings and kitchen implements. There's really no way of telling what's important and what isn't, but Merlin isn't making much use of anything right now.

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Well, she collects it all, because she doesn't know how long this takes to wear off. She sticks her head out the window when she has to inhale, just in case.

Of Hank and Skeeve, Hank is more likely to know what's going on, but Skeeve may be more likely to do something about it. Hmm. She sits near Hank and attempts to wake him up via a combination of shaking and attempts at magic.
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The shaking works first. Hank comes to, and looks around the room.
"That Merlin fellow got me, didn't he. I can hardly believe it."
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"Yes, but I got him back. And took his stuff."

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"Good choice. He's not exactly much of a threat—usually—but he can be slippery. And is still mad about not being Britain's best magician anymore."

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"He wasn't even doing magic, unless the powders were pre-enchanted."

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"I'm glad someone agrees with me. But like I said, most of being a magician is claiming to be one, and he does plenty of that."

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"I noticed." She shoves Skeeve, next.

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He wakes up.

"Do you think you can defeat me that easily? I am SKEEVE! The great and powerful! If you think I can be stopped with a few days' sleep, then— oh, it's you. Hi, Kithabel."
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"Now I want to watch you and Merlin make speeches at each other." she remarks. "Hank, do you have any idea how long the powder lasts if we don't shove him?"

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"Never seen it before. We woke up easily, so probably not long, but you'd have to ask him. Which would defeat the purpose, after all."

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"Do you have something clever to do with him?"

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"Of course." Hank gets up, brushes himself off, and walks to where Merlin's form is occupying the doorway. He knocks loudly on a wall three times, and calls out, "Guards! Restrain him!"

:"It's a great trick, being in charge is, when you can manage it."
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"Looks like fun."

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"So it is. Doing it well is a harder task, but not technically a requirement. Unfortunately. This idiot once held the same position I do, after getting it the same way, and didn't jumpstart thirteen hundred years of technological advancement at all."

Two guards arrive and prop up Merlin between them, keeping a firm grip.
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"I mean, that doesn't sound like an easy thing to come by, the technological advancement."

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"It could happen to anyone. But, yes, the technology specifically isn't the point, so much as the fact that he didn't bother actually doing anything.
I'll give him this, though, at least thinking people exist to be an audience for whoever can plausibly claim to have power is better than thinking they exist as part of the backdrop providing scenery for the people who were born into it."
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"You seem to have some baggage here that I do not fully understand."

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"Very possible. Everywhere here is ruled by kings. Ours is one of the good ones, but when you train someone from birth to believe that the world revolves around them it's a rare person who can manage that."

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"I got along with my local monarchs fine, but then, I was a sorceress when I interacted with them."

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"That would make things easier. If they're as civil to peasants as they are to a sorceress, I'd be surprised."

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"Not that comparing monarchs isn't fun," Skeeve lies, "but were we going to go back to the land of inexplicable lack of problems and weird magic?"

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"Yes, that would be nice, if you can actually get us there. And I doubt Hank wants to come along."

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"Pfft, no. I've got my hands full with one kingdom to improve. Do come back with that thing, though, Skeeve; I've got a dimension to visit. Assuming it works reliably enough to make a trip alive, of course."

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"OK, anyone who's coming grab one of the handles and we're off."

Skeeve holds out the D-hopper to Kithabel and twirls some dials.
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Grab.

She grits her teeth.
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Merlin snaps his eyes open and whispers in the ear of the guard on his right. When the man recoils in fear, the enchanter twists away from the other and grabs for the device. He reaches it just before Skeeve presses the invitingly large red button.

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And the three of them are back at the top of Kithabel's tower.

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Where it is pouring rain, and Kithabel is now quite helpless to avoid being drenched. She heads for the stairs to go inside. "I don't know why you did that," she remarks over her shoulder to Merlin.

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"Is it not obvious?" the wizard asks. He and Skeeve both head for the stairs. "For years I've been a magician. If what that one said is true, there is more magic to be had here than there ever was before."

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Kithabel does not attempt to strand them on top of her tower in the rain. "It takes a long time. And whatever Skeeve's doing to let us communicate won't last, I can't duplicate it myself and I doubt you can either. When he goes off elsewhere you'll be stranded in a strange country without any clear idea how to use the local magic, speak the local language, or abide by local customs."

The stairs lead down to a corridor; the palace is very pretty. Kithabel starts down it. "If you want to stay anyway I'll show you how to get off the waterfall and into town, but I'm going to be too busy getting my momentum back to play tour guide."
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"I will accept whatever help you offer, but there is nothing you can say that will convince me this was not the correct decision. Would you have stayed in Britain, though returning cost you your tongue?"

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"The decisions aren't parallel. This is my home. Besides, apparently you can learn Skeeve's kind of magic anywhere. Most people don't have what it takes to keep up with proper sorcery."

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"I need not even know of what requirements you speak to say that I do."

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"Aren't you charmlessly arrogant. Skeeve, are you going to leave this guy here?"

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"I'm not going to take him back by force, if that's what you mean. I'll leave him this." He takes a small gold chain off his wrist and tosses it to Merlin. "Dunno how long it'll last, but I can get another on Deva. He should have a few years to learn the language.

Besides, he knocked me out. I'm not too concerned with what happens to him."
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Kithabel sighs. "Fine. ...Look, obviously I can't undertake much interdimensional travel myself without losing things it takes ludicrous amounts of time to get back, but if you're amenable I would not mind being visited for occasional swaps of otherworldly souvenirs for anything you might find useful locally. I won't be up to sorceress quality strength again for several years, but lower-grade momentum can still accomplish things and I'll be where I was again in another decade or so."

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"I've got no objection to that.
See you later, then?"
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"Take one of these," she says, pulling a wooden bead off her bracelet. "I don't know if they still work after having been removed from the world, but if they don't they won't do you any good anyway. Talk to it and I'll hear you, if it works, and vice versa."

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"That's clever. I wouldn't have the first idea how to make one of those." He accepts the bead, and squints at it. It continues to look like a bead.

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"Testing," Kithabel whispers to the master bead on her necklace.

"Testing," echoes the bead in Skeeve's hand.
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"Eep!" squeak both beads.
"I...should've been expecting that."
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Kithabel giggles.

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"Hey! Master magician here! It's not funny!"

"Anyway," as he turns slightly red, "I'll see you when—" zap.

The next thing Kithabel hears, first the usual way and then through the bead, is "Not again."
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"Where'd you land this time?" she wonders, motioning to Merlin and heading for the lift that will take him off of her waterfall.

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"Volcano."

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"And this was an 'again'? You didn't mention this ever happening before." Merlin is shown the lift and given directions from the bottom of the falls to the town.

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"The unexpected teleportation was an again. The volcano was a first.

On the bright side, some short guy had just dropped something. And I caught it, so, on balance, came out one ring ahead."
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"Have fun with that." Merlin having been shooed, Kithabel goes back into her castle, and starts trying to do magic. Again. From the beginning.