"As long as it doesn't require piercings and it's within my dress code I like it fine."

"It's a necklace." Then - behold. Necklace.

Flat wooden almost-rectangles, distorted just enough to form a crescent all neatly together, polished. "Oh, I like that, very understated. Thank you! How do I work it?" she asks, holding out her hands.

"You're welcome. There are multiple ways to make it work, but one of those requires me poking it and making it only work for you by thought. Some people find that one disconcerting because they are worried the necklace can read minds. It can't, if you're curious, it's a necklace. Not even close to being sentient. The other methods are reasonably intuitive, but not as fast."

"I don't mind if a non-sentient necklace can tell what I want it to do," says Spring, "but, yes, I probably would have asked. You can't read minds, can you?"

"No. Useful as it would be to have, alas, morality." He pokes the necklace. "There you are, think flighty thoughts at it and it will work."

"I could tell you, in a measurement system that you don't use, or you could test it and I could time you and we use yours."

"You've seen Idania fly, am I as fast as her?"

"Almost."

"Cool. Thank you!"

"Do you know how the slavery system works? I am making it one of my multiple projects to make it shoo, it's always helpful to know more about it." Pause. "So I can make it stop."

"It may have changed since I was there. People can be sentenced to it for crimes; children of slaves," she raises a hand, "inherit the status, and if it's one slave parent and one free parent, the free parent gets to decide if their child's going to be free or belong to them. It was ambiguously legal to actually kill us, but pretty much everything else was fair game."

"Yes. That didn't already filter its way to you?"

"No." He pauses. "What a tremendously horrific waste of talent."

"I was not completely wasted between the ages of six and seventeen. But thank you."

Prime nods.

"I don't have any hangups about discussing it, at this stage of my life," she mentions. "If you're curious."

"Not really, it has little to no bearing on who you are now, I think. Unless there's leftover trauma that I can help with?"

"Nope. All taken care of well before I turned twenty."

"Good. I would have helped if you needed it, but I'm glad that you don't require it. Less trauma all around, I say."

"What would you have done?" she wonders.

"I don't know. Some kind of combination of a listening ear, a sympathetic figure, a shoulder to cry on, or champion that travels to another plane to put someone in prison."

"I imagine everyone who ever personally had anything to do with it is long dead."

"Yes, I wouldn't be very good at that last one. Maybe disinter a corpse and put it in prison. For solidarity's sake."

Aya snickers.

"... I have no idea? I didn't put it there."

"...Are there letter-depositing monsters?" she wonders.

"I really, really hope not. How would it even get in here?"

"Slipping under the door. Phasing through the wall. Down the chimney like Santa, how should I know?"

"I don't know. Pick it up with a stick, see if it explodes...? Pick it up with a stick while under shield...?"

"Be my guest."

"With the stick."

"What in the fuck," Bella agrees.

"How would you - but - magic doesn't - what, did we just get accepted to critter Hogwarts or something?"

"That would be a hell of a thing, since we haven't started it yet - safe to read it, do you think?"

"Maybe? Want me to do it? I'm not the sphinx, pretty sure they don't know or care about me."

"...Yeah, if it's like - magic entrapment words, they might either trigger only for a sphinx or yield to fairy princess powers to get you out."

"What? What is it?"

"Apparently not. I think we could ask for one, but - this is weird, I kind of still feel like this is a trap somehow?"

"Anyway, it's a good thing they didn't come in person, if they're legit, we'd have dropped spells on them for sure paranoid as we've gotten."

"Yeah. Um. What do we do? Should we - write a reply on the back?"

"...I guess? While the shield's still up. Tell them to come with a group photo and, um, if they're from other worlds how do they know English, they probably don't have dollars anyway and we don't need any portable non-liquid things, I don't think..."

"I wonder how they're going to read it. I wonder how they knew to do it in English. I wonder how they knew where to put it. I wonder if they've been, like - spying on us? Even if it was the bare minimum to be able to find more of - themselves - that's creepy."

"Little bit, yeah. I guess we just - wait for a response, then."

Meanwhile - "That didn't take long. They responded. And they would like a group photo, that'll be annoying to coordinate."

"I think it sounds fun. I can make the calls if you don't want to do them."

"Feel free," shrugs Prime, faintly amused.

"Except for your sister - you should probably talk to her if she's going to want to be in on it, I haven't met her." Aya starts calling up alts. There's not that many. Ice and Cypress, Iobel-who-still-needs-a-nickname and Edarial.

"They probably don't want it as a memento but as evidence, and including the various twins-of-Adarins would help."

"Probably not, she's still upset with me. Skip it."

"The Adarin doesn't have the white hair," informs Prime. "It was surprising."

"What color is it?"

"He's a brunette. I thank my lucky stars that he is not blonde."

"Huh. So what are the logistics here once I've got a picture of us?"

"The smart move would be one of us," Prime motions between himself and Cypress, "to send the other, and the one that's sent making a portal once there."

"You get to go," says Cypress.

"Certainly."

"Have fun being the welcome wagon."

"I'll accompany you, if it wouldn't be too much of a waste of mana."

"I welcome the company."

"And I'm the one who wrote the letter."

"Sure. The daemons are, and Prime and I can just explain all the animals in question when we get there."

"That works," agrees Edarial. "Zevros is coming, he should be here -"

"Got what?"

"There'll be a bit of a wait, I understand," Iobel says. "While they pick out a place for the portal."

"It's cool. I got time. Definitely going to do it, I'm not letting another me beat the shit out of me, this time I win!"

"How do you know?"

"Because I got another sword and we're going to use that and I bet I'll beat the shit out of them in sword combat!" Pause. "We'll wrap them in something, make them non-sharp and stuff."

"No, I mean, how do you know you'll win, maybe this one will beat you up too."

"Because I'm going to win," he declares, illogically. "Duh."

Edarial is smiling, faintly, obviously amused.

"So we're waiting for Cypress's Zeviana and then we take the picture and then Prime and I go introduce the new ones to the world of interdimensional alts. Fun."

"Exciting," agrees Prime, in a deadpan.

"I know," says Zeviana, arriving through the portal. "I am pretty exciting!"

"Hello there. How do we want to pose?"

"And if they don't believe you they can come back through and say hi. Do I need to do anything to be transported?"

"Nope," says Cypress. "But it would be helpful if you stood next to Prime."

Aya goes and stands next to Prime.

Cypress studies some notes, does a bit of math, asks some clarifying questions from Prime about the specifics of aim, and then -

Aya snorts and goes around to the front. The door into the shop is unlocked; the door up to the residence isn't. She knocks.

"Yeep!"

".... Seconded!" says Darren. "Um. Shields? Then we answer the door?"

"Yeah." She grabs a scroll, chants it.

"Hi. I'm Ayabel, but you can call me Spring, and this is Adarin, but you can call him Prime."

"Pleasure to meet you."

"...Bella. Um, please don't take this the wrong way, but we keep getting attacked by monsters, you aren't monsters, are you?"

"Not monsters." Spring produces the group photo. "Alts. See, you have the more common face for us. And Darren has an uncommon hair color for them."

"... Okay. Okay, hair," says Darren, peering at the photo. "I - get the planar shift thing, but - but hair!"

"Be glad all of them are over seventeen. It used to be longer," drawls Prime.

"Weird. Do they dye it, or...? You guys can come in, I guess."

"That's our natural hair color. He's the odd one out."

"Am I special because I'm not a snowflake?" muses Darren.

"Apparently." Bella takes the photo. "What's with the - owl and this white bird and the cat and the snake?" She starts heading up the stairs to the apartment. "Close the door behind you, guys."

Spring steps in. "The birds are their souls, they live in a world where that's a thing. The cat and snake are familiars, they live in a world where you need those to cast spells."

"Are - souls just birds there? The familiars I get, the bird soul thing's a bit strange."

Prime follows Spring, closing the door behind himself. "That will not be the strangest thing you hear today. A literal god took the picture."

"Not all souls in general are birds. His is a coincidence, and her species is limited to birds; she's a witch."

"No hablo D&D, Darren."

".... Means we are awesome. Basically."

Prime raises an eyebrow. "I have no idea what you're referencing."

"My boyfriend here is a huge nerd," explains Bella, "both in the useful inventing real life spells researching real useful runes casting helpful magic sense, and also in the sitting around with fellow nerds pretending to do all the above in the persona of a fictional character according to rules involving a lot of arithmetic."

"What kind of magic have you got? Ice is a witch, her Adarin and this one are both mages, Iobel and Edarial are both spellbinders, and I'm an acolyte of Perinixu, who's a healing goddess."

"Uh, the both of us do the kind with runes - draw diagram, chant in non-native language, boom, it's more complicated than I just made it sound. And there's also species-specific stuff, different for each of us because we aren't the same thing."

Meanwhile, Darren continues cackling.

"We're shapeshifted," Bella says. "We have medallions for it - that's presumably more of the runes-chanting-bam magic, that made them, but the art's been lost."

"So what are you?"

"Uh, he's a peryton, but - don't tell anybody what I am, somebody has already sent two monsters and a lot of goons with instruments of torture after me about it," winces Bella.

"... Extremely racist goon squad. With torture. Of course. Do you need help with them?"

"The goons and both monsters are dead. We still don't know who procured them."

Spring elbows Prime. "You're scrying guy."

"I thought my job description this time was taxi," he drawls. "Am I both taxi and scrying guy? Alas, I'm so overworked in my retirement."

"If they were suffering from pox and whooping cough I'd take care of them. This one's your department."

"Okay, but if a monster crashes into our apartment and spirits me away you need to save me."

"On a possibly related note, Ice has cracked resurrection."

"Spring, here, died of old age. Obviously, it's been fixed. But yes, if a monster crashes into your apartment, I will indeed go and be heroic. Hurrah."

"It's possible she'll have trouble with you non-humans. She had trouble with mages, until she revised the spell, and her objective-truth-dispensing artifact is only omniscient about her world, and if you go there so it can have a look at you you'll get the animal souls."

"...I'm a sphinx, I don't think I said. And I think my mom was too, but she never got a medallion, she looked human her whole life, maybe Ice can try her? She - do most of us have our moms die?"

"We should go grab - Ice? - then. So Bella can have her mom back."

"Certainly. Where would you like the portal? I can disguise it as a painting or part of a wall or something, but it does need to be large enough to step through."

"How permanent is it, and do you supply the painting as well as the magic attached to it?"

"They won't un-make themselves randomly, and they are usually meant to be permanent, but they can be broken easily enough. Either I do it with magic, or the wall where it's located breaks and the portal goes with it. I'd make the painting, I can do rudimentary stoneshaping to create a frame and then make the painting itself with complicated illusions."

"Okay - Darren? Inside the door to the water heater closet sound good to you? We can move the painting if we ever need the water heater fixed."

"We don't have a pet rock - uh, how much do you need and does it have to be all one piece? I can get you a scoop of gravel from the little park without attracting too much attention, anything more than that and I think we'd have to leave the Avalon. Avalons being where critters can critter it up," she clarifies. "Little hidden towns."

"It doesn't need to be in one piece, but I do need a significant amount of it if I want to make it very sturdy. Which I will be doing, because broken portals are terrible wastes."

"So possibly enough gravel that someone will want to know why I am taking so much. This would be easier if we were in Forks still instead of the middle of Seattle, I don't immediately know where to get lots of rocks."

"Neither do I."

"... Ah, yes. I'll just add 'fetch' to my bloodhound duties. I'll be back soon enough. Hold this for me, please." He holds his staff out to Spring.

"You seem to speak English - how, by the way? - so, common sense, and don't blink if you see critters around, within the Avalon, and don't do any of your kind of magic where anybody can see you in or out of it. Critters might be in some kind of midform," she accessorizes herself with hindpaws, tail, and wings, "or fullform." She demonstrates. "With the exact details varying between critter species, obviously, Darren is a winged deer."

Obligingly, Darren displays his winged deer status.

Slow blink. "Would you believe that I have seen stranger things?"

"Yes," says Bella, flumphing onto the bed as long as she's already cozy-catlike. "But I'd love to hear them enumerated."

"My mother's ghost resurrected the dead, granted immortality, killed every member of a certain species on an entire planet within a day, and caused an unwanted reunion with my centuries-dead father. I have seen a hilariously tiny woman easily defeat six people - each at least twice her size - in unarmed physical combat. I met a younger, married version of myself and accidentally caused them great personal distress that wasn't helped with a botched resurrection attempt. Then, I played board games with a god. All of the above happened in the past three weeks. I am five centuries old. My life was not boring before this month, either."

"Ice and Cypress are married and deliriously happily adorable about it. Iobel and Edarial are also married but they have a more complicated story."

Darren... Raises his eyebrows, but doesn't comment. He does go snuggle with his girlfriend, though. Flop, onto the bed, deer and kitty snuggles.

"The entire rambling of absurd fantastic things," snorts Prime, "and you focus on the 'alternate who is married' part. Of course."

"Would you rather I be curious about how you caused them great personal distress?"

"No," he sighs. "Thank you for the offer, please go back to being curious about the married part."

"Besides, this conversation has already introduced alts and the existence of foreign magic and resurrection," Bella points out. "Anyway. Complicated how?"

"Edarial was a prince, and he had to get married for prince reasons, and absented himself from the process enough that someone else with strong opinions about who the future queen ought to be slipped in and held Iobel's familiar hostage - her familiar's death would have rendered her a vegetable - to force her to marry him. They spent several months with her assuming Edarial had done this to her and him having no idea why she glared at him all the time."

"Yikes."

Bella puts a wing around her boyfriend. "Seconding that yikes, how are they now?"

"Well, they're not Ice and Cypress, but they're working on it."

"You two are cute too," Spring adds. "They're just - I think it might be the animal souls. The animal souls are helping."

"I think we're secure in our cuteness, thanks. You don't appear obviously paired off?"

"We are not even non-obviously paired off," says Spring.

"They can tell because I told them," says Spring.

"Funny," mutters Bella in Darren's ear, "they bicker like old alts of a married couple."

"Of course. Next time, we can have a sign. 'Not even non-obviously paired off.' Shall it go around your neck, or mine?"

"They really do," giggles Darren.

"I don't know if signage is within my dress code," says Spring lightly. At Bella's quizzical look: "Acolytes and priests of the healing goddess who gives me my cool magic powers have a dress code. It's an excellent excuse not to wear anything I don't like."

"Taxi, bloodhound, and now sign holder. Should I endeavor to become a pack mule, too?"

"What are you expecting to haul?"

"Luggage. When no luggage is available, I find the largest rock and start rolling it up a nearby hill. It's a flawless plan."

Darren starts giggling.

"Are you going to be that sarcastic when you're old and gray?" Bella asks Darren.

"I have no idea," he snorts. "At least I'm guaranteed to not be boring?"

"That was never a danger."

"Are we annoying?"

"No, I'm also easily annoyed. Cranky and old, and all that."

"How old are the two of you?"

"I have that annoying discontinuity which I spent being dead, and I also moved to a different world from my original when I was seventeen and this made birthdays a little hard to track, but on the order of ninety."

"Five hundred and something or other. I stopped caring after a while - mostly when everyone I hated died. It's strangely gratifying, outliving everyone you hate."

"Sort of. I am only mostly human. The non-human bits help immensely with longevity. Thus, five centuries and change."

"Around here, mostly human means not human, albeit potentially very cunningly disguised. What else are you?"

"Fae. Race of extremely powerful, immortal undying beings."

"Sounds like a nice racket."

"Sort of. Except for the part where the half-breeds are inevitably crazy. My mother was one of those, she killed herself by leveling a capital."

"I think it might be more efficient if we told all these stories in Pantheon where the others are waiting," Spring opines. "Darren, is your twin - you have one too, right? - is he or she readily available? There's two of those around back near the portal hub at the moment."

"She. Uh - I can get her, but it's a bit of a flight from Forks to Seattle, so it will be a bit."

"Another time, then, maybe. Although I think Zevros has a sword he wants to give her."

"A literal sword. He lost a fight with Zeviana, and apparently this resulted in him having to accept a nickname he didn't like from her, and he is determined to beat up your sister."

"... Okay."

"She has killed like - eight people. And can shapeshift. Into a flying hooved quadruped. I don't think he'll get his wish."

"My sister kind of frightens me sometimes," admits Darren. "I'm betting on her."

"I abstain," snorts Spring.

"I don't think I'll actually make any bets, though. Because uh. I have never met Zevros in my life."

"He's Edarial's brother. The only male of his template, so far, but sufficient to alert us that gender isn't guaranteed to be consistent any more than species or coloring is."

"... I'm trying to imagine my sister as a man. That's - really weird."

"Well, as soon as Prime is back and has made a portal for you, you'll get to meet him."

Darren nods.

"Are they both gay, or do they both like girls, or - what?"

"I don't know about Zevros, it hasn't come up. But I've heard references to Cypress's Zeviana having a girlfriend, and Prime and his surrounding people seem to match in every respect except for events after his and his Zeviana's age twentyish, so she probably likes women too; I don't know about exclusively. Bells are all straight, so far. All I know about Adarins is that they seem to like Bells under the right circumstances."

"Apparently being winged quadrupeds together in high school is a good circumstance."

"I think 'the right circumstances' are basically when we can talk to each other and not married under unfortunate circumstances by miscommunication. Though maybe old wizard me's different. He's - definitely more sarcastic than I thought I'd be at - five hundred and change?"

"Have you been expecting to be five hundred and change?"

"No, but if I were asked what I expected to be at five hundred and change I don't think I'd point at Prime and say 'that.' I would have expected to have a beard and pointy hat, honestly."

"When he's back we'll make him answer for his lack of beard and pointy hat," Bella says. "You, Spring, tell me about you, that's not redundant with later stories, the others will already know about you."

"Ooh, I like Medallion. Either that or Rune."

"It occurs to me that I should get one of the mages to look for the bar, and see if they can find that. In addition to eventually getting around to locating Tayane."

"Yeah. Magic dimension-shifting bar sounds really, really useful. Rune seems more appropriate for our magic, though. I kind of want to be all neat and tidy with names, is there a rune-based name we can have for our magic type that doesn't get confused with others? Rune caster, maybe?"

"Okay. We are runecasters from the world of Medallion," agrees Bella. "And - the nicknames are just for use with people who are, like, us, right, not with racist torture goons - so - I'll go by Phix."

Darren snickers, a bit. "I don't know what to call myself! I guess I could go with something off of 'peryton' or being secretly a deer?"

"Bambi," drawls Bella.

"Extra, special no."

"What am I missing?"

"Children's cartoon deer character by that name."

"Anyone who got the reference would be unable to take me seriously. Ever."

"And you're very serious. You and your future hypothetical beard and pointy hat."

"Yes. Super serious max-level runecaster that never prances around in fullform ever."

"I still haven't gotten to see you prancing, not even in adorable baby pictures," wheedles Bella.

"Nooooo, how would you ever take me seriously if you saw that?"

"Because I take you so seriously now. We have a very somber relationship." Pause. "I want to see and if you don't let me see I may go to your alts for advice on how to get you to show me the adorable baby deer pictures that I know to exist."

"There's no stopping you on your adorable baby deer pictures rampage, is there. You have to see them, don't you."

"Yes!"

"Very well," says Darren, gravely. "You may see the adorable prancing fawn pictures." Pause. "On the condition that you show no one else."

"You don't have to let me take physical possession of them, I just want to see them!"

"Good, good. Then when we're in Forks we will bug my dad for them, and you may see them. Briefly."

"Yaaaay at laaaaast."

"It only took years of begging," he snorts. "And alternates of both of us showing up with fancy magic."

"Intermittent begging. And negotiating and attempts at bamboozlement."

"Yes, all of those things. Is it worth it, Bella? Is it worth the cost and toil for these baby deer pictures?"

"I guess I'll finally know when I've seen them!"

"I'm gathering letting me look over her shoulder is out of the question."

"Yes."

"What if I invest years of intermittent begging and negotiating and attempts at bamboozlement?"

"Probably still no. I'm not dating you, and I'm terribly sorry to say that I am happily taken, so - I doubt it's going to happen. Sorry."

"Terribly sorry?" says Phix archly.

"I figured I should let her down gently."

"I wasn't hitting on you. I'm more than four times your age and Phix would be irritated with me."

"It's still really rude to be like - 'Yeah I'm not ever going to date you, and I'm not sorry. I'm dating this awesome equivalent of a magic fairy princess, and she geeks out about magic with me; it's the best.'"

"Considering what relation I stand in to the fairy princess in question, I could still be flattered," Spring points out.

"I am, it would seem," Phix mentions, "the only living sphinx, although I guess if resurrection works on critters that could change. And sphinxes get very cool powerful magic."

"Not why I'm dating you," says Darren in a sing-song voice. "Just a nice perk."

"I know, dear."

"Good. Also, ha. Deer, dear. Did you do that on purpose?"

"Yes, dear."

Darren cackles. "I love you."

"I love you too."

"I'll show you," says Phix, disentangling from deer-and-kitty snuggles to turn human and lead him to the water heater closet. "You didn't have any trouble finding it discreetly?"

"Not really, one person gave me a weird look and I told him that it was so they could be painted bright colors to decorate the house with." Pause. "He assumed I was indulging grandchildren. I didn't correct him."

"...Are you all as terrible at lying straight out as Darren is?"

"Oh, yes, but I find it's easy to get around that if you word things just so."

"I can't really do that. I have to tell people I'm a winged lion."

"Mmm. I think you could get away with giving partial descriptions of what you have with only picking things that a winged lion would have. Though, yes, actually lying would be more useful."

"And I'm not appalling at it. Not good, either, lying with the truth is still my first port of call, but, yes. Winged lion."

"If anyone asks, I will say that I heard that you were a winged lion," says Prime with a smirk.

"There you go."

"Oh, I get choices - um, something innocuous, I suppose, landscape?"

"Mine is a landscape of Pantheon. Would you like me to do that, or is it too obvious?"

"Is Pantheon made of crystal spires and populated by flying pigs, or does it just look landscapey?"

"It looks landscapey. Top of a mountain by a desert, if you're curious."

"Sure, go with that."

Phix applauds.

Prime snickers. "Thank you. Though that was literally the simplest part of the entire process."

"Oh, I retract my applause."

"Oh no, by all means, applaud away."

"Too late, it's retracted. You'll have to do the more impressive part to get applauded again."

She claps politely. "So how does it work?"

"Oh, it's not done yet, that was me making it lighter and stronger so it doesn't break your door, fall to the ground, and shatter into fifty thousand pieces."

"Ah, useful."

"I'm a little short on picture hooks, but I can probably rig something up if you are not also a picture-hook-maker."

"I can make picture hooks," shrugs Prime.

"Okay. Well, inside the door, here," she says. "Darren, why are you not watching your epic wizard alt do epic wizarding?"

"You missed it. He turned the rocks into this painting and the painting into a portal."

Prime raises an eyebrow. "Possibly."

Phix pets her boyfriend. "Sorry I didn't think to call you over, I couldn't figure out why you weren't following by yourself."

"I was comfy," he complains. "I thought there'd be like - some prep time or something, not just - bam, portal."

"Bam, portal. Seems to work a lot like fairy princess magic, at least from what I saw."

"Yes, you've caught me," says Prime, dryly.

Hee hee hee.

"Our neighbors aren't nosy, but they're - existent. Pantheon sounds like a fine place to hang out and meet everybody, I doubt they really need to see the apartment or the store today."

"Works for me. Spring! Portal's done!"

Phix giggles and hugs her bofyriend.

And Spring emerges from where she's been loitering, ready to go.

"Hi, newbies!"

"You've met Spring and Prime... I don't have a nickname yet but I'm Iobel, and that's Ice, and these are Edarial and Cypress, and their respective twins Zevros and Zeviana, and this is Cricket, and that's Berathyme, and I'm not sure whether it's customary to introduce daemons by name."

"Usually we introduce ourselves to their daemons, but it's completely fine for us to be introduced," says Vernaia. "Hi, I'm Vernaia! This is Pathalan!"

"Oh my goodness you are an adorable talking bird," says Darren, delighted. "Hi! I'm an adorable talking deer. With wings."

"Don't touch the talking birds," warns Ice. "Ever, ever, ever. The cat and snake don't have such dire consequences, but ask first. Though you won't be able to understand Cricket till you get a translation spell."

"Cricket is not a polite cat. I didn't think it would be a good idea for everyone to be able to understand him."

"I was not going to pet anything without permission."

"No petting the birds, nonbirds fair game, huh? Can Cricket understand us?"

"No. Do you want to pet him?"

"Yes."

When Cricket has received a translation, he goes up to Phix and purrs at her and lets her pick him up and rub his tummy.

"Awwwww," pronounces Darren. "Can I pet him, too?"

"Uh, probably best to ask him yourself when you have the translation spell on, he's not as enthusiastic about Adarins as he is about Bells."

"... Oh, um - that makes sense! I'll hold off, then."

Prime pats his shoulder. "There are other cats."

"There are," giggles Phix. "Oh, uh, I decided to call myself Phix, Darren doesn't have a nickname yet, we're calling the world Medallion and the kind of magic we both do runecasting, and we are not actually humans, we're just using the aforementioned runecasting-made medallions to shapeshift with. I'm a sphinx, he's a peryton."

"... Hoooow does that work?" wonders Cypress. "Can you get more medallions to make humans look like - perytons, or...?"

"We don't know how to make more. I'm working on it."

Phix does her favorite midform, but doesn't fullform; she is mid-tummy-rub with Cricket. "Medallion-making is a lost art. And since there aren't any medallions that do anything other than let critters look like humans, or in between, it may be that there's a limitation somewhere that means we really can't, but it might be that we could let you turn into critters. If we figure it out. I'm planning to start a magic school because the current state of magic-as-it's-practiced in Medallion is terrible."

"It really is! I had to badger people endlessly to learn magic, it was annoying."

"... 'Badger people,'" says Edarial, musingly. "Can anyone learn it?"

"I think mute people would have a bad time and not be able to do anything but draw the runes, but - yes?"

"Come to think of it we haven't tried sign language incantations," muses Phix.

"What is the fastest way to find out if people who aren't from your world can runecast?" asks Spring. "Because if we can, this is the first magic we've found that other people can just learn."

"Light spell, really simple. You can't say a chant in your first language, it - does weird things. I - guess it would dovetail really nicely with the translation spell!"

The Adarins -

- are all -

- grinning. Some more subtly than others.

Well, Aya has a translation spell on. She reads the incantation provided at the bottom of the scroll in French, aloud.

And then there is a light.

Darren starts cackling again.

"I mean, the rest of you already have magic, I don't know if runecasting is going to be better than what you have for most things, but it's certainly something!"

"It's not a huge step up for me, unless it can do really heavy-duty stuff with smaller or more convenient setup than I need, since I also do chanting and sometimes also drawing, but Spring has a versatility gap and the spellbinders and mages have usage limit problems."

"Not to mention this is more scale-able since other people can use it," says Edarial, happily.