Flower shop. Hardware store. Nail salon. Sickeningly cute café. And then, squeezed in between that and a massage parlor, a shop that looks much older and weirder than its surroundings - gnarled wood instead of cement and paint, moss and some other small plants growing directly out of the side of the wall, smoky windows, sign impossible to read.

She almost misses it, and then spins back and rounds on it with a grin. Perhaps slightly too much of a grin.

"Don't you dare be boring or abandoned," she says, and marches into the mystery shop.

It's full of weird things - taxidermy and lovely fantasy maps and dried plants and art glass and a huge orrery that might be trying to represent the Firefly setting or something because it's sure not the Solar System and funny clockwork kinetic sculptures and a columnar enclosure full of weirdly giant butterflies and fancy rugs and furniture so eclectic it would strike a typical interior designer dead on the spot.

"Gooooood morning," says a voice belonging to a woman who is simultaneously much too young and definitely weird enough to belong to this shop. She looks like she's maybe twenty, if that, and she is dressed as a witch, black robes and pointy hat and all. She's propped up on her elbows on the counter in the shop, one hand idly spinning some kind of armillary sphere around.

She does a slow, delighted twirl, taking it all in, hands over her mouth as though to stop the glee pouring out. Then she removes them, and out it pours:

"Good morning to you too!! Words cannot express how much you are exactly what I'm looking for."

"Oh! I hear these words now and then but often it is I saying them. Come here, come here, I have a feeling..." She extends her hands.

Lenore cheerfully skips up to the counter and presents herself for Mysterious Shop Lady Inspection.

"I have news!" says the mysterious shop lady after a moment of hand contact, and then her hat flies off as she manifests enormous lagomorphic ears. "Magic is real and can be all yours!"

"That's some pretty great news!" she says, absolutely without missing a beat. "Please, tell me more!"

"The merchandise is a sideline! I am a witch awakener by trade and you are an asleep witchling. You will most likely get to be a new species though you do not especially have to, and can pick up lots of hocus pocus of lots of kinds and decide how you will collect more."

"A whole new species? Is this new species like everyone's a were-something and that's where you got the fetching bunny ears, or like vampires and werewolves and elves and fairies and who knows what else?"

"Not werewolves so much. But vampires elves fairies fetching bunny ears yes."

"Fascinating. And how are these things assigned? Personality quiz? Tarot reading?"

"If you awaken yourself, subconsciousness does it for you! With me you can choose, though you will not have all possible things ever to choose from - cannot be a vampire if no vampire ancestry, etcetera."

"I will be ever so disappointed if I can't be a vampire. Though I suppose there might be some other, even more enticing thing out there to be. Anyway, sign me up! Where do I start?"

"Like so!" And through their joined hands Nia pulls them into a conceptual space full of motes of light. "- can still back out if you need to go do Googling about something, not settled till you are all ready."

"Ooooooh. It's so shiny!! Where do I find out my vampire fortune?"

"This-a-way! You do have vampire, yes - 'empusa' to be exact - and 'neutral', basic human, most anyone who comes in here looking human has that, and also... pharon, if you wish to be Egyptianish godly, dryad, for being a planty person... ooh, aurai, for screaming people back in time, rare one... sylph, instantly lose all your weight... erinyes, fallen angel things... elf, those are popular... fairy, teeny tiny but throw great parties... and daeva, like a human but fancier and taller."

"What kinds of parties do fairies throw? And what on earth is it like to be sort of an Egyptian god? And how does screaming people back in time work? And of course what is an empusa exactly?"

"Fairies! They give you a tap and you are either the happiest and sing and dance forgetting about all your cares and deadlines and bedtimes, or that but sexier. The reputable ones you can go for a responsible while with trusted friends, amazing stressbuster but very tiring. Pharons have the animal heads - actual Egyptian gods were related to pharons. Screaming people back in time terribly complicated - they get flang back in history, up to a hundred years, and have to find a magic anchor to get to the present, and the timeline fixes itself and the aurai skims off the top for mana. Mightily strange. Empusas! Vampires. Technically dead, lungs still work for talking and smelling the roses. Hollow fangs for the sucking of blooooood to recharge mana. Animals work but less well. Vegan blood grows on trees on the Moon, though, no need to be buying feeder rats from snake stores. Well fed they are superfast and superstrong - empty they die the rest of the way dead, fixable but inconvenient, cannot run on empty like most witches."

"Oh, that does sound like a very exciting party. Most witches can run on empty? Empty of what? Food, drink, blood? What if I can't decide what I want to be and want to be everything? Do pharons get the option of sometimes not having animal heads or is it strictly all animal heads all the time?"

"Mana. Species controls how you get more, but empusas must always have some. Different species might or might not need eating or drinking. You can be... three things... ish..." she pokes a mote from another cluster. "All animal heads all the time for the pharon but probably some way to fix it if we try hard and believe in ourself."

"I do like trying hard and believing in myself. How does being three-things-ish work?"

"Costs some points - you have more than most but still not infinity. Once to be two things instead of one, twice to be three things instead of two. Whichever thing you are most decides affinities - which magics are cheaper to pick up - and you get all the extra-species-magic options and all the mana charge and the best mana capacity."

"Ooh, species get extra magic options? I want to know about all the extra magic options!"

"Empusa get to add Wind affinity - that will work even if empusa is not where your affinities mostly are from - and turn into mist and be stronger and faster. Also darkvision. And flying, mistily. Pharon get a halo headlamp situation and invulnerable heads and ultra bite strength - personally I think not worth the points. Dryads can do a thing to change their plantishness by poking different plants. Also alters the rez method for being not dead any more, instead of one seed many spores. Aurai get a little short range time travel superpower, troublingly complicated. Sylph extra is for phasing through stuff, walk through walls and such. Erinyes does a complicated cursing thing. Elf does a Spiderman sort of deal, walk on walls or ceilings, balance on knife edges. Fairy has very expensive fairy ring demiplane option with some time control. Daeva gets very cheap body control thing, like comic book monks controlling the heart rate and temperature."

"I feel like I should be writing this all down in a little chart but it's hard to make charts while adrift among the stars. Being not dead any more, you say? Who gets to be not dead anymore?"

"Most people! Well, most witches. Even if you are a neutral you can buy it from somebody to be immortalized, and not in song. Different ways for different species, you will have to pick one if you be several."

"Then I'd better hear all the ways to be immortal so I can write them in my imaginary chart."

"Well, even neutrals age slower and gracefuller. Daeva don't age at all but have nothing special to fix it if hit by a truck. Dryads do, but do it backward fast if they be turned into a tree for a while, and regrow from their seed - starting again as an elementary schooler but with their memories coming back next week - if they die anyhow. Aurai steal life from other people by talking at them - inconvenient to not want to do this and have something to say. Sylphs do not age and if they have a misfortune will become a spirit cocoon crystal, very pretty, come back eighteen days later. Empusa insufficiently biological to age; dunk remains in bloodbath to restore to unlife if necessary. Erinyes don't age and if dying will evict a soul from somebody to hermit crab in there; putting this off for a hundred years possible with ritual sacrifice sorts of deaths. Elves don't get very old and shrines respawn elf dead like save points. Pharon make a super tasty magic food that de-ages them and can revive them from dead. Fairies do not age but have no special comeback tour plans."

"Oh, I wouldn't like to hermit-crab someone out of their body, that just sounds like a hassle for everyone involved. So far I like fairies for throwing such good parties, and sylphs and elves for having what sound like the best solutions to mortality, and empusas for being so glamorously vampiric, and walking through walls and having my very own fairy ring both sound like tremendous fun... but I can't be four things so someone will have to get kicked off this reality show. What else differs between the four of them that I could use to choose?"

"Expensiveness - fairy ring costs ten whole points, a third of your starting wallet. Walking through walls is only three, empusa turning into a mist only five. Affinities - sylphs are wind and soul, fairy soul and mind, empusa blood and necromancy, elf body and nature, and the empusa perk adds wind. So if you want to be a sorceress and get all the elementalisms in-affinity anyway, least redundant option probably to be fairy or empusa, get affinities for things other than nature and wind which are elements. But if you want to be not a sorceress, more elemental affinities let you do more different things, and then you maybe want to be an elf with empusa perk. And charge methods - you get all the ones for all your things that you are, so drinking blood for empusa, meditating for elf, throwing parties for fairy, hanging out in spirit-y places like historical battlefields and ruins for sylphs. Also things like how you want to look. Fairies are teeny-tiny, but a hybrid one does not have to be."

"I've never considered being teeny-tiny before! Is it terribly inconvenient? Can they fly? Also, what is a sorceress and what else could I be instead?"

"One inch and depends where you go and yes! Sorceress is one of three kinds of approach to magic. They practice things, and can do lots of elementalisms; other witches only get to buy into one elementalism they don't have affinity with. Warlocks grow fast and get loot but must have a boss to give them quests. Academics do what it sounds like!"

"A boss to give them quests? Are they interesting quests?"

"Depends on the boss! Do you want to look at your bosses or come up with a tentative autobestiary first?"

"I am full of ditherment about my tentative autobestiary but maybe my ditherment will resolve if I know whether or not to be a sorceress. Let's hear from the bosses."

Bosses! Hestia is in there, and Hecate, and Horus, and Hlín ("lot of H names...") and Caillech and Guanyin and Ixtlilton and a bunch of minor regional gods from places she's been.

"How do I tell which ones give the most interesting quests?"

"By reputation, or you can pop out of the awakening space and look them up... Hecate is a goddess of magic, very popular, quests to preserve or teach or learn or write down magic usually, but kind of amoral. Hestia mostly what I hear is that she is good at work life balance. Most of these I do not know. You can also see what loot they have on offer."

"Ooh, show me the loot!"

Hecate is offering a candle that sheds darkness and can transport you to an alternate world of darkness and reduces the component costs of some sorts of magic, an alchemical ruby that can store unlimited crystallized mana ("Kisses"), and change its denominations and eat other magic items to yield their value in mana, and a Cosmic Pearl, which can be soaked in water to make the water better for potionmaking, or melted to permanently replace one affinity with any other.

Hestia is offering a root you can use to make a house have legs and walk around, as well has some other useful house traits; a magic mirror for scrying or conversation; a gem that contains a tiny double of the bonded witch, who heals when she does and takes damage for her until it is killed; an inherited set of witch clothes that will help her with potionmaking specifically while she wears them; a set of servant dolls; and a magical brazier that will improve potionmaking and have many convenient properties when lit.

"What delightful loot. Alas, my ditherment only increases. Maybe I will look them up. Is there a secret witch internet full of witch secrets that will tell me all about these people's employment policies? Can I find reviews on Secret Witch Glassdoor?"

"There is secret witch internet! But no centralized warlock god review site, you would be looking for individuals with blogs."

"If it would be a whole research project to find out what it's like to work for these people then I should probably pass. Tell me about the differences between Sorceresses and Academics, then."

"I'm a sorceress but it is not for everybody. Affinity for all the elements - earth air fire water metal nature psychic - and also for having a familiar and jazzing it up. The wild magic of not needing sleep is cheaper for us, and one for miming things into sort of existing which is neat too. Get stronger by practicing - collect practicing points and turn them in for power points. Starts out taking like a week and a half of showing up every day like it's piano lessons, but with lots of spare time left over, to practice yourself into one more power point. Oomphiest in a fight if you might want to go places with monsters and tell them, no, bad horribear, no biting.

"Academics go for portals and potions and runes and the inscrutable motions of the stars and such. Much less of the spare time - big chunks of hours in the library memorizing the formulae and crossing the references. Full time job to get enough for a power point in a week. And that is before you make your first buy. Exchange rate gets worse every time you do this. Only warlocks avoid this problem. Budget conscious sorceresses and academics might wait years to cash in."

"It sounds like I might really like being a warlock if I could just get a good reference for any of those bosses... if not, though, I'm leaning Sorceress."

"Sorceress is fun! Do you want to take a break, borrow my magic internet connection? Works fine with your phone."

"Sure, okay, I'll see what I can make of the magic internet."

They drop back into normal reality and the witch lady releases her hands. "Network is 'Harenet', hare the animal, and password is 'mineral water', with a space no caps."

She dutifully implements these directions. Magic Internet, show her the warlock blogs!

Searching for her listed deities gets her very different information than it would on the mundane internet! Hecate has a lot of followers; most common complaint is that she is not very understanding about having "qualms" or "moral objections" to quests if they would advance the pursuit of MAGIC. Hestia has fewer; they all think she's a good boss with really considerate timing compared to some, sending them to do things like surreptitiously pay people's heating bills or smooth the way for an adoption to take place to get a kid into a good home. She is also really into the Centennial Lightbulb and sometimes has people hanging out making sure nothing bad happens to it when there's earthquakes or whatever. Horus is apparently stingy with the quests but has been organizing some efforts to repatriate Egyptian artifacts lately. Hlín has almost nothing online, though at least the search engine doesn't think it's a misspelling. The Cailleach was nearly dormant for a long time but is now attempting to get witches on anti-global-warming efforts. Guanyin is a popular patron, especially but not exclusively among Chinese warlocks, and since she's a bodhisattva she is mostly aiming at very nice goals of helping and saving people, in a Buddhist sort of way; however, reports suggest that her implementation plans are not always very well thought out. Ixtlilton's warlocks are few but report being sent to quietly break into people's houses to soothe their night-terroring children into restful sleep or ease the passing of people in hospice or administer medicine in third world countries.

These people who report Guanyin sending them off on well-intentioned harebrained schemes, do they also report decent results gently correcting her aim? (Should she quietly delete the word 'harebrained' from her vocabulary in consideration for her new favourite person's fetching bunny ears? That is a question to be answered later with more cultural context.)

There isn't really a keyword you can search to find whether or not Guanyin takes feedback well and will still pay you for a quest you did not perform to the original specification, especially if you don't read Chinese.

Alas, her Chinese really isn't up to scratch. She should probably not sign on to do quests for someone who will give her dumb quests and might not appreciate her saying so. Hestia, though...

"Do you know anyone who's gone to work for Hestia? I'm thinking about her."

"Not well but I have heard only good things."

"All right, I'm sold on Hestia then. In which case I don't have to worry about being redundant with sorcerousness in my choice of creatures. Can you show me the pretty stars again?"

Pretty stars again!

Right, where was she, empusa sylph elf fairy? Empusa sylph elf fairy. Gotta drop one of those. She thinks the elf has probably the best immortality, and the empusa's perk is just very nifty and also apparently unlocks more options, and the sylph has the worst charge method, and the fairy has cool party powers, so, "I think I maybe want to be an elf with fairy and empusa on the side. And the empusa perk. I probably don't want to drop a fortune on having my own fairy ring even though having my own fairy ring would be so terribly delightful. Can I scrounge more points from anywhere? But I'm getting ahead of myself, I should find out what-all there is to spend them on first."

"You can scrounge more points from anywhere! Over here. You could do that next, find out how budget-conscious to be."

"Tempt me, why don't you. All right, let's hear it."

"Over here, practically free points: witch mark. Extra nipple someplace. Starts random, not hard to move, I can do this for you no charge. Uh - oh, this one, you get twelve, buuuuut it means you cannot take any magic that is big individually, only many many small ones. Might not even be able to spend all of it. Not popular. Hm, this one isn't so bad. Four points and you can only use magic with a tool - usually the staff you get with the rest of your witch outfit, easiest all round, some people who naturally awaken wind up with much worse choices there..."

"...where does one put an extra nipple. I'm not necessarily opposed, I just can't think of a remotely sensible location. Being limited to using magic with a tool sounds like not the worst thing, depending how hard the tool is to keep track of... I'm all right at not losing my phone, but my entire ability to do magic isn't something I want to end up misplacing, especially if it's hard to get a new one."

"Mostly people choose someplace on their back or leg. Just looks like a big mole mostly. There is a rank 0 witchery magic - means you do not have to buy anything to do it - which lets you get a hat, robe, and rod, meditating for ten minutes, even if you just lost them all in a tragic wardobe malfunction, and you level that up to improve the situation from there. Means you could be stuck not being able to do magic till you can get ten minutes to think on it but not for forever."

"Ooh, then those sound like four very worthwhile points. Anything else?"

"Plenty! Let's see... Restriction, two points for buying no nada never magic of one school, if you just really never see a point in having a familiar or doing astronomical whatnots. You can have three of it, even. This one... sends monsters after you, some people think this is fun, four points. This one makes it harder to get more power - slower, you still get the same in the very long run, but it will make you fumble quests since you are going warlock. Eight points. This one gets you ten, makes you very ugly?"

"I'd be all right with having to do a bunch of quests for free to pay off a debt but my dignity is offended at the prospect of fumbling them. I'm also not keen on being very ugly. I can think about ditching entire magic schools when I know what they are. What's fun about having monsters after me? How capable will I be of fending off monsters?"

"Depends what magic you take. Three-plus ranks in any elementalism and you can nope them pretty good. Some people think monster fighting is exciting and do not want to have to go look for their monsters."

"Will I have a taste for monster fighting? It's just so hard to know for sure! I'll think about it. Anything else?"

"Pick up an addiction for two points - people usually go with coffee, gum, I saw one person who wanted more sex drive use this one, munchkins sometimes choose picking their nose... you can drop a limb for two points, magical prostheses are good, you can take it four times but then you would have a job getting wherever you wish to buy your prostheses... sensory shock, be super-sensitive enough to be a problem in some sense. They make good earplugs for this. This one is two points also, basically gives you social anxiety but a specific sort. This one means you need to do exercise to do magic properly, two points. This one is four, it aligns you with some clannish bunch of witches you're related to but the only ones who get this are the ones that do it to perpetuate their ancestral beeves so you'd wind up ancestrally beeving with random other people from other clans. Annnnd this last one is sort of like addiction but it is instead compulsion. Points based on how often it will likely come up, up to eight."

"What's the difference between addiction and compulsion that makes them worth such different amounts? Is it just that the compulsions can get more likely than the addiction starts out as? Can I addict myself to reading?"

"Cannot be addicted to a healthy thing - or, well, cannot be a healthy-seeming thing, I have met a very old witch who is addicted to baths and she is very smug. If you are addicted to coffee you can just have it in the morning and be cranky without it exactly like a normal person addicted to coffee, and maybe be tempted going past the Starbucks. If you are compulsioned to coffee you will go into the Starbucks even if you have been in six of them today and you will do this unless the Starbucks has become on fire and you might steal coffees from other people's hands and you will always buy coffee at the grocery store even if you have lots at home."

"Can I addict myself to reading weird fanfiction? No, probably I shouldn't lock myself into my current niche interests when I'm so comparatively young, and what would I do if all the weird fanfiction dried up? I suppose I wouldn't really be that much worse off if I addicted myself to my sex drive, depending on implementation details."

"You can do weird fanfiction and you can do orgasms or some more niche option."

"I want to figure out what kinds of niche options are available but I don't want to get too indelicate for you. Can you tell me more about what things can and can't count as valid addictions?"

"If you say 'ah, I just don't feel myself without my daily Thingamabob', do people look at you like you said 'ah, I just don't feel myself without my morning jog' like they hate how sickening healthy you are, or like you said 'without my cigs', where you have admitted vice. Has to be a vice."

"But besides that it can be anything I can think of? My daily yelling really loudly for no reason? My daily five minutes thinking up rude things I could say to strangers? My daily spinning around in a circle reciting nursery rhymes? I guess that last one is less a vice and more just bizarre."

"I could try to push it through for you but it may not work. Yelling probably works!"

"So—and I apologize for being indelicate—if I wanted to make it my daily five minutes of sexual fantasies...?"

"I think I can push it through. I mentioned fairy parties first, don't you worry about my virgin bunny ears."

"Sure, I'll take that then. Where was I? Right, counting limbs. I probably don't want to lose any, not for a mere two points each and when they are all so important to me. Will I be very clever if I take 'need to exercise to do magic' and compulsion myself to exercise or will I end up losing all the hours out of my day to my disgustingly healthy morning jog?"

"The exercise one is pretty time consuming and ideally you will have a compulsion trigger that is somewhat less constant than your ability to run. No more points for it after the point where it bugs you a few times almost every day."

"I will keep my clever idea in mind for if I am in desperate need of more points. What next, then?"

"Magic! Do you want to start with the formal ones with ranks and suchlike or the fun little tidbits?"

"Ooh, I'm a sucker for fun little tidbits."

"To the fun little tidbits! Let me see. - hm, this one cuts you off from rank 5 magic, but it gives twelve bonus points and win-at-regionals skill at literally every mundane skill. Haven't seen that one before. Don't decide till you see the rank fives. Not everybody can even take those. This one, cute little conjurable fires, any temperature you want even cold, doesn't spread like normal fire. Might be one tad bit redundant with your brazier. ...if you want to go into demon summoning this one lets you summon Mammon to be heinously ripped off for any purchase you could make anywhere else. Too steep for cunning tricks buying low selling high, buying is never low, but neat if you are stranded and desperate for lunch, I guess? This one makes you a boy. I mention for completeness, if you happen not to care the ratio is very much more clambake than a party of sausages. This one makes you a hypnotic performer, holding attention like glue, if you want to be the distraction for heist capering this is a must have but otherwise not sure why people buy it. Beauty Sleep! No longer need to sleep, can whenever you want easy peasy lemon squeezy, lucid dreaming simple as Netflix and chill, immune to sleep spells and suchlike. A steal at four."

"Oh, that is a temptation. I will provisionally beautify my sleep. I am not a bit tempted by boyhood or summoning demons, but the attention one, do I get to ever turn it off? If I get to ever turn it off it might be nice. If not I think it's more a curse than a blessing."

"Yes, optional use when performing, does not happen when you say hello how do you do."

"How expensive is it?"

"For you two points."

"Hmm... I'll keep it in mind. What else is there?"

"Mime powers! Sound and look very silly, but undeniable in usefulness - mime a ladder, and really climb, mime a chair and really sit, mime a hair tie and really ponytail. Mood weather. Not really sure why people want to have mood weather raining on them when they are already sad, but there it is. This one is the hybridizing one, you are taking it twice already. Creepsome blood magic, use it to substitute for mana or do telekinesis with it or puppet anybody with blood - which is not everybody, consider - specifically powerful to sacrifice innocent virgin young folks but swapping in a very expensive fish also works. Levitation! Very popular, flip gravity off and never need to touch the ground again nor let objects you want do it neither, fly around without your broom, lots of fun. And this one makes your broom - it is a form of the rod, one of the mothergifts from mama witch through whom we are cousins - much faster and fancier, spend a little or a lot depending on how much."

"If I'm going to be relying so much on my magic broom anyway I might want it very fancy! What kinds of fanciness are on offer?"

"Move it around by remote control, summon it smart quick even if you do not buy a lot of Witchery, go 250 feet on it in a second - stacks with anything else making your broom faster, levitation also does this - improve maneuverability so you can do sharper turns or stop on dimes."

"I have never considered myself a stunt flying sort of person but maybe all it took to unlock my secret yearnings was a magic broomstick. How much for the fanciest? And levitation too?"

"Fanciest broom is seven, levitation three."

"Oof, we're getting into fairy ring territory. Maybe I'll hold off until I've seen some more things. What else is there?"

"That is it for wild magic. Domestic magic, over here. Cheapest for warlocks is curses, hexes - transmutation, like - necromancy, demon summoning - called consortation - and divination. Cheap for your affinity trio we have alchemy, hexes again, familiarity - that is having a familiar animal, not being acquainted - portals, windkeeping, naturalism, earthmoving. Ones for warlocks actually are so cheap you want one of each and gain points of it, though you gain more points from taking restriction if you truly hate the idea of one or two. Full price for you is runes, witchery - the rod and hat and robe business - aethernautics, and one-but-only-one your choice of firecalling waterworking psionics metallurgy."

"So I'm spending some points now on magic, but I also get some sort of magic points from doing quests for my new boss, right? What's the difference between those—do I get to make up for whatever I don't take here by grabbing more magic later with my warlocking fees, or do the warlocking fees pay me in some totally different thing? I'll take all my better-than-free warlock stuff except maybe if I want to ban myself from summoning demons, do I want to ban myself from summoning demons? It sounded like I might want to ban myself from summoning demons."

"A popular thing to ban one's self from, though you needn't ever actually summon one if you take the first rank in it. Your quest points can be spent just like these ones now, but these are what you have to do first questing with."

"So I could save up for my fairy ring?"

"You can! Though you will not keep getting points for all of ever. Hestia might give you quests for all of ever but you can only spend them toward points after you hit your cap. Yours is high but not infinity - one hundred to start, well above average respectable, and taking the drawbacks increases that."

"Oh, no, this is like picking college classes all over again. So much thinking about my future. Wait, so taking drawbacks doesn't just get me magic faster, it also gets me more magic than I'd get otherwise? No wonder people are going around addicting themselves to sex..."

"Or worse! You did not get all the worst ones."

"Maybe that's for the best. Well. I should think about what kinds of magic will make me good at my job. And if I'm going to be fantastically good at flying around on my magic broom, I should probably also learn how to be invisible so no one sees me flying around on my magic broom, is there a magic for being invisible?"

"Four ranks of this will do it," she pokes Witchery, "will cost you six points and further fancify your broom and also hat and robe. Or two ranks consortation and get demons to do it, foliots can invisiblize things. Some sensors will still spot you either which way, so be mindful of airspace, on this Earth. Other places go nuts though."

"Well, what other manner of fanciness does four ranks of Witchery bag me?"

"First rank lets you get the rod to be a broom at all and makes it so the outfit replaces your clothes when you appear them. Second gets you a windshield for the broom and climate control and self-repair for the garment and adds passenger space and automatically catching you if you fall off, also lets the garment have more pieces so you are not default commando. Third lets you reach into where they go when you are not using them! Pull a rabbit out of your hat and put it back when you are done having a rabbit, say. Faster broom, lets you fly up high without going oh no there is not enough air here even if you want to go to space, air cushion to sit on so you aren't squashing your bits, turn it into a magic carpet if you want for bonus passengers. Four is the invisibility garment at will and more weight capacity, plus you can do tailoring for anyone who did not buy all this and wants theirs redesigned."

"Oh, tailoring could be a nice side gig! That sounds charming. Sure, let's say I'll take four ranks of Witchery. How often do witches on broomsticks get spotted by sensors and how much of a hassle is it?"

"Does not happen often because is extremely huge hassle. Absolute no on the spreading around magic being real on anchor Earth. Kills the dinosaurs level problem there and that time this wasn't even the anchor Earth."

"...that sounds like I'm going to need something more aggressive than invisibility if I'm going to be sneaking around coddling lightbulbs."

"Seen by someone taking care of lightbulb not huge. Be a UFO and scramble fighter jets and make headlines, huge."

"Do people fly around on Earth at all or is it mostly not worth the risk?"

"They do! But close calls get attention of ORC. Law enforcement for magicals, sort of, ish."

"I was already sold on not re-ending the dinosaurs but magical law enforcement just makes me want to steer clear even more. Maybe I should rethink my broom-related life choices. What cool stuff do I get for extra super cheap for being a warlock, again? Let's hear about some of that."

"Hexes is turning things into other things. It turns mana crystallized into little coins called Kisses for some reasons - six minutes per and they aren't worth much, you want something else to fix that up - turning smallish creatures into other animals, or salt into sugar and back into other salt if you want, clay and glass, iron and tin, stone to mud. You sacrifice some wood, at that rank. Each rank needs a pricier medium to sacrifice but makes the polymorphing better, more flexible, and adds some things you can swap between. They sound mightily specific - things like 'egg to chocolate', where you might come up with a use but you will never think to yourself 'if only this egg were chocolate whatever shall I do' - but you get mileage of it. Rank three means you can animate objects, Sorcerer's Apprentice style, make sure you know how to make them quit! Rank 5 and you can copy any mundie object if you have the media for it. But, again, hexing your way through a cottage industry of Rolexes, gets attention, which is bad. It is maybe less dire than you think! Tell your family and best friend! But nothing public, nothing where strangers knock on your door and say will you please comment on what the fuck."

"...using rare expensive stuff to turn eggs into chocolate sounds... weird and not that useful. I guess copying pretty jewelry could be useful if I were into that sort of thing. Hmm. Overall I think that one isn't my style; what else is there?"

"Warlocks also get curses. What it sounds like. Make people sick or wasp-bait or do voodoo."

"I feel like that sort of thing is only going to be useful in situations I would rather just not get into in the first place. What else?"

"Necromancy! See ghosts, animate dead critters, talk to dead people by going and saying hi to their tombstone. Rank four lets you send spirits to afterlife of your choice if whoever runs it will let them in. Sense and move bones and flesh even if it is alive still. Rank five you can be a lich."

"Again with the spooky stuff! Maybe some kind of neat spooky stuff, but still. Anything else?"

"Demon summoning, but, also, divination! Not so spooky. Rank zero is a phone but in your brain, super useful. Rank one, identify things - forget somebody's name, want to know what kind of bird that is, trying to figure out what people at next restaurant table ordered that looks so scrumptious, works on all these. Rank two gives heads up if something will go well or badly, lets you know status of something or somebody like if your dog has gotten into the chocolate. All these keep getting better in little ways over the ranks, duration and cost and such, but new stuff - rank three you get a map of where you are, never be lost again, win at laser tag identifying friend and foe, get also a half-second of precognition mostly good for fights, and a sort of photographic memory situation. Rank four, identify can now doxx people! Spells can home in on targets from a ways off. Archiving memory now works on books you touch and things like that. Counter others' divinations with masking; map places you have never been in person by astral projecting, everything generally has more detail and works better."

"Oh, I like this one. What a good power. I want it. How expensive is it for the whole thing?"

"Full stack thirteen points."

"Oof. How much just up to rank three? I'm thinking that the map and the tiny bit of future-sight might help me be really sure I'm not going to screw up at Magic Hide and Seek. I can save up for the rest later."

"Three ranks just four points!"

"Much better! I'll take that. All right, who's next?"

"That's everything discounted for warlocks. Discounted only by affinity you have... alchemy! Portals! Windkeeping! Earthmoving! Naturalism! These are all what they sound like but I can do more details if they sound shiny."

"I want to go through all of them but it's cool that alchemy and portals are first because they definitely sound shiniest. Tell me about alchemy."

"Potionmaking. You get a cauldron and set it on your magic brazier - most people do not have these - and you put in ingredients. Millions of possibilities. Yours will have a signature style, maybe all smelling of raspberry or being a little fizzy or something. One dose generally two cups, but reducible down to a drop if you let it simmer long enough, some people have pill presses if they don't like to drink theirs. Stimulants - coffee-ish things, or more specialized - curatives - make your own painkillers or allergy meds - novelties - hair dye, sugarfree sweeteners, stain remover, suchlike. Each rank lets you make these better, fewer side effects, harder to replicate with local chemists' corner store, but higher rank potions have ingredients you do not find at the local grocery likewise unless you substitute with more mana. Rank two you can do fireworks! Rank three you can make splashy grenade potions. Rank four you are good enough to bring dead people back if they are not too dead yet, do cosmetic funsies like giving you a tail or whatever. Rank five even very dead people provided there are remains sit right back up if you sprinkle something on them. Love potions at this rank extremely serious business. Memory altering potions, shapeshifting potions. This is one you can do cottage industry with even on this Earth, just say it is a homeopathy and no one will look too hard."

"Fascinating. I love it. Does it cost the same as divination or is it more expensive? I definitely want at least one rank but I don't want to spend too too much on it."

"One rank one point, two ranks two, three ranks four, same as divination."

"I'd better not get ahead of myself. I'll stick to two ranks for now. Next up: portals?"

"Portals! Three kinds. Portkeys, swap between places with passengers, on a schedule or if you are a bit silly at random. Gateways, just what they sound like, walk through the door and be somewhere else. Rifts, like gateways but not on doors - just holes in space, you trace the outline to make it. Very very sharp edges, beware. Breakable if something too big to go through swats them, more durable higher ranks. First two want sacrifice of things - more expensive than a taxi per mile the first time but you can keep using it a lot or charge a toll. Rank one, rifts are six inches big, range of a hundred meters about, pull little things from the fridge or attic without getting up. One portkey or gateway at a time, fifty miles tops. Have to see both ends for rifts, have to have been both ends for the others. Rank two, double range and double inches on your rifts, up to three portkeys and gateways at four times the range. One-way rifts to elemental planes usable for keeping your buffet hot or ice cream cold. Rank three, again double range, triple inches. Twice as many portkeys and gateways, they can go eight hundred miles. New elemental plane available, power your house off the Storm Proxima with a jumper cable. Keeps going basically in this way - new thing at rank four is water proxima rifts, auto-stop if they fill up wherever they are so you can put one in your favorite tank or pool or aquifer and not overflow it. Rank five no limit to number of portkeys and gateways, run a whole interplanar port your own self if you like. Can place rifts by dead reckoning and no range limit. New proxima is Void, slurps things into it, don't do it near your you, they're creepsome and whispery and things in the void disappear after not too long."

"Creepsome and whispery, oh my! I think I'll take two ranks of that to start with, though depending how many points I've got left over after my current rampage I might come back for more. Who's next?"

"Windkeeping. It is like being The Zillionth Airbender. Also covers electricity. Rank one, mimic hand tools with pressurized wind - careful of sawdust though, goes everyplace when you stop concentrating and it all goes out - mimic slingshot, mimic normal fan from the hardware store. Rank two, higher power winds, hot or cold, optionally ultra-dry, never buy another bath towel. Stabilize your tool-ish winds for air chairs, air shelves. Static charge if you want one. Fly without your broom. Rank three, gale force, knock over a van, put some zap in your windy constructs so they swat people with a tazer in addition to a cannon strike. Immune to g-force, zoom as zoomy as you want. Survive in vacuum, no need to breathe and no explosive decompressing to do. Rank four, you are Storm X-men, make a cloud rain or hail with temperature change. Make a tornado for your arts and crafts. Voltage like a full on power line - stop hearts, or restart them. Rank five, make air out of nothing! Herd clouds for a great big storm with lightning! Lightning bolt things straight up!"

"I won't say I'm not tempted but it seems a bit silly to be flying without my broom when I'm putting so much work into my broom. What else you got?"

"Earthmoving. Makes you resistant to blunt force trauma, up to 'immune unless it's magic' rank three. Rank one you can teekay a bucketful of dirt, sand, mud, pebbles, all together or in fourish masses. Also makes you good at digging. Amount and force and range of earth and rock you can do stuff to goes up by some times each rank. New stuff at rank two is molding stone like clay, or making it ten percent its weight to haul around. Third rank make walls or towers or spikes or whatever erupt from the ground, instant barricades. Rank four, fissures and canyons, little earthquakes, catapult or skate yourself around with rocks. Rank five, make rocks explode, make them permanently light so you can build a floating city, concentrate earthquake power on a single spot to obliterate a whole mountain. Not on this planet with that one please, the mundies know where all the mountains are."

"Oh, that sounds like it would be so much fun for a less delicate flower than me. Maybe if I have a point or two left over after all my other nonsense. What else?"

"Naturalism! Plants and animals and mushrooms and even slightly germs. By rank three, immune to nonmagical harm from these - poison ivy for breakfast and run with the bulls as a morning jog and be fine. Talking to plants makes them grow faster for real, make them tastier or spikier or whatever. Animals that might already have something to say - cats, dogs, dolphins, the smarter ones - you can get the gist and give the gist to them too. Teekay of plants like plant is a snake or something. Rank two, all of this better and more animals have something to say. Graft traits from one thing to another thing without having to learn genetic anything about it - within kingdom only. Rank three, animals in general just as good as people and much more cooperative when you have things to say, go back to normal when you are done. Rank four, all of this better in all the usual ways, range and speed and such, and also an animal can stay smart after you smarten it and so can a plant. Rank five mostly numerical betternesses but also the awake plants can move themselves. I made my big butterflies myself."

"Your big butterflies are very charming. All right, let's see... how much have I spent so far, and how much is there left to cover? Maybe I have room to indulge myself, or maybe I have the opposite of that, let's find out."

"On four ranks Witchery, three Divination, two Alchemy and Portals, one each Curses Hexes Necromancy Consortation, and also Levitation and Broom Beast and twice Hybridize and your turning into a mist business, you've spent twenty-three points. Started with thirty, so, seven left to spend or supplement them with complications."

"All right. And nothing left to spend it on that I haven't already heard about? Then I should take another hard look at the drawbacks now that I know they make me permanently more magical than I could've been otherwise, and then figure out what else to spend points on." She sighs deeply. "I'm just not sure I can countenance a third nipple, even if it gives me extra magic. I like my skin! I like all of my skin! I like the number and placement of nipples I currently have! I do think I want to restrict Consortation, though. That gets me one more point than buying one of it, right? And I should decide if I can manage to have a taste for monster fighting, and, what else, figure out if I can soothe my wounded dignity enough to be willing to fumble quests... are you sure I can't just be paid less for the same work, I have to do the work badly?"

"Restricting Consortation instead of buying one rank for negative one points nets one point yes. It is not necessarily quest fumbling, it is a - fate thing - that must slow down how much you gain favor, and we cannot ask Hestia, from here, if she can sidestep by paying you half price. But it could be being distracted by more important things for quests, or refusing them for reasons, or messing up someone other's quest while on your own - it will just somehow happen to work out that you are paid half what you would be, somehow."

"...well, Hestia's supposed to be very chill about work-life balance, so maybe she'll understand if I just get very selective about my quests and try extra hard to do them right... and I can try to ask her about half pay when I get the chance. I'll take it. As for fighting monsters... I guess the question is, will windkeeping be useful to someone as flight-specialized as me besides in the redundant 'fly without my excellent broom' way? Because if so then I should take lots of windkeeping and the monsters to pay for some of it. And hope that future me does not curse my name for making her get into fights."

"Windkeeping remains useful! Can be for flying by most of it isn't. Most particularly useful if you find it awkward using broom as wand while it is broomish - did you want to take that?"

"Let's say three ranks of windkeeping and the monsters thing. Where does that leave me?"

"Again seven points, unless you do want the thing where you cannot do magic sans wand, would get you four more."

"Yes, I'll have the thing where I can't do magic sans wand. And the thing where I gain power slower and need to cross my fingers that Hestia will give me a pay cut if I ask for one. And restrict Consortation instead of taking a bonus point for it, and my clever little addiction if you still think it'll work."

"Addiction to the fantasizing? Think so."

"Right. Then I think I had a clever trick in mind where I was going to require exercise to do magic and then compel myself to exercise—how much exercise do I need, to make it work? If it's going to take two hours out of my day I may reconsider, that's a lot of hours all told. If it's twenty minutes I'll probably do it."

"One hour every day, or extra to make up slack. Strenuous, no sitting on a yoga mat doing stretching, but podcasts allowed while you run swim play soccer whatever. Never gets worse than fifty percent worse than best performance fixed up with five hours exercising. Two extra points if you let slacking instead drain you all the way - you are underlyingly elf not empusa, so not fatal. Exercise does need to be in chunks, half-hours at least, so compulsion slightly dicey but probably designable to be good for you."

"I was thinking I might compel myself to go out for a jog - a half-hour jog, I suppose - every time I tie my shoes. I suspect if I did this I would come to regret it, but it's so tidy, you see. With of course the option of tieless shoes for those times when a half-hour jog is just not in the cards. But aiming to manage it at least twice a day. How much in the way of magical riches would that come to all together? With, let's say, the two extra points for being reckless with my charge."

"If you tie your shoes twice a day usually to go for two jogs, eight. Plus four for the needing exercise in reckless version."

"And if the weather's miserable I can find a gym with a treadmill and bring a shiny pair of running shoes to it. And when I am trying on shoes in a store I will just have to bring a little barrette to secure the shoelaces with and decline to explain myself. I think it works! I'll take it. What else was there... am I forgetting any drawbacks? Oh, there were the limbs. I think I'm still going to keep my limbs. It would be so silly to do all this jogging and have no legs left to appreciate it. Right, how many points am I up to now?"

"Thirty-six! Get spendy!"

"Oh, I mean to! Let's see... I am so very sorely tempted by the fairy ring but I think I'll hold off on that until I've gone another round of less expensive purchases. I remember being tempted by alchemy and portals, I'll go up to three ranks on each of those, and up to three ranks each of earthmoving and naturalism too since I remember something about those coming with damage immunities and I love not being damaged by things. And I wanted the full stack of divination but shied away from the price, I'll take the full stack of divination. Am I in the red yet?"

"Not yet! Fifteen more to spend."

"What more can you tell me about that performance power from way back in the tidbits section? What counts as performance for it? If I want to be the world's most scintillating conversationalist at will can I do that or must I sing and/or dance and/or do standup comedy?"

"Must perform. Bardic arts, like. Conversation will not do."

"Is standup comedy a bardic art? Not that I hanker particularly for it, but it's good to know one's options."

"Standup comedy is! Also fake magic, with the cards and things..."

Lenore considers this.

"I am not," she says, "quite the person I would be, if I decided to pursue a career in faking fake magic with real magic and using more magic to draw spectacular crowds about it. But I've just imagined her and she's pretty fantastic. Okay, I'll take it. I might not have a use for it but it'll bring me joy just to have. Which leaves me with... thirteen points, I think? And is there anything left to spend it on that we haven't covered?"

"There are faction magics. You can only take them if you are going to affiliate, though."

"All right, tell me about factions and what it would mean to affiliate with them."

"Eff-why-eye, I am officially neutral! This is an awakener requirement. Every faction is full of pros and cons and amateurs and the innocent. All are big. All would squash me like the big butterflies if I were doing propaganda about somebody they didn't like. I am neutral. You do not have to be! I will not become offended."

"Understood. Go on."

"Each also has a little perk that comes with, but quick overview -

"Most popular in my years as awakener, Arcadia. Party college - good academics, but, relatively speaking, very party - but it is in a magic pocket dimension. Faction magic is called digicasting! It is like that Yugioh TV show almost - silly and fun making things from books and TV and suchlike come to life or lucid dreaming them. Efficiently conquer Skyrim or whatever it is you do in Skyrim while you are sleepy.

"Hawthorne Academia, ancient and traditional and extremely not party! Rigorous school - minimum power requirements to get in but you clear them by miles - and old-timey hitting-people kind of disciplinary situation and uniforms and mandatory classes but very good pass rate. Faction magic is wands - dovetails nice with your crutch complication - and it does many fun little utility dealies.

"Watchers! Abrahamic interfaith society. Probably does not play too nice with Hestia but they have Mormons and Shiites and Jews, oh my, all under their umbrella. Magic is summoning angels, like consortation but, well, angels.

"Hespatians! Many isolated cell-type covens, 'families', doing all kinds of arcane thises and thats. Usually not favored by Consortation-restricting types as they have headquarters in Hell. Faction magic called occultism - is rituals that do little utility things but spookier ones than the wands kind, and also you have to be very naked or very clothed and high ranks doing blood sacrifices of fuzzy animals or tantric funsies or both.

"Lunabella! Luxury kingdom on the moon. Absolutely lovely for visiting. Usually what makes people not want to stay is that full citizenship means you must be somewhere in their network of covenants - those are a faction magic but not, actually, Lunabella's - thus being, in a word, enslaved, but it is very different from anything called this on Earth. Faction magic is Dominion; it has a rank zero you can do without belonging, to just take a step back from reality and be in an empty bubble, good for private chats or dragging monsters away from collateral hostages. More ranks improve bubbles in size and creature comforts and control of features - maybe redundant with the fairy ring you so yearn for.

"Alfheimr! The Summer and Winter courts of the Feywilds. Summer is fancy and bureaucratic, many rules, lots of etiquette; Winter is wilder and shiftier and libertarian-er. Place is full of monsters to beat up too. Faction magic is covenants, binding promises for people who sign or go on your turf or whatever.

"The ORC! Magic law enforcement. Lots of them not witches but they will hire witches. Instead of magic they issue cool spy gadgets. Which might be magic. But thinking cool spy gadgets from Men in Black isn't far wrong.

"Alphazon! Giant megacorporation. Probably owns every giant megacorporation you have ever heard of. Agents get backed up to their servers, useful if you don't have your own immortality, mostly just not having privacy otherwise. They run the magic internet. Magic is called Integration, going full Inspector Gadget magitech. They have nanobots.

"Those are the ones I have to be neutral about. I do not have to be neutral about the outsiders. Those are Lovecrafty monsters. If you espy one run and tell the scariest person you know. I also do not have to tell you what throwing in with them would let you do, besides have your brain eaten into a gibbering horror."

"All right. I will pass on the interfaith society, the headquartered in Hell, the spy gadgets, the megacorporation, and the Lovecrafty monsters. I'm not so keen for my very own redundant bubble that I'll go be a slave on the moon about it. I'm wary of fey courts. I want to hear more about wand-related magic and what it's like at magic party college."

"Arcadia, magic party college, is awake all hours - classes flexibly timed, so sleep in and miss one and go to the other section that afternoon or that night as you like. Lots of field trips, practical hands-on lessons, free time. College town is full of stuff like arcades and cute shops, and pocket dimension has changing scenery redone from hot springs to rock climbing paradise to forest every now and then. Bonus perk is a watered down perk from anywhere else, twice, because of how they are so cosmopolitan.

"Hawthorne, strict old college, perk is a specialty wand they issue with the uniform. Rank one wands gets a light spell, small illusions, force bursts that can slap or push or pull or stab, a magic marker spell if you haven't a chalk or brush on you, make you or something else jump better, and counterspell things of same rank if you can catch them. Rank two has a light flash enough to make it hard to see, a sound version of same, removing or way increasing oxygen in a sphere, starting fires like a zippo but you can toss them, little electricity zaps, creating water like a hose, conjuring up a glob of gluey stuff that you can also eat if you really want to for some reason, and one that just hurts like a bullet ant... shall I go on?"

"This specialty wand of theirs, do I get to summon it back to myself if I lose it like I do with my broom? Does the wand-related magic work with my broom or only with their wand? What's special about their wand compared with any old wand? And yes I want to hear the rest." She considers. "Also, if you happen to know, does either Arcadia or Hawthorne have counselors on staff? Therapy-style not academic-advice-style."

"Not automatically; possibly you could ask it to be enchanted this way. Works with both - also works with some other things, you can use magic books and crystal balls and suchlike, your witchery rod is simply most convenient most times. Wand magic works with either, specialty one much stronger than rod or borrowed wand or something. I do not know but would guess that Arcadia yes Hawthorne no but this is guessing based on their respective modernnesses.

"Rank three wands does levitation, silence, a slash sort of attack, stopping one person from doing things for a moment, bit of earthmoving, bright daylight spell, sleep spell, extra disembodied hands to do things across the room. Rank four, mostly upgrades to prior things but also a voodoo dealie where harm is mirrored from one target to another, and a gravity control thing letting you do the Spiderman business. Rank five permanencies magical effects, very handy, or lets you contingency them for if-then fanciness, or slice up everything a lot in a big place, or a great big elemental or force attack in a line like you are a dragon with a wand for a mouth, and also this one lets you make things bigger on the inside, that one is lovely."

"That does sound lovely. It's a real pity that all this lovely wand magic goes with the school that probably won't want me to pursue my real career there. —my real career is therapy, it's what all the cool kids with massive emotional problems are doing. Not that I'm not happy to pounce on another opportunity when it comes up, but I just know I'm going to end up getting restless if I don't get to share my hard-earned wisdom. Maybe I'll just ask around and see who needs a mom friend."

"No real reason Hawthorne should not want you to be a therapist when you grow up but the curriculum is very magic. I have heard they have class meetings on health, physical mental spiritual? Not a clue if this is your thing."

"I can always finish getting my psych degree and then go to magic school afterward. Unless I can't."

"You can but how long is this to take? Can't put off a fate twist that long."

"And there's the 'unless I can't', right on cue. I'm only just starting so it'd be another four years. Probably not worth trying. The magic school has such enticing magic though! I guess for completeness' sake I should ask about the video game dream magic at Arcadia in case it's got unexpected useful bits."

"First rank is in fact mostly only playing games in your sleep. Or being in books or movies, it is flexible. Second rank though you can bring friends into the dream to all fight Sauron or whatever, and also take things out of the books or games. They do not have all their features and don't last long but they are light and strong. Third rank, skip the part where you sleep and just go into the game or book, bring friends, and also at this rank, you can go into the internet. Plus third rank and up all digicasters are sharing a world of a particular story, so if you are all joining the Avengers together, you can find things left behind by other people who have been being Avengers. Rank four, better constructs, act autonomously - still no special powers pulling Goku out of Dragon Ball or whatever but they make for very good children's birthday party guests, give the six year old all the Disney princesses. Rank five you can become full cartoon yourself any style, like Who Framed Roger Rabbit! Also go in and out of pictures and movies and stuff - resize as appropriate or be giant, your call - and can be two dimensional, slide through door cracks."