Oh.

She feels it when it kicks in. It's more sudden than she would have expected. Her stomach burns and her heartbeat thuds a sudden staccato - human hearts don't work the same way, she should have remembered, but she's not collapsing yet - and elves run warm at the best of times but now suddenly her hands are sweaty and her face is blushing pink and -

And then it feels like she's been half-asleep all her life and now properly woken up.

Her first thought is that she's got to pull herself together and set aside how much she hates academic politics and make sure Dr Baika gets left alone by anyone who might be interested, which is everyone, until she can make more of these. And then she can own the Academy. 

She laughs aloud - she can't help it, along with the wonderful clarity there's a bubbling feeling in her chest - certain parts of the Church are going to be interested in this as well - all right, she has a lot of leverage but she needs to act really, really fast - 

"Excellent! I don't seem to be collapsing in agony which is encouraging!"

Her thoughts do move faster, but by far the best thing is that things she doesn't like thinking about are much easier to think about now. 

...

This... is quite a high-ranking cleric, isn't it. Who was, suspiciously, ready for them just as they arrived. 

Come to think of it, it's strange that she doesn't know a lot about the clergy at Silvermoon. It's just - the way the world is - a wizard must never take that kind of thing for granted, why... 

...She doesn't know much at all about humans but they don't exactly have a lot of clerics. Why have this many, and this powerful, here?

All right she really really really needs to grow up and get a lot better at politics really quickly! She's not powerful enough yet to-

OH, no, she absolutely needs to try some actual Wizardry like this, that's her absolute first priority!

Come to think of it-

She breaks her silence, during which she's been staring enraptured at Dr Baika, to wheel around. "Thank you Reverend you've been very helpful I think I'm stable!" She doesn't really realise how quickly she's talking, but turns back to the EXCELLENT VISITOR FROM THE FAR REALMS. "We need to take advantage! Of this! We need a list of priorities! Do you have any? Off the top of my head, more soul investigation, actually check to see if we can just set up transit to your world, find a way to teach you wizardry that's less uncomfortable than polymorphing you which honestly is tricky if you're that solicitous about your brain but I bet someone knows, set up an alchemical laboratory-"

She's definitely carefully observing Naevys, looking faintly concerned. Pulse, pupil response, movement speed, microexpressions, breath... She can glean a surprising amount of medical information just from looking.

She seems fine. These pills are kind of designed, not just marketed, to make you feel like a conference room shark, sharp, instant answers on the tongue, socially aggressive, a bit. Seems to be working as intended for her.

"Alchemical laboratory, I'll need one if I want to get anywhere, especially since I won't be able to order anything from my usual suppliers. And you wanted an intro to compsci lecture?"

Pulse: high! Not dangerously so, but getting there. And... weird, not an irregular rhythm but not a normal one. 

Pupils: dilated!

Speed: fast! Now especially, it's possible to sense something unusual about the way she moves - not anything that can be put into words, it just seems off.

Microexpressions: having the BEST time.

Breath: ragged and heaving, more than expected for a human. 

"Yes! Tell me about the tiny counting lightning elementals! Let's go!" 

This development was predictable; in this time it has already arranged an alchemical workroom under the control of the Faculty. It can let Naevys know. The Entity clearly has some sort of extranormal perception, so it's going to have to be more careful than usual with spying. 

The issue with souls was not predictable. It is not as sanguine as the priest. 

It drifts unobtrusively away, down into the cellars and then the dungeons, towards the Faculty of Necromancy. Theoretical Necromancy, of course.

She hasn't forgotten that the orb is a person. Perhaps it's bored, or has duties to attend to.

And she can tell Naevys is forming nascent intentions of monopolizing her contact with others; It's kind of cute. It would be high foolishness to just go along with it, though perhaps she can maintain some of her flighty airhead image?

She starts explaining more about basic computing theory as they walk.

...And she's not under any illusions at all that facilities at the local megacorp/university are not under her own control, which limits what she's willing to do, how much to let the Tinker out... Her natural predisposition is an extremely suspicious one, but that's due to acculturation to Night City. Is it different here? Perhaps, sample size of two. ...Three. Insufficient data.

Regardless, how does this 'alchemical workroom' compare to a modern Corporate biochem lab? Her expectations are in the basement.

It becomes apparent as they walk that something strange is going on with space here. The walk to the Chapel was short and simple, but with the benefit of recordings it's clear that the way back doesn't go the same way. 

Naevys seems to know where she's going, somehow.

Well, today she learned some fascinating things about very small amounts of lightning! Probably of interest to the Evocation Faculty even though they normally prefer very large amounts of lightning! Unfortunately the Evocation Professor freaks her out even by senior wizard standards. 

The principles of 'computing' don't sound like they necessarily depend on electricity. That's an important concept in magic, there aren't many things like that. She's never heard of a phenomenon in wizardry as stable and predictable as that - though she wouldn't have expected lightning to work! It's maybe the most dangerous Elemental phenomenon there is!

Her alchemical room is at the top of one of many, many towers, a wide round room of very solid stone. Spiral stairs lead to the lantern, a space at the very top open to the sky, and skylights admit the sun (and vent poisonous fumes). 

There's a bookcase fronted with very thick glass, and workbenches littered with crucibles and cauldrons and retorts and scales and alembics and dozens of devices she doesn't recognise. There are sturdy locked cupboards and racks of very strange material samples - slabs of different types of stone, and ingots of metals - she can recognise gold, silver, iron, copper, but there are many more, including a very small bar of something greenish-black, a few tiny chips of something like charcoal, and a little disc of something no earthly colour, like a tiny bluish-silver mirror. There's a huge, creaking copper and wood distillery, anvils, hammers, a huge furnace with heaps of charcoal, but also large jars of strange oils, powders, and a small heap of weirdly twisted logs. 

She starts comparing things against an internal database, and can recognize quite a lot if it can be used as a medical related tool in any way, thank you Tinker shard, but what if they are magic things.

Still, "Not as limited as I was expecting! We'll get back to the idea of sorting algorithms later, can you tell me what this is, for example? Not just wood for burning, of course?" She indicates the logs.

...How in any way are we talking, here. And what exactly counts as "medical". This could be important, considering the true nature of alchemy. 

Huh. There's got to be a way to make a Spell do that. She's never even dreamed of attempting Spell design, it's supposed to be Fifth Circle minimum and not safe even by magic standards, but right now nothing feels like it could be that hard. What happens if you Wish to sort something as fast as possible that's probably not a clever thought. 

"Oh - lightning-struck oak roots. Some rituals do burn them but they mostly work as a symbolic basis of - creation, new beginning, raw material, that kind of thing - it's occurring to me now that maybe alchemy for you is as different as the rest of your magic! Is this enough to go on to make basics like - 'benzene'? - or do we need to get creative?"

The Shard's database is vast and it has extradimensional sensors, plus it's using borrowed information from Dr. Baika's own senses... 'Medical' is things related to altering, enhancing, changing, damaging, repairing, controlling, or analyzing living things. It's best at surgery and microbiology, but the umbrella is broad. The closer the relationship, the better- It could identify an unfamiliar niche tool for checking teeth instantly, but random bottles of chemicals might only be twigged on what effect they have on the body after a bit of close investigation, and something like a weapon would get almost no extra information besides, perhaps, the types of wounds it might inflict (and how to make those deadlier).

"It sure sounds like it is quite different! I'll be wanting things mostly for their material properties, not their magical ones... The tools will be mostly alright, the base metals I recognize, but I need to see if anything else here is something I know how to use. Sulfur, pitch, animal fat, sugar, alcohol- Again, not for drinking- Ammonia, soap, salt-"

What is up with Naevys's pulse, she must have an entirely different cardiovascular structure, her power wants her to perform a full physical-

"-Benzene is only one of many things I'm going to need, really, but I can make them all out of each other. In time. Pitch, tar, and other oils mined from the ground are the best starting point for it. I'm looking forward to combining my branch of knowledge with local magic."

Really, synthesizing a bunch of basic chemical feedstock is going to suck. It's annoying as fuck, a waste of time, she'd much rather order industrially produced bottles from Biotechnica and Arasaka, with known purities and safety seals and all.

This device is for analysing the shape of cranial bones with startling precision. These are phlebotomy tools. These are for extracting a bewildering array of bodily fluids. That is dissection equipment. This is a specialised syringe for administering tinctures to the lens of the eye. There are lots and lots of vials of random substances. These are - a weird series of aids for meditation practices, including a hand-powered gearbox with an oscillating symbol designed for something like EMDR therapy. 

"All of those are fine! If there's something specific you need a device to do we can probably arrange it! Also I'm sorry this might be my translation Spell - full disclosure, there aren't standard procedures for this, or if there are I was never taught them, I learned this Spell long ago because according to legend some Things from the Far Realms speak tongues that drive men mad - but I'm still not sure what you mean by 'material properties' that aren't 'magical properties'! I can arbitrarily alter lesser properties like flavour or colour if that helps? And yes there has to be a way to combine these things somehow," now she needs to make a calculation as to whether or not she should give away her best and most dangerous ideas!

She's leaning yes, it's not like no other wizard could come up with them, and she needs to move quickly, and she doesn't want to hide things from the visitor!

"I know you're nervous about wizardry but there have to be some problems your world's magic can solve! Alchemy is related to Transmutation magic and it's said to reflect transformation in yourself, such that you'd master the art if you became spiritually perfect - I wonder if your - thinking augmentations? - could help?" Also maybe this way she gets the thinking augmentations.

"Material properties are... Somewhat hard to explain, it goes down to an understanding of matter and alchemy... Well, it would take a while to explain. Let's try these words: Hydrogen, Helium, Lithium, Beryllium, Boron, Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Fluorine, Neon, Sodium, Manganese, Aluminum, Silicon, Phosphorous, Sulfur, Chlorine... All of these are considered fundamental, elemental types of matter. Why are there skull measuring tools...? Well, one works with what one has. And yes, mostly I'm nervous because- It's an entirely new domain of knowledge, I don't know what the pitfalls are."

Well that's disturbing. 

'Hydrogen', fine, the flammable vapour when metal is exposed to acid, that one she knows about. Acid is important in elemental studies, it's part of the definition of interactions of Fire and Water. Weird that it would be a fundamental type of matter, it's just a Fire-Air conjugate, but fine. 

Sunstuff, stonestuff, emeraldstuff, borax, charcoal, natronbirth, sharpbirth, what the actual fuck is this list of elements. Is this maybe the translation Spell trying to shield her mind from eldritch blasphemies by producing nonsense? Possibly! The books didn't say it did that but they say a Spell is somewhat shaped by its vessel, admittedly not usually this helpfully!

"...That sounds extraordinary!" she settles on saying. "I know hydrogen, but most of those translate to vaguely intelligible words but not ones I'm familiar with. I don't know if that means someone somewhere who speaks Elvish knows them, or if Elvish used to have a word for them, or if the Spell is just making things up, they do do that. I thought the elements were Fire, Earth, Air and Water, there are Elemental Planes of those and alchemy usually relies on them. ...We can visit, if that would be helpful, they're strange and dangerous places to be but I bet the Professor would help. Maybe there's an Elemental Plane of Hydrogen somewhere. Oh! And the skull things are because some wizards believe Spells etch themselves on the inside of your skull, and that the soul mostly interacts with the body through ventricles of the brain, so maybe you can tell other interesting things about the soul from the insides of the skull, so you can try to perfect yourself spiritually and win at alchemy!"

All right yes deep breath time to discuss pitfalls. 

"All right. Wizardry is physically dangerous. Spells can have nearly any effect you can imagine, so any given Spell is more likely to be something strange and dangerous than something you understand! Also, mortals aren't properly shaped for magic, it can take a toll on your mind and spirit. It's why even powerful wizards don't use as much magic as you might expect!"

Most of them, in fact, spend most of their time at dinner, napping, arguing and ignoring research proposals.

"Canonical Spells are usually safe on both counts as long as you know your limits, don't make any mistakes and don't try to use them in weird ways. Magical research is a tradeoff in a few ways between novelty and safety, and also between physical and spiritual safety. If you want to be really safe, we can stick to known uses. That would mean - without preparing new Spells, right now, - I could for example use Abjurations to protect you from, say, poisonous fumes, or Transmutation to control things like flavour and temperature and colour, or move things without touching them, or Conjuration to teleport things, if any of that is helpful. Also this should have occurred to me, I can turn you into a different humanoid form if you give me some time with my spellbook and you still want to know how magic feels." 

"I can probably work out demonstrations of elem- Hmm actually, I should, if only to confirm that the elements and chemistry behave as I expect them to. My first thought is that I would be fucking dead if carbon's valence number or bonding energy changed- Human bodies are principally composed of carbon and water, which is just hydrogen and oxygen, and if the fundamental rules underlying the universe change even a bit I would have turned into so much salty goop, unless I've also been... Completely reconstructed, somehow, as an entity composed of particles of fire and so on... Or at least my body, I suppose, taking the soul thing at face value."

She starts examining the bottles more closely, though the narration need not specify them in agonizing detail if it so prefers.

No, the narration is fine with that, she's not exceeding the resolution of the universe just yet. A player has ever asked for the contents of a random page from a random book in a library and got a straight answer.

As best she can tell with all her powers combined:

This one is quicksilver. This one is pure water, actually very pure water. This small one is... literally just straight LSD? Don't take the cork out of that one unless you feel like it. This one is probably mostly water and ethanol. This one is a mix of nitric and hydrochloric acid. This one is blood. 

She normally wouldn't be confident in her ability to keep up with this, but she's on EXTRADIMENSIONAL MAGIC DRUGS.

"That's very interesting! There are planes with different natural laws, and entities from them that exist in very different forms here, compared to their own planes, when now that you mention it you might expect their bodies to simply fail! I've never heard of someone just dissolving after a Plane Shift though if they did they wouldn't have written it down. For multiple reasons. Actually I think there are planes where your own Form will be different if you go there. It would be weird if you looked this much like a human but were made of something else! Unless the Far Realms really are as vast as they say and the Professor just found a Thing that looks quite human somewhere in the eternities. All right at this point we should really prioritise finding someone to check if you actually have a soul and if all the parts inside you are the same! Are there any fast easy demonstrations to see if your 'elements' are real here?"

"Just because I don't understand it yet doesn't mean it's nonsense... Hmm. My first two thoughts are the splitting of water and reaction mass... There are various reactions that involve gases, usually burning. If I had a pure sample of some substance that I know the chemical formula under my own system for... I could predict exactly how much it will weigh after burning- How much of its weight has been lost to gases in the air, and how much remains in the solid. Or similar for other redox reactions, like natron and acid... I would predict this ratio based on my knowledge of elements and how they combine, and walk you through the math. And conversely, if you had a sample of pure hydrogen, when burned it will produce water and only water. If we created hydrogen with an acid-metal reaction and trapped that hydrogen gas, then burned it in a sealed chamber, and then cooled the chamber, we would find water condensing out of the air. I could even predict how much water with the same principles. As for water splitting, you can split it into hydrogen and oxygen. Oxygen is the chemical element in the air that reacts in most combustion reactions. So if I did that, one chamber would be rich in hydrogen- We could confirm that with a flame test. And the other chamber would be rich in oxygen, so we could put a candle flame in front of it and unseal it, and we would see the flame intensify for a moment as the oxygen gas escapes- Pure oxygen would burn more aggressively than the diluted oxygen in ordinary air."

"Interesting! I know hydrogen burns but not that it makes water, that's weird. Can your elements not be broken down? It's known that ours can - you can separate Earth into different metals - they're supposed to be ontologically basic though now that I say that sentence out loud I feel like I don't actually know what it means! They definitely correspond to parts of the spirit, that's an important principle in some magic. Anyway. How do you split water? Let's do it!"

"For almost every ordinary situation, no, the relative mass of each will remain the same except when certain kinds of events happen that I don't know much about. They can't be easily broken down and that's why we decided they were elements. I could list facts about the special changes, but I don't understand the theory as well there, so let's leave it aside..."

With her own augments' internal batteries, charged off bioelectricity, all they really need here is some wire, glassware, water, and something to act as an electrolyte... She starts moving to set it up.

"The natron," precursor to baking soda, should serve much the same purpose, "Is only going into the water to help lightning flow through the water. There are other types of catalysts that would work too. I'm going to run this off of my own augments unless you know exactly where to find strong lodestones and lots of copper wire on short notice..."

Obviously now she has to find out about what happens when you break these elements, but that can wait a moment. 

"I do, but this will be easier."

(Also, Dr Baika can't be the only one showing off here.)

She draws her wand and flicks it, and lightning arcs gracefully from the tip to strike the tower's stones. The chamber smells of ozone.

(This isn't really her area, and making Lightning is much easier than controlling it like this - it was the last element to be understood and still isn't really, it seems to love Earth and Water, its place in Creation seems to be unclear, she's heard it whispered that Lightning lives inside people but knowing that is a step on the path of Necromancy so best not think about it too much - but sometimes you have to impress the pretty visitor from another reality first and deal with the crushing psychic strain later.)

"Ah, nice. Can you do a steady stream? I don't see the power source for that- That kind of spontaneous onboard energy generation would be wonderful in certain kinds of personal gear. Add lightning measuring tools to the list of things to make, I suppose."