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Metamancer Kaede in Elcenia
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Kaede's flying with purpose. He has Information and a little artefact to prove his Information is correct. This will be grand. He's flying and he's grinning and life's (reasonably) good (terms and conditions apply).

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He is not flying any more!

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What the duck

Having his momentum stopped like that: not pleasant. At all. Ow.

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He is being peered at by a couple of young girls: one brown and human, one blonde and pointy eared. They start chattering to each other excitedly.

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—in a language he has never heard before. "Erm. Hello?"

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Blonde one goes and gets a book off a shelf and starts flipping through it.

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...okay, he'll wait, then.

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Then she makes some gestures and utters some more gibberish and says "Can you understand me now?"

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"—yes. How...?"

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"We summoned you!" says Brown Girl.

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He blinks slowly. "You. Ah. Summoned me. Where?" And he metaphorically looks at the magic around.

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"It's our room," says Brown.

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There is a duckton of magic in here. None of it is magic he has ever seen. He is standing in a circle that is somehow magical, there are several objects that are magical but not artefacts, there is some ambient magic, and there is weird magic inside the two of them.

What.

"I'm. Gonna need something a bit less local than this."

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"...it's at our school," adds Brown helpfully.

Blonde puts in, "In the country of Esmaar in the world of Elcenia."

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"And is this summoning, ah, spell of yours meant to import people from other worlds or..."

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"Yeah," says Brown, "we're just going to show you to Nemaar and then put you back, don't worry."

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"—I have so many questions I don't even know how to start asking them."

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"Well we have to wait a few degrees before we get him anyway," shrugs Brown, "so we could answer some I guess."

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"'Degrees'?"

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"It's a unit of time," says Blonde helpfully.

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"Okay. You did know about the existence of other worlds before, yes? Were you aiming? Had you touched my world before?" He tries touching the edge of the—magic thing around him.

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The magic thing around him is not going anywhere no sir fuck you.

"Yeah, everybody knows about other worlds, but we just summoned somebody random," says Brown.

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"What's this thing around me?"

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"It's a ward in case 'random' was also 'dangerous'," says Blonde.

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"It's a rather rude ward." What happens if he tries touching it with his actual non-metaphorical hand?

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It doesn't hurt or anything, but his hand will not proceed beyond that point.

"Rude?" asks Blonde.

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"It seemed to be very insistent that I'm not supposed to do anything to it before I even tried doing anything much to it."

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"...well, if it let you do things to it it wouldn't be a very good ward," says Brown.

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"I'm not particularly used to magic being able to have such strong opinions about what I do to it, even wards. Anyway, people from my world don't know about other worlds, I'm pretty sure, I only just inferred their existence by you and how different the magic here is, I am kinda freaking out. I mean, it's really cool and stuff, but I feel somewhat iffy about the ethics of importing a rando from another world and then exporting them without so much as a by your leave, and if you have this world-interaction ability at your disposal just like that I'd really love it if you wouldn't send me back immediately."

(And in the meantime he'll do some more metaphorical squinting at the ward to see whether he can find anything like a weak spot or—well, just understand it.)

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The ward is very robust! It does the thing that it does extremely well.

"...huh?" says Brown.

"Wait, so are you glad we summoned you or not," says Blonde.

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"I'm glad you summoned me, in particular, I'm not sure summoning random people is a good idea, in general, and I'd like you to not unsummon me—for now, anyway."

Sure, but is there a source, is there a battery, is it embedded on anything, would it contain his magic... He's not asking any questions consciously, merely looking and trying to get more information. He doesn't even want to do anything to it, it's a very sensible idea, but he's kinda tickled by it.

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"We haven't even shown you to Nemaar yet," agrees Brown.

The ward draws power from THAT ENORMOUS THING OF POWER ALL OF EVERYWHERE IT IS VERY BIG. He cannot magic through the ward unless his magic happens to carry on pure light or sound, or count for a very rigorous definition as "air".

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—okay whoa he even takes a step back.

"I meant even after you'd shown me to Nemaar—why is there an enormous thing of power all of everywhere that is very big?"

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"We can't keep you in our dorm room forever," objects Brown.

"...what are you talking about?" asks Blonde.

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"You could keep me somewhere else, and I'm talking about the—power source?—of this magic ward. It seems to be literally everywhere I've never seen anything like that but that's a given."

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"We can't let you out, you might be dangerous," says Brown.

"...the wizarding reservoir?" asks Blonde.

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"That sounds grand enough, yes, what is it?"

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"It's where wizard magic comes from."

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He tries to see if he can draw some magic from it while he asks, "Does it just—exist, there? Everywhere? As a feature of nature?"

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Nope he is not allowed he is not its friend.

"...yes?"

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Well, there goes the infinite mana hack, then. Or, if not infinite, fuckton mana hack.

"Okay. So ah. Let's start this over. Hi, I'm Kaede—" glance at the pointy ears "—human. Nice to meet you."

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"I'm Saasnil and I'm a human too," says Brown Human.

"Korulen," says Blonde, "elf thudia."

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"Where I'm from the only sapient species is humans, what others are there here?"

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"Uh - I'll probably forget some -" says Korulen, "- dragons halflings vampires leonines skyfolk merfolk -"

"Dwarves," puts in Saasnil.

"- dwarves, pixies fairies sprites, wolfriders... that might be all of them."

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He blinks. "Can we start with elf thudias?"

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"Oh, thudia just means I'm half dragon," says Korulen, "I'm mostly an elf."

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"Oh, your sapient species are interfertile?"

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"Mostly. Especially dragons."

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"Huh. And how are you half dragon but mostly elf? And... aren't dragons huge scaly flying things?"

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"...yes, dragons are huge scaly flying things, but they can shapeshift, and my mom is a dragon and my dad is an elf, and sometimes half-dragons are just totally dragons, like my baby sister, and sometimes we're more like our non-dragon parents, like me."

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"Oh. How peculiar." Can he see anything that seems dragon-ish in the girl's magic? Or shapeshiftingish, or whatever, he's not sure what he's even looking for. "That's species-specific magic, then? Not like wizardry."

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That bit might be shapeshifty? It's all pretty unfamiliar.

"Yeah, anybody can do wizardry," says Saasnil.

"Anybody with hands and a voice and a channeling capacity," clarifies Korulen.

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"Why do you need hands and a voice, and what's a channelling capacity?"

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"Hands for gestures and a voice for words and a channeling capacity lets you pull power from the reservoir and put it in a spell," says Korulen.

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"Is it something you're born with or can you get it?"

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"Born with."

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"Shame." He'll see if he can develop a channelling capacity in himself later, but he's not hopeful. This magic system seems incredibly unfriendly. He sits down, cross-legged. "What about elves, do they have specific magic?—do humans, here, for that matter?"

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"Nah, humans and elves aren't magic," says Saasnil.

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He nods. "Okay, so... like I said, I personally find it quite fascinating that other worlds exist and my mind is abuzz with all the possibilities in resource exchange and helping with problems, but why exactly did you two decide to summon random people from other worlds?"

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"We're going to show you to Nemaar, we said, remember," says Saasnil.

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"Right, but who's Nemaar and why are you showing me to them?"

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"Nemaar's this kid in one of my classes and he wouldn't think I could cast this spell," says Saasnil.

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"—you did this to prove you could."

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"And I can!"

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He starts laughing.

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"What?" asks Saasnil, disgruntled.

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He shakes his head, smiling. "That's kind of a terrible reason to do it and I know exactly what it feels like to want to do that anyway."

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Saasnil crosses her arms and huffs.

"Anyway, in like another degree Nemaar will be out of class," says Korulen.

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"Okay. So let me try to make my pitch: my world has several problems which it needn't have, and here you have magic powerful enough to pull people from another world. I think this is enough magic to fix a lot of them. I might have magic that will help you fix problems in your world, unless you don't have them, in which case I appeal to your sense of altruism instead."

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"Uh, what is it you want us to do exactly?" asks Korulen.

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"Not dismiss me as soon as you show me to your friend would be a good start, like I suggested, but if you must, perhaps summoning me again elsewhere? And then, I don't know, I suppose playing guide to an off-worlder wouldn't be too appealing so books, perhaps?"

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"We're not actually, like, supposed to summon people," says Saasnil.

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"I would imagine you're not. But I am here now, and it may be—something—of me to say so but sitting on a pool of resources like this when I could be using them to help people—not my style."

He continues looking at the ward, trying to understand it, see what makes it tick, surely there's a way to make it go away, even temporarily.

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"You can't do anything from in there and we can't let you out, it's not safe," says Korulen.

The ward opines that fuck you.

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He does not particularly care about the ward's opinions. It takes a long time to understand magic where he's from, anyway, he's fine with taking a long time to figure this one out, too. It's not like he's doing anything other than look.

"Observe me not suggesting you take down the ward or let me out. I'm pretty willing to be in a ward here or elsewhere for however long it takes to prove I'm not a threat."

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"We can't just leave you sitting in our room and we can't move you while you're in a ward."

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"Can you make a ward elsewhere and summon me there?"

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"It'd be a different spell to get a specific person and we used this one because it wouldn't be noticed if we got the book out of the library, it would be if we got a regular summoning book," says Korulen.

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Pause. "Can you make a moving ward or something?"

(Still studying the ward.)

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"No..."

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"I'm a bit limited in how much I understand your magic system, can you, I don't know, knock me out and then move me elsewhere and put a ward there?"

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"You're from a totally different world and we don't know how you work, we can't be sure anything like that is safe," says Korulen.

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"Isn't there any identifying magic or something you could use to figure that out?"

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"My mom could check you but we don't want to tell her we were even doing this."

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"...I don't, ah... it's potentially a pretty huge deal if you could call your mum."

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"...uh, why?"

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"'Cause you just contacted a world you know nothing about. If I'm lying, then your mum figuring that out will put all of this to an end, and you might get scolded or grounded. If I'm telling the truth, there are all kinds of potential trades our worlds would probably greatly benefit from, and several hundred thousands, perhaps millions of lives—on my side, don't know your population—could be improved beyond their dreams."

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"I could get expelled," says Saasnil, alarmed.

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"Or you could save several people from starvation and preventable diseases."

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Saasnil whirls on Korulen - "Don't tell her I can't get expelled it can't be that important anyway or people would do this all the time -"

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"Maybe they would, or maybe there are protocols people follow and they do this all the time in a more controlled manner. Do you think your mum would really get you expelled over this...?"

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"Korulen wouldn't get expelled her dad is the headmaster, I would get expelled!" says Saasnil.

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"So you could tell just her mum and ask her not to tell her dad. Or she could ask her dad not to get you expelled. It would seem... very unfair, to me, for you to get expelled over this."

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"Nobody's going to ask you if you think it's fair or if Korulen doesn't want me expelled!" exclaims Saasnil. "And her mom can't not tell her dad they're mindlinked -"

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"...and is there literally no one else you could ask to check?"

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"Not like Mom could," says Korulen, shaking her head, frowning, "not safe enough that we could just plain let you out, lie detection by itself isn't good enough..."

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"Why not? I could tell you everything I have said in this conversation is true to the best of my knowledge and I have not attempted nor do I plan to attempt any form of subterfuge or misdirection."

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"We're not, like, professional interrogators," says Korulen.

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"You could come up with any phrasing you liked, perhaps ask a teacher for a better set of questions and say it's for a book or research, perhaps look for a book? You could leave this lie detection spell or artefact on while we talk, and ask me whatever questions you liked."

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"Except we don't know how to do that because we're wizard students not professional interrogators and the safe thing to do is not let you out," Korulen says.

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He runs a hand through his hair, looking frustrated. "I'm not sure how many more shows of good faith I need. It's a good rule that you shouldn't let me out, but I'm pretty sure it was also a rule that you shouldn't have summoned me at all, and given that you have, it's a better rule to verify."

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"Well, sure you'd say that, you want out."

"And me expelled."

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"I would want out whether I was going to cause whatever destruction or not. Regular, non-evil people tend to also not like being inside a magical cylinder" he will understand this cylinder eventually "so it doesn't mean anything by itself. I don't want you to get expelled, but I want to waste this opportunity even less."

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"Well that's easy for you to say you can't even get expelled," says Saasnil.

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He heaves a long sigh.

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"Maybe we shouldn't even let Nemaar see him," Saasnil tells Korulen.

"I'm not going to summon a replacement."

"Ugh."

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He leans forward, resting his head on his hands.

"Is there anything I could do that would convince you it was worth the risk to tell Korulen's mum?"

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"I don't know," Korulen says uncertainly.

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He looks at Korulen, somewhat hopeful, wishing that uncertainty is an idea.

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"If you're not in a huge hurry I could maybe summon you back later in like a couple years..."

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"...that's better than not being summoned back at all, I guess. I did explain my reasons for wanting to be summoned back."

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"And in a few years I'll be able to do things like summon people and it won't be a huge deal."

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"Should still be a last resort, though, two years isn't a lot but it's not the best possible solution."

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"I'm not going to get my roommate expelled for you," says Korulen crossly.

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"Not for me," he sighs, "but regardless, I don't want to get her expelled, and if this is a hard constraint we just have to think around it. Your mum could somehow determine whether I'm speaking the truth, and I expect it involves some mind stuff, given your reference to a 'mindlink' which would also make the prospect of hiding it from your father the headmaster untenable. Does nobody else have similar magic? What other similar resources are there?"

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"Mom's the only one like that," says Korulen. "Wizardry does lie detection but you could have almost any kind of magic, you're from another world..."

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"You could do lie detection and I could fully describe my magic and everything I can do with it and you could see that it won't be a threat? Or, at least, it will be a containable threat—I'm pretty sure your magic has mine beat in most situations, I'm having a real hard time understanding this ward."

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"How can you even see it?" asks Saasnil.

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"My type of mage can see—and usually manipulate—other magic. We can't produce any magic of our own, at least not of the kinds in my world, but we can detect all of it—and apparently detect magic here, too. I'm mildly confident I could figure out how to undo this ward if I spent long enough staring at it, but that would be rude."

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This does not look like it was the best thing to say to get the girls to keep him around.

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"Long enough is, like, hours! And like I said, it'd be rude to do it, I still want to convince you to trust me, I don't want to just cheat, that wouldn't work at all, would it?"

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"This was a bad idea," Korulen tells Saasnil, "we should just unsum-"

Pause.

"Korulen?"

"Oh no -"

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"What? Look I've been nothing but honest here with you two, I could have lied, could have simply hid my magic—"

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"And this was a stupid idea to begin with and we can't send you back -"

"What, sure we -"

"Can't co-cast a reversal!"

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He facepalms loudly. "I'm stuck here?"

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"I'm sorry!" exclaims Korulen.

Saasnil sits on her bed and buries her face in her hands.

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He sighs. "It's fine." Pause. "Not the expulsion, I mean, that's not fine. But... surely if your magic can summon it can also... I don't know, return, push, send? Even if it's not just a direct reversal of calling me here."

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"You can only send people from their original world," says Korulen, starting to pace.

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"So is summoning and unsummoning the literal only known method of interdimensional transit?"

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"...yes?"

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"How is new magic invented or discovered?"

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"New wizardry?"

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"Right, how does new wizardry—happen?"

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"Um, people develop spells? I haven't taken that class yet."

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"Okay, so it's not the worst outcome, there could be a way to send me back."

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"But we can't do it."

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"Is there any reason you can't keep me a secret in this room, other than the obvious one of it being kinda weird and creepy to have a random dude in a young girl's room?"

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"Uh, other people come into our room ever?"

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"And that'd be impossible to avoid for the next few years? Hmm. I... could probably develop a spell that makes me unnoticeable but I'm not sure it'd work beyond this ward, and also I'd eventually run out of mana unless I got another source."

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"And people could see the diagram."

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"Could possibly make it invisible, too... or maybe cover it with a rug?"

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"The rug wouldn't go through the ward."

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"Hmm... can you make a ward that selectively lets stuff through, or only from the one direction, around this one, and then unmake this one?"

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"No."

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"Which part of that is impossible?"

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"We're not going to break this ward!"

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Blink. "How... were you planning to get rid of it after I was gone?"

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"It'd be fine if you were gone but you're not going to be gone you're stuck."

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"Oh you mean you won't break the ward, not that you can't. But like, if there was already a ward around this one that was just as good before you unmade this one what would the problem be?"

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"It wouldn't. Be as good."

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"Why not?"

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"Because the ward built into this spell is really really strong and general."

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"Okay... Can you make another ward like this inside this ward?"

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"No, we can't reach in there past it."

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"Ugh. This is too many constraints," he moans, dropping his head onto his hands again. "Why will summoning me get you expelled anyway?"

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"Because you're not supposed to summon people!"

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"But is it a rule against, specifically, summoning people? Or is it maybe about summoning people without their consent? I could say I'd given consent if that was it."

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"Except this is a random summon spell."

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"And people can tell which spell was used?"

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"If they look at the diagram. Anyway we wouldn't have been allowed to meet you to ask."

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"Would meeting me to ask also warrant expulsion?"

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"We couldn't very well have done it without casting a summoning spell could we!" says Korulen, flinging her hands in the air hysterically.

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"Not unless someone else cast it and talked about it with me, and you don't want to tell on them because they'd get expelled, or they weren't a student so can't get expelled anyway, and this casting was perfectly consensual."

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"...but my dad is the headmaster and will definitely expect me to tell on whoever would've summoned you first. It might not even be actually legal, even if they weren't a student..."

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"How is first contact handled at all, if it's illegal?"

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"It's... not? Pretty much? But it is like especially illegal because we're students."

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"Hmm... well, but if it's illegal that's double the reason why you wouldn't want to tell, isn't it?"

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"I'm not sure if it's illegal enough that somebody could make us tell," says Korulen uncertainly.

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"Would you be able to look that up without arousing suspicion?"

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"I don't even know where to look, I'm not a law student -"

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"But it's a possibility, if you can keep this quiet for long enough to verify, we could avoid the whole expulsion thing. I mean, sure, there's the lying part, but one way or another some form of trickery is going to have to take place."

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"That's really nice of you," Saasnil says dejectedly, "but I think we'd probably get caught and then be in more trouble for trying not to get caught."

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He sighs. "I'm sorry."

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"It's not your fault," sighs Korulen.

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He shrugs. "Yeah, but I'm still not super thrilled about it either, from any angle."

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"- so should I just go ahead and call Mom -"

"Yeah. Whatever," Saasnil says unhappily.

Korulen purses her lips, but then closes her eyes -

- and the door opens, a moment later, to reveal a really fucking magic lady with green hair.

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Holy cow lady you are terrifying.

"Hello," he says steadily. "You must be Korulen's mother."

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"Yes. My name's Keo. I'm very sorry about this," says Terrifying Green Haired Lady.

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"I'm Kaede, and it's alright. I mean, not the part where I'm stuck here for the foreseeable future, but the part where I'm here at all is not terrible."

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"Korulen said she explained to you that I need to check you over before you can leave the circle; it won't feel like anything and I won't look at anything I don't need to. Is that all right?"

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"Sure."

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A very precisely controlled tendril of invisible green magic sweeps over his mind, and then Keo steps forward and smudges the chalk line. The ward ceases to exist.

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"I'm definitely going to want to learn to do that. The ward, I mean. Wizardry in general." He stands up, dusting himself. "—is Saasnil going to be expelled? Because although I understand the general principle behind the rule I don't feel it's warranted in this particular situation..."

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"Saasnil is in an enormous amount of trouble but may not be outright expelled," says Keo, glancing at Saasnil, who shrinks under her gaze. "Same goes for Korulen." Korulen flinches. "In the meantime, what do you need to be comfortable here for a while? The problem that stuck you here will not apply to anyone competently summoned, so anyone you want to contact from home can be fetched, and we can send and summon written correspondence the same way."

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"I don't really have anyone I need to talk to, but unless I get my hands on some magical artefacts or scrolls from back home or get some brand new magic here I will eventually run out." He pokes his backpack, on the floor, with a foot. "I got a couple of things here, so that's still a week or two out, maybe, depending. Other than that, er, I guess a place to sleep and a way to get food and stuff?"

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"We can put you up in a dormitory here and you can have a cafeteria pass."

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He nods. "I'd also like—library access, I guess, or something like that? How much did Korulen tell you—or did you get from my brain—about what I'd like to do here?"

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"You can have library access too. I didn't read you on that subject and Korulen only mentioned you'd seemed to find it very important to have ongoing contact between the worlds."

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"Well, the gist of it is that you have lots of resources we don't, and the reverse is also probably true, so transactions and other positive-sum interactions can be used to better the lives of several people?"

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"You want to open trade relations?" Keo asks, amused.

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"Yeah, pretty much. I mean, if you prefer to do charity instead and dump all your ridiculously impossible magic on us that'd be nice, too."

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"Elcenia has both trading enterprises and charities, but this as it happens is a school, so I'm not the person to talk to about that."

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"Yeah, I'll figure it out. 'Til then, learning new magic is gonna be loads of fun."

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"You're not going to be able to learn most of the kinds here; they tend to require being born with the potential," says Keo, motioning for him to follow her out of the room.

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He hoists his backpack over his shoulder again and gives Saasnil and Korulen a two finger wave before following. "My kind of magic is basically being able to see and manipulate magic, including using magic I wasn't born with—at least from my world. So I might still be able to figure out a way to make myself 'have been born' with the potential."

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"That'd be interesting if you could." She leads him to a magic box at the end of the hall and commands it to go to another hall, which it does.

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"I couldn't even touch the wizardry thingamajig, and I expect that's a lack of channelling capacity, but I might be able to get one if I find someone with a channelling capacity who's willing to let me stare at them for a while."

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"Everybody from this world has one of those, so that shouldn't be too hard to come by."

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"Really? Well, cool, then. I might not even need to pay them, if they're nerdy enough to want to do it in exchange for knowledge about my world or my magic. By the way how long does this translation spell last, do you know?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Until Korulen reverses it, which she won't unless you want to replace it with a different one or do without."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh no I love it I'd take forever to learn any other languages I'm not very good at them. So your magic does permanent effects, huh?"

He "looks inwards" at the translation spell.

Permalink Mark Unread

It is a translation spell. It will hang out on Kaede and translate things. It's not translating things right now, Keo's just actually speaking his language and does not need his translated for her either.

"I wouldn't normally call a spell like that a permanent effect, since it can be easily reversed, but yes."

Permalink Mark Unread

"My kind of magic can't do anything that just—sticks. Everything has a charge or is finite. A translation spell would have a time limit."

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"I don't think any Elcenian magic works like that."

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"There seems to be a source, though. The wizardry spells are connected to this big well of power that seems to be everywhere."

Permalink Mark Unread

"That'd be the wizarding reservoir."

Permalink Mark Unread

"That's the one, yes. Does it never run out?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Nope."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Do you know more about what it is than 'lots of magic people happen to be able to access'?"

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"Not... really. Observations of it are made but 'what it is' is not really known."

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"What sorts of observations?"

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"It changes somewhat in size over time in semiregular patterns."

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"It has a size?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yes - well, an amount."

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"And it—grows, shrinks?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Both. There's more about this in the library, the patterns are called Tah Roie rhythms."

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"No one's been able to find a correlation with anything else?"

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"If this interests you the library's a better bet." They arrive at the destination and she shows him to an unoccupied room. "Korulen can take you shopping for whatever you need at your convenience."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Thank you.—how should I, er, find Korulen, if I need her? Just show up at her door and knock?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"You can contact me by thinking my name loudly and I can relay to her, or, yes, that."

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"Right, about this mind thing, is it a species thing or...?"

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"Yes, but a rare species thing, I'm the only one with my powers alive right now."

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He blinks. "How many people are alive right now? Of your species, even?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"There are a lot of dragons, but dragons of other color groups would have different powers; there's thousands of green-groups though."

Permalink Mark Unread

"...huh. Dragons sound fascinating. What other colour groups are there?—or should I just go to the library and stop keeping you?"

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She raises an eyebrow. "Blue, black, red, white, violet, and I do think you'll have the best results with the library for your various curiosities. I recommend getting Korulen to take you shopping sometime before you abruptly need sheets on your bed, though."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Right. And, erm... What about money? I expect these things aren't literally for free unless I lucked out and got summoned to a post-scarce universe."

Permalink Mark Unread

"The school's responsible for you since our students summoned you irresponsibly."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Ah. ...happen much? They said there aren't protocols for meeting people from other universes and summoning was the only known interdimensional transit method..."

Permalink Mark Unread

"No, it doesn't happen much, it's mostly a theoretical field."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Is this world in regular contact with many others? Aaand what's it called, again, starts with an E...?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Not that I know of, and Elcenia."

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He nods. "Well, er, I guess I shouldn't keep you with my million questions. Could you point me to the library?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Just ask the lift, it'll take you there. Same with the cafeteria, or the exit, or my husband's office - 'headmaster's office' - and if you need anything or get lost, just think 'Keo' really loudly."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Okay. Thank you very much for your help and patience."

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"You're welcome." And she gestures and says an untranslated word and vanishes.

Permalink Mark Unread

Okay. So he walks into the room and looks around.

Permalink Mark Unread

It's a double dorm room with furniture but no other objects. There's a window overlooking grassland.

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...okay that's enough room exploration he will leave his stuff there and figure out how to lock the door and then go to the lift to pay the library a visit.

Permalink Mark Unread

The door actually doesn't have a physical lock. It has a ward that responds to his intentions. Very userfriendly.

The lift works just as advertised and here's a huge library!

Permalink Mark Unread

Eee huge library!

Okay first thing he wants to find out, because it's been bugging him, is length of year and month and week and day and seasons and what replaces hours and minutes and why not throw some stuff about the solar system in for good measure?

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The calendar and time system are different. The planet is an only child, and it's square, and it orbits a sun, and there is a hemispherical moon which goes around the planet, and also there is air between all these objects.

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What the. What the duck. What. What the.

"Excuse me," he finds the nearest librarian to ask, "but this book seems to think your planet is square."

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"...it is," says the librarian. "Well, it's not infinitely thin like a mathematical square, I suppose it's technically a rectangular prism with mountains on top, but no one fusses with the details like that."

Permalink Mark Unread

"H—how do—nevermind I'm sure this book will explain it to me, thank you."

How in heavens and in the name of all the gods does gravity even work. Why is it square. Why this. Why all of this.

Permalink Mark Unread

Gravity doesn't. Down magic pulls toward the surfaces of the planet. And the flat side of the moon. But not the round side. It is speculated that there will be a down at any sufficiently large basically flat surface.

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...so, what, if you're on the round side do you... what, what happens?

And how far is this moon anyway? And the sun? And what is the sun? And what is the moon? And who put them there? What about the stars?

Permalink Mark Unread

If you're not near enough a flat surface you do not have a down, and float.

The moon is a long flight for a dragon or scoot but not completely intractable as a day trip for either. The sun is farther than that, it would take all weekend probably to fly there. The sun is a ball of fire and the moon is a rock and they have always been there. The stars are more balls of fire.

Permalink Mark Unread

Aaaaaaaaaargh! Are the stars the same size as the sun and merely farther away, or are they actually smaller dots?

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They are the same size and merely farther away. Well, about the same size, stars vary.

Permalink Mark Unread

...what size is this, exactly? And how large is the square, by the by? And where do the oceans go? Is this tiny, tiny sun actually enough to warm the, er, planet? And are there, for that matter, other planets?

Permalink Mark Unread

The square is ten miles thick and 1500 miles to an edge. The oceans are here between the continents, see, and yes those two have corners. Yes. Yes. (The other planets are also various flat regular polygons. Mostly regular polygons. There's an isosceles triangle someone discovered six years ago and it's very exciting.)

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How do the oceans behave around the corners?

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Cornery.

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...this is just wrong. All of it.

How do planets form, here?

Permalink Mark Unread

Unknown!

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Gods.

Okay... where was he, he forgot, he had so many questions to ask...

Let's go with dragons.

Permalink Mark Unread

Dragons! There are thirty colors of them in six groups and they have many enviable magic powers and their own governmenty thing.

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Are these colours species or what? They apparently can cross-breed, how's that interact with colours? What are the differences between the colours, other than, you know, colours?

(And he makes a mental note to look into geopolitics.)

(...and he makes a physical note to look into geopolitics because he's sure he'll forget otherwise.)

Permalink Mark Unread

Dragons can interbreed with anything they damn well please, apparently, that's one of the many enviable magic powers, but insofar as Elcenia seems to construe species the colors are not their own species. They also have different cosmetic features like horns and spines and stuff per color. There is a very slight statistical tendency for intercolor offspring to take after the mother's color when there is one mother and one father; statistics are pending on same-sex couples.

Permalink Mark Unread

...same-sex couples can conceive?

Permalink Mark Unread

As of recently, by magic! That is why statistics are pending. If it's two dudes they need somebody helping.

Permalink Mark Unread

That's awesome. He'll look into the prevalence of magic later. For now, what other differences are there between dragons?

Permalink Mark Unread

There are the extra magic ones and the suuuuuper extra magic ones. There are various ages; they can live to be 2-4,000 years old if they get past the infant mortality stage. (Hella infant mortality.) Some of them are parunias, which means they turn out as dragons even though one of their parents is a nondragon.

Permalink Mark Unread

How does the genetics of that work, exactly? And why hella infant mortality, exactly?

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Magic. Also magic they're not sure?

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"Magic they're not sure" seems like exactly the kind of problem he's equipped to solve.

He reads some more about dragons to see whether anything interesting catches his eye.

Permalink Mark Unread

Dragons age slowly and are very pretty and can fly and have these naming customs and shrens exist and Dragon Island is over here and iron dragons rust but spelters don't and violet-groups have softshelled eggs and lines work like so...

Permalink Mark Unread

—shrens?

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Exist! Obscurely.

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As in, there's no information on what they are, or?

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There is, he just has to dig a bit. Here's an explanation.

Permalink Mark Unread

............what.

Why, exactly, can they not fly? Is it something physical or what?

Permalink Mark Unread

Nobody knows!

Permalink Mark Unread

Do... dragons, in general, fly via physics of via magic? As in, is it their wings doing the work when they fly, or is it a magical thing?

Permalink Mark Unread

Dragons are generally believed to be flying via physics.

Permalink Mark Unread

And are shrens any physically different?

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Nope. It's very puzzling.

Permalink Mark Unread

Okay so either they are wrong about shrens being physically different or they're wrong about flight being powered by physics. He's betting on the latter.

He reads up some more on dragons and then decides he'd better take Keo up on that shopping suggestion before it gets too late. He returns the books to their appropriate shelves and goes back to Korulen's room.

Permalink Mark Unread

Korulen's in it! She looks sheepishly at him.

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"Hi! So your mum volunteered you to help me with shopping?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Uh, yeah. Do you want to go now?"

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"If you have something else you need to do doesn't need to be now, I just thought I'd better do that before I forgot."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I can go now." She goes out of her room and heads for the lift. "Can you fly?"

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"Theoretically yes, but until I find a way to get any new magic in this world I wanna conserve my mana."

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"How does that work? Front entrance," she tells the lift, and off it goes.

Permalink Mark Unread

"My world has four kinds of mages, and my kind cannot generate any magic for themself. We can, however, see, sense, manipulate, and borrow magic of the other three kinds, and I can see all—or, at least, a lot—of the magic around here, so I expect I'll be able to figure out a way to get some for myself. If I can't then eventually I'll run out of mana and be unable to do any kind of magic."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh. How do you usually borrow it?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"It's a primitive mental action, for my kind of mage. With my kind of magic, I can just see it, and metaphorically reach for it and... take it. The wizardry reservoir did not like my first attempts but I might try something after I find out more about it, usually borrowing is easy and doesn't need understanding but that may be because my kind of magic knows innately more about the other three kinds than it does about this world's kinds."

Permalink Mark Unread

"...you should be really careful, a lot of important stuff runs on magic."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I... don't think I'm gonna break magic by looking at it and trying to use it. Especially not wizardry, the reservoir is really big."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yeah but if you took some magic out of a magic item or a ward or something."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh, yeah, I wouldn't do that until and unless I knew how to do it, for one, and actually wanted to destroy said item, for two, which I wouldn't do all willy nilly any more than I'd drop a vase on the floor to break it."

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"Okay." The city in the distance starts very abruptly, jutting up with tall buildings next to the grassland.

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Ooh city!

"We don't have cities like that—aesthetically—where I'm from."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh? What about it?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Starting abruptly like that, and having such tall buildings. I mean, some cities have tall buildings, but they're mostly built on top of the floating platforms above swamps. And there are the castles."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I'm not sure Esmaar has any castles in current use. It starts abruptly because that's where the ward ends, it might petition for a ward expansion soon... why aren't your buildings tall?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"I think it's mostly an aesthetic thing? And also a population thing, we have, like, a few hundred thousand, maybe a few million people living on the whole continent?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"I think this one city has more than a million people."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Whoa. Yeah. That'll be why."

Permalink Mark Unread

"It's not even the biggest city in the country but it's up there, I think top ten?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"How many people live in the biggest one?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Daasen's got... six, seven million people? Plus suburbs."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Wow. I was planning on looking into countries and borders and geopolitics stuff at the library later, but wow it must get complicated with so many people—and I expect lots of countries, too?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"A few dozen? It gets complicated, some things are all on top of each other."

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"What do you mean, on top of each other?"

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"Like fairies are yea big," she gestures, "and often have entire fairy cities in, like, parks inside cities for larger people, and self-govern but don't do international politics on their own, just through the host country."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh. That's fascinating. Do fairies have their own magic like dragons, too?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"No, but they can be wizards or whatever."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Apparently I'm the only one who can't."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Wolves can't, they don't have hands, and sprites can't because they can't talk."

Permalink Mark Unread

"It's kinda weird that this magic needs these two specific kinds of actions to be done."

Permalink Mark Unread

"There might be another way to do it - fairies and pixies use different spells than we do, so do merfolk - but nobody's found one."

Permalink Mark Unread

"And that also sounds like exactly the kind of problem I might be able to help solve—or figure out that and why it's unsolvable."

Permalink Mark Unread

"How would you do that?"

Permalink Mark Unread

He shrugs. "Look at the magic, figure out how it's interacting with gestures and words, figure out why and whether that can be attached to anything else, whether that's a fundamental aspect of it or other ways of accessing it just happen to be harder to lock on for some reason. My kind of mage's whole schtick is understanding magic, reading it like a book—a bit like a book in a foreign language I don't speak but yeah."

Permalink Mark Unread

"But like would you look at wizards or at sprites or what."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I'd look at as much as I could. Watching any magic of a given kind at all is—sufficient for me to understand it; but watching people use it, or fail to use it, or do different things with it, or have them explain it to me, taking the book in a foreign language metaphor a step further, is like getting a sort of dictionary, or a large corpus in that language plus a translation—it helps me understand the magic faster and more efficiently and not accidentally go off on a fruitless tangential misunderstanding."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh. Well, you landed in a wizardry school so there'll be lots of wizards to look at."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yeah. Speaking of which, how about that one classmate of yours you wanted to wave me at?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Nemaar? Uh, the whole thing kind of spiraled out of control and I don't think we're going to go out of our way to show off how we summoned you to anyone."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Makes sense, I guess. Why'd you want to show that to him in specific?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"He'd been making fun of Saasnil. She got me to help."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Fun of her... because she can't summon people?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Complicated spells in general... I don't know why she picked summoning in specific."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Wouldn't it defeat the point, if she had to co-cast it? Or did he expect her not to be able to do that, either? Or maybe co-casting is just as hard as not doing that?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"She did the diagram, that's the hard part. And co-casting is just as hard."

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He nods. "Well, she did it, so I guess even if she doesn't get to rub me in anyone's face she can still feel proud about it."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I don't think she really feels proud about stranding you here."

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"I'm honestly okay being stranded here? 'S long as it's temporary, and I expect it to be. It's not out of the realm of possibility that I can do more good here than back home, or at least do it more quickly and efficiently."

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"I'm glad you're okay about it. It'll probably be fixable once I can get a familiar, those increase channeling capacity and then I can send you back myself - Saasnil probably can't clear the bar alone and it'll take her longer to graduate anyway -"

Permalink Mark Unread

"What's a familiar? That sounds like a very interesting avenue of research on how I could get a channelling capacity, myself."

Permalink Mark Unread

"They're sort of like pets? You have to cast a spell to get one, though."

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"Still, if I could watch someone cast that spell and watch their channelling capacity and the reservoir at the same time and see how they interact, I might find a way to replicate the effect on myself, or maybe get a spell that would do it. That might double as a way to make people get more channelling capacity, too, without needing the familiar."

Permalink Mark Unread

"- that would be really cool."

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"I really like my kind of magic. Can't generate more, sure, but I can do all sorts of neat things with my home magic and if it weren't for the cultural taboo everything would be much better."

Permalink Mark Unread

"There's a cultural taboo?"

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"The size of the continent. Place I'm from is a theocracy and my kind of magic is banned and if you're found using it or hiding someone who uses it you're excommunicated and sentenced to death."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh. We border this one theocracy that doesn't allow magic at all. And it's next to another one but they're a different religion and I don't think they ban any kinds of magic but I'm not an expert."

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"Biggest problem is there isn't anywhere to flee to, because of historical reasons the whole continent has exactly three countries and the three are under the same religion. The planet's north hemisphere—planets in my universe are spheres, all of them—is mostly inaccessible because of a magical storm, and there's a pretty much unexplored continent to the west where some people live but not many."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Huh, spheres. Why hasn't the west continent been explored?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"'Cause it's mostly mountains, lots of mountains."

Permalink Mark Unread

"And people in your world don't like living in mountains?"

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"And we don't really have the, ah, technology and the magic to do it safely? Only one out of, like, two hundred people or so turn out to be magical at all, and magic has finite but infinitely recharging fuel back home, and it doesn't do permanent effects."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Wow, that's hardly anybody with any magic, even lights and sorcerers are more common than that... I think potential mages are too but they have to activate and if you don't have wizards you can't really do that on purpose..."

Permalink Mark Unread

"What's a mage?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"They have control over an element. Fire or air or water or earth."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh. 'Potential,' is that something you can be without knowing, then?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yeah, people are born with the potential for it but they only get the actual power if they need it to save their life. Wizards can check for potential and then if you have it you can go jump off something or take a lot of painkillers and catch fire or whatever."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Huh. That's a better analogue for what my magic's like than the other kinds I've seen. The one in two hundred figure is more or less how many people do turn out to get their magic, but how many people are born mages is less clear, because to get magic you have to—try to use it, and it's a primitive mental action but it's not obvious at all and it's different from person to person and kinda ineffable. When someone manages to figure it out we say they've Expressed their magic, 'cause it's something they always had before and just had to release. Metamancers—my kind of mage—can detect magic early on, but, taboo."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I wonder if wizards could find potential in your world's people, then, if somebody invented a spell for it."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Might be doable, but we'd need some work to convince people they're not just metamancers in disguise or something."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh, wizardry doesn't work in other worlds so people wouldn't be able to check in your world."

Permalink Mark Unread

"It doesn't—oh, right, the reservoir. Yeah, makes sense."

Permalink Mark Unread

"That's why, yeah."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Another thing I was wondering about is shrens."

Permalink Mark Unread

"What's a - oh, those - what about them?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Well I kinda wanna take a look at one? Read a book that said no one knows why they happen so I kinda want to see if I can find out."

Permalink Mark Unread

"They wind up in institutions, I think, so it shouldn't be too hard to find a bunch of them all together."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Mmhm. I'll go visit once I'm more—acquainted with the world."

Permalink Mark Unread

"That makes sense. What things do you need to shop for?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Clothes, I guess, and basic stuff like bed sheets and toiletries."

Permalink Mark Unread

"That all?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"I guess? Do you have suggestions?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Not really, just didn't know what you might want besides that."

Permalink Mark Unread

"...I might want something magical? If people sell magical stuff? To stare at."

Permalink Mark Unread

"There's tons of magical stuff, yeah, do you care what it is?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Not really? More than one thing, that all do different things, and are all wizardly, would be better."

Permalink Mark Unread

"So like a waterspout and a communication crystal and some link paper maybe?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yeah, sounds good. What's a waterspout and link paper?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Waterspouts make water and link paper if you write on one pad it appears on the other."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Cool. Probably different enough, yep."

Permalink Mark Unread

"And in your room the lights and the ward are magic and you can look at those. And the lift."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yeah, I figured, just wanted more examples."

Permalink Mark Unread

They hit city limits and she finds him a store with men's clothes.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh and, I am sometimes a girl, too, so I'll need clothes of both genders."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh. Okay, I can take you where I get mine after. When you run out of mana there's wizardry for that."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Really? Is it, like, something that has to be cast each time like mine or something handier?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Each time, it's not really designed for people who change a lot, but I think the spell's not very complicated, Saasnil could probably cast it and it'd take a few seconds once she had some practice - and Dad will make her do it since he's looking for ways for us to make up for stranding you."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I'm feeling kinda bad about that. You two having to make up for it, and stuff."

Permalink Mark Unread

"You didn't ask to be stranded and we messed up and it could have been really awful even you happen to not mind."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I guess."

Permalink Mark Unread

"But I'm glad you don't mind."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Like I said, I can do a lot of good here and this extra time might even allow me to get a better grip on resources I can leverage to help people back home, too, so."

Permalink Mark Unread

"What do you do back home, run a charity or something?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Find ancient ruins and cheat at magic to get money, drop some of that into charity, sure, help young people develop magic, rise in the ranks of the Explorers' Guild to get some political capital, look for the fabled group of subversives who don't think metamancers are corrupted and doomed to damnation."

Permalink Mark Unread

"...that sounds more complicated than organizing conjured food distribution or something."

Permalink Mark Unread

"It is but with our magic and without metamancer help conjured food isn't really feasible on a large scale—and my end goal is doing away with the taboo, because I expect that to cause the most long-term positive impact in the world."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh. Conjured food is easy here but it tastes bad so people don't eat it if they can afford regular food."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Mana and complexity are the two biggest limitations to my kind of magic."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I guess wizardry is like that too, there's lots of power but we have to channel it."

Permalink Mark Unread

"How does this channelling thing work, exactly? Your mum said the reservoir isn't really finite..."

Permalink Mark Unread

"What do you mean how does it work -? We have limits on how much power we can draw in one go."

Permalink Mark Unread

"That's what I mean, yeah. I suspected it was something like that but wasn't sure. What happens if you try to draw more? And can you draw more if you do it over a longer period of time?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Uh, you die, and no."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh. That's very unfriendly magic."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I guess? It was worse before we could identify people's CCs precisely."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Are familiars the only known way to increase CC?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yeah."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Was the spell to get them discovered recently?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Not that recently. A few hundred years ago?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Okay, that's very peculiar."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Why?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"If it'd been invented recently then it could be that there are other ways to do it that haven't been thought of, but this probably means that if there are they're really obscure, or there aren't, and it's weird that there'd be exactly this one specific thing."

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"Other ways to do what, check channeling capacity? It was just that someone had to invent a spell for it and inventing spells is a wizard thing and fewer people wanted to be wizards when it might make you suddenly die."

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"No, to expand channelling capacity."

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"- oh I thought you meant the spell to detect CC, sorry, I was confused. Familiars are older."

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"Makes it even weirder."

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Shrug.

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"I'll figure it out eventually, I'm sure."

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"That'd be interesting."

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"Yeah!"

Shopping?

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Shopping! Korulen has some kind of magic credit arrangement and pays for his stuff.

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Cool! He can have mundane stuff like clothes and toiletries and less mundane stuff like linkpaper and communcation crystals!

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Yup! And then be walked back to school.

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He thanks Korulen muchly, and wonders whether the library is still open.

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Yup.

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So he will read about Countries! And cities! And populations! And international relations!

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He is in the nation of Esmaar, which is on the west edge of the square, approximately rectangular, and remarkable for having a purely ward-based defensive arrangement and no military. There are more countries too. They have cities in them, with populations. Nations interrelate.

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...he's kinda annoyed by some of these countries. Sure, he's also from a theocracy, but. Ugh. These have role models around, they should know better. What's even their excuse?

(For that matter are their gods real? That might be an important question to know the answer to.)

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There doesn't seem to be any consensus on matters of religion! At all!

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So he feels relatively safe thinking gods are probably not real.

Is he close enough to being a student to be allowed to check out books?

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Yup.

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So he'll get something about introductory wizardry and something about that pattern where the reservoir changes size every now and then and check them out and return to his room to read them and/or stare at magical things until...

...he should probably eat soon, shouldn't he, what time is it?

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Twelfth-and-naught!

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When do people typically eat, here?

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Now is a reasonable time for dinner.

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Then off to the cafeteria! With one of those books.

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The cafeteria contains food, much of it recognizable.

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It presumably also contains people?

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Yup. Students of assorted ages and species. Elves and humans mostly, but some very tiny people and some very pale people with fangs who are magic and some lion people and a handful of others.

Permalink Mark Unread

Pale people with fangs who are magic, that sounds interesting. Who's the most magical person there?

Permalink Mark Unread

Well, if Keo's a dragon, that person over there is probably also a dragon, just less so and a different kind.

Permalink Mark Unread

Hmm, he knows about dragons but not about the pale people... and besides he'll stay around a while. Who's the most magical pale person, if there's any variation?

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That girl over there has magical pale person magic (it seems to be all the same) and another thing too!

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Okay he thinks he might go sit with her if there's space for him to sit.

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There is a space free at her table.

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So he approaches her. "Hi! Can I sit with you guys?"

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"...who are you?" says one of the elves.

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"I'm someone from another world who ended up here in an accident and now has to stay around until a way for me to be sent back is found."

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"Who's doing summoning?" blinks a human.

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He waves a hand dismissively. "Never mind that. I can see magic and there's lots in this world that doesn't exist in mine so I'm curious about all of it and she seems to have magic," he says, inclining his head in the pale person's direction.

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"I'm a light," says the pale person.

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"What's a light?"

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She cups her hands. A little ball of turquoise sparks coalesces above them. "This."

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"Ooh, pretty," he says, and squints at it.

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"It does healing."

It does!

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"Awesome! How generalised?"

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"...very?"

Except it won't work on her or other lights.

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He definitely can't tell the absence in generalisation is that specific thing. He can tell it's not perfect, though.

"It can heal anything? Any diseases and injuries and, anything?"

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"I'd need training to do scar tissue or clean stuff out of a wound before I fixed it but yeah pretty much?"

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"That's really impressive. How do you become one, or is this one of those things people are born with here? And does it have, like, a source, or a limit?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Born with it. And no."

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"Huh. It..." His squint stops being metaphorical and becomes physical. "It doesn't look all complete. Or, I guess it could be, but... I dunno, it looks like there's something missing in it?"

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"...missing?" She lets her hands drop.

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He shrugs. "Can't really explain it, or understand without looking any further, and the sense doesn't translate neatly to, like, vision or anything. But. It doesn't look like it's a... neat round thing that could heal anyone of anything? Or not like what I'd expect it to look if it were that."

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"I dunno how your thing works."

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"I can see magic, for a certain value of 'see,' and I get almost zero intuition for it while I'm looking, and would have to learn to interpret it and stuff to draw any more conclusions. Knowing more, on a conscious level, about it helps draw the correct conclusions and make the right inferences to figure it out. I can also manipulate magic—at least magic from my world, wizardry does not lend itself to much manipulation easily and I haven't tried anything else—and borrow it, which I also haven't tried."

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"...can you give it back after if you borrow it?"

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"Yeah, and it's anyone's guess whether 'borrowing' here would even actually take something from whoever, since magic here seems to be infinite."

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"Oh, you wouldn't just take, like, being-a-light."

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"I'm speculating, here. In my world, I can borrow the mana, the fuel of the other three kinds of mage, and then use that mana to perform their kinds of magic. I can't make someone stop being a mage. Here, though, stuff might be different, because there isn't an obvious fuel I can take some of or put back, so it might well be that I'd take 'being-a-light,' or it might be that since magic here's infinite I'd just get some of this endless well."

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"If you could take being-a-light that might be useful actually, we can't heal each other."

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"—and that might be the missing part that I saw."

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"Oh. I didn't think to mention it, everybody knows that."

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"I don't know most things everybody knows," he nods. "—hm, I wonder if I could, actually. Borrow it, I mean. Or maybe even fix it."

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"Fix it?"

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"Allow lights to be healed by lights."

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"That would be great."

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"It would! I'd... need to spend a while staring at the magic and perhaps metaphorically touching it before figuring out whether I can do anything with it and what, if so."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Touching it?"

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"It's hard to explain. It's not with my hands but the way it—feels, sort of, when I borrow magic, is that I'm reaching for it and actually grabbing it, and it's sort of the same thing except without grabbing it. Poking it, following a magical thread, provoking a reaction. Like, as a hypothetical example... I might be able to make your magic think it was healing some injury if I poked it the right way, and see how it reacted when that happened."

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"Is this dangerous?"

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"It's not dangerous at all with my kind of magic and I expect it not to be dangerous here, either, from what I've seen so far, but again I've never done it to this kind of magic so it's not unthinkable that something different could happen."

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"I wouldn't want to stop being a light. You might have to find a really sick one."

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"If I stared for a while at the magic I could tell with certainty whether it'd be dangerous or not, but yeah, guess that'd be better."

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"You'd have to be really convincing on the certainty thing."

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"I can become arbitrarily certain, I just need to look at it for long enough. It's always just a matter of looking at it for long enough."

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"Yeah but you'd have to convince whoever you were going to - handle."

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"Yeah," he sighs. "I'll look at other magic tonight and see if I can find stuff in common. It's—interesting, that this world has so much different magic."

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"Compared to what?" asks a very small person.

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"Well, my world. There are the four kinds of mage but it's really sort of the same underlying—thing. It's hard to explain. Here, if there's a single underlying thing, I haven't found it yet."

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"What's your world like?" the small person wants to know.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Way different. Only humans, there, and almost no one has magic, compared to here. There are no permanent magical effects, either—everything relies on the finite amount of mana mages have. Less cultural diversity, too, after the wars of a few centuries ago—only three countries to speak of. And comparatively few people—something between a few hundred thousand and a few million."

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"Wow," says an elf.

"Sounds sorta... dead," says the small person.

Permalink Mark Unread

"I suppose it would. I never thought of it quite that way, but then again I had nothing to compare it to."

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"And you got stuck here? Do you like it?" asks a human.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Other than the 'stuck' part, I have no complaints. New magic, way more people, problems that at first glance it seems like I could be of a lot of help solving. I think I'm going to enjoy myself a lot here."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Why is having way more people so important?"

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"Well, for one, I like people. And for two, that means that if I do manage to combine our magical systems and cheat at them a lot this will cause a lot more net good in the long run."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Even a hundred thousand people is more than you could meet in a human lifetime probably. ...Are you a human? You look like a human."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I'm a human. I have no plans of living for only as much time as regular humans do."

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"Nobody's managed that one," remarks a human.

Permalink Mark Unread

"De-aging is actually possible with magic from my world, but generally expensive and does not scale at all well."

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"Why doesn't it scale?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Mages that figure out they're mages are about one in two hundred people, one-third of those can only make magical artefacts that cannot do that, one-third can only do magic that affects themselves and there are mana limitations, one-third can only do instantaneous or time-limited magic and there are also mana limitations."

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"Your magic system is kind of dumb."

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"It's not the most helpful, no."

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"What do people do with it?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"It's not conceptually constrained. Theoretically anything you can imagine in enough detail to define can be done, if you have enough mana."

Permalink Mark Unread

"...so, what do people actually do?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Heal, fly, fight, build, destroy, create, I'm not entirely sure how you want me to answer this question."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Like if you find out that you are magic what are your career prospects."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh. Depends on which kind of mage you are. An enchanter could maintain artefacts for a living, or study old ones to figure them out, or make new ones and sell them, perhaps specialising in certain types of artefacts. An arcanist could sell spell scrolls, or work on spell refinement research, or work in communications or as attendant for royalty. An elementalist could help build things, explore, work in law enforcement, get lots of cognitive boosts and learn a lot of things. And a metamancer needs to hide that fact if they want to not be beheaded."

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The kids look queasy at "beheaded".

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He shrugs, uncomfortably. "It is not a very nice theocracy to live in."

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"It sounds maybe nicer than Ryganaav but not as nice as Iraam?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Sounds about correct, yes."

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The kids munch on their dinners. (The vampire doesn't have one.)

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"So, another reason I came here was that there were two magical things about you," he says eventually, to the vampire. "One's extra and nobody else here has—guess that's the light thing—but what's the other?"

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"I... don't know how your thing works, I don't know what you'd see..."

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"It's something you have, none of them," he gestures at her friends, "have, and the other pale people who are not eating have, so I expect it's a species thing."

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"Oh, I'm a vampire, I guess that's sort of magical."

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"What do vampires... well do? Have? That's magical."

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"We turn into bats."

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"Oh that's cool! ...and kinda very specific."

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"What do you mean specific?"

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"Turning into bats in particular, as opposed to other mammals in general, or animals, or anything else."

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"Well, you could also say that we're bats who turn into this." She gestures at herself.

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"That's... also a bit specific but somewhat less so, given that lots of other sapient species around seem to favour this shape or similar."

Permalink Mark Unread

"It's pretty convenient, hands and such."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I'd imagine so. Are vampires born as bats, then? And... do you not eat in humanoid form or something?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"We're born in this form usually. And only eat in humanoid form but only sleep in bat form."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Huh. Why do you only sleep in bat form? And, er, why aren't you or any of the—very few—other vampires here eating?"

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"We can't sleep like this, we have to be bats, doesn't work otherwise. And we don't eat very often, I'm just here to sit with my friends."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Why can't you sleep like this, is it a biology thing or a magic thing, how's it work...?"

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"I dunno, I never actually tried sleeping like this."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Huh. Well I'll look into it at some point in my endless magical research."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Does it matter?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh, no, I'm just very curious about very many things. And, well, you never know what kinds of things people here take for granted that my kind of magic might have a shot at helping with, like the light thing."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I don't think it's urgent that I be able to sleep while not a bat, is it urgent that you be able to sleep with your eyes open?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Nah, not really, I'm not gonna, like, prioritise this very highly, it'll just be one of the things I'll look into when I get 'round to it."

Permalink Mark Unread

"OK."

Permalink Mark Unread

"On that note, do you know of any students that would be okay with being stared at for long periods of time, potentially while they perform wizardry, for purposes of science?"

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"Uh -"

"- maybe? -"

"Kaylo, you want Kaylo."

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"How do I find Kaylo?"

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They look around. "He's over there."

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He looks.

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"The dragon," someone clarifies. There's a boy at a table with some other people but not talking to any of them and reading a book instead, and he has red eyes and is a dragon.

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And cute. "He might not thank me for interrupting his reading, maybe I'd best wait until he gets up."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I'm not sure he ever actually stops reading?"

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"Hmm, then maybe I should go interrupt him anyway." He thinks for about two seconds, then turns to his new friends. "Do you mind if I go bother him instead of you?"

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"I think you'll get along real well with Kaylo," someone opines.

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"I'll go there, then," he says. "See you around!"

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"Bye!"

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He walks over to the other table and finds a chair to flop down onto.

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Kaylo doesn't look up from his book. Some of the other kids do, and wave or nod at him.

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He waves at them, then looks at Kaylo. "Hi, Kaylo, I'm Kaede, I'm from another world and ended up here via a hilarious accident I shouldn't talk about and I have magic suitable for doing science with, I've been told you'd be interested."

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Kaylo fails to pay attention for most of that sentence, then glances up. "Say again?"

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He repeats it word for word.

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"Why shouldn't you talk about your accident?"

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"'Cause someone else could get in trouble and I don't want them to get in deeper trouble."

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"So what kind of magic do you have?" Book is closed now.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Metamagic, basically: I can see and manipulate—well, I can see and manipulate all sorts of magic from my world, I can see all sorts of magic here, have not succeeded at manipulating wizardry yet and not tried anything else."

Permalink Mark Unread

 

Kaylo gets up, tucks his book under his arm, seizes Kaede by the wrist, and attempts to drag him out of the cafeteria.

Permalink Mark Unread

Kaede will be dragged by the cute dragon boy.

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"I am going to cast so many analyses on you," Kaylo announces. He tells the lift to take them to the library. "What wizardry were you trying to manipulate, how did it fail -"

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"Well, I was inside a ward that was as solid as they get, I'm told, and I tried to do—anything to it, but it was kinda rude to me and I never got anywhere before the ward was unmade. I also tried getting some wizardry for myself but the reservoir wouldn't let me. That's the extent to which I tried anything, I think there's a thing I can see that's someone's Channelling Capacity and I'm wondering whether I can change it."

Permalink Mark Unread

"It was rude to you, what does that mean -"

Permalink Mark Unread

"It metaphorically told me to duck off? I have a hard time translating the things I sense to any other senses but if magic could tell you 'get the heck out' then that ward was doing it."

Permalink Mark Unread

 

"...it told you to do what now? That's not a real idiom."

Permalink Mark Unread

"...in my language it isn't either, er, but it replaces swearing. That'd be 'fuck off' which I prefer not saying."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I mean in your language, yes. Okay. Your sense isn't synaesthetic or moderated through a standard sense?" The lift opens. He grabs Kaede's wrist again to drag him into the stacks.

Permalink Mark Unread

He could get used to this. "It's not, it's its own thing. I usually use visual or tactile metaphors, sometimes even auditory, but mostly it's just itself."

Permalink Mark Unread

"When did this manifest?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"When I was little, around three or four years old—I'm human, and as far as I can tell mature at the same rate—and magic manifests voluntarily in my world, sorta."

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"Voluntarily sorta." He's found the stack he was looking for and drops Kaede's hand to start rummaging through the books.

Permalink Mark Unread

"One in about two hundred people, in my world, when they try to perform magic, succeed. What this trial looks like varies from person to person and is very hard to describe because doing magic is a primitive mental action, but after they do they get some intuition for how to use their type of magic. When I was around three or four years old I tried Expressing my magic and I succeeded."

Permalink Mark Unread

"And before that you did not have the sense you use to navigate it?" Page page growl replace book get different book.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Before that I did not have it," he agrees, and oh dear did Kaylo just growl that was kinda hot.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Did it take practice?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"The sense itself didn't, I could always passively detect magic from the moment I Expressed on. Manipulating magic did."

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"But did it take practice to make intelligible use of the sense."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Mmmmore or less. The sense doesn't actually immediately tell me what the magic I'm looking at is. It gives me a vague notion, sometimes—like, I could see the part of a light that was, sort of, missing, that corresponded to how they can't affect themselves or other lights—but I have to analyse it for a long time, and sometimes poke it, to figure it out—I had to be told about this limitation, otherwise it might've taken me hours."

Permalink Mark Unread

"What is the process you undertake during those hours?" He is satisfied with the book he has in his hands now and heads for a table; there is not dragging this time.

Permalink Mark Unread

Aww. He follows.

"It's... a bit like getting more and more resolution out of a picture, and noticing more and more details. In practice, I start discovering small things like whether a bit of the magic is voluntary and to what sorts of thoughts and emotions it's tied and which bit of the magic is doing which part of the effect—this bit interprets that, this bit translates it into the actual mechanics of the effect—things like that."

Permalink Mark Unread

"In what sense is part of a light's magic 'missing'? There isn't a complete version for it to be a degenerate case of."

Permalink Mark Unread

"That's where the metaphor breaks down. It isn't missing, really, that's just the best way I've found to describe the general feeling around it, that there was an aspect of its generalisation it didn't quite... have."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Rephrase?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"If I looked at a bit of that magic, and tried to extrapolate from it to its most general form, being able to affect any living thing and fix anything, then the way it looked like, for lack of a better verb, was not the same way the thing I was actually looking at was, but it was almost."

Permalink Mark Unread

"- hm. Do you have an analogy with any other senses?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Vision is the best analogy I have for what I can passively perceive with the sense, touch is the best analogy for what I can actively perceive while manipulating it. Hearing, too, for some specific reactions."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yes, I mean, is there some visual thing that you can perform an analogous thought process with."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh. I guess the best one would be if I saw a bit of a sphere I'd imagine a whole sphere and then the thing I actually saw was a sphere with a dent? But that's way more blatant than what it actually was, and needs less context—perhaps, hmm, seeing a picture of a dog's nose and being told it's a dog, and then it turns out the dog doesn't have its tail?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"In this analogy you are not even previously familiar with dogs? Which I assume are animals with noses?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"You don't have dogs...? Well no reason to expect all animals to be the same, they're like small wolves—do you have those?—that are kept as pets... Anyway, no, in this analogy I've an idea of what dogs are like—I'd been told that the light magic was meant to heal and to be very general and I'd seen healing magic back in my world which doesn't automatically translate but gives some idea, and I saw her using light so I saw it—flexing, in a way."

Permalink Mark Unread

"We haven't domesticated wolves, no, why would anyone do that -? What did you see of the magic before you were told it was healing?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"I saw the same thing, but I didn't know it was supposed to be a dog's nose—could've been a wolf's or a bear's or anything else."

Permalink Mark Unread

"But not, uh, a beak." He's flipping distractedly through his book.

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"Not a beak," Kaede agrees. The cute dragon looks cuter while flipping distractedly through his book.

Permalink Mark Unread

"What would a metaphorical beak be?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"I don't have a one-to-one mapping in my head between pieces of magic and pieces of anatomy, it was just a metaphor," he shrugs. "Could be a bit of magic that does invisibility or flight or stoneshaping or telekinesis or enhanced cognition..."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Could you reasonably draw a chart or something of what broad categories of magic are similar to others or is it too multidimensional or too fuzzy or -?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"It is very multidimensional and very fuzzy but if given three broad categories I could probably give you a guess of which is more similar to which. Without looking at it, though, it'd be a guess; magic is very personal where I'm from and here it really isn't so that might affect things somehow."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Personal meaning?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"All magical effects, with potentially one huge exception, are caused by mages, and are not permanent and require mage upkeep. The way magic happens depends very heavily on mental architecture and how people organise their thoughts, and relates deeply with their psychology and personality."

Permalink Mark Unread

"So no standard effects, all idiosyncratic?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yeah. There are standard—descriptions of effects, books on arcanism teach what kind of thing someone should think of to bind a spell for example, but since the way people think of concepts is different these spells always end up not the same."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Example of differences?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Differences in mana cost are the most obvious, and differences in specific implementation vary. For example, I once cast an invisibility spell on me and stuff I was holding that would still let me read invisible books I was holding. What that turned out to do was that when I was looking at the page I would be able to know the shape of the letters and their positions on the page without actually seeing them, but nothing like their colour or the letters on the back of any pages. Someone else doing the same spell might have been able to see colour, or to not need to see the letters themselves and only the words as indivisible concepts, or stuff like that."

Permalink Mark Unread

"What's the spellcasting procedure?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"The spellcasting procedure is just performing the incantation—actions or gestures or whatever—and having enough mana to cast it, and thinking about the target when applicable. But before an arcanist can cast a spell they have to bind it to the incantation, and that's a primitive mental action that attaches an internal description of the effects desired to the incantation. That's why it's idiosyncratic."

Permalink Mark Unread

"You keep saying 'primitive mental action' -"

Permalink Mark Unread

"It's the best way to describe it. In the same sense telling your arm to move is a primitive mental action doing magic is a primitive mental action. It's not like anything else except in the same way the action of telling your arm to move is like the action of trying to recall what an elephant looks like."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Well. That's unhelpful."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yeah, it is. If magic here is less personal like that, and I think it probably is, then I won't have to relearn how it works for each person it works with."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yeah, nothing like that. I want to cast an analysis on you, do you know what that is?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"From the name, spell that looks at my magic?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"No, I'd need to invent a new analysis to see yours and that will take more than a degree; it'll let you see wizardry."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh, cool. I mean I can already see it so I guess it gives me more information to work with?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"That's the idea. Analyses are designed to represent information in specific ways, I want to see what you can derive about the analysis design by having it overlaid on what you've got."

Permalink Mark Unread

"That will probably help a lot."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Here goes, then - actually hang on a tick I need to take notes -" He casts something; paper flies to his hand from some kind of supply cabinet elsewhere in the library. He writes down the name of the spell in the book, then casts that.

All the wizardry in the area is alive with informatively colored light.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Ooooooh."

The first thing he will stare at is, of course, Kaylo.

Permalink Mark Unread

Kaylo does not seem to have any spells on him; there are a few little motes indicating spells he has cast which are still active, including the analysis. The spell does not visualize dragon magic at all.

Permalink Mark Unread

Hmm. Pity. Still a very cute dragon.

Wizard magic elsewhere?

Permalink Mark Unread

Lots in the library. All the books have a dab of magic on them, and that supply cabinet, and the circulation desk, and the light filtering down from the ceiling, and the ward around the building. Some students milling around have one or more spells on them and many carry magic objects.

Permalink Mark Unread

Oooh! Okay which one is the closest, or clearest, or most obvious?

Permalink Mark Unread

Kaylo's analysis book is closest! The analysis makes the magic on it look like a blot of blue, connected to the circulation desk with a thin tendril and to its place on the shelf with another.

Permalink Mark Unread

Well that's painfully obvious isn't it.

"Way clearer than I'm used to."

Permalink Mark Unread

"The analysis doesn't give content, just structure; how's it dovetailing with your thing?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"It's—like being told? Without having to be told. Context helps, of course, but this helps me know where to look at. A large part of the process is figuring out what to look at, where each bit leads, stuff like that. This helps."

Permalink Mark Unread

"So your sense is - not very locational -?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"That was a metaphorical where, but that, also, partly. There's a sense in which it is, I can see what a magic thing's attached to, more or less, and the way it's attached to it—but I wouldn't have found this connection, here between this book and the circulation desk and its shelf unless I was actively looking for it or knew it must be there."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Why not? They're attached."

Permalink Mark Unread

"They're attached but the vision metaphor is very loose. It has way more than just three dimensions and a spectrum of colours to look at, and without knowing that this bit of magic here was supposed to be connected to another bit of magic elsewhere I might not have figured that out for a while."

Permalink Mark Unread

"...more than three dimensions? Go on."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Not spatial ones, or not exactly. There's just a certain sense in which a certain magical effect is distributed along certain axes and those axes are not limited to the three spatial ones but they are... somewhat... analogous. I'm running into the limit of my ability to verbalise this."

Permalink Mark Unread

"You're gonna need to increase your ability to verbalize it, then."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yes, sir," he says, raising an eyebrow.

Permalink Mark Unread

 

"What? Look, if you were looking for something other than a pushy magic theoretician you came to the wrong guy."

Permalink Mark Unread

"No, pushy magic theoretician is exactly what I was looking for, the fact that he happens to be immensely attractive is only a bonus. Anyway, way this sense works, magic has something that is analogous to a shape, but it exists in way more than just three dimensions and is not at all physical and somewhat but not completely correlated with what the magic does. Elementalist blessings, where I'm from, are almost invariably surrounding the mage's body, but some are more heavily distributed in specific places, like around the head for cognitive ones. I guess you could say that I can also see a projection of n-dimensional structure onto three-dimensional space."

Permalink Mark Unread

"And it wouldn't happen to project into visible lines between points A and B -?" He doesn't seem to have registered the "immensely attractive" part.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Not necessarily. There's also a... an angle aspect, sort of. Depending on the way you project the thing into three-dimensional space, some bits appear or stop appearing, and knowing which way to turn is also something I have to learn?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"So you can adjust your perspective?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Mmmmooore or less. The thing I'm calling 'staring' or learning more things could also be described as this adjustment of perspective. And figuring out new dimensions the magic actually occupies is another part of it, and adding a new dimension means having a lot more freedom for perspective changes."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Figuring out new dimensions?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yeah, understanding that it's actually there and exists and can be used."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Is there not a finite number of dimensions, or is there but you're not done learning how to see them all yet?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"As far as I know there is a finite number of dimensions, I just don't know how many they are in advance. And again, this is more metaphor than anything."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I'd love to converse in nonmetaphor but your language doesn't have any, why is that."

Permalink Mark Unread

"No one developed the appropriate vocabulary? And I'm not sure there could have been shared vocabulary around this, given the way all other magic is idiosyncratic I expect metamancy would be, too."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Inconvenient. Tell me about the dimensions you've got figured out so far."

Permalink Mark Unread

"They don't really have meanings, they're just, sort of—like up and down, left and right, not particularly privileged, just another metaphorical place things can vary along... You know it's really annoying not having any vocabulary for this, I'd never tried explaining any of this before."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I don't have a translation spell rated for Draconic, more's the pity."

Permalink Mark Unread

"'Rated for Draconic'?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Magic dragon language, very good at having words for things. Won't cough them up if no speakers have the concept though."

Permalink Mark Unread

"...I don't suppose it can be taught? Or, perhaps, copied?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Not taught, copied, uh, maybe, depends how your thing works."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I don't know how it works with respect to that in particular, and my lack of vocabulary to explain how it works is exactly the problem we're trying to solve. Would you just—understand whatever I was talking about even if you'd never heard of a concept I was referencing before?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Not exactly. I'd get some information, not all of it - it'd help though."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Hmm... Let me see if I can do anything..." He looks at Kaylo more intently.

Permalink Mark Unread

Kaylo: is a dragon with lots of dragon stuff.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Say something in Draconic?" he asks, paying attention to the different parts to see whether any of them would move.

Permalink Mark Unread

Kaylo says something in Draconic. This doesn't actually flicker his magic more than when he says things in other languages, but it does a little.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Say stuff in other languages now?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Several or will just yours do?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Do several," he asks, watching for any differences. "And then do some other dragon magic than just talking."

Permalink Mark Unread

"This is Leraal, this is Alteisec," he switches to his sign language the spell can't handle. He gets out of his chair and turns into an eighteen foot jewel-scaled red winged lizard.

Permalink Mark Unread

And his magic?

Permalink Mark Unread

A different bit of it reacts when he shifts.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Okay, I found the bit of your magic that does languages. Draconic or any other languages seem to be the same, though. Can I touch it?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Uh, if you touch it what happens to me and/or my ability to use language?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"What I expect happens is 'nothing.' With magic from my world, it just does a sort of ping, sometimes depending on what the magic is it can react a bit, and if it's an elementalist blessing they can feel a shiver depending on what it is."

Permalink Mark Unread

"...but something else might conceivably instead happen. To my ability to use language."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yes, it is conceivable that something else might instead happen. If I look at it for long enough I'll be able to figure out whether it will, in fact, happen."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Fortunately my ability to use language is not going anywhere thank you very much, so you can look at it." He shifts back into human form and plops back into his chair.

Permalink Mark Unread

Mmhm. He will look.

"You make an impressive dragon."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Uh, thanks?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Pretty dashing human, too. How does the shapeshifting work, exactly?"

Permalink Mark Unread

Kaylo blinks at him, then says, "We hatch in dragon form and when we're twenty or so we start being able to adopt new forms, which are then thereafter accessible to turn into and retain objects tucked away with them like my clothes. It's just like vampire or thudia shapeshifting except that the forms aren't fixed and we get more of them, five is standard, blue-groups get ten, unusual nonblues get four unique nonblues get three unusual and unique blues get unlimited, once picked a form is what it is indefinitely except most sapient forms grow to maturity along with a juvenile dragon which is why I look sixteen but if I turned into a cat, say, I would be an adult cat. The transformation is genuinely instantaneous. Shifting requires that at least a small part of the first and second forms be spatially overlapping but allows otherwise free positioning."

Permalink Mark Unread

"How much control do you have over your form? Are you always the same biological sex? What's 'unusual' and 'unique' here?"

(Stare stare stare.)

Permalink Mark Unread

"Unusuals and uniques get extra magic of the kind that their color group already gets extra of, uniques more so - you ever get a look at Keo, she's a unique. Anybody besides a unique blue just picks species, otherwise luck of the draw - except fullblooded dragons match our same sex parents when being matching species - and yes, same sex all the time."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Match as in, in appearance? You're identical?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"I look younger than my dad's human form did when he stopped aging, otherwise yes."

Permalink Mark Unread

"...huh."

Permalink Mark Unread

"What?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"It's peculiar? That you would completely match only one of the parents whenever you're the same species."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I couldn't exactly match my mom what with the biological sex thing."

Permalink Mark Unread

"But I'm pretty sure most other species are, like, a mixture."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Sure. Fullblooded dragons aren't. Or, not the same way - personality inheritance is as normal, and we can be either parent's color if they're different."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Right, and that's kinda peculiar, is what I'm saying. So if there's a limited number of phenotypes fullblooded dragons can take, where did they come from?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Parunias; they're mixier. The headmaster and Keo have a new-hatched parunia who won't look exactly like her mom and would look even less like her mom if she were a boy."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Ah, parunias are considered fullblooded, then?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yeah, parunias are dragons."

Permalink Mark Unread

"So, about the languages, how exactly does this automatic vocabulary thing for Draconic work?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Dragons speak all languages. Draconic is one of them, and it changes to fit what dragons want to talk about."

Permalink Mark Unread

"But I mean—you mentioned when this language made up the vocabulary needed for talking about my magic, you would more-or-less understand the word anyway. Can you qualify that?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Uh - okay, take your time system. I don't know how long an hour is but I know it's sixty seconds and one-twenty-fourth of your world's days, because that's about how words relate directly, definitionally, to each other. So if I have a word, I can get that kind of structural information out of it and that's better than nothing."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Ah. Hmm... But then wouldn't vocabulary about metamagic just end up self-referential all the time?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"What do you mean?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Well, metamancy vocabulary would refer to magic, which includes basically words about itself or other types of magic, and those words about magic would only refer to the magical effects themselves."

Permalink Mark Unread

"In that sense all the information I can get out of a bare language is self-referential. But it's still useful to be able to note that something's a comparative and there's separately a superlative or that it's grammatically incorrect to refer to something in the plural or whatever."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I suppose. And I guess if it does work and I can copy Draconic I could just use other words you already have about magic to explain the new ones."

Permalink Mark Unread

"There you go. I know lots of magic vocabulary."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I bet you do."

(Does he have any indication that touching would do anything harmful yet?)

Permalink Mark Unread

Actually, all the dragon magic looks sort of delicate.

Permalink Mark Unread

...sort of delicate is bad.

"First impressions: your magic looks sort of delicate, which I did not expect. Any idea why that would be?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"...no? It isn't generally perturbed by outside forces of any kind so I imagine it doesn't have much reason to be robust, but when I've looked at it I have not done so in a way that tells me things like 'delicate'."

Permalink Mark Unread

"This is just a first impression anyway, but hmm. Weird. How've you looked at it?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Invented an analysis for it, but I'm only two iterations in so it's not a very good analysis."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Iterations?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"I use what I know about the magic I want to look at to come up with a clumsy analysis that shows me that, and then use what I can see to refine the spell."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Okay I really want a channelling capacity, now."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Unsolved problem," says Kaylo, "we don't even know what channeling capacities are, not really - but a lot of people barely use theirs, you could probably find someone willing to have it poked easier than you could find a dragon willing to play around with our capacity to use language."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yeah no, way your magic looks I'd probably not want to touch that until I knew way more about it."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Thanks," says Kaylo dryly.

Permalink Mark Unread

He grins. "I might gain from looking at other dragons now, actually."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Other color groups or just checking for individual differences?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Both. This is information I could theoretically get from just staring at you, probably, but watching the magic... flex, or move, in a way, helps a lot understand what's what."

Permalink Mark Unread

"We could go outside and I could breathe some fire."

Permalink Mark Unread

"—of course dragons can breathe fire. Yes, do let's."

Permalink Mark Unread

"You couldn't tell by looking, huh?" Kaylo leads the way to an exit.

Permalink Mark Unread

He kinda enjoyed it more when Kaylo was dragging him. "Eventually I'd have been able to, but I was looking at other stuff."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Which bits?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"The language bits, mostly, although all your magic is pretty connected."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Package deal. Do mind," he shifts, "that the red group thing is fire, so you'll probably want to compare against someone of another color group."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I am ready to be bowled over."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I wasn't planning to do elaborate performance art, it'll just affect how the magic looks probably," says Kaylo, and then he cranes his neck back and opens his jaws toward the sky and breathes a plume of garnet flame.

Permalink Mark Unread

"But given that I'd literally never seen a giant flying lizard breathe fire: wow."

Permalink Mark Unread

"It's pretty cool," agrees Kaylo, snapping his teeth shut on the fire to resume talking.

Permalink Mark Unread

"What's the difference between red groups and others when it comes to fire?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"We can get it hotter and farther and have better fine control over it - nothing outright pyrokinetic, more like, I can do a thinner line of it," he demonstrates, "a non-red-group would probably not be able to narrow it any farther than," demo. "The unusuals and uniques do get pyrokinetic. Oh, we also have better fire resistance - no dragon's going to be hurt stepping on a campfire but red-groups like curling up in bonfires and the others don't, say, I'd be cozy swimming around in the sun."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Do you keep the fire resistance in other shapes?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"No. Any dragon could turn into a firebird and those're all the same."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Firebirds are... birds that are resistant to fire?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Birds that are magical with respect to fire in general and live near the sun, yes. But in human form I'm not more fire-resistant than a regular human or another color of dragon in human form."

Permalink Mark Unread

"What happens if you get burnt in human form and then shift dragon?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Human form is injured, dragon form isn't, human form will still be injured if I reassume it later but it can heal while I'm not using it at standard unaided healing rate so I'd fly to a light and then shift to get fixed."

Permalink Mark Unread

"What if you get damaged enough to be nearly fatal in one form, can you just do the same?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Nearly fatal, yes, actually fatal, lose the form, forcibly reassume natural form, and can't assume a new one of that species unless you're a unique blue."

Permalink Mark Unread

Blink. "Can you assume a new one of a different species to take up that species' slot?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Nope, slot's gone. I'd have to use a new one on turning into an elf or something for everyday, if my human form died."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Huh. Where do these forms come from?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"There's some speculation on that, no consensus."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Do you know any of it? Might help me figure things out, even if all of it's wrong."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Uh, the theory I like is that there's a world attached to this one which contains a bunch of stuff which spells can assemble into conjured matter, dragons can assemble into forms, etcetera, and we're swapping in and out from there."

Permalink Mark Unread

"A world no one's been able to reach so far? Hmm. I have no idea whether I'd be able to see that, I didn't even know other worlds were a thing before."

Permalink Mark Unread

"People are not systematically trying to exhaust the contents of the multiverse or anything and this is a recent theory."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I mean, you guys got me somehow, right? And that was random, but I hear targeting is possible? Of course, if it were that easy someone'd have succeeded already."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I said they're not trying, not that it would be really hard."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Not trying... to even target? Why not? Wouldn't it be a simple way to prove it conclusively, if it's possible?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Prove... the theory that hit journals last month?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"From this should I infer it takes longer than a month to figure out a way to target other unknown worlds?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Existing world targeting solutions are, like, I could find your world with you right there as a spell focus."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Hmm, and a conjured item that may or may not be technically from another world couldn't serve as one?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Paper didn't say."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Huh. Fascinating, anyway."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yup."

Permalink Mark Unread

"What were those books you got for, earlier?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Analyses. There's a bunch, the one you've got on is just one example."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Ooh, what others are there?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Ones to see different magic or represent it differently, we can try you on some more." Back inside.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Cool! Also I'd like to see that one you said you used on yourself, for dragon magic."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Sure, but like I said it's early in the development process -" Cast. Now Kaylo's magic is visible in pleasing blobs of various colors.

Permalink Mark Unread

Oooh! Does this help any with the figuring things out thing?

Permalink Mark Unread

The blobs are quite close together and many different sizes. "Can you figure out the color coding or should I explain it?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"I can figure it out over a long while of staring. Explain away."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Red's fire, brighter red is color group extra fire, blue's shapeshifting in five shades for five compartments, green's language, gray is the fancy dragon reproductive magic package, if you were looking at a different color they'd have a different brighter extra bit - violet, white, and black would not be doing the different shades of an existing color thing, and blue unusuals wouldn't have the shifting compartments, just a bigger brighter blob."

Permalink Mark Unread

"What would violet, white, and black be doing? And what's the reproductive magic package?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Violet groups are aquatic, white groups fly better, black groups have sharper senses, and dragons have built in birth control and can pick kid gender."

Permalink Mark Unread

"...can pick kid gender."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yeah. Not color or species where applicable, not number, but gender we can do."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Hmm... Can you pick nonbinary?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"...I don't think so, if that's ever happened with a dragon's kids it's probably somebody who decided not to pick."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Then it's random?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yeah. Does that part of the magic look really tangly or something to you, why's that interesting?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh, no, that's more... personal. 'Cause I'm genderfluid so I was curious."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Well, it is statistically unlikely that there are dragons or thudias with whom you will identify in this way."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Especially given your population size, yeah."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yup." Shrug. "Anyway, is the analysis helping?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yeah, but not decisively, I think I'll still want another dragon to stare at."

Permalink Mark Unread

"There's one other enrolled. Moonstone, I think?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"What group is that?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"White."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I'll want to see them later, then. But meantime, did you want to cast more analyses? And perhaps do some more wizardry?—and how early do you have to go to bed, I wouldn't want to make you miss a morning class or something."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I have a couple more angles before I really need to sleep. I can load you up with analyses, are they going to interfere with each other - most people don't like having more than one or two on at once but maybe you can keep it all straight?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"I probably can, I'm pretty used to having a lot of extra information overlaying everything, although it's usually less... directly visual than that."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Okay, here's another wizardry one, this one's specialized for breaks." Cast.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Specialised for breaks how?" Squint.

Permalink Mark Unread

"It's supposed to make it easy to see small imperfections in spell structure you can attack."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Spells have imperfections?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"They can, yeah -" He casts this analysis again. "Okay, see there where the library spell is attached to that green book over there, it's a little thin? Somebody was inattentive when they cast it. It works okay but it could be broken there."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Huh. What other kinds of things cause imperfections?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Mostly just not holding the spell in your mind correctly; if you say it or gesture it wrong it won't work at all."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Well I'll add that to the list of things I want to watch someone doing."

Permalink Mark Unread

"...what, cast spells? You've seen me do it."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Cast spells that are imperfect somehow, that have failures like that."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I haven't been being that careful. There's - hm - in your dragon magic analysis there's a little fracture in the - here." Point.

Permalink Mark Unread

"—oh, I see it. But yeah, what I mean is, now that I know failures exist I want to pay attention for them in casting, they'll help me understand the—moving parts of the spells better."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Failure isn't really the right word. The spell works fine, it just wouldn't hold up perfectly if someone competent at breaks - and that's hardly anyone - pushed on it in the right place."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Sure, vulnerabilities, then, or whatever you want to call them.—also the second easiest thing for a metamancer to do is breaking magic, I wonder if I could use that to get back home."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh, sure, if you can break the summon you're all set to go home. Co-casting makes it harder, though, it's all tangled up, see?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"...yeah, yikes. Also I kinda don't wanna do it before telling Keo or someone who can summon me back, I don't want to be gone forever."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Well, I could but students aren't allowed, you'd have to get one of the teachers."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Aren't allowed, even when the subject's okay with it?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yeah, students aren't allowed to summon at all, people in general aren't allowed to summon unwilling subjects."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Why?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Which?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"The former, it's pretty obvious why one wouldn't be allowed to summon unwilling subjects."

Permalink Mark Unread

"There's lots of spells you need a wizarding license or permission from someone who has one to cast."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Right, the general principle is sound, I'm wondering why summoning willing subjects in specific is one such spell."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh, it's large potentially dangerous ones in general."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Ah. Yeah, I guess that makes sense, what with the wards."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yeah, summonses usually have wards built in and they're heavy duty but easy to break."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Easy to break from the outside I expect? I did not have an easy time even scratching it from the inside."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yeah, from the outside, it's a physical trigger."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Why are they? I presume they're easy to break like that by design."

Permalink Mark Unread

"It's not so it'll be easy, it's so it'll be obvious if it's happened."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Can't it just be made visible instead, or something?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Wards aren't. I'm not actually sure if anyone's invented a visible ward; maybe they should..."

Permalink Mark Unread

"It sounds better to be visible and hard to break than invisible but easy to break if the objective's just being obvious it's happened."

Permalink Mark Unread

"It might be hard to do somehow. Hadn't occurred to me, actually, I'll need to look into it -" He writes this down.

Permalink Mark Unread

"So can you do some more wizardry of various different sizes for me to see how it interacts with your channelling capacity and whether I can get one and how the flaws emerge?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"I can just do number reads if what you want is sizes?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Number reads?"

Permalink Mark Unread

Gesture, word, the number six floating in the air. "A spell that just says how much power I pulled."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh. So you can just pull arbitrary amounts of power within your limits and show a number? Does the number mean anything?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Means the amount. I pulled six units; if I did the gesture for a hundred and twenty-two I'd get that." Demo.

Permalink Mark Unread

And he watches how it interacts with the channelling capacity.

"What's a 'unit'? Is it a natural measuring system or is it something invented?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Natural - is that not clear by looking -?" The power goes through the CC very very fast, possibly too fast to catch.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Not really—it goes through really quickly, kinda difficult to pin it down, and given how fragile dragon magic seemed to be I'm wary of trying to—hold it or something—actually, hey, can you cast a spell that's permanent-until-you-remove-it or something?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"You've got like four of those on you right now."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yeah, but—well, I guess you can cast them on me again." He looks at them, and looks for any connection between them and Kaylo.

Permalink Mark Unread

"I can't cast the same ones on you - well, I guess I could duplicate the one I didn't cast, but that class of spell it's one active to a caster at a time -"

Yup, if he tilts his perspective just so, that's totally what that looks like!

Permalink Mark Unread

"Hmm... are there any that aren't like that?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"There's ones that go off and then they're done, there's some you have to concentrate on to keep up, and there's installations like the building wards that embed in a place or a thing instead of being dependent on the caster."

Permalink Mark Unread

"That last one. Can you do one of those? I don't really wanna touch these ones on me, they're connected to you and I don't know what that'll do."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I could make a waterspout but I'd need the spout part... same with communication crystals... I might have paper that'd work for link paper..."

Permalink Mark Unread

"That last one sounds good! I have some link paper back in my dorm but I wanted to stare at it, should've bought more than one to see if I can grab it instead."

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"Paper'd be in my room." He gets up.

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He gets up, too. "I haven't actually even shown you any of my magic, have I? For all you know I could be making all of this up."

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"Well, your language isn't from Elcenia as far as I can tell so you're not completely shitting me."

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"Fair enough. Your language magic is fairly fantastic, where's it getting all this information from?"

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"One of the mysteries of the world, what Draconic's scanning to know what it knows. Yet unsolved." To the lift, to his hall.

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"The most obvious answer seems to be 'brains' but I'm not sure how to test that. Also, one of the kinds of magic back home does language scanning too and no one knows how, either."

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"And dragons work on dead languages."

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"How do you know that if they're dead? Or do you just mean reading them?"

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"...I mean if I hear that ten thousand years ago people spoke Tanimoht I can locate and speak Tanimoht."

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"'Locate'? You have, like, a list of languages in your head?"

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"Nnnnno. It's kind of hard to - um, suppose as is in fact the case that Upland and Lowland Alteisec have the same alphabet and the same word for 'stop' and I am wandering somewhere and see a sign saying that in one of the two. I can tell which one."

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"...what? But that—what?"

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"This is admittedly more useful with false cognates." Oh look it's Kaylo's room. It looks like Korulen's but with different objects-smaller-than-furniture. His roommate is not there.

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"But—I mean that's the point, in what sense is it even one language as opposed to the other?"

Hi, Kaylo's room! Kaede's mind is only like 4.7% filled with ideas involving Kaylo and his bed.

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"Sometimes it's not, but usually it's a matter of who wrote it. This only works if one person wrote it; it gets muddled if the sign was agreed on by a committee and then painted by somebody who didn't speak Alteisec at all or something. Subjectively it's sort of like picking out an accent."

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"That is so completely bizarre and cool. Any elaboration or other details like that about the translation magic you have? This helps figure it out."

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"We can do dialects... there's sprite languages which require four arms and a set of wings to dance correctly and we can't do those unless we're in a form that accommodates it but we can pronounce sounds we shouldn't be able to, like, I could speak vampire in any form."

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"So where are the sounds generated? Just, magically inside your mouth?"

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"It's actually a shapeshifting thing. Any form that can make vocalizations, I should have said, if I turn into a butterfly I can't say anything at all."

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"Oh, so does your throat, like, change to be able to produce the sounds it needs or something?"

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"It's more like the forms come with the ability to do that in the first place. Like we change everything except the vocalizing parts."

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"Oh, so natural form dragons can do... what, literally all possible vocalisations?"

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"Not necessarily, if there was a language that depended on volume we might not be able to be all amounts of loud or something."

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"But all the ones you've found?"

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"Yeah."

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"How do dragons make sounds like, I don't know, 'm' or 'f'?"

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"...mmmmmm?" demonstrates Kaylo.

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"I meant in natural form."

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Shift. "Mmmmm."

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So that continues to be hot.

"And 'f'? Does your jaw move the right way with the teeth and the lips...?"

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"Fff." It does, although it's sort of weird with the sharp pointy teeth.

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"Huh. I didn't think it'd move like that..." He shakes his head. "Anyway! I'm getting distracted. Link paper?"

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Kaylo shifts again and turns up some paper and looks up a spell and casts and the paper is linked! The spell is not attached to him after he casts it.

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Alright! So now he tries to reach a metaphorical hand for the magic in it and draw it to himself.

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Is he suuuuuure he wants to do that.

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...yes he's pretty sure he wants to do that why shouldn't he?

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'Cause this magic is maybe thinking that if he tries to hold onto it without proper authorization maybe it should kill him.

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He lets go veeeery slowly and backs away a step or two. And tries to. Erm. Metaphorically apologise?

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It ignores him once he has let go and goes on linking the paper to the other paper.

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"Okay so er I think the. Ah. The ward—remember earlier when I said that the ward was being rude to me?"

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"Yeah?"

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"I... that might've been less metaphorical than I'd thought?"

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"...meaning?"

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"Meaning I am pretty sure the magic just threatened to kill me."

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"...what were you trying to do to it?"

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"Convert it into my type of magic? What I'd been planning to do."

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"...It is the case that if you try to cast something bigger than your CC you just die and you don't have a CC," says Kaylo, "which normally would mean you couldn't even get that close to overchanneling, but if you do your thing instead..."

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"I mean I had the distinct impression that there was a thing there that actually threatened to kill me, not just, like, the vague instinct that I would die if I continued doing this."

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"My link paper. Threatened to kill you."

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"Yes. Or, well, maybe not the actual link paper but the magic holding it together, yes."

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"That's, uh. Who all have you talked to since you got here?"

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"A thudia elf called Korulen, headmaster's daughter, and his wife Keo, and Korulen's friend Saasnil, and a librarian, and some people at a few stores, and a few people at the cafeteria, and you. Why?"

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"Trying to figure out if you got ideas from the Sand Dusk Chanters somehow."

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"The who now?"

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"They're a religion."

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"They think magic is sapient or something?"

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"The reservoir in particular."

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"...huh. I... hmm. Sec."

Is the link paper also connected to THAT ENORMOUS THING OF POWER ALL OF EVERYWHERE IT IS VERY BIG?

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Yup.

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"...it might be."

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"Great," says Kaylo, flinging up his hands, "the Sand Dusk Chanters may have been right, alert the press..."

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He shrugs apologetically. "I... have no idea how to actually test that hypothesis in a way that's verifiable by other—" Pause. "Maybe Keo."

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"No, she still needs a signature, reservoir doesn't have one."

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"I mean, she could read my mind while I was... seeing whatever the heck that was."

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"That wouldn't get her a signature though."

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"No, but she could at least... I don't know, confirm I'm not crazy? And possibly suggest other ways to perhaps combine my magic with hers and figure it out."

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"Maybe," acknowledges Kaylo.

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"Are there any other kinds of persistently magical things that aren't wizardry?"

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"Besides people?"

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"Yeah."

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"Potions, yeah."

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"Hmm, then I think I wanna take a look at those. Can they be purchased?"

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"Of course they can, go to any witch shop."

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"Awesome, I'll do that tomorrow. And talk to Keo, too."

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Nod. "Since my link paper threatened your life you probably shouldn't poke it any more. Hmmm, what else..."

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"Well, it doesn't seem to object to my watching it, and I still have no idea what a CC even is."

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"So... you stare at my CC a bit more?"

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"Yeah, possibly while you perform other spells, maybe varying... whatever varies between spells? If it didn't hurt I'd suggest trying for large ones."

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"I'm in school to be a wizard, not to dust knicknacks with five-unit trivialities, I can cast large spells if that's useful."

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Well that's hot. "I'd love to watch that, then. Oh and—do you think you can control how, er, fast you cast a spell?"

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"...I can gesture and speak more slowly?"

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"That might help. When I tried watching the power went through really fast, I'm not sure I could keep track."

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"Oh, that doesn't change, the spell always goes off in the same span no matter how long the gesture and word take."

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"Hmm... Is there a spell that speeds up cognition or perception?"

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"Believe me, if I had that available you would be able to see it," Kaylo drawls.

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"Oh. Well, I have that available," he says, one corner of his mouth tugging up.

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"...do tell."

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"Well, it's both a possible elementalist blessing and arcanist spell. I'm wary of spending any mana before making sure I can convert potions but honestly I can't hope to never do it while I'm here, and I have some artefacts I can drain in my backpack back in my room."

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"What do the artefacts do?"

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"Several things. The backpack is one, it stretches space inside it, and I have a tent that does the same in it as well. I have a pan that auto-heats and a bottle that keeps temperature stable—although there's only a little bit of magic there, mostly it's just physics—I have my Explorers' Guild Token—" He reaches inside his shirt to reveal the stone disc pendant with symbols and swirly patterns that glows blue when not hidden.

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"...We don't actually have things like the backpack and tent here but you can find equivalents of the pan and bottle. What's the token for?"

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"It can be recognised by other tokens so you know that someone else is part of the Guild, and stores a charge that runs out when your membership expires and can be recharged when you contribute to the Guild and can be used as currency between members."

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"Huh. Interesting system but won't do much for you while you're here."

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"No it won't, it'll be the first thing I'll drain if I need to. Well, maybe I'll drain stuff like the bottle and pan first, if I can get equivalents here."

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"Yeah, there's definitely things like that, and also I'm not sure how useful they'll be while you're staying here eating at the cafeteria. Although it's also possible you could sell them off as curiosities what with their not being wizard things. Come to think of it I probably ought to get working on an analysis for your magic system and have a look at them."

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"I guess, but I'm not sure I'll have much use for currency here, either—the school will cover food and lodging and at least basic necessities like clothes and there's the library so at least in the short-term future I don't expect to need anything. And yeah, I can try to help you come up with an analysis like that."

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"Awesome," says Kaylo. "Now, a drawback of analyses is that they do have to reduce information about many magical properties to just location and color; what properties should I be assigning what level of obviousness in those modalities?"

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"Hmm... well, there should be three colour groups, I think, one for each type of mage. If you can manage to see metamancy, too, go ahead and make that a colour as well, but I'm not sure to what extent it's distinct enough in the same dimension for that. Beyond that, artefacts' charge is fairly important, and which part of their physical aspects are being affected by magic; quantity of mana in general would be interesting to know; I'm not sure if you can identify with that which or at least how many spells an arcanist has bound or an elementalist has found..."

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Kaylo takes notes. "Are you imagining it would be possible to get ahold of more mages of various types to look at to refine the analysis?"

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"...not if you tell them you're working with a metamancer, and I'm not positive revealing the existence of another world like that is likely to go smoothly—I suppose more smoothly given that the ability to control who goes between worlds when will be limited to people from here..."

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"What's the problem exactly?"

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"People see magic as a gift from the gods, there are a bunch of taboos about using it in public at all except under some special or specific circumstances, and metamancy in particular is seen as evil—I'm not at all sure how they'll react to an entirely different world with different magic contacting them."

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"...well that's just damned inconvenient."

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"Yeah. But on the other hand, like I said, if Elcenia holds the power to send and summon people, it's not like Galatea can do anything Elcenia can't stop."

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"Sure, I'm not worried they'll start a holy war, I'm worried they'll be irritating to research."

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He snorts. "I'm sure you'll be able to find a couple of arcanists and enchanters who'll be delighted to help with research. Elementalists as a group tend to be less academically-inclined, though."

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"Why's that?"

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"Their magic is more personal—elementalists have blessings, which are magical powers on themselves. Stuff like flight or controlling the elements or telekinesis or sped up cognition or breathing underwater. They can only have one blessing active at a time, and have a lot of intuitive access to it—there isn't a whole lot of experimentation you need to do as an elementalist, you just think of a power and switch to it and it works like you expect it to."

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"Huh. What makes something 'one power'? Like, here people who control the elements get one element per."

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"Yeah, one element per is how it works for us, too, and it's—complicated? And changes from person to person, sometimes, but basically if two 'different powers' are just basically different descriptions of the same thing, then they're the same power—like, flight and levitation and selective immunity to gravity are the same thing. The different elements are distinct powers, and telekinesis is distinct from them, but controlling heat is usually the same as pyrokinesis, for instance."

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"...and these people aren't experimental types? What a waste."

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He shrugs. "It's a cultural thing, probably. The fact that there are so few of us and as far as anyone can tell chosen randomly from the general population means that there are not a lot of mages who would naturally pursue research, and without a strong pro-research meta-culture like arcanists in general have it'll be hard to find. But metamancers can mimic pretty much any kind of mage—I can convert the different types of mana to one another and be indistinguishable from the real thing if all my mana is converted to a single type."

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"I'll definitely want a look at that once I have a rudimentary analysis."

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"Cool. Meantime, want some accelerated perception?"

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"Probably best saved for when I have a specific use for it as long as you might have a limited supply."

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"Yeah. On the other hand accelerated perception as an elementalist blessing is way cheaper than as an arcanist spell so I think I want to watch you cast a few wizardry spells while I'm accelerated."

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"Okay, what spells?"

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"I'm not sure what spells there are but I guess ones that are sufficiently distinct? And a couple that sting, too. Maybe start with just that number spell so I can calibrate how fast I have to be to reasonably detect the power going through."

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"Is it cheaper to do this at a stretch than in short bursts so I should have a list in advance -?"

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"Would be if it were a spell, but for the blessing short bursts are better."

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"Okay. I can do a stinging number read. Do you think it'll matter how much it stings?"

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"Hmm, maybe, can't predict it in advance, will need to look. Do it without a sting first, though, so I can adjust the appropriate acceleration and know what it looks like and how it differs."

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"Sure."

He casts the number 45.

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He accelerates to 2x just before.

Is that fast enough?

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It doesn't seem to help at all.

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...back to normal. "Do it again?"

And now 4x.

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Repeat.

Nope, it's still veryveryfast, possibly instant.

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Back to normal. "Either this thing's messing with my perceptions or time, or it's just instantaneous."

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"That's consistent with observations and some theories," Kaylo says, "and it's more likely than it doing anything directly to your sense of time."

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He sighs. "Well, cast something that stings, so I can see whether I can detect anything at all?"

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312 stings!

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Does his CC—or the magic—or anything—do anything interesting/detectable?

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The CC... stretches?

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"Do one just shy of sting?"

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Kaylo does.

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No stretch? And one that just barely stings starts stretching?

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Yup.

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He reports these results.

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"...That sort of makes sense, I suppose," allows Kaylo. "I am really curious what all this looks like when you're not fumbling for words..."

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"Hmm, I can do a short telepathy spell and try to send you that? I'm not entirely sure it'll translate—Keo might be better at this than any spell I design—but that's a possibility."

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"You designed it? Tell me about it," demands Kaylo.

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"Yes, sir," he says, grinning. "The things we call 'spells' are temporary effects triggered by certain actions when performed by an arcanist, a metamancer with arcanist mana, or someone with a scroll made by an arcanist. The exact combination of effect and action is consciously and, lacking metamancer help, permanently bound by arcanists individually, so every spell not in a scroll was effectively designed by the caster.

"Since I am a metamancer I can bind spells for a single use and then unbind them whenever. If I wanted a telepathic effect to communicate that to you all I'd have to do is fully specify it and then choose which actions of mine would trigger it, but I am limited by what I can properly specify which is why I think Keo might have an easier time. I can do a something for just now, though."

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"Certain actions such as?"

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"Anything that—I guess 'can convey meaning' is as good a way to describe it as any. Gestures, spoken words, written words. There's a tradeoff between mana cost and complexity and usability—a spell's cost is determined when it's bound, and it depends on what the spell does, but gets cheaper the longer and more involved the incantation is. Also gets cheaper when the incantation is in some way related to the actual spell—a fire spell with the word fire would cost less than one with the word water instead."

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"If you have a telepathy spell on can thoughts 'convey meaning' in the relevant sense? Or better yet if someone nearby has one, or if Keo's in range?"

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"No, the actions themselves have to be completely nonmagical both in execution and detection."

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"Is there a limit to how long and involved an incantation can be to get mana cheapness returns?"

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"Not exactly a limit; the returns do diminish and approach a certain minimal value, but I don't think they ever actually reach that value—mana's not integers in our system—and most people only write incantations that long and involved academically, they're very impractical."

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"No fun cheats with information compression?"

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"What do you mean?"

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"Oh, write up an entire book's worth of exacting detail, title it something unique, incant the title?"

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"Not really. The only way the actual informational content of an incantation is used to affect its spell's mana cost is in how 'commonly' it's related to the spell's effect—a fire spell using the word 'fire' in a common language costs less mana than one using 'fire' in a dead language which costs less mana than one using 'fire' in a conlang you invented for yourself, and writing that book would be pretty much the same thing as this last idea."

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"Wonder what Draconic counts as."

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"That's an interesting question! One I am not sure I can explore until I figure out whether I can learn Draconic at all."

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"Would you need to know it, or just have a few words?"

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"Hmm... Having a few words would work, I don't actually need to know what the stuff I'm saying means."

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"So that might be worth trying, but maybe don't do anything that costs mana till we have a list and can prioritize."

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"Prioritise by what?"

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"Value of information and likely mana cost."

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"I can actually figure out the exact mana cost before casting a spell, as soon as I bind it."

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"Does binding cost anything?"

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"Nope. Well, it doesn't cost me anything, an unassisted arcanist would be stuck with that binding forever so they tend to be more careful with them."

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"Makes sense."

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"I usually keep myself well stocked with mana when I can, so it shouldn't be a problem anytime soon anyway, but yeah." Pause. "Also what time is it, should I maybe be leaving you to sleep...?"

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...Kaylo casts a spell to check the time. "Yeah, soonish."

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"Okay, so I guess I'll go. Oh, also, I meant to ask, are you single and slash or polyamorous?"

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Blink. "...Yes and not particularly."

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"Okay! Wanna go out with me sometime? Not sure how the whole thing works here in Elcenia but I'm sure I can figure it out."

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"Why do you ask about polyamory if that's not a requirement?"

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"If you were not single it would be," he shrugs.

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"Why did you ask about that and not about whether I like boys?"

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"With enough advance notice I can more or less decide what gender to be on a given day, so I did not expect that to be a problem, and if the fact that I'm sometimes a boy at all was I'd expect you to object. Is it?"

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"No, but if I were seeing somebody and not polyamorous you could also expect me to object."

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"Fair enough, I guess I was assuming you were less likely to object due to the gender—due to my genderfluidity—than due to the other things."

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"Anyway, uh, okay, what were you thinking of doing?"

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"Well I'm unfamiliar with the customs, what do people usually do in these situations, here?"

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"Restaurants? Theater? Sort of requires compatible tastes."

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"I don't know what you have in the way of food and plays here and I like doing new things by default."

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"Well, I can pick something - am I paying, usually whoever asks pays but you probably don't have any local money -"

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"Hmm, I don't think the school would cover it but I could sell stuff from my world and get enough money?"

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"...for theater tickets?"

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"I have no idea how much theatre tickets would be, here," he confesses.

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"They're not that expensive, it just seems weird to sell your possessions for it."

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"Oh, well, to have pocket money in general—we were just discussing that they'd be pretty useless here in Elcenia."

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"Useless, sure, but also irreplaceable otherworldly doodads, so you might want to shop around for somebody who wants them a lot."

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"Oh, yeah, naturally. Anyway, point is, I don't mind paying."

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"Shopping around would take a while, when were you imagining we'd go -?"

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"I don't know! I'm not even all that acquainted with how your timekeeping works, yet. Whenever you want."

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"If you're planning on paying and have no money and would take a while to get some then that affects the timing!"

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"It does! I'm saying I'm okay with you paying and us going out tomorrow, or us waiting a while and going out later, or any other thing, your pick."

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"...okay, I'll find something."

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"Alright!" He grins. "Now I should probably let you sleep."

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"Yeah. Tomorrow there's classes, I won't be here or in the library most of the day."

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"It's alright, I—" Pause. "Guess you can call me on my communication crystal? How exactly does that work?"

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"They're paired, I can call you if I have the other half of a pair."

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"Oh, okay. I can drop one half of my pair here tomorrow?"

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"Sure."

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"Bye, then!"

Off he goes back to his room to stare at the various wizardry things until he falls asleep.

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The sun rises in the morning.

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And he wakes up and gets dressed, and brushes his teeth, and—

<Keo?>

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<Yes?>

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<It occurred to me yesterday that I might be able to break the summoning spell, except when I tried to touch a piece of link paper I got the strangest sensation that it would kill me if I did.>

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<Link paper is not generally fatal on contact; what do you mean?>

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<Does this channel support bouncing memories? I'm—not keen to repeat that particular experiment.>

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<I can find a memory you want me to look at.>

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<Me looking at link paper in Kaylo's room. Oh, and also looking at the ward in Saasnil's.>

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<Well, that's interesting but I don't have any interpretive advantages over you there.>

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<Yeah, I just thought someone else should know and you probably know enough wizardry there might have been something you'd have noticed. I think I might go study some wizardry theory to see what I can come up with.>

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<I'm not aware of anything explaining this off the top of my head in academic wizarding theory, but be my guest.>

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<It's mostly to think of any other things to look at. I still have no idea how exactly CCs work or why they're discrete and I couldn't watch the magic do its thing.>

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<You might want to look at someone who has a familiar.>

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<Yeah, was planning on doing that, too, as well as looking at someone in the process of getting a familiar. Do you know anyone who does and wouldn't mind being stared at?>

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<Some of the teachers. I'm not sure how long you'd mean to stare at them. Getting a familiar involves casting a spell and would probably be too fast for you to see like the other spells.>

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<I'm not sure how long, either, but wizardry seems—pretty comprehensible, relatively speaking. And the part I'd try to look at in the spell is where the extra CC comes from, and how, I might be able to catch that.>

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<I'll try to remember to tell you next time a student acquires a familiar.>

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<Thank you! Oh and, two other things: one, can I look at your magic at some point? I'm trying to figure dragon magic out, and I'm at the point where there'll be more gains from variety than from just looking at Kaylo. And two, is Korulen free to take me shopping again today? I wanna look at potions and see whether those are ambiguously sentient and want to kill me.>

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<Korulen's free for two angles after lunch and again in the evening. You didn't get a good enough look at me earlier?>

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<Not really. I need some time, and also you are the metamancer equivalent of looking at the sun.>

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<Does that mean short doses?>

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<No, mostly different metaphorical angles and squinting. And from what I gather magic is less idiosyncratic here so I expect it'll be similar to what I already got from Kaylo.>

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<Most of it, yes.>

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<So yeah. Can I? Look at you, I mean. And if so, when?>

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<Do you need me to not be doing anything else?>

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<Not at all, except I might ask you to do certain things like shift or breathe fire or fly or talk. Not more than twice each though.>

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<So not indoors, anyway. That's not particularly convenient with my schedule. More likely after the baby hatches.>

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<I could just start with you shifting to dragon, using fire, shifting to a third form, then back, and the rest of the staring could be indoors, wouldn't need to do more than just that outside.>

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<Maybe when she hatches. I'm trying to get things squared away before then but I'll want to take her out.>

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<Okay, thank you. When's she due, by the way? And also do you know of other dragons that might be willing to do it, ideally I'd get at least one per colour group ->

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<In a week or two. There's a moonstone student here.>

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<Cool, congratulations! And who's the student, how can I find them?>

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<I can tell her where your room is if you like.>

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<I'd love that, thank you!>

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<You're welcome.>

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<I'm gonna go get breakfast, then. Bye!>

Off he goes to the cafeteria.

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It has students in it!

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Anyone with interesting magic he hasn't seen yet around?

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There's a very subtle thing that a few people in the room have.

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Oooh a very subtle thing! Anything in common between them? Species ethnicity age gender...?

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Nope, looks random.

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Huh. Does one of the people he talked to yesterday have it?

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Nope.

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Oh well. He grabs food and, if any one table has more than one person with this thing, he'll go to it, otherwise he'll just pick one at random that looks particularly friendly and flop himself onto a seat.

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They are not clustering but this one halfling looks friendly enough! She waves when Kaede sits.

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"Hi! I'm Kaede, I'm new."

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"...It's the middle of term."

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"I came from another world," he says, waving a hand.

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"Really? Why?"

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"It was an accident, actually."

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"Oh. Awkward."

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"A bit," he agrees. "Also I am curious about something that might be a bit strange to ask, and depending on cultural mores I might not be aware of could perhaps be offensive, though I do not see how."

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"Huh?"

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"Okay so my magic is that I can see magic, and there's some magic that some people here in this cafeteria have and there's no pattern to whom and you have it and I was wondering if you knew what it was."

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"You can see it? What does magic look like to you?"

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"Really hard to describe. It's not really see it, it's a whole new sense. It has a certain sense of location and shape and angle but the metaphor doesn't stretch much farther than that."

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"Well what's it shaped like?"

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"Depends on the magic. As an example, link paper has a sort of—tendril or rope thing connecting it to its pair."

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"What about the thing you're saying I have?"

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"It's, hmm..." He squints. "Kinda formless, actually? And it—moves?"

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"...Moves?"

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"Yeah, like, in place. Like it's flickering or something. Huh."

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"Why would it do that?"

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"No idea. It doesn't necessarily mean anything like what it looks like, and this world's magic is—very different and varied. I'd need to look at it longer. You don't know of any magic you might have that other people don't? And that, oh, she does?" he points. "And him, and him, and her, and him?"

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"I don't know those people."

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"Yeah, seems really random. And it's not lightness, either, I met a light yesterday and her magic didn't look like this."

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"Well, yeah, I'm not a light. Or a sorcerer. I'd know by now."

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"What's a sorcerer?"

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"They can move stuff."

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"Oh, telekinesis? And like all other magic here, it's free?"

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"Free? You can't, like, buy it."

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"I mean you can just do it without spending any resources. Magic from my world spends a finite resource that humans—only sapients there are humans—generate from birth, when they're mages."

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"Oh. Sorcerers aren't losing things when they move stuff."

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"Yeah, thought so. Are there any other kinds of magic some people can have that others can't? Some people can make potions, that one I know..."

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"Oh, anybody can make potions."

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"Really? Okay now that's cool."

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"Is it?"

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"Yeah, means I won't be magicless for as long as I'm stuck here."

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"I'm not actually sure about you. Anybody here. Anybody here can be a wizard, too, pretty much."

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"Yeah, but that's because of the CC, which I don't have. Is there a similar thing for potions? Where does the magic come from?"

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"I don't know, I'm not a witch."

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"Fair enough," he nods. "Any other kinds of magic some people have that others don't and aren't species-specific?"

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"Mages? I've never been tested."

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"Mmm someone might've told me about that, I don't remember, what is it?"

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"Mages do element stuff?"

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"Oh. Oh, hmm... It could be that? How do you find out?"

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"There's a spell. Well, four."

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"Cool. Well, it could be that, then, I guess. Using the spell is probably way faster than figuring it out my way, at least the first time."

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"I don't really want to be a mage even if I can."

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"Is there a negative to being a mage?"

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"They're weird, and people are scared of them."

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"Why are people scared of them?"

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"They're scary?"

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"Scarier than regular wizards? Or, say, dragons?"

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"Well, yeah. Wizards if you can see their hands they're not doing anything. Dragons I guess could be scary but they don't, like, eat people."

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"Do mages?"

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"Eat people? No. But if one gets violent it's awful."

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"Are mages more likely than dragons to be particularly violent? Or particularly awfuler when they do?"

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"...I dunno?"

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"Alright. Well, I'll ask other people with this and figure out whether it's magery or something else. If it is I'll at least be able to identify it more easily than people having to be tested by spell."

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"Cool."

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"Yeah!" he beams. "So, why do you wanna be a wizard?"

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"I thought it seemed interesting."

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"It does. I'm kinda jealous," he sighs.

(Oh and also resumes eating, because that is the thing he actually came here to do.)

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(The halfling has been eating this entire time.) "Oh well, you have your thing, right?"

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"Mmm, yeah, but my thing is seeing and manipulating magic, I can't make any of my own and need to borrow—or steal—from elsewhere. And I apparently cannot use wizardry at all, it does not like being touched by anyone without a CC, it appears." Pause. "Or at least me in specific, guess it needn't generalise."

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"Oh well."

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Shrug. "Yeah."

Food!

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There's lots of that!

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And eventually he's done and he says 'bye to the girl and goes to the library to read up a lot on magic and other things while he waits for Korulen to have some free time.

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Time elapses! Eventually Korulen is out of class.

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Can she help him purchase potions?

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She can! This requires another walk into the city.

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Yay, walks into the city!

"Oh, by the way, can I see you shift into your other form at some point?"

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She does it midstride, keeps walking on four clawed feet. She's smaller than Kaylo's dragon form, only about ten feet long nose to tailtip, and the same jade color as Keo's hair.

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...huh. "Your magic's interesting."

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"Is it?"

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"Yeah. It's like you're entirely an elf, except you got this one bit of stuff that's exactly like a dragon but small. ...can you breathe fire?"

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She does, a bit.

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"Yeah, it's even in the same... metaphorical place as in a dragon."

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"Huh?"

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"I mean, the bits of dragon magic that do fire and the bits that do shapeshifting are in there, but they're smaller, and the bit that does shapeshifting only does the one shape, and they're in the same position relative to each other, sorta."

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"Oh. I guess that makes sense."

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"Can thudias have dragon children? Or thudia children?"

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"With whom?"

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"With non-dragons."

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"No and rarely."

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"...it occurs to me that it would be very technically interesting and also probably not very polite to watch dragons, erm, conceive."

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"...um."

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"Yes, 'um,' that's what I meant. I just wonder how the magic—transfers—if thudias can have thudia children but not dragons then the magic's probably getting copied somehow, and thudias themselves must come about because only a bit and not all of the dragon magic's being passed on and I wanna know why."

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"I would never have a thudia grandkid without a dragon in-law if that matters."

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"It... does, yeah, that makes sense if what I'm thinking is how it works."

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"And throwback thudias are really rare."

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"Makes sense that they would be. What's most peculiar is that it seems to always be divided the same way."

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"Divided?"

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"Like, when a dragon has a child with a nondragon they can have a thudia or a parunia and thudias are always the same, they always get exactly those bits of the magic and not others. Or, put another way, it's divided consistently and discretely enough that you can actually tell that a child will either be a thudia or a parunia."

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"Oh. I mean, you can also tell because parunias hatch from dragon eggs."

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"Oh, thudias don't?—is it the parent's choice, like gender and stuff?"

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"No, they don't get to pick that."

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"So they just, what, conceive and then it's a surprise whether it's an egg or gestation?"

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"The eggs gestate for awhile too. They actually take longer."

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"Huh. Interesting."

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"Magically interesting or just in general?"

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"Just in general. It might be magically interesting too but just from this I wouldn't guess."

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"So we knew my little sister would be a parunia when Mom took longer to show with her than with me."

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He nods. "How does shapeshifting interact with pregnancy?"

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"The magic covers it okay - just sort of brings the baby or the egg or whatever along till they go into labor, then they have to be in a big enough form."

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"Handy."

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"Well, it kind of has to work that way, at least for dragons, they shift all the time."

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"Well, I wouldn't have been too surprised if dragon magic forced them to be in a single shape for the entirety of pregnancy," he shrugs. "It was in the realm of possibility—although your mum did not raise that as an objection to shifting so not that likely."

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"Raise it as an objection when?"

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"I asked her if she could demonstrate some dragon magic—Kaylo demonstrated some yesterday and I want to see what it looks like when another dragon does it, especially a different colour group dragon—it's also why I asked you."

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"My sister's egg was laid awhile ago."

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"—right of course it was."

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"She'll hatch pretty soon."

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"Yeah, your mum's told me. Oh, by the way, do you know any other dragons than her and the two at school who might be wiling to be stared at while they do various dragon things?"

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"I mean, there's the rest of my dragon family but otherwise not really."

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"Oh, well."

Potions?

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Potions! Here is a witch shop. There are potions in it, everything from headache cures to shampoo.

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...he kinda wants one of each but he knows he shouldn't so he gets... four. Four is good. Yes? Very varied four.

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Headache potion, shampoo, flavor enhancer, water purifier?

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Works!

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Korulen buys them for him.

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And then back to school, Korulen presumably has more classes.

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She does!

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So he returns to his room and squints at the flavour enhancer, that's definitely the one he cares about the least. He pokes the magic veeeeeery geeeeently, ready to pull away in case any angry reservoirs or anything want to murder him for it.

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This magic seems pretty mellow.

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Okay... and can he drain it from the potion into himself?

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If he doesn't want the potion to work anymore.

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He is perfectly fine with this outcome!

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Shlorp.

This potion and all the other potions from the same batch are now nonfunctional and he has some mana!

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...oh dear.

Erm. At least it was just a flavour enhancer. Still, he thinks he'll start looking into being a witch after lunch.

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The cafeteria contains people! There's Kaylo over there.

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Flop. "Hiya."

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"Hi, what's up?"

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"Turns out I can drain mana from potions! Bad news is if I do it from one potion I get it from the whole batch and it's no longer functional so I accidentally made a bunch of other people's flavour enhancer stop working."

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"Oh. Well, some people will have disappointing lunches and you'll have to buy in bulk going forward I guess. You didn't see that coming?"

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"Not really. And I was actually planning on learning whether I could become a witch and make my own potions."

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"Probably. It doesn't rely on anything like a CC."

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"I wonder what it does rely on, though."

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"I haven't studied witchcraft in particular but lemme know what you find out."

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"I will. And why haven't you?"

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"It's not very interesting compared to other kinds of magic."

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"Huh. If you say so."

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"But I'm glad you can turn it into mana, that'll be very handy."

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"Not to mention the fact that it will help with dysphoria."

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"There's wizard spells for that, you know."

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"Well, I'd have to go bother someone each time rather than doing it myself—which I guess might be worth it anyway, given how costless wizardry is."

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"And you're in a wizard school so you wouldn't have to go to a pro and pay them."

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"Yeah. ...I still wanna be a wizard, though."

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"If I figure out how to do it I'll tell you."

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"I'm thinking I could try looking at pregnancies and what-have-you to figure out when you get a CC, see if I can't replicate it."

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"You're gonna come off kinda weird staring at pregnant people."

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"Well I'd ask and tell them why I was staring, naturally, just like I explained stuff to you."

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"...I guess there isn't etiquette about this where you're from either, is there."

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"Nope. I'm trying to go with the common sensical approach but if you have suggestions I'm all ears."

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"I'm not some kind of social butterfly myself but if your modus operandi is 'stare at people who've never heard of the magic you have that means you have to do that' you might want to put out some kind of ad or go by word of mouth instead of just... staring at random people."

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"Well of course I'd also ask, not just explain what I was doing, that's part of the common sensical approach. Ads and word of mouth should work, though."

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"Asking 'can I stare at you because you're pregnant' would probably creep people out."

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"But saying, 'Hello, I have magic from another world that lets me see magic and I'm looking into how and when channelling capacities are formed, do you mind if I look at you for a couple of degrees?' might go better."

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"Maybe."

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"But anyway the ads idea is a good one—although I should probably get money before that."

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"And for potions, apparently. Or witchcraft lessons."

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"Yeah," he sighs. "I'm thinking of selling Galatean stuff, then using that to get potions or witchcraft lessons, use the mana to make more artefacts, repeat, marking it up."

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"Sounds good to me."

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"Do you know where I could advertise the artefacts?"

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"....nnnnno idea."

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"Is there not, like, a periodic of some sort for magic geeks?"

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"I mean, there's academic journals, but they don't publish ads. I guess you could get a booth at a convention but that might cost money too."

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"Hrrm. Anyone you know would know this?"

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"I don't discuss people's finances with them and I mooch off my aunt."

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"Fair, I guess," he sighs. "I'll figure it out."

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Nod.

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"By the way, do you know when you'll want to have that date?"

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"Narrowed it down to a couple things but they're on different days, I can pick now if you need your schedule hammered out."

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"Nah, I'm cool. What things?"

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"There's a dance show - I assume you don't have the specific kind of dance where you're from - and there's a play that got good reviews."

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"Oh, cool. Yeah, I'm pretty okay with either, pick whichever you prefer."

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"Mulling it over. Tickets'll be on sale for both for a few more days."

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"What are the pros and cons?"

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"Dancing's cheaper and the theater's got comfier chairs, play's better for my attention span and I could get good spots."

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"For your attention span?"

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"I like watching leherin fine but two angles of it is pushing it."

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"That makes sense. Is it terribly impolite to bring a book for the second angle, or just leave earlier?"

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"You can sneak out at intermission, I guess, but it's too dark to read."

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"I could probably develop a see-in-the-dark spell. Or enchant a book to be readable in the dark without emitting light."

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"That'd make the leherin the winner then."

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"There's still the problem of mana, I'll develop it and figure out how much it costs and let you know if it's feasible."

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"So I shouldn't buy tickets yet?"

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"Not quite yet."

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"Okay. Does developing the spell, the first steps, involve doing magic or just thinking about it?"

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"Just thinking about it—actually writing it is better, so I can review it and make sure it's good and descriptive and efficient."

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"And then you have notes for future reference."

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"Yeah. I have some spells memorised—like invisibility and flight and telepathy—but I also keep them written down and have a list. Some I based on books, but I always add more details because I can afford to."

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"And most people can't?"

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"Hmm, most people don't? More details to the spell means more details to keep track of, means they need to spend longer concentrating on it and if they slip up they're stuck with the incomplete or incorrect spell forever, plus it's harder to make sure the mana allocation is efficient. I don't need that, I can watch my work as I go and make changes on the fly and hold the spell half-formed in my mind if I need a break."

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"Useful, the other way sounds nervewracking - can they draft at all -"

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"They can write it all down and be as detailed as they want on paper, you don't need to hold the whole spell in your mind, you can even read it as you set it—but if you stop reading it, if you think about something else or pay attention to something else and don't have a metamancer handy then that's it."

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"Damn. You'd think they'd have incentives to keep you around."

Permalink Mark Unread

"The War devastated most of the continent, it's a natural taboo to evolve, I feel."

Permalink Mark Unread

"People have wars all the time and don't inevitably pick broad classes of scapegoat."

Permalink Mark Unread

"It was several countries against one guy, though. If you believe the books."

Permalink Mark Unread

"That makes it stupider! If it was several people who were all metamancers maybe they could be forgiven for generalizing."

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"There were also stories about metamancers before and after that trying to do the same thing, it's just that that one's the most famous. And religious taboo, which can conceivably have preceded that war."

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"Religions," mutters Kaylo.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Given that I'd only seen the one I didn't feel it was fair to generalise. But yes."

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"They're often like that."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Sounds like religious plurality can only improve things."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Eh, they have stupid fights and persecute each other."

Permalink Mark Unread

"But at least in this country none are law."

Permalink Mark Unread

"The vampire one has some serious power but only over vampires."

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"There's a god for the whole species and literally no one else?"

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"There's a religion for the whole species and literally no one else," corrects Kaylo.

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"I meant, like, within their religion."

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"I think so. They're very secretive about it."

Permalink Mark Unread

"A secretive religion. What a novel concept. I guess I shouldn't really be surprised about anything, a sample size of one plus history books and regional variations shouldn't mean anything."

Permalink Mark Unread

"How'd one religion get universal? The vampires needed a plague and that's just one species."

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"The War, probably, killed more people than any plagues—although history is not well-documented enough."

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"I mean, the plague selectively killed people who didn't belong to their religion."

Permalink Mark Unread

"...what?"

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"Not for, like, divine reasons, because their religion forbids feeding on people without their consent and the plague was fatal to vampires who preyed on whoever had it so it mattered if your snack could tell you to fuck off."

Permalink Mark Unread

"It's asymptomatic in other species? And that's why they need consent?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"It's symptomatic, just not conspicuous. And we're exhausting my knowledge of vampire theology."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Huh. Well, anyway, the people who managed to win the War probably enforced their religion on everyone and that's how it became so widespread," he shrugs.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Makes sense as far as that goes, I suppose."

Permalink Mark Unread

"History's not very well-documented, like I said. Which is funny if you think of how much tech they had, but the fact that there is a whole Guild for Historians might explain it—they could just have some widespread conspiracy to keep ancient history books from leaking or something."

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"Why would historians want to do that?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"I don't think the widespread conspiracy is at all likely, it's just that the majority of pre-War records having mysteriously vanished or not been produced at all sounds... about as likely."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Were people literate back then?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Not less than they are now, I'd expect, given how advanced their magitech was."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Some cultures get pretty far without writing."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I suppose it's possible. I mean they'd invented it, we do have some records, just not many."

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Nod.

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And he's done eating.

"Anyway, I'm gonna go figure this spell out and do some more research, tell you about it later—by the way did you see the crystal I left at your room?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yeah?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Okay so I'll call you there once I have this figured out."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I don't have my crystals with me all the time, if I don't answer wait an angle and try again."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Alright."

And soon he's done eating, so he says goodbye to Kaylo and returns to the library.

Permalink Mark Unread

The library is still there and still has books.

Permalink Mark Unread

Good! How about books on witchcraft?

Permalink Mark Unread

There are some! Nothing instructional though.

Permalink Mark Unread

Hmm, what are they about if not instructions? Is there anything on the theory? Anyone have a clue where the magic feeding the potions comes from?

Permalink Mark Unread

Some speculation, some history, some studies on potion effects. Nothing definite or even very solid on his question.

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Shame. Does the librarian know where he might get witchcraft instruction, and how much it might cost? And for that matter do they know where he might announce he has unique otherworldly magical doodads to sell?

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From a witch. A lot of the shops have apprentices, though probably mostly younger than him. They exchange labor for tutoring; money doesn't typically change hands. He could take out an ad in the paper.

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Oooh okay good to know. How does he do the ad thing?

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He sends a letter to the paper marked attn: advertisements.

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Alright cool. Are witch shops open at the moment? If so, he'll want to go visit that one he bought potions from.

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It's open!

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So there he goes!

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"Hey, can I help you find anything?" says the elf girl at the counter.

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"Not exactly—I'd like to apprentice, actually."

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"Oh, I see. Do you have previous witchcraft education at all?"

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"Nope, I'm actually not from this world, got accidentally stranded here."

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"Huh. Uh, okay. So why do you want to be a witch?"

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"It's apparently this world's only form of magic I can use and I am very much a magic nerd. Plus I can convert it into my world's magic."

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"What are the limits on your schedule?"

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"Pretty much none? I'm not enrolled anywhere and don't have anything planned with the exception of a date sometime in the next few days, exact time undecided as of yet."

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"Do you know what apprenticeship entails?"

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"No, the library was not very forthcoming on the subject."

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"It varies place to place, but the basic idea is that we work the storefront, clean, prep ingredients, make potions we're qualified to make, and do other miscellaneous chores in exchange for being taught potions. Ahin usually turns apprentices loose after four or five years."

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"Sounds good!"

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"Ahin can get rid of you for any or no reason, you can leave your apprenticeship for any or no reason, if you're still here after a year there's a temporary noncompete thing you have to sign - it only applies within the city, you could set up somewhere else, or just wait it out."

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"Reasonable."

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"You start as junior apprentice even relative to people younger or lower equivalence than you, they get certain limited ability to boss you around too, Ahin may delegate teaching duties to us, you are not entitled by this apprenticeship to any specific amount of Ahin's own time, abuse of the employee discount gets you booted... uh, questions?"

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"Define 'abuse of the employee discount'?"

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"Reselling, buying for friends more than in very small quantities, that sort of thing, if you aren't sure pay full price."

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"Ah, gotcha. I'd... mostly be buying—and making—them to convert them."

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"...hasn't come up before. Uh, you might want to use the bulk discount but not the employee one for that."

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"Why not?"

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"The employee discount is for, like, small, normal-person amounts."

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"Ah, yeah, fair enough."

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"Any other questions?"

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"Don't think so."

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"Okay, fill this out," she gives him a form, "go in back and see if Ahin likes you, he won't take you if he doesn't like you."

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"Okay!"

...does his translation spell let him write things in the appropriate language?

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Yes!

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Oh good then he fills it out and goes in back!

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And there is a bustling workspace with cauldrons and kids and an animated elf fellow calling for ingredients and having a couple of the apprentices run them over.

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He waits to be acknowledged (and watches it all, this looks fun).

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It takes a few degrees but eventually the fellow who is presumably Ahin seems done with what he's doing and notices Kaede. "Hello there! What's up?"

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"Hi! I wanna be an apprentice."

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"Did Marin give you the form?"

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"Yup." He waves it.

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Ahin snatches it, skims it, says, "All right, so tell me about yourself."

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"I'm from another world, got stranded here accidentally, can see magic, can convert potions into my world's kind of magic and also it's the only kind I can actually use here so that makes it incredibly interesting. Er, as for me me, I'm—curious altruistic ambitious extroverted sociable impatient intelligent diligent energetic dramatic—those might be a good ten adjectives?"

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"Convert potions?" blinks Ahin.

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"Yeah, I can usually convert one type of magic into another but all types here are either inconveniently attached to people or to the reservoir who apparently will murder me if I try to do anything to it."

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"So you're less interested in being a witch than in having a source of this thing?"

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"Oh I'm plenty interested in being a witch for its own sake, I'm a magic geek, I like getting my hands on as much magic as I can. Besides, it's fascinating. If I didn't need it to fuel other magic I might not have wanted to be a witch this soon but I definitely eventually would."

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"Hm. You any good at cooking?"

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"Yeah, been cooking for myself for the past few years."

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"Yeah? What do you make? Witchcraft's a lot like cooking."

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"Not sure you'll have the same dishes on this world but—" He proceeds to start listing and briefly describing a number of dishes of varying levels of difficulty from all over Galatea.

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"All right, not bad. Go pick four days on the calendar that don't currently have more than four people signed up, come in then half an angle after sunup."

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He goes over to said calendar to pick a date.

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The structure of the calendar maybe implies that he meant four days of the seven-day week. Most of them are open by the described standard.

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Oh fun. Can he come tomorrow?

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Yup!

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Cool! Tomorrow plus some three more evenly spaced days of the week.

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Ahin has reembedded himself in witchy projects of some kind.

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...he's kinda curious and wants to watch. And also "watch" with his metamancy.

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The witches are doing magic when they add ingredients and mix them! Ahin is doing more of it, more precisely.

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Where's the magic coming from?

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The witches are spontaneously generating it, looks like.

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...that's amazing. Is it when they do anything, or just some specific steps, does it work with all ingredients—he doesn't suppose he can try...?

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Well, he didn't schedule himself for today, did he.

Ahin can do it when he adds anything and when he stirs, and a little bit when he shreds some leaves he apparently doesn't trust the apprentices with; the kids are more haphazard about it.

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So it probably has an element of intent...

"Erm, do I need to do anything now or just—show up tomorrow?"

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"Show up tomorrow!" says Ahin. "Wear clothes you don't care about! Eat breakfast!"

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"Okay!"

So he returns to the library, merrily.

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The library is there waiting for him.

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Okay so he wants to figure out how letters work, how do letters work.

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Correspondence or the alphabet?

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Correspondence, he wants to send that as on the paper.

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Identify recipient on envelope, drop out a window of an appropriately enchanted building.

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...like this one?

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Yup.

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Cool! And what should he use as contact information for people who might want to buy his doodads?

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His room number and the name of the school.

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Easy enough. He writes a letter without many details about how he came to be there but with a description of the otherworldly objects he has and is willing to sell.

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And if he drops it out a window, it vanishes!

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This world's magic is so cool.

Now there was that moonstone dragon, Korulen mentioned her name, can he get to her room via lift?

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Does he know what hall she lives on?

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Ermmmm no not really also now he remembered Keo said she'd tell the dragon where his room was so maybe he shouldn't go after her. What he'll do instead is read some more the books he's borrowed and then presuming nothing new happens go to the cafeteria to eat dinner.

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Kaylo is there and snags him. "Got tickets."

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"Really? To which option? When? I completely forgot to think about the reading spell—"

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"The play, I got it discounted, turned out they have a student rate."

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"Oh, cool, when?"

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"Chenen, sundown."

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"Awesome! Can't wait. Also I'm a witch's apprentice now."

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"How's that going?"

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"My first... whatever it will be... is tomorrow morning. And apparently the magic for potionmaking just... spontaneously appears, it's really cool."

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"Huh, it's not converted from anything?"

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"Apparently not! It does make me worry that this might mean I'm not able to do it either."

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"That'd still be interesting but it'd answer the question of why no one in your world invented it."

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"Yeah. Unless it's contagious somehow but what little I could see didn't seem to indicate anything like that."

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"Not much investigation has been done on offworlders, so we wouldn't know."

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"I still find it kinda bewildering that other worlds are known of and summoning is possible and yet there's so little of it."

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"It's considered a dangerous field."

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"Well sure but you have population in the hundreds of millions perhaps billions and the potential of a multiverse..."

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"Billions. Summoning spells are also pretty expensive to cast? I dunno, I would've gotten around to it."

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"I wonder if it might be possible to do it with Galatea magic and it just hasn't ever been tried."

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"Which kind?"

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"Arcanism, probably."

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"Seems most versatile."

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"Kinda, yeah. It's why I keep my mana in arcanist form most of the time."

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"Is conversion lossy?"

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"Yeah. And given that I can lower mana cost of spells by making incantations longer and more involved I typically do that rather than converting to elementalist mana and using a blessing when this is relevant, I can get the overhead cost to be less than the conversion loss."

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"Are there units of mana?"

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"No. Or, not discrete units, it's a continuous quantity."

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"But you can have a pail of water or two, are there measurements at all?"

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"Yyyyes, objectively there are, but without a metamancer around to tell people that there is actual disagreement amongst scholars."

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"Really? What does the disagreement look like?"

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"Well, since different spells or artefacts or blessings or whatever work off individual mental architecture, even spells that ostensibly do the same thing can cost different amounts of mana for different people. And people Express at different ages, and when they do they spend different amounts of mana, and they don't have very good internal measurements of how much mana they have and only moderately good intuitions for how much mana, relatively, different things intuitively cost. End result is a lack of consensus on whether elementalists have the same mana cap per blessing, or whether it makes sense to say different blessings have the same cap, or whether mages recharge mana at the same rate, stuff like that."

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"Huh. So what's the answer?"

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"Everyone recharges at the same rate from about the same point in development before they're born, all of everyone's blessings have the same cap, differences in mana cost seem to just amount to differences in brain architecture."

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"It's weird that brain architecture would do that."

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"It's 'cause spells are subtly different because people think about and relate to them differently. Like—I think I mentioned my read-while-invisible spell, when I don't fill in every little gap in defining the effect it makes invisible books readable by making every letter on the page identifiable but things like colour aren't, and someone else binding a similar spell might get something like meanings embedded on the paper or something different depending on what they think of as 'reading' and 'visible while invisible' and what-have-you."

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"Is that brain architecture per se or just how they think about things? Can it change over time per person?"

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"I'm not sure, I've never been around anyone long enough to figure that out, but I've never met two people with the same—whatever-it-is. I'm not sure there's a meaningful distinction here between what I'm describing as how they think about things and architecture?"

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"Hmmm. Do you know what causes people in your world to have various magic?"

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"Seems to be random, why?"

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"No, no, random is who it happens to, I mean how."

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"Oh. Far as I know they're just born with it? I don't know of any mechanism, some people just generate mana."

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"Hrmph."

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"Why, did you have any ideas...?"

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"I was wondering if it ran in families or something."

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"Oh it doesn't. Lots of people believe it does, our succession laws are based on that assumption, but the data disagree."

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"...how do the succession laws not collapse, if it doesn't?"

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"Well, the succession laws permit you to rule without being a mage if you marry someone who is a mage of the appropriate kind. Also people pretend a lot. And the courts are large enough that every age group tends to have a couple of real mages of the relevant kinds."

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"People can pretend? They never have to demonstrate?"

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"Sometimes, but if you hire an arcanist to do things for you, or an enchanter, or whatever, you can go a long way. And the situations where they'd have to demonstrate are very rare—doing magic has religious connotations, it's supposedly a gift from the gods and shouldn't be used casually. Of course, every now and then someone is found out and then excommunicated for pretending."

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"...casually meaning?"

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"Like, doing it to help other people is okay, doing it as part of your job is okay, doing it for research is okay, doing it to fight is okay, doing it to reach for the jar on the very tall shelf is not okay, doing it to show off is extra not okay."

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"That's stupid."

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He shrugs. "Extremely so."

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"I'd still expect them to get into situations where they could if they had the magic help somebody or get into a fight with it."

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"There are some like that, but refusing to use magic is never bad per se, it's better to not risk committing blasphemy than acting when uncertain."

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"There are a couple religions that don't like magic, here, but I can't think of any that handle it like that."

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"Yeah, it's rather interesting from a sociological standpoint but unfortunately I live in it."

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"Not any more you don't."

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"Hmm, I guess. Still, other people do, and I wanna fix it."

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"What's the plan?"

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"Honestly, not a clue, anymore. Not that I had a super solid one before, but now Elcenia, opening trade relations might be the single best thing that could happen to Galatea."

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"Oh?"

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"Other cultures, trade opportunities, other governments to whom they have to look good, immigration opportunities, magical exchange..."

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"A lot of Elcenian stuff won't work offworld, that might complicate trade."

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"Hmm, I guess so, but the reverse is likely not true, and even sans magic you guys are technologically ahead of us. Plus, culturally ahead of us, at least this country, and this is bound to help."

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"Esmaar's nicer than a lot of countries."

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"Yeah, I'm not particularly keen to have Ryganaav in contact with Galatea."

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"Ryganaav wouldn't be keen on it either."

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"But actually it hadn't occurred to me that Galatea would export but not import magical stuff. I guess we do have something to offer after all."

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"Potions probably work there just fine. And you could try to get lights to work there, maybe."

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"Ooh yeah, lights would help immensely."

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"There's lights who don't professionally light, here, you could get the extras."

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"If they don't professionally light why would they go there?"

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"I mean, here, they don't because a few percent of the population is lights and we don't need that many."

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"Oh, fair enough. Yeah there'd definitely be a market, and a few percent of the population from here is rather a lot back there."

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"Your world sounds really... tiny."

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"It kinda is. Low life expectancy, high infant mortality, diseases..."

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"Even with all that - I think Ryganaav might have more people."

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"I think we've been around as a society for less time, and the war nearly wiped us out and happened less than a thousand years ago."

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"Must have been some war."

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"Might be fairer to say it was an extinction event."

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"...did there use to be more species or do you mean it was almost that?"

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"Almost that, I don't think the war caused damage to any particular species like it did humans."

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"Vampires had that bottleneck I mentioned but mostly nothing here has gone almost extinct."

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"Not even any animal species?"

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"Oh, some of those, but sapients no."

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"By the way, how did species appear here?"

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"Why, where'd they come from in Galatea?"

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"No clue, religions say the gods put us there but as an atheist I'm pretty sure they didn't."

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"Well, I wasn't around at the time."

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"I wouldn't suppose so. Are there no theories, beyond the creation myths?"

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"There's evolutionary theory, it's pretty tidy."

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"What's that?"

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"It's sorta complicated if you haven't heard of it before, a book would do a better job."

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"Guess I'll look it up, then."

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"Try Speciation And Nichefinding."

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"I will!" he says, grinning. "Other than that, how do you feel about another evening of me looking at your magic?"

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"What're you gonna want to see?"

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"At this point I'd mainly just want to do that thing I analogised to figuring out what other axes of rotation there might be."

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"But this has me doing what?"

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"Nothing in particular. Perhaps flexing one or two spells but I don't think there'll be much gain from that."

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"You are welcome to hang out and gaze at me."

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"Thank you very much," he laughs, and does so.

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Kaylo reads, and writes things, and at one point casts a draft analysis and stares right back and then uncasts it and mutters to himself and goes back to the drawing board.

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"You're awfully cute when you're frustrated. Something up with the analysis?" he asks.

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"Didn't show me anything, even a glimmer I could use for a new draft."

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"Do you have any idea why?"

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"Probably underspecified what I wanted or just guessed completely wrong about where it might be."

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"I could telepathically bounce what it looks like to me?"

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"- bet that helps, yep."

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So he converts some arcanist mana into an elementalist blessing and bounces.

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"Huh."

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"Useful?"

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"Very. How long can you sustain that?"

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"Like three days straight, accounting for conversion losses."

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"Oh, more than enough, but I might want it for an angle or two." Stare stare notes notes.

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They both can stare, then, and Kaede at least is getting the added benefit of adorable dragon boy.

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If one is into the sort of person Kaylo is, then one would certainly benefit from staring at him, because he is it a lot.

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Yup, he is.

Will he be done with a version of the analysis before they should go to bed?

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Nope.

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Then Kaede will say good night and return to his dorm.

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It is right where he left it.

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Good! Then sleep, and next morning she wakes up early enough to show up at Ahin's (chanting her spell on the way under her breath to change).

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Ahin barely blinks at the change of gender except to ask if her name is different on girl days or not, then sits her down and explains the difference between potion-quality and not-potion-quality sprigs of parsley and sets her to sorting it and says to find him when she's done.

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She is very diligent, and she watches the different types of parsley for magical differences.

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The parsley is completely nonmagical.

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This is so weird.

Okay, she's done.

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Ahin checks her parsley, rejects some sprigs she accepted, and sits her at a cauldron with another apprentice who is to show her how to make pef tan and introduce her to their measuring conventions (volumes for liquids, weights for solids, they measure temperature too).

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She continues to be extremely diligent and follows instructions to the letter. If there's room for creativity in potionmaking, it's not now.

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Pef tan is simple. When she knows the mechanical steps she is sat down with her own ingredients and cauldron and her senior attempts to explain how to do the magic part.

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Oooh! Here's the interesting part, then. First, can she do it? Second, can she copy it? If she could make herself generate that magic without needing to actually make potions...

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She can do it, although it will take a while to get the hang of it; this is normal. She cannot directly generate the magic; it only appears when one goes about potionmaking actions.

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That is so weird. And the magic's coming from her, not some other place and through her?

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Yup!

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That is bizarre and fascinating and she'll spend the rest of her stay there trying to figure out how to grab that magic and make herself generate it without making potions darnit.

(Not that making potions isn't fun, but, you know.)

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The magic is stubbornly attached to potionmaking behavior, although if she wants her potions criticized she can take it out of each such behavior as she goes and have an inert result.

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...she'll try that later to see if it's more efficient, for now she'll just make potions competently.

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She gets magic out of fewer potionmaking actions and in smaller quantities than the more advanced students, although they say she's good for a beginner - they have to discern this by performing tests on the results, though.

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Ooh what sorts of tests, do those have magic, can she figure it out by looking...?

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No, the tests are things like "tasting it" and "measuring its viscosity" and "seeing what color it is".

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And as for the difference between her potion ability and other students', is it strictly mechanistic or is there some component of the magic itself getting developed further? Does she produce the same magic when she mimics other students perfectly?

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The magic is only produced when she does potionmaking things but it seems to react very strongly to how she thinks about them, so she can't mimic the other students along the relevant axes. She does worse when she's distracted thinking about metamagic, actually.

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Drat. Okay, she'll... use a little memory blessing and store her thoughts elsewhere later so she can analyse them and in the meantime she'll focus completely on the potions.

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She is now doing better.

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Okay, so she'll continue to do this for the remainder of the time she'll spend there.

Except for the part where she'll also get to know to her co-apprentices when there is the opportunity for that.

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They are pretty friendly. Closest to her equivalency is Marin, the elf who helped her apply.

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Then they'll have a jolly good time until Ahin tells them to stop.

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He lets them break for lunch and sends them home around dinnertime.

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So she makes her way back to the school—the cafeteria in particular.

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The cafeteria is a reasonable place to run into most people but not the vampires, by and large. Those she has to meet elsewhere, like queueing for the lift.

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Which she of course has to do and—ooh that girl looks like she has interesting magic Kaede hasn't seen before. She walks up to her, smiling, and says, "Excuse me."

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"Do you need to cut in line?" blinks the girl. "Go ahead."

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"Oh, no, not at all. I'm new, got accidentally summoned from a different world and my kind of magic involves being able to see magic and you have some I haven't seen before."

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"I'm a vampire," says the vampire.

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"Yeah and I've seen vampires before—a vampire light, even—and dragons and mages and potions and this is different," she says, sounding excited.

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Blink.

"You can see that?"

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"Yeah! What is it?"

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"I'm a hearer."

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"What's that?"

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"I can hear inanimate objects talking about themselves."

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She blinks. "About themselves? That's cool what sorts of things do they say?"

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"Just how they're shaped or what color they are, stuff like that."

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"And that's a magic thing rather than just your brain processing things you see differently?"

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"I can read books without opening them."

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"Oooh, that sounds useful."

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"It's not that great. People think it's a mental illness."

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"...what? Why?"

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"Because I'm hearing things other people can't."

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"But. Er. Is it impairing you in any way?"

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"No."

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"...so I don't get it. It's useful, it's magic, it doesn't hurt you...?"

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"They don't think it's real."

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"Wait, what? Didn't you just say you can read books without opening them?"

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"Yes."

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"I don't get it."

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"I haven't been invited to prove it and if I tried they'd think I memorized the book."

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"Can you do it with your eyes closed?"

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"Yes."

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"Could you ask a book what's written on the page someone's currently reading?"

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"I could ask it about what page it was open to but it wouldn't know what someone was reading."

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"—for that matter can you actually ask it stuff? I was being metaphorical—anyway I'll explore that later, but it could tell you what was written on the page it was open to?"

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"I can ask them stuff. Otherwise they just go through all the facts about them in a loop. So yeah."

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"Okay so like that should be enough to prove it's not fake in less than ten minutes, shouldn't it? Close your eyes, have someone pick any books they want and open them to random pages, start reciting what they say."

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"Nobody wants me to do that." Shrug.

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"That's. Is there a religious reason for it or something? Is there any reason at all why people wouldn't explore it, if it's a known phenomenon with a name?"

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"They just think they already know the answer."

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"How did they get to that answer in the first place, though? Did lots of people fake being hearers or something?"

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"I don't think so."

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"This sounds extremely..." She gropes for words. "Suboptimal."

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"Yeah." Pause. "What you probably don't know is that we start being hearers when we're little and it's a lot of voices and I don't think most hearers cope with that as well as me."

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"Why don't they?"

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"They're never quiet. Ever."

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"So how do you?"

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"I just do."

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"...how many people have that, do you know?"

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"It's not very common and it's only vampires but I don't remember exactly how many."

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"Only vampires? That's... interesting. I wonder why. You have this since always, you said?"

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"I said since we're little. About four."

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"Oh. Hmm. When you said others don't cope do you mean they can't really take care of themselves or differentiate the voices or...?"

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"Both, I think."

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"Hmm. Okay I think I have a new project, then."

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"Oh?"

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"Telling people this thing is not an illness."

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"I don't think you'll get far."

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"Why not?"

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"Nobody will want to listen to you."

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"Why not? I mean, other than 'they think they know the answer already.'"

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"That's enough. That and they don't have any reason to be interested in what you have to say."

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"Right, fair enough, but I wouldn't want to just walk up to them and tell them that. Could write a paper about it, or a book, and try to be larger-scale about it."

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"I guess you could try that."

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"Mmhm. I'll need to figure out how to prioritise it, though, see how many people are afflicted and what their quality of life is like on average and what kind of obstacles there'd be..."

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"I think a lot of them end up in hospitals."

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"Mm, yeah, it's the kind of thing I want to change. Maybe a special institution that actually knows the voices are real and help people with them?"

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"I don't know, I never went to one so I'm not an expert on if they could be helpful."

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"Do you not have an intuition about what you did differently than most?"

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"No."

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"Hmm. And do you know of anything that could've been helpful?"

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"Sometimes I flew out of the way of things but that probably occurs to everyone."

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"Out of the way of things? Like, up in the air?"

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"Yeah."

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She nods. "—I'm Kaede, by the way."

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"Leekath."

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"What's it short for?" asks Kaede who read about this custom.

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"Aaeeihhyleekatheeei."

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"—okay yeah I probably don't have the vocal apparatus to say that."

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Nod.

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And the lift should be arriving soon, right?

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The line for the lift evaporated while they were having their conversation, she can board it if she likes.

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"Do you mind me asking you stuff about your magic and watching you use it, at some point?"

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"You just did."

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"I mean, ask you to ask other things to tell you things and, more questions, I guess?"

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"I don't mind."

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"Okay so I'll find you later? I should eat now."

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"Sure."

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Back to the cafeteria!

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It has food!

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And no Kaylo?

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No K- no, here he is, wandering in with his nose in a book and serving himself random items.

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"Have I mentioned you're adorable?" she asks, walking up to him. "Because you're adorable."

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"Uh." He looks up. "Hi! I don't remember if you have or not."

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"I'm Kaede," she clarifies.

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"I know, I don't think anyone else around speaks your language and furthermore you look vaguely Ertydon if nothing else, I just don't recall if you've said that before."

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"Ah. I probably have, but you were too busy reading something or thinking to notice. Which is also adorable."

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He laughs.

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"—and I think this must've been the first time I've seen you laugh!" she says, beaming.

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"I laugh, it's not unusual!"

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"Not when you're all concentrated on your research."

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"Well, it's usually not funny."

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"And me calling you adorable is funny?" she asks archly.

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"It was the way you said it."

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"If you say so."

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Shrug. He sits down and starts eating his random food without looking at it. Occasionally he brings an empty fork to his mouth.

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Adorable.

She gets some food and sits with him, too, and tries to figure out what he's reading without bothering him.

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He is reading about breaks.

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—okay that might be interesting to ask. "What are you reading about, beyond the obvious?"

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"What do you mean beyond the obvious?"

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"Well it's a book about breaks, I'm wondering what in particular about breaks."

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"Author has a maybe crackpot theory about spells having layers."

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"Oh?"

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"You can read it when I'm done, I haven't decided if she's a crackpot yet."

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"Could I perhaps help figure it out? Are there any testable consequences?"

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"Ostensibly but I'm not good enough at breaks to try the things."

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"Yeah I'll definitely want to read that later, then.

"So I was thinking. What if I invented words for all the things I mean when I talk about magic? Would that help?"

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"No, we can't do recent conlangs or codes. It might work if you - lawfully came up with neologisms."

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"Lawfully?"

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"Compound words in a way the language allows compounds to be constructed, or affixes, or both. And then if you use them in a way that's closely enough related to the source words, they might snap into place right."

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"Hmm... supradimension for the thing I'm analogising to a dimension...?"

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"Yeah, exactly."

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"Did that one work then? If I turn your magic around the X supra-axis a little bit and move it along the y supradimension I can see your fire magic more clearly..."

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"...it doesn't help that much because they don't refer to concepts I already have but they're working, yes."

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"Is there anyone other than Keo I could bother about maybe bouncing a couple subjective experiences to you? Maybe a wizardry spell—although maybe your analysis will be sufficient and I should just let you work on it while I work on a vocabulary—and maybe then draconic would come up with the appropriate words I could borrow..."

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"Wizardry hasn't got anything like that."

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"Pfeh. I have a mana source now, I'll figure out how to translate the stuff to words and send them to you mentally," she shrugs, and resumes the oft-forgotten endeavour of eating.

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"Sounds good to me."

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After food, she goes to check whether anyone replied to her ads about otherworldly trinkets.

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A museum and someone who doesn't explain their interest!

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Are both of them interested in all trinkets or just specific ones? Are they paying well?

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The mystery buyer only wants one but doesn't care which; the museum wants all of them.

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Mmm... did mystery buyer leave contact information? Can she send the museum a letter to ask if they're okay having one less item?

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Both can be contacted by mail!

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She sends them mail! She is asking Mystery Buyer, out of curiosity, what they intend to do with the artefact; museum's message is as stated before.

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Mystery Buyer says they're a collector. The museum is still interested in less than the complete set but will pay less for it.