"Yeah, I'm listening."

Getting magic is also pretty idiosyncratic—you don't know whether you have magic until you try to use it and succeed, and it's not obvious what you have to do to succeed until you do. Now, people who are enchanters need to try to enchant a thing, and they have all the mana they've accumulated in their life stored so when they try to Express they will invariably create an artefact, and it's not usually a useful one, but some enchanters get pretty attached to them, and everyone remembers what it was anyway.

...I can be very attached to my mother's necklace. It's easy to remember - it stores mana, too, after all. Of course I'll say it tells me if she's alive or something.

Can't really make an artefact that tells whether someone is alive unless that someone is, like, wearing a paired artefact that measures heartbeat or some such.

Then it glows if I tell it to, I can fake that with manalight if I don't just - do it outright now.

Yeah, that works.

What are some other common first artifacts?

Well, since people don't usually control how much mana they accidentally pour into an artefact when they Express and it can be very dangerous to, they usually surround themselves with harmless objects or objects they wouldn't mind turning into artefacts. Yours would actually be uncommon for being useful, most of them are useless: playing cards that turn red when you touch them, shoes that are stuck to the floor, coins that are unaffected by gravity, toys that move autonomously in useless ways... Can be dangerous, though, like stuff that gets so bright and hot you can't touch it or be near it, or say a dagger getting so sharp it gets embedded on the floor, a marble that bounces madly around the room...

I'll make it annoyingly bright, but not dangerously so, if that helps the belief.

It does yeah.

"Where is the guild branch, anyway?"

She leads Gren to it! It is the prettiest building Gren has ever seen, and most obviously magical.

'Prettiest she's ever seen' might be debatable. The local aesthetics don't quite match the ones she grew up with, and she's been in Buckingham Palace at the King's request.

But, yeah. "Gee, you'd think they want to make the place visible and prestigious or something."

"They're mostly showing off."

"Well, it's working. Wow."

She grins and leads the way inside.

It's like that craftswoman's workshop, but more. Much, much more. There's obviously magical stuff everywhere, stuff that moves and emits light and beeps and floats and changes. There are people fussing around things, a few books strewn about, and even a golem standing to the side—although that one is obviously much less complex than Vasil.

There doesn't seem to be anyone obviously in charge or a receptionist or anything like that.

That's fine, she can just stare at all the shiny things for a while.

They're so shiny! Some people smile at them when they're noticed but mostly stay focused on whatever they're doing.

Eventually, "...So, is there someone I should talk to, Kaede? Or what?"

"I'm as lost as you, I have no idea, this place's much messier than the other Guilds I know."

"Guess I just watch and get inspired for now. Maybe add something new to the carriage. Is that possible?" If it's not normally, it probably is with metamancy?

"It's not." Except with metamancy, correct. Enchanters need to focus on their artefact for the entire duration of enchanting, if they get distracted or stop then that's it, whatever they poured into it is what's gonna be there.

"Yeah, I didn't think so. Wow, that makes golems and things like that even crazier, huh?"

"Yeah, no one has any idea how the ancients did it." It was metamancers. That's how they did it. Or gods but it was totally metamancers.

Gren nods and picks someone to approach, choosing from 'does not appear particularly busy' first and 'working on something with mechanical parts' second.