"Creo draws on the ideal Forms," adds the scholar with the wand. "The ideal Form of human hair is thick and healthful, so it makes sense that your Creo Corpus botch made it moreso. For why it's woven, you'd need a better theorist than I, or five of them and a really long argument. 

"Please don't take this as a reason to go experimenting with the nature of botches or trying to make them happen on purpose. Entire books have been written on those who've tried. Mostly they die spectacularly and take our best laboratories with them. If you'd been a magus in the fullness of your power, that hair could have filled the whole room and suffocated us."

"Definitely not something to do on purpose," he agrees but inside his mind it burns. The idea that some things can't be understood is... wrong. The fact that it's been tried before to catastrophic results means that it's not something it makes sense to experiment with any time soon but maybe one day. And that is what it is to be a Named isn't it? To succeed where anyone else would fail. Not that history isn't filled with stories of Named who have experienced extreme failures.

By learning a valuable lesson from a botch, you have gained 1 Magic Theory XP! 

Blissfully unaware of Alex's thoughts, the scholar moves on, bustling over to assist another student who seems to have gotten themselves covered in vines.

While Alex recovers, Alidade directs the class to try a few more variants, and collectively they will note that it seems to be slightly easier to cast when using firm or exaggerated gestures and incanting loudly and clearly. 

Then, Alidade directs the casters to occupy the ceremonial arrangements of materials and diagrams laid out by the aides. Alex's own ritual circle includes a number of pumice stones, a pungent incense, a string of teeth, and a complex astrological diagram outlined in ash from a large urn. (From his prior reading, he'll recognize loose philosophical correspondences with Creo and Corpus among a few of these.) His casting instructions are to sit in the middle with, again, a single plucked hair, and to attempt to draw on the correspondences inherent in the ritual to bring himself more into alignment with Technique and Form while casting. (Intuitively, will feel a little like balancing again, but this time with a little bit of fragile scaffolding to lean on while he does.)

Interesting. He will give it all the focus he can. It's fascinating to feel the impact of the differences in casting and now the ritual. He understands why rituals aren't always practical but it seems like it would be a useful tool occasionally.

It feels much easier this time, though it's hard to tell how much of that is luck and practice, and how much is the ritual component. Kanutte and Scaevola take notes busily, while Alexius (successfully) attempts a somewhat more complex temporary healing ritual. Alidade spends some time with each group, pointing out how different parts of the ceremony contribute to the spell. 

Once the ceremonial casting is done, Alidade moves on in the lesson. "There are other ways to enhance casting. Many magi bind themselves to casting tools invested with power, such as wands, staves, and talismans. Choosing the correct shape and material for an enchanted item can be an effective way to boost spellcasting power, but the interactions are complex enough that we will defer them to a future lesson. Raw vis can also aid casting, but consuming vis for a single non-ritual spell can be both wasteful and dangerous, and so this use is rarely seen outside of decisive battles.

"Some spells always require raw vis, the most common examples being teleportation, permanent creation, and spells above the twentieth magnitude. The latter are always rituals, and indeed few magi can manage to cast them at all without employing Avernian communal casting. This class does not focus heavily on the particulars of rituals, but a solid foundation in the Avernian tradition is strongly recommended for most magi and is indeed the default for most Orders' Opening rituals. After all, cooperative rituals and the efficient use of vis are cornerstones of the Order economy.

"Mastering individual spells with long practice can also improve casting, as well as allow magi to cast specific spells faster, quieter, more subtly, or with a higher chance of penetrating magic resistance."

Alidade wraps up, promising to cover magic resistance, penetration, and Arcane Connections in the next lesson. 

You have unlocked Spontaneous Magic! 

You have unlocked the following casting variables: Incantations, Gestures, Ceremonial Casting

This was a lessons well spent. If there's a chance he'll ask Alexius about what the healing ritual was like. Has he done much healing before? How is healing different from something like the hair manipulation he's been spending time on?

Alexius is happy to chat on the way out!

"I suppose I ought to start by saying that magic feels different to everyone, so much so that if you want to borrow the work of another magus, you often have to spend months translating their work into your own shorthand. But for me, healing feels like...wanting to help someone reach for their best self, and noticing that their best self isn't injured and hurting all the time. And then you - make a bridge out of magic between their best self and their current self, and you sort of reach out and pull a little bit of their best self across the gap.

"It's a lot easier to do on myself than others, though, even compared to most healers. I don't usually have a great vision of what someone else's best self ought to be."

"Huh, that's a lot less detail oriented than I expected. You said some other healers were more detail oriented but it sounds like even for them it's more about letting magic handle the details than a deeper understanding. Do I have that right?"

"I guess? Magic is a lot about getting in tune with particular Techniques and Forms in your own idiosyncratic way. Developing spells involves more theory than casting them, mind. So does enchanting. Charting out astrological correspondences, working with the right material, math and Form taxonomy, those all help if you have the time to tinker with them. I'm revisiting Magic Theory to get a better grounding in the details, because I want to invent the big stuff one day. 

"That's also why I'm in Magister Alidade's class. The Gnostic tradition is famously all about the details, that's reportedly how gnomes manage magic at all despite never being Gifted. Plus Alidade's great."

"I have nothing but good things to say about her classes," Alex agrees. "Maybe I should have expected that, the bit about not needing the details while casting mean, people use spells to fight and you don't have time to calculate put a bunch of things in your head while you're doing that. I guess I thought healing might be different but I guess not. It does mean some of my ideas about some of the disputed limits to magic don't quite work though. I guess I should have expected that."

"Getting proven wrong is a time-honored Grawtosh tradition. Though to be fair, so's ignoring all the evidence proving one wrong."

Alex's Miezan tutor, Ahasuerus Pictor, is a thin, aging scholar who does not even bother to hide his contempt for the provincial students he teaches. He directs students to read tricky passages in formal Miezan and corrects every mispronunciation as though personally offended thereby. But he does correct them, concisely and with hardly a wasted syllable. 

Three hours of his tutelage in the evening after dinner is something of an ordeal, even with most of it dedicated to written practice. Alex will likely be feeling particularly wrung out by the time he returns to his dorm in the Picus Wing to find his bedsheets reeking of vinegar. 

... he did not need this after a long challenging day. He'll pull on his hair a bit and give a small curse. Was there a linen closet covered in his tour? Can he just change the sheets and fix this?

There's a chest of spare bedding a few bunks down, past a sprawling boy emitting gentle snores and below the room's one window. 

The contents turn out to also reek of vinegar. 

"...'s the matter?" grumbles a student from a different bunk. 

Alex sighs, "Someone made my sheets and the spare sheets smell like vinegar."

"Blergh. Sucks to be you I guess."

"I saw a Devisor comin' out the dorm after dinner," adds another. "Looked shifty."

"Devisors are always shifty."

"Well, yeah." 

"I guess I'm just an easy target. Do any of you know somewhere else I could get clean sheets?"

"Grab some from the Devisor dorms? They can't actually stop you..."

"I sometimes see grayrobes bringing linens from down the hall? They might have a closet somewhere but it'd be in the Devisor half, most stuff is." 

"Thanks. I'll go see what I can find."

It's possible he should just try to sleep despite the smell or without sheets at all but he goes to try and find a linen closet. Or failing that a chest with more spare linens.

About halfway down the Order of Device hallway, a handful of stairs descend, and on the other side of the very short staircase there looks to be a narrow door that might be a closet. 

He really hopes this isn't another prank or the school testing him again. He opens the door.

Well, that's gonna be tricky because the third stair of four appears to be covered in stone-colored glue. His boot sticks fast.