"I wonder what kinds of design limitations their inventor was working under to make them be like this. Surely there could have been an inner circle with numbers and yes-no and other similarly useful and common answers?"

"One presumes if it were that easy he would not have made alethiometers as cryptic in their answers as they currently are."

"I suppose."

"I think something like a ouija board would be ideal. But maybe whatever it is has trouble with phrasing?"

"I don't suppose anyone's tried taking one of these apart and figuring out what makes it tick, right? Too valuable by far, I guess..."

"Yeah, you'd have to be really confident it'd work or at least that you could put it back together, though I do mean to eventually ask one about that."

"Now that's going to be a hard question to ask, with three clock hands. ...I wonder how the alethiometer even tells, surely the symbols cannot determine things uniquely, I never looked up whether there's a difference if you have, like, the question in your head at the moment or are just following instructions..."

"Oh, you do have to think the question, I believe. I'm not actually sure what added work pointing at symbols does."

"Mind reading, great."

"Not, as far as anyone knows, by a person."

"I'm withholding judgement on whether I believe alethiometers are not people until I've fiddled with mine any."

"The one in the Louvre does not seem to respond to topics people are thinking about when they aren't holding it, so it may just be a user interface decision."

"Given that alethiometers pluck objective knowledge out of thin air I wonder if, regardless of whether they themselves are some kind of people, someone could use one to effectively read someone else's mind."

"Crossed my mind. It'd be very low resolution but that wouldn't matter if you were good enough at reading it. Shouldn't work on me but I'm not positive and that doesn't help anybody else."

"Why not on you?"

"It's my birth blessing but it was designed for, like, curses, not alethiometers."

"Birth blessing? Witches get birth blessings? How do those work?"

"About the same as other blessings but with some added oomph?"

"Why added oomph? Can you only get one? Why only at birth? Can non-witches get it?"

"We were not previously aware you could bless people," Luca explains.

"Birth blessings only work at birth on witches one apiece because they tie up some of the recipient's magic, but yes we can bless people."

"What kinds of things can you bless people for, is it only magic or can you, I don't know, give your kid an extra ten IQ points, that'd be huge especially if it got heritable from there but I'd guess it wouldn't—"

"We can't do IQ points. Some birth blessings wind up panning out as talent in a thing - we don't pick the details, just a goddess - but not just being smart. Most regular blessings are for health and protection."

"—wait, so like, you pick a goddess and then you luck out to have something specific related to her? How do you find out which specific thing you have?"

"I don't have kids, I've never actually done one. My grandma was hoping I'd get an art talent, that I know."