Human magic affects the connection of the soul to the body. Mermaid magic creates life. A long time ago there was magic that could reshape flesh. Not much is known about dragon magic since they live in volcanoes and don't really talk to humans. There's scholarly debate about whether the kinds of magic that exist are somehow related to the elements, and if so which set of elements. There's debate about whether all forms of magic are the same thing, whether they're the same as what the gods can do (and whether the gods are real, and there's a half-page digression into deism), whether they're the same thing as anything other than magic (like the way plants and animals reproduce themselves without mermaids carving statues of them), whether each species magic is actually one thing or several related things...

Different human magic traditions exist making use of different kinds of material components; mixing and matching has been tried, and doesn't do anything amazingly interesting. There are some rules of thumb for what components will go into what kinds of spells; one is that it helps if an herbal component already does something at least similar to the intended effect. Aiming works differently for spells that are prepared in advance, because of reasons that the book goes into.

Human magic can put souls in jars (they're not conscious while jarred), remove souls from jars, put people in new bodies, remove people from bodies, put people to sleep, numb body parts, blind people, deafen people, and facilitate the recovery of past life memories. Generally magically induced loss of sensation is temporary. It's a common side effect for people who have just had magic done to them to feel disconnected or unreal, or like the world around them isn't real. It usually goes away in not too long and is more common if the spell is done more sloppily.

That's such an interesting set of effects, how hard are those spells to learn?

Some of them are probably simple since both of these books agree that humans regularly learn sleep spells at three or four years old.

Dang. Can any of them be packaged for later deployment - oh, probably that's illegal because it would let the evil folks pass? -

It appears they can be prepared in advance and cast later by the same person, and the writer of the book on magical theory seems to be under the impression that they can't be transferred uncast like that, though there's the theoretical possibility of switching bodies entirely for that kind of deception.

Maybe if she's stuck here for a long time she should reinvent, like, the first half of Clone.

It's getting late. What are her accommodations like, or should she Tiny Hut in the yard?

She's welcome to this guest room over here and also to dine with the household but if she'd like something more under her own control than that the yard can... maybe fit a Tiny Hut? If it won't damage any foliage it intersects?

Guest room's fine.

Sleep.

Things that happen overnight do not escalate to the point of waking any but a fairly light sleeper. The birds start in on their chattering before dawn. By the time it seems likely for Belmarniss to be getting up Chanai has rounded up some breakfast that will tolerate waiting a bit if he's misjudged her wake-up time and brought it to the hallway outside her room. (And then decided to grab a bite and stand there having his own breakfast of conspicuously the same sorts of things as she's being offered.)

Belmarniss pokes her head out before preparing spells. Consults her phrasebook, points at the breakfast: "Me?"

He holds the plate out to her. "Yep, for you."

"Thank you!" She eats while she preps; she's done eating long before she's done prepping, and she doesn't usually leave many slots open but she does today, apart from filling up on Tongues.

Does she object to Chanai watching?

If Chanai wants to watch Belmarniss stare at various pages in her spellbook and make careful gestures in midair that is fine with Belmarniss!

It's fascinating!

And then after it's been going on a while it's boring but, first of all, he should probably not just disappear, and second, what if he looked away and then it finally got interesting? He'll watch the whole thing and wait for her to signal in some way that she's got some kind of translation working.

It does not suddenly get interesting but she does close the book after a bit. Doesn't immediately cast Tongues since he doesn't obviously have anything to say.

 He gestures for her to follow him.

Following, sure.

He can show her to where Tema and Tyela and a stranger who seems to have appeared overnight are waiting. Tema is pleased to see her; Tyela is excited to see her; the stranger was not really prepared for her to be purple and kind of blinks at her.

Belmarniss gives a bit of a wave.

Tema asks if her translation magic is active yet.

Nod nod.

She introduces Belmarniss and the stranger, Velya. "He's traveled in the south where they don't check kids for magic like we do here."

Belmarniss tilts her head.

"So if at some point you want to ask questions of someone who’s met the old ones, that’s an option. Anyway, I hope you slept well."