"Thank you very much!"

He waves at Sir Merosska "See you tonight!"

He'll fly walk towerward. Looking at the position of the sun, north should be... that way? He has the time to be wrong, no biggie.

Delfen's tower is tall and hard to miss. It looks like it's fallen into ruin and been patched up again at least twice, with three different sets of stonework and two large tarpaulins stretched over gaps in the wall and roof to keep out the wind and rain. The cool glow of magical lighting emanates from within, and as Reed approaches he can hear an energetic voice delivering a lesson on spellcasting.

"Now, from the target, draw forth a loose thread of the Weave, and pull it through one of the loops of your spell-knot. It's that simple! Release the knot, and all that bound-up tension goes shooting down the strings as bolts of force. You remember the chapter on standing waves?"

Yupp, that's definitely a wizard tower!

In this moment he's so happy he never had to study to be able to wield magic, it sounds... tedious. Sometimes he envies the theoretically unlimited spells that a wizard can know, but he's happy with the tactical flexibility he has.

And besides, there are very few problems that can't be solved with the timely application of Lots Of Fire... or Lots Of Lightning if the monster resists fire.

"Hello, may I come in? I've been directed here by Sir Isteval."

"Remember, that connection to the target is what makes the bolts so unerring, but any good Shield spell looks like a hairball under Detect Magic. You reach for a thread and you'll grab one of those, and then your missile will just unerringly impact the Shield while your opponent laughs. Try it on the targets, just the targeting step for now."

A well-groomed man lifts the tarp on the wall and sticks his head out. "Come on in!"

The ground floor door opens by itself, revealing a living room of opulent but aged and water-damaged furniture also partway through being patched up again. Delfen's footsteps can be heard on the unsteady wooden spiral stairs around the tower's inner circumference as he descends.

"I like your tower, it's very eclectic!" His tone and smile are genuine.

"Reminds me of when I first moved into my own place. Bought some very good but incredibly damaged furniture, thinking I could just Mend it, but it's such a chore that I've never gotten around to it. I've come here to ask for some arcane guidance. I'm a sorcerer, and my understanding of magic is intuitive rather than learned, so I trust your judgement will be more discerning. I would like to get the opportunity to study a scroll - or a spell cast - of first or second circle, to store it in my ring." He points to his right hand.

"I'm pretty decent at spellcraft, but I could definitely use some help in choosing a spell. I think the ring could even store a divine spell, but probably won't be as good at it."

"Yes, this time around I'm fixing the roof first, then getting the furniture nice again, but that's not ideal for guests in the meantime." With a snap of his fingers the smell of damp turns to the scent of pine needles, a simple Prestidigitation.

"An interesting item, and an interesting challenge! What are your needs - offense, defense, transport or sensing? If that's not too personal, I've known some sorcerers to guard their repertoires closely since they can't change their spells."

"I've... never needed to hide it, we've been traveling so much that it wouldn't have made a huge difference." Also he never though about it, and it might be a good idea if he ever settles down. Seems unlikely for the moment, it's not as if he has a wife. "I mostly have offensive spells, my role in the party was Postman, I left flexibility and utility to my wizard friend. I do have transport and sensing at higher circles. At first and second - beside offense - I have Mage Armor, Shield, Silent Image, Detect Thoughts and Invisibility. I think that now that I'm traveling alone I should pick something for sensing or defense - even though Mage Armor is pretty good, and I'm somewhat resistant to fire."

"An ancestor with red or gold scales? My sympathies with the Cult activity then."

"Those are most of the staples I recommend to apprentices. Mirror Image? My student Vexter made good use of that in his planar travels, though it does compete with your Invisibility. Perhaps a Web or an Obscuring Mist, to cover your retreat from anything with the senses to see through your illusions? As for your own senses, the only other divinations that come to mind would be See Invisibility or Locate Object, and I've had little use for either of those."

"Nnnno. I thought so too at first - I do have a fire affinity - but I never got a breath weapon, despite making it to fifth circle. I got some healing instead."

"Ooooh, Mirror Image is a great call. We used to have a party wand, but if I'm on my own it would be very useful! I do also love Web, but with my reduced repertoire it feels a bit too limited. Even though being able to trap your opponent and then set them on fire is always fun!"

"Do you need it to be from a scroll? I have it prepared today."

"Well, a scroll is convenient in that I can take my time with it, with seeing it cast I'm more likely than not to get it but it's still a coin flip. It wouldn't consume the scroll, if that matters."

"Not a ring of Spell Storing, but one of Spell Knowledge? Mystra must favor you. Here, watch closely, I'll perform the gestures first, then the words, then both of them together so you can study the spell itself..."

"Oh, yeah, that's how it's called. I'm bad with names, sorry. Sorcerers, you know?" He makes a self-deprecating gesture. "Yeah, that will probably help."

Reed casts Detect Magic and focuses his whole attention on Delfen, trying to understand the spell structure well enough so that he can squeeze it into his ring.

It takes a while, but he's not in a rush and can try again and again until it works.

"Thank you, that was incredibly helpful. May I repay you somehow? I do know Mending, and I don't have any pressing requirements on my time."

"Hmm, how about you show off some of your spells to my students? I think these are mostly beyond Mending at this point, though you could bring up a stool to demonstrate the cantrip."

"I'd love to! One of my quirks is being able to cast a first circle Searing Light. Would that be interesting?"

It's probably something they've never seen before, and it would only use some of his first circle slots, leaving the bigger ones free for tonight's operation, which he will not mention, cause it's a secret, and he's so good at keeping secrets! (Mostly by forgetting about them).

"Or a fireball. Fireball's a classic."

"Oh yes! A Fireball might get the town watch ringing the alarm bells, everyone's so on edge lately, we usually go down to the river for demonstrations of those spells, but a Searing Light would be excellent."

He leads Reed upstairs, where four apprentices are repeating the gestures for Magic Missile towards a battered training dummy. 

"We have a guest! Our sorcerous visitor here - what was your name again? - has come by to offer a surprise demonstration of his own magic."

His students are a mixed group: Two well-fed human teenagers in well-made clothing who could be siblings, a gold dwarf woman with a skeptical expression and a gold necklace over her beard, and a halfling barely visible apart from his hairy feet emerging from the folds of a blue hat and robes that look to have been made for a human. 

"I'm Reed. Reed de Book" he used to be annoyed at his parents, but nowadays he just finds it hilarious.

"My sorcery gives me Searing Light at first circle. It's normally divine magic and third circle but... sorcery is like that sometimes. I'm going to demonstrate it a couple times, against the training dummy. Are you ready?"

The students nod with varying degrees of eagerness (the halfling's hat almost falls off, while the humans are playing it cool) and move to the edges of the room to watch.

Searing Light! He intentionally tries for slightly less damage than usual, to avoid damaging the dummy too much.

Ooooh, he could do his fire trick! "I'm now going to apply a metamagic to the spell. As a sorcerer, I can do it at will and it only takes me a bit longer to cast. I know wizards need to prepare their spell specifically for that, but this is a small change and - best part of it - it doesn't make the spell harder to cast."

Incendiary Searing Light!

Aaaaand now the dummy is predictably on fire. Ray of Frost, Ray of Frost. Good, good, the dummy is still in one piece. Mostly.

"We could learn to do that too?" The awestruck halfling asks.

"Perhaps, if you study very hard," Delfen says. "Such metamagic was the domain of wizards and sorcerers equally in the time before the Spellplague. Now that Mystra is reborn, such workings come instinctively to sorcerers, but we wizards must rediscover how our own spells should be reshaped to tweak them in the same way."

"Do you have questions? I'm not as smart as your teacher, but I may have an interestingly different point of view."

"What's the biggest monster you've killed with your magic?" Asks the young man.

"How does your magic work? Do you really not have to study anything?" Asks the young woman.

"Is it true that sorcerers pass down their magic like hair and eye colors?" Asks the dwarf.

"What are the best spells to know?" Asks the halfling.

"Biggest monster... we've fought a minotaur once, it was pretty big! I didn't deal the last blow though, so technically doesn't count I guess."

"Indeed, my magic runs in the blood and I didn't need to study. I still took some time to learn things with my party's mage, it's useful to know some theory, but I don't need it to cast spells. It's just that spells are only a part of what makes someone a caster, there's also magic items, identifying magic, someone does crafting or scribing scrolls... the options are many."

"Yeah, there is a good chance that if I ever have a kid they'll inherit some of my magic, and in turn mine probably comes from my dad. Mom told me he was a pretty decent fella, part of the city guard."

"The answer really depends! I tend to specialize in flames and bringing it to my enemies. The other arcane in the party instead has ten thousand tricks to befuddle, confuse and control them. Someone who is interested in archeology and exploration will favor divination, a soldier is more effective empowering his allies than direct damage, a researcher will need protections from when her experiments invariably explode and more spell for unraveling magic. Who would you like to grow into?"

That sets the students chattering about their own aspirations. The humans are both from a wealthy family but want magic so that they can have some independent personal power, to be less reliant on the loyalty of hirelings and business partners. The halfling meanwhile has grand aspirations of becoming an archmage of the most eccentric and enigmatic variety, the kind of figure to become legend and make everyone think twice about picking on one of the small folk. 

The dwarf is the most ambivalent, because Mystra has already died once in her lifetime and the odds are good that she'll live through another disruption to the Weave that could force her to start over again with her magic. Even so, jobs like identifying magic items, setting alarms, or translating languages are lucrative enough that she expects her lessons to pay for themselves within a few years.