(Otolmens has now GIVEN UP on persuading Asmodeus or Abadar (she's not even trying Nethys) to squish the mortal or erase its memories or at least PUT IT SOMEWHERE PROPHECY ISN'T BROKEN and she is instead submitting a LENGTHY REPORT to Pharasma who is going to IGNORE her the same way that Pharasma ignored her PREVIOUS report on Possible Strategies for Handling Potential Incursions From Outside the Multiverse because Pharasma ALWAYS IGNORES EVERYTHING and why bother HAVING a god of reality not being destroyed if you're NEVER GOING TO LISTEN TO HER and it would show them all if this ends with GOLARION and probably the MULTIVERSE lying in COMPLETE RUINS because NOBODY EVER LISTENS TO HER.)

Keltham knocks, then enters through the ajar door looking more hesitant than usual (which is to say, even slightly hesitant at all).

"Hey, uh -"

Right.

"Taldane," Keltham says.  He does remember the name for the language.

She casts Share Language. "How're you finding things?"

Keltham slightly inclines his head around a third of the way to formal apology.  "So before I went to Asmodeus, I wanted to try envisioning and contacting the god that would - fit me, externalize my deepest ideal - and I couldn't manage to talk to it, but I observe I've got healing powers and I infer I'm a cleric now.  Hope that doesn't screw up anything, wanted to check in with you or other domain experts before I tried anything else."

"You - 

- what -

- like, the god you'd be if you ascended, or the - kind of god you think you ought to be a cleric of -"

"Those two sound like the same question to me?  Or no, more the second one, since if I ascended I'd have a lot of properties besides the property I envisioned for the god I tried to contact.  If I've understood your schema correctly, I should now be a cleric of the Chaotic Evil god of Coordination."

"I, uh, didn't know there was a Chaotic Evil god of that. - congratulations? That is not a usual thing to have happen!"

"I am not actually sure whether there was a Chaotic Evil god of Coordination in Golarion before I tried praying to it, but if not, I expect it'll polish the place up a bit, on the margins.  So we're all good with that?"

" - well, I mean, if you can create gods by praying to them that seems kind of important and should maybe change our to-do list. But I don't think it's a bad thing, so long as you're not going to make any gods who, uh, a god of Coordination is probably the exact opposite of the thing I'm worried about - if everyone could create gods someone's god would not be interested in containing Rovagug -"

He's probably not supposed to explain the exact way he tried to pray, or even that he suspects the prayer style could've had anything to do with it.  "Yeah, not going to be doing anything more in that department until I understand things a little better.  I mean, I'm not usually a fan of slowing down to do all the paperwork but I'll make an exception for this case.  How sure are you that there isn't an existing Chaotic Evil god of... people having the extra properties and desires they need, in order for lots of individuals to all get the things they want as selfish individuals, without it taking a huge amount of effort and enforcement for them to successfully execute multiplayer strategies and not end up interacting -"  Taldane doesn't have the word negative-sum "- in ways that destroy more value for others than they gain for themselves?"

" - honestly, 'successfully executing multiplayer strategies' sounds kind of more like a Law thing to me but - we know that the human concepts don't fully capture the god-ones. I don't have anything like a full list of the Chaotic Evil gods but the Worldwound is a opening to the Chaotic Evil afterlife and you'd think if there were a god there Asmodeus could negotiate with He'd do that, instead of us having to stop them from swarming out and eating the world."

"Maybe I misunderstood a thing.  I thought Law was - societies trying to make up their minds as a whole, and everyone in the societies doing that thing - and Chaos was people pursuing their own separate strategies even if that's not perfectly optimal for some idealization of their aggregate" utility function "thingies-that-value-things - and the God I tried to contact would be the God of the property that the individuals needed to have in order for a Chaotic society to actually work?  Or is that still Lawful and Chaos is totally uncoordinated hostile monsters swarming out of a gap of reality?  But then I don't see how 'revenge' fits in as Chaotic... I need a real reference book on theology, the ones in the local library are awful."

"- honestly I am not totally sure how Chaotic societies work, I haven't - I've met Chaotic people, at the Worldwound, but they're mostly Chaotic people either from Lawful societies or from societies that are just kind of fucked up and don't, in fact, actually work at all - like, uh, warlords who just kill their rivals, that sort of thing -"

"Anyways.  Cleric of the god of selfish individuals doing the things they need to do to not just step all over each other.  At least if I got a god that was anything remotely like the one I tried to call.  May or may not be a new god to Golarion.  Is there anything time-sensitive I need to do in response to that, that you know of.  Or should I go on to things like - breakfast, either figuring out how to use clerical magic to launder my clothes or asking you to do that, finding out how to get cleric spells generally for that matter, looking at a list of cleric spells to see if there's any sane or useful ones, seeing if I have any talent for wizard spells, negotiating equity and compensation so we can get started on industrializing Golarion, all that."

"Clerics pray for spells first thing in the morning, usually, though I don't know if that'd hold with a new god. It at least might be time sensitive so you may as well do it now. Some people like to look over a list of cleric spells and ask for those specifically, some ask for whatever their god advises."

"Do I have to pray for all the spells at once?  Does it not work at all unless it's 'first thing in the morning'?  Can I pray for a preference-ordered list of spells that might exist and see which ones I get?"

"For normal clerics, yes, you have to do it all at once first thing in the morning - which is to say, at dawn but with an hour or so of leeway. The justification I encountered was that this puts all the clerics of different gods on the same footing, churches can't have an advantage over others due to having spells for the day while the others are still at prayer for them. Probably you can pray for a preference-ordered list of spells that might exist, I haven't heard of anyone doing that but evidently however you do prayer works or you wouldn't have been clericed."

Keltham wonders if that's why nobody has invented functional anti-sunlight shades here, though you'd think non-clerics would still need them.  "Most reliable totally standard method for praying for cleric spells?"  He didn't get results all that great off his attempted nonstandard method last time.

"Uh, you kneel at an altar with some appropriate symbols of your god around - don't know what those would be, if the god's new - and think about how you are blessed with the power to serve them on Golarion, and think about what you believe is the most appropriate for the day's duties."

"Huh.  I don't think it's an employment - 'service'? - relationship yet, especially when we haven't managed to communicate.  I guess I should think about our overlapping goals and mutual benefit, unless there's some strong reason only employer relationships would work?  Why does anybody ever ask for specific spells, if they could just get the spells that an entity much smarter than them with overlapping goals would pick?"

"Maybe for Chaotic gods it doesn't have to be an employer relationship. Uh, adventuring teams make plans for the day that rely on having specific spells, so I think they prefer knowing what they'll get in advance to getting whatever the god thinks is best."

Wait what how does that not violate - "Does the god not know what the adventurers' plans are?  Like, if I don't ask for specific spells, is the god working on more limited information than I have in guessing what will be useful to me?"

" - I mean, gods have lots of attention but they also have lots and lots of clerics, I don't know that they put more thought into a cleric's specific plans than the cleric does. Once the cleric has decided 'I probably want three of Protection from Energy' the god knows that - that's what is meant by picking your own -"

"So my god's smart but incredibly distracted and if I ask for their choice of spells, I'm distracting them even more and might get something weirdly inappropriate... still probably worth a shot on day 1.  Okay, heading back to my room to ask for spells, now.  Oh, something I meant to ask and should have asked earlier - being a cleric of an unknown god doesn't prevent me from trying to contact Asmodeus, does it?  Because that would suck."

"It does not. That said, gods usually have a hard time talking to people who are distant from them in alignment, so if you're in fact Chaotic Evil then you are unlikely to be able to talk directly to Asmodeus. - the priest talked directly to Him, though, last night. That's why everything happened so fast."

At least some god is paying any attention at all.  Keltham would've thought somebody from outside the local reality bent on creating Industry would get more attention than this.

Back to his room Keltham goes, thinking even on the short walk of which spells he might need.

Let's see.  Off the top of his head, he'd want:

- A spell to have a more extended conversation with his lucky new deity.
- A spell that grants more basic knowledge or familiarity with Golarion.
- A spell to increase his own intelligence, if there's some way to do that in a strictly neutral way.
- A spell to talk to Asmodeus directly, or somebody with the ability to negotiate in a binding way on Asmodeus's behalf.
- Any spells that would be helpful for learning to cast his first wizard spells, if he's predicted to get around to doing that later today.
- Spells that make negotiations with other deities, or their servants, actually binding - that seems like it should be a Coordination thing.
- Spells that bind everybody in the room to be honest with each other in a symmetrical way, if that's a thing under Coordination.
- A spell for telling you what the supply-demand balancing price of a good is, or what would be a fair division of gains from a trade.
- Spells that tell you when somebody else is filtering your information, or otherwise behaving in a naughty way for a business partner.
- Spells that make it easier to find the information you need inside books, or for that matter, spells to read from books that aren't inside the local library.

He probably doesn't need to complete this whole list, especially with time being short since dawn already happened.  Hopefully his deity is paying any attention and if not, there's always tomorrow after he's had a chance to look at a list of cleric spells.  How many spells does he get, actually?  Should've asked that.  Hopefully it's just as many as his deity thinks he needs.

Keltham doesn't know what an 'altar' is, but 'kneeling' did translate.  He's puzzled, but, like, fine whatever's standard this time.  So he gets down on his knees (on the soft bed, which is more comfortable for his knees than the floor).  If anybody's watching, Keltham is apparently praying to the Bed Headboard of Coordination.

Keltham thinks about his common interest with the god of Coordination, his plans to negotiate equity arrangements with Asmodeus or his representatives, being a general outsider to this entire place and having no idea what's going on, and tries to iterate through his mental list of useful spells, but with clear affordances for the deity prioritizing any spells that would be more useful than that.  He also wouldn't mind a regular conversation, for that matter, if this is a good time.

It most certainly is a good time to -

NOBODY is allowed to do ANYTHING nondefault to that mortal until Otolmens finishes reporting to Pharasma.

Otolmens!  Be sensible about this.  Abadar is a fellow Lawful Neutral god.

Otolmens turned her back for ONE-SIXTH OF A TIME UNIT and when she looked back the mortal had SEVEN CLERIC LEVELS.  From ABADAR.

That was super irresponsible of Abadar! Asmodeus thinks the weird squirrel should be constrained to only talking to other squirrels who can stop him from doing anything dangerous, and has arranged this, and proposes a rule that they leave the situation as such until they have more information which, again, Asmodeus is working on acquiring and will be willing to trade!

Otolmens REMEMBERS the last 517 times she has interacted with Asmodeus.  Otolmens is not going to -

Nethys thinks this arrangement is a TERRIBLE idea.  Why must Otolmens and Asmodeus torment Nethys so?

- perhaps this is NOT such a bad plan after all.

Otolmens, Nethys is trying to use reverse psychology on you.

Otolmens continues to not understand what is the REVERSE of a PSYCHOLOGY.

Is nobody else bothered by how often the end result of these divine negotiations is all the gods taking a supposedly-privileged null action?  Because it really seems like they should be able to collectively do better than -

Otolmens sees nothing wrong with doing NOTHING.  Doing nothing is relatively less likely to destroy ALL OF REALITY.  Otolmens wishes that many gods and mortals would do nothing MORE OFTEN.  Except for Pharasma who should STOP IGNORING URGENT REPORTS.

- still no divine reply, darn it.  But Keltham does think he has some more spells.

He has

(simplest) Detect Magic, Read Magic, Guidance, Resistance

(more complex) Comprehend Languages, Fairness, Sanctuary, Abadar's Truthtelling X3

(more complex still) Owl's Wisdom, Eagle's Splendour, Greater Detect Magic x2

(yet more complex) Aura Sight, Invisibility Purge, Vision of Hell

(most complex) Spell Immunity, Glimpse of Truth

...and what can Keltham feel or see or sense, when he introspects on the new door-affordances inside himself, from simplest to most complex?

He can sense the shape of the spells, and it's - obviously informative, the places where they tuck or weave, but not a language he has any idea how to interpret, yet. It seems like there ought to be a lookup book with diagrams that lets you match spells to meanings.

Oh that's just wonderful.

Keltham hopes his unknown patron realized how little Keltham knew.  He doesn't dare fire off any of these things, obviously, in case his patron had too little information; three-quarters of the wizard spells are for combat.

Keltham goes back to Carissa.  "Got some spells.  How do I figure out what they do?  Also, we should clean-zap my clothes at some point."

"Sure. I can do that now, if you want, but it takes a bit of concentration so it might make sense to wait until you're reading or something again. Hmmm, experienced casters can tell by - not exactly looking, but it's sort of like looking, do you have a sense of structure?"

"A sense of structure?  Yes.  Any idea whatsoever of what the structure means?  No."

"I bet one of the priests has a book of all the first-circle cleric spells that describes how they feel different from each other."

"I think, on the whole, I'd prefer to have my clothes clean before that happens.  Breakfast might not go amiss either.  But after that, yeah, let's check out that book."

"Sure thing." 

This seems to involve a periodic motion like knotting a rope that's not there; she murmurs to herself while she does it. Dust and sweat separate themselves from the clothes. 

This is what ninety-eight percent of Prestidigitations are used for in Golarion and it's known as laundry magic you can also use backwards for some other minor effects.

"Thanks.  I should - I definitely want to try my hand at wizard magic.  I just haven't thought hard about what priorities it trades off against.  Like breakfast.  Oh, and how do I figure out my cleric spells that aren't 'first-circle', if my brain's translating the feeling of that word right?"

"Do you ...have cleric spells that aren't first circle?"

"Keep in mind I do not actually know the word 'first-circle' except from context because it has no corresponding concept in my native language or prior experience.  Some of my spells feel - bigger, more complicated, than others."

"Wow. Uh, more complicated the way that, like - the most complicated one, how many holes does it have, structurally, if you imagine it was made of something stretchy but not weldable to itself, and you stretched it, would it look like this -"

Minor illusion: second circle spell.

Keltham tries to rapidly calculate in the back of his mind the chance that he should be keeping secret the max power level of the spells his patron is willing to grant him, if so, he should not appear overtly reticent because the most important part of any secret is the fact that the secret exists.

"Most complicated spell I have is more complicated than that, but not by a lot," Keltham specifies unfalsifiably.  Taldane is a great language to speak instead of Baseline if you don't want your words to narrow down possible realities.

She switches the illusion to a third-circle spell. "Like this?"

"I just got these and have not really spent a lot of time contemplating them yet but yeah, that looks like it could be a spell of mine."

Carissa casts Detect Magic. There aren't invisible people in the room right now, or if there are they're concealed against Detect Magic which would be a sensible precaution now that Keltham probably has it, but that's not really the point. Then she stands up and paces the length of the room, staring at things. 

Carissa who had just learned this information and wasn't hiding anything would be scared, because a god dropping five cleric levels on Keltham is communicating that He expects Keltham to need them. Carissa is also, separately, scared, but that's unrelated. Though maybe helps with her acting. 

Keltham had just been projecting this game ahead to where Carissa would show the next level up, forcing Keltham to choose between overt reticence and overt lying, and he's relieved on a couple of different levels when Carissa doesn't do that.  She looks disturbed and maybe in distress instead.  "Sorry if I messed up something.  May I ask you to say a word about what's wrong?"

" - sorry. Uh. Gods don't usually drop three cleric circles on people all at once. I didn't know they could, although, uh, with gods it's less that there's anything they actually can't do at all and more about tradeoffs, I think - but at minimum it's so expensive it typically doesn't happen, unless it'd - turn the tide of wars, or something -

- so your god thought it was really important you have three cleric circles. And maybe that's just because speeding up the industrial revolution by a couple of months is the most important thing that ever happened, which, I mean, had also occurred to me, and which will definitely be easier if you are a powerful cleric because you'll be able to do a lot of experimentation and healing and magic research yourself - 

- but it's - uh, if there were something really bad, like, someone were going to kidnap you or something, then, that would also be a reason -

- I was just checking that there's not anyone in the room, or any scrying sensors. I don't - even know how much that'd help, because it's possible to hide from a third-circle wizard and a third-circle cleric, if you planned for it. But. It'd be very expensive. There's no one spying on us except maybe very expensively."

Keltham would immediately reply that it's explained-away by the Industrial Revolution point, which is way more important than a 'war' if he's got that concept at all right.  But he doesn't want to just ignore the security flag.  People who just ignore security flags are for children's books, not grownup books.

"Huh.  What potentially stops my god from directly warning me, in that case?"

"...nothing I can think of? I would expect a warning to be a lot cheaper than three cleric circles. Gods....vary in their capacity to usefully communicate with mortals, maybe if yours was really bad at it?

...it's most likely just the 'speeding up the industrial revolution is very important' thing, now that I think about it, the other thing came to mind first but I'm used to people being in various kinds of danger and I am not used to people being positioned to speed up the industrial revolution. And there's good security, here. Unless they're the problem. They're - 

- frankly, if they are the problem, three cleric circles wouldn't solve it? But maybe it'd make some other solution possible...I don't think this is very likely, really, once I think it through. Uh. If your god gave you all fighting spells I'm going to be worried again, so maybe let's check that."

"Yeah, let's.  Fair warning, under these circumstances, I may choose to publicly reveal fewer spells than all of the ones I have."  He suspects, for a start, that he has the spell that Carissa used to check for invisibles, as one of his least complicated ones, going on the spoken component.  Which is already not a very encouraging sign at all.  Hopefully it's a more general spell than Test For Invisible, and has some perfectly innocuous civilian use that he obviously-to-a-god needed to deploy today anyways.

"Yeah, of course. Shall we go bother the priests for the book?"

"I have no better options to offer."  Keltham will follow where she leads, with slightly more alertness than usual in case Carissa works for the criminal mastermind who is about to stage Keltham's kidnapping.

(Dath ilan has a... complicated... relationship with its criminal masterminds.  They really, really don't collectively want to admire the clever successful ones, and yet.)

Carissa goes to the temple and asks a priest for a book of spells for new clerics, and gets one. There are no kidnapping attempts. 

The book has diagrams for cantrips, of which Keltham's god has given him Detect Magic, Read Magic, Guidance, and Resistance, and first-circle spells, of which Keltham's god has given him Comprehend Languages, Sanctuary, and some things not in the book.

Oh that's not even slightly good.

Keltham keeps his face neutral through all presented spells.

Detect Magic - maybe useful for learning wizard spells, not just noticing invisibility magic, which, maybe.

Read Magic - weakly confirms that his patron might have been giving him useful boosts for learning wizard things.

Guidance - super useful generally, why does anybody ever not do this.

Resistance - there are not that many cantrips so maybe Keltham should not be too alarmed that Resistance was included, it could be useful for learning wizardry without hurting yourself.  It could've been worse, could've been Detect Poison.

Comprehend Languages - Keltham will see if he runs into anybody important who doesn't speak Taldane, later today; if not, it could be a hint that he should find somebody who doesn't speak Taldane.  Or a hint not to rely on Carissa's Share Language.

Sanctuary is unambiguously a huge fucking warning.

And it would have been really nice if the book had included all of Keltham's spells, which would make it that much less likely that he was being shown books on which Selectively Omit Pages had been cast.

Keltham thinks about this, but not for very long.  He's already withholding identifications of all his spells; that already tells them that Keltham is not just wandering around in blind unsuspecting innocence.  And if his hosts are not the primary problem, letting them go in blind innocence themselves is foolish, and ungrateful.

"Unfortunately.  My god seems to think I might need Sanctuary."

"...well, I can, uh, tell your security to be more careful, if you want, though it seems possible it's more communication than intended as literal protection, because the set of situations it'd help with is pretty small. If it's communication - people can request sanctuary of churches or of countries? Usually if a different one is trying to kill them. Or it could just mean 'danger is a thing to think about', which, well, mission accomplished, or..." Shrug. "If He had something complicated to say I would really have expected Him to talk to you."

"As would I.  New priorities:  Tell security that I asked my god to choose my spells and Sanctuary was one of them.  Get more complete cleric spellbooks so I can identify my remaining spells - ideally, books at all circles, I don't know whether my god granted me the highest circles I can actually get.  And - basic instructions for casting without blowing yourself up, if those are required?  How do I learn to do the thing where I recover the energy from a cantrip, if I haven't done that before?  That'll give me the ability to practice casting... say with Read Magic, that's the least valuable one if I accidentally lose it."

"Also breakfast."

"Can you get us Keltham's security, and more books about cleric magic," she asks the priest. "Let's go to breakfast next and I'll try to explain catching cantrips there. Most people do not pick it up on the first try or the first day of trying but most people also aren't already third circle clerics, and maybe we can throw additional resources at you picking it up faster - like, someone can give you a Wisdom enhancement and plausibly your security can enhance your reflexes and reaction time."

"I have no better plans.  I mildly apologize for the short-term inconvenience that my existence has imposed on your collective existence; it shall be compensated for if the future goes as I hope."

"I, uh, mildly apologize for my world not having enough Law yet that you don't have to worry about this."

A tall man of the local ethnicity walks in. He is Atanasio Torres, though there's no way for Keltham to know that. 

"I'm on Keltham's security detail," he says in a bored voice. 

"His god gave him Sanctuary."

"I see."

"I am extremely unfamiliar with local security procedures, don't know what spells might be cast against me, don't know what spells you would cast in response, if you want me on the floor you need to shout 'Fall down!' and not just the name of a spell that any idiot knows means I should fall down.  Let me know if there's anything I can do to make your own lives simpler or easier."

"Someone might attempt to kidnap you, in which case they'd need to be within thirty feet of you or more likely need to touch you. Someone might, given that constraint, just try to kill you figuring they can resurrect you later, which still requires getting within the building, which is shielded to make that difficult, though there are expensive measures we haven't taken and will probably now take, given the added prompt that they're needed. If people are casting spells when you had no reason to expect spells to be cast, getting out of their line of effect, which is to a first approximation their line of sight, is a good idea if you have time. If there's anything else you need to know we can yell it.

I can also create a telepathic bond between you, me, and up to two other people. which we could use to communicate telepathically and in a manner that isn't subject to eavesdropping by any known method aside from forcing a member of the bond to divulge what was said. Everyone in the bond hears everything spoken into it. That'll last for two hours, so it's not particularly worth doing right now, but if there's anything that might be a sign of trouble I will do it. If there's anything that unambiguously is a sign of trouble I will likely grab you and teleport out to safety."

"If the telepathic bond requires my consent, please prioritize showing me, soon, a couple of books saying," purporting to say, "how telepathic bonds work and what they permit.  Is there anybody besides you who I should have on my list of people who are allowed to grab me and teleport me?"

"There's one other person who looks," illusion, "like this - do you have Detect Magic -"

Keltham will try gainfully to distinguish these two faces from all other Chelians!  He also tries to figure out how to avoid revealing whether he has Detect Magic right now, without lying of course.

"Don't rely on my correctly using Detect Magic soon, it's questionable how well I'll be able to cast or hold onto anything in my first days.  In a few days that might be a secure assumption though."

"All right. There's a wizard spell called Arcane Mark which wizards can use to create a distinctive magical signature for themselves or various objects. It's imitable, but they'd have to get very near us to see what to imitate. Once you can Detect Magic, you'll want to get a look at us and learn those, which would make it very hard for anyone to impersonate us to you."

"Have you got something for reflexes, to help him catch cantrips -"

"If nothing's gone wrong by the end of the day I can Haste him. - hey," he adds to the priest, "have we gotten any signs Asmodeus expects trouble, did you get combat spells -"

             "- no, but the High Priestess got Forbiddance, she mentioned -"

" - ah huh. Okay."

"Question mark?" Keltham mistranslates what was supposed to be a much shorter speech-act.

"Forbiddance bars all planar travel into or through an area. It's incredibly expensive. I think we'll go ahead and do it, though, with your leave, if Asmodeus thinks it's a good idea and your god also thinks there might be trouble."

"I meta-level think it's a good idea if you object-level think it's a good idea.  I have no grasp of pros and cons myself; the judgment is in your hands."

If Keltham got a teleport spell in one of the higher-circle ones he has no grasp of yet - then that will require some plotting later, he guesses, and oh well; it doesn't seem worth making himself more vulnerable in the other possible worlds.  They do not actually need his permission.

"All right." He nods to the priest, heads off. 

Current plan is breakfast, followed by basic wizardry / spellcraft.

She can try to explain catching a cantrip during breakfast. "So if you cast any of your first-circle spells you'll notice the act of casting deforms them and releases the spell, there's nothing left. But if you cast a cantrip, it's intact - you're releasing it, but you're not breaking it. You just have to try to draw the energy back to you. My notes from school should have some exercises..."

She would really really love to read Keltham's mind but they're only having a few very high-level people do that, now, lest he notice.

"Tomorrow I'll ask my god to load up on those, possibly, but for today it sounds like I only have limited tries.  Let's give me all the advance prep we can pack into a limited time - since I do need to try today - and then try it.  I'll save one for the end of the day and Haste, though, it sounds like."

"Sounds good. I can also demonstrate them for you, though I'm not sure how much good that'll do when you can't have Detect Magic up to watch." This will save some time for the writing of a book about Telepathic Bond, anyway. 

Keltham will watch Carissa, do any other advance prep she suggests, and then try with Resistance.  Oh, and also eat breakfast.

Breakfast is a wide variety of the same sorts of things as were offered for dinner yesterday. 

He does not catch Resistance, though it feels like he can tell what motion it would be.

All right, Keltham is going to wait for wizardry lessons, and then... hm.  "Is there a spell structure for a more powerful version of Detect Magic that you can show me?"  Keltham isn't all that happy about revealing that he got that second-circle that looks like it might be a more powerful Detect Magic - more out of security principle than any specific suspicions or plans - but he's not going to cast an unidentified spell just yet; and using the more powerful Detect Magic might save him some time, so it is important to identify.

"Greater Detect Magic? Yeah, that's a thing. Second circle. Have you got it? Looks like -" Illusion.

"Yup."  Keltham is pleased he is making any progress on being able to see by sight what a spell structure does!  "I'm thinking next I try my hand at some basic wizardry stuff, fail a few times, then cast Greater Detect Magic and watch you catch some cantrips and maybe even specifically catch a Read Magic one, if you've got that or somebody does, and then try to catch my own, and then try some more basic wizardry things before Greater Detect Magic runs out."

"Unfortunately you won't be able to cast Read Magic while using Greater Detect Magic, because Greater Detect Magic requires concentration, and you can't cast a spell while concentrating on another one, you lose the one you were concentrating on. You probably will have the same problem trying to catch my Read Magic but I'm happy to let you try."

"Is there an expensive thingy that lets the user look at things with Detect Magic without concentrating, which I can borrow for a day for purposes of learning basic magic twelve times faster, if that's the known result?  Though I can also just try my hand at the basic wizard things first."

"Yes there is, it's very expensive, but you can ask someone to put out feelers. I'm not sure anyone has measured how much it speeds up learning magic because usually magic students' time isn't valuable enough for that to be even remotely worth it but you're right that here it is, if we can arrange it discreetly."