She's... not dead?

She has a very vivid memory of all her blood leaving her body.

How is she not dead?

Slowly, she opens her eyes.

She seems to have been napping in an excessively comfortable office chair. In front of her is a desk, and on the desk is a book, a slim leatherbound volume with an unfamiliar symbol stamped into its cover.

For lack of any better ideas, she opens it.

Introduction

Your world is one of countless worlds, some so close as to be nearly indistinguishable from your own, some so distant that the very foundations of physical existence there are completely alien to you.

This book was made in one such world. It comes to you now because you are needed. A distant world is under threat, and you have been chosen to save it.

Bound into these pages by enchantment and ritual are a number of cantrips: spells you can learn, and refine with practice into powerful tools of magic. Here also are several quests: tasks you can accomplish to gain more power. You will need that power to complete your ultimate goal.

Read through the book carefully. Think about what you might need. Then, spend your allotted points to gain cantrips and accelerate their growth. You can allocate points with an act of will, and revoke them the same way.

When you are content with your choices, close your book, place your hands on the front cover, and say the following words aloud:

I accept this gift and its burdens.

Your selection of cantrips will be finalized and you will be sent on to your destination.

The space in which you encountered the book was created to be a safe and restful haven for careful thought, and warded accordingly against mental damage from solitary confinement; but if you delay your choice long enough to test those wards, you will be sent on to your destination as soon as they begin to fail, with any unallocated points distributed randomly among available options.

The current status of the wards is healthy: more than one week remaining.

...she puts the book down.

She gets out of the chair and looks around the room.

(Her body is working again. Ease of movement, balance, effortless strength. Her Slayer powers are restored.)

It's not a large room. You could charitably describe it as "cozy". There are warmly glowing sconces on every wall, two apiece, and they keep the place bright without being glaring.

There isn't a door.

She sits back down and keeps reading.

Information

Cantrip Basics

Unless otherwise specified, each cantrip can be cast at will, as often as you want.

Schools: The ten schools of magic are Attack, Sensory, Protection, Healing, Summoning, Interaction, Enchantment, Manipulation, Travel, and Effect. Each cantrip belongs to one or two schools.

Upgrade Areas: Each cantrip has four Upgrade Areas, which begin at Tier 0 when you gain the cantrip. With practice, you can train them up to Tier 3. If you allocate points to an upgrade area, you will accelerate your growth in that area tenfold up to the level you purchased. Each tier includes the effects of all tiers below it where applicable, and you can choose to cast any cantrip at a lower tier.

When purchasing acceleration, point costs are not cumulative within an Upgrade Area: buying Tier 3 at the listed cost grants you Tiers 1 and 2 for free.

Focus: Some cantrips Require Focus. They take active mental effort to maintain, and it is very difficult to maintain more than one at once.

Except for Prestidigitation, every cantrip that Requires Focus has one Upgrade Area whose Tier 3 effect removes required focus from that cantrip.

A cantrip which both Requires Focus and has a listed Duration will only take active mental effort when trying to manage multiple simultaneous castings; it will be effortless when cast alone.

Overmagic: Once you have brought all four of a cantrip's Upgrade Areas to Tier 3, you can begin making progress toward its Overmagic. Each Overmagic is personalized to the caster, and grants one passive and one active effect. The passive effect cannot be suppressed except by the caster's will; the active effect exhausts the cantrip when cast, leaving it unusable for several hours, though the passive effect will remain. Active Overmagic often has a similar range, duration, method, etc. to its associated cantrip, but will usually be significantly enhanced in at least one and potentially several of those areas.

Unless otherwise noted, cantrips avoid harming the caster: a caster cannot be burned by their own Fire Bolt or put to sleep by their own Lullaby. It is possible to learn to use harmful cantrips on yourself intentionally, but it is always harder than using them the normal way.

Some cantrips summon spirits or other beings. In cases where a suitable source of beings is not available, or at the caster's discretion, Summoning cantrips may instead create them, using the summoner's own mind and soul as a sort of foundation or template from which to build a suitable spirit. These created beings are often consistent across separate castings of the same cantrip. (When a spirit is being summoned in their capacity as e.g. a dead person, and the spirit of that dead person is not available, the spell will fail rather than construct a facsimile. Spirits of the dead being summoned in their capacity as guides or wardens may be replaced if unavailable.)

Most Cantrips have specific listed durations; some take instantaneous effect and cannot be held for any significant length of time. The default cantrip duration is 1 minute, which can be assumed to apply to all holdable cantrips without a listed duration.

One advanced caster, or multiple casters working together, can overlap the effect of a single cantrip with itself by casting it multiple times simultaneously on the same target. While some cantrips stack straightforwardly when multicast in this way, others will be subject to diminishing returns: two overlapping castings might provide only one and a half or one and a quarter times the effect of a single cast.

This isn't how magic works. She has been specifically forbidden from studying magic due to addiction risk, but she has to know the theory to do her job, and this is not remotely how magic works.

Then again, resurrecting the dead is also traditionally very difficult.

...is she a vampire right now? She tries biting her hand. It hurts. She tries biting harder. No fangs are in evidence, though the base of her thumb is very bruised now. She wipes her hand on her pants and keeps readi—

These are different pants than the ones she died in. A completely different outfit. The pants are black, the shirt is dark blue. The fabric is really nice. She can't remember ever owning anything like it. It fits her perfectly.

After a moment to process that little mystery, she turns her attention back to the book.

Mastery Level

There are six possible Mastery Levels that describe how well a caster has trained a given cantrip.

	Mastery Level	Requirements
1	Novice	Able to cast cantrip
2	Apprentice	At least one area at Tier 2  OR All areas at Tier 1 or above
3	Journeyman	All areas at Tier 1 or above and at least one area at Tier 3  OR All areas at Tier 2 or above
4	Master	All areas at Tier 2 or above and at least two areas at Tier 3
5	Grandmaster	All areas at Tier 3 and Overmagic achieved
6	Archmage	Overmagic mastered

So far, so strangely akin to a tabletop roleplaying sourcebook.

What's next?

Training

When training a cantrip, you must spend a certain number of hours repeatedly casting that cantrip while focusing on pushing it to the limit in the areas you wish to train. The mental strain involved is similar to holding a cantrip with Required Focus, meaning that training a single cantrip with Required Focus is equivalent to holding two Required Focus cantrips at once under non-training conditions. Luckily, this strain does not increase when you train multiple areas of a single cantrip at once.

The amount of training required to train a cantrip to the next Tier in a certain Upgrade Area is the same as the point cost of purchasing acceleration to that Tier, and the number of hours required to achieve one point's worth of training depends on which tier you are progressing toward and how many areas you are training at once, like so:

Tier	One Area	Two Areas	Three Areas	Four Areas
0 to 1	8 Hours/pt	14 Hours/pt	18 Hours/pt	20 Hours/pt
1 to 2	20 Hours/pt	35 Hours/pt	45 Hours/pt	50 Hours/pt
2 to 3	80 Hours/pt	140 Hours/pt	180 Hours/pt	200 Hours/pt

Even if you don't train a cantrip, you can make slow progress with routine use. Routine use is at best ten times slower than active training, meaning it would take you 80 hours of solid casting with a single cantrip to gain your first point's worth of progress toward Tier 1 in one area, and you cannot make it more efficient by training multiple areas at once, nor can you direct your progress toward a specific chosen area; the progress you make in this way will land in arbitrary places, though lower tiers will always be completed before higher ones.

After you finish training a cantrip's Upgrade Areas, developing its Overmagic will require you to spend one thousand hours (or less, with acceleration) in focused meditation, contemplating the cantrip without casting it. You cannot meditate in this way while under any significant mental strain, such as training another cantrip or holding a cantrip with Required Focus.

Once you have developed a cantrip's Overmagic, it takes a further 10,000 castings of the Overmagic's active effect to master that Overmagic, at which point using the active Overmagic will be as easy as casting the base cantrip and will no longer exhaust it.

...if this was a thing that existed, in the world, at all, the Watchers would have noticed.

Well, no. The cantrips could all be useless things like, oh, Detect Cheese, and accordingly obscure and little-known. But the way this list is written really does not make it sound like the cantrip list is going to consist of six variants on Detect Cheese.

She gets up from the desk again, walks to one of the walls, and touches it. Smooth paint. Pale blue.

She punches it as hard as she can.

...there's no impact. Not even a sound or a flash of light, like you might get if an impact was being magically defused. Her hand just... stops, at the surface of the wall. One moment she is punching the wall and the next moment she is not punching the wall. The wall is not punched.

Unsettled, she returns to her seat.

Teaching

Once you have mastered a cantrip to at least the Apprentice level, you can begin teaching it to others. Under most circumstances, you can only teach someone to begin casting a cantrip at the Novice level; if they want to make further progress, they must train it on their own.

Teaching is incompatible with training: you cannot train any cantrips while teaching.

Unless you teach with Grandmaster or higher mastery, your student(s) will be limited to a certain number of uses of the taught cantrip per day.

The time it takes you to teach a cantrip, the level of preexisting magical ability a student needs in order to learn it from you, the number of students you can teach it to at once, the number of times your students will be able to use the cantrip per day once they learn it, and their potential for further training, all depend on your mastery level for that cantrip, as follows:

Mastery Level	Requirements	Class Hours	Class Size	Usages per Day	Improvability
Novice	Cannot Teach	-	-	-	-
Apprentice	Awakened magic capacity	300	1	2 to 3	None
Journeyman	Latent magic capacity	100	4	4 to 8	Up to Tier 1
Master	No requirement	40	9	9 to 16	Up to Tier 2
Grandmaster	No requirement	15	16	At Will	Up to Tier 3
Archmage	No requirement	5	25	At Will	Up to Overmagic

Even Detect Cheese would have revolutionized the magic-using world by now, assuming there has ever been an Archmage!

The introduction did say that this book came from a totally alien world, but by this point she's really starting to believe it. Though the possibility that it's some kind of insane prank also looms large.

Enchanting

Another way to increase access to cantrips is by enchanting them into items. You can do this with any cantrip you have mastered to at least the Apprentice level.

Enchanting is incompatible with training and teaching; you cannot enchant an item while training or teaching any cantrips.

When you enchant an item, you temporarily impair your ability to use the cantrip for a short while after you finish enchanting. The impairment stacks; if you impair your use of a cantrip by 80% and then 80% again, it will be down to 4% of its original effectiveness until the impairment expires. While a cantrip is below 10% effectiveness, you cannot enchant more items with it.

By default, enchanted items have a certain number of charges (which may be infinite) and lose their magic once all their charges are expended. At Journeyman or Master level, you can choose to instead enchant an item that has fewer available uses, but recharges all of them over the course of 24 hours.

The use of magic items is generally restricted to those who have some magic potential, although at the Archmage level you can get around that. You can also set your own restrictions on the use of an item; these are set as you enchant the item and cannot be changed afterward. By default, all such restrictions work on a whitelist basis, with new criteria adding more users rather than narrowing the pool further.

• "Broad group" restrictions are things like gender, species, or world of origin.
• "Specific group" restrictions are things like being related to a specific person, or having a certain disposition to a specific person, like "loyal to me".
• "Specific users" allows you to whitelist individual people you can identify.
• "Restricted users" allows you to whitelist individual people you can identify, but have the item set to revoke the access of anyone who fails a previous restriction.

The time it takes you to enchant an item with a cantrip, the level of impairment you sustain in the process, the maximum tier at which you can enchant the item, the number of times the item can cast the cantrip before being exhausted, requirements for who can use the item, and restrictions you can set on users, all depend on your mastery level for that cantrip, as follows:

Mastery Level	Time	Impairment	Power	Number of Uses	Potential Users	User Restrictions
Novice	-	-	-	-	-	-
Apprentice	20-30 Hours	80% for 5-9 Days	Tier 0	2-4 Total	Awakened magic	None Available
Journeyman	5-9 Hours	30% for 1-2 Days	Tier 1	10-16 or 2-4	Latent magic	Broad Group
Master	1 Hour	5% for 3-5 Hours	Tier 2	17-25 or 5-9	Any magic	Specific Group
Grandmaster	20 Minutes	None	Tier 3	At Will	Any magic	Specific Users
Archmage	5 Minutes	None	Overmagic	At Will	Anyone	Restricted Users

Either no one has ever progressed farther than Master in any cantrip at least as useful as Detect Cheese, or nothing like this has existed in her world. 20 minutes to enchant a reliable at-will magic item that works for anyone with the slightest speck of magical talent, ability, or incidental contamination? The masquerade would have fallen. Cheese detectors would litter the streets.

Quests

You have a very significant task ahead of you, and in order to complete it, you will need more than the power this grimoire could offer on its own.

Quests are automatically generated for a grimoire's recipient based on their particular strengths, weaknesses, needs, and abilities. They are designed to be feasible to complete, though not necessarily easy. Because of the nature of your task, your quests may be especially difficult, the better to offer you more power once you finish them.

All quests grant rewards. Some of them additionally grant points, which have already been included in your starting points total at the start of the Cantrips section. Some rewards take effect at the start of the quest, like the point rewards; others take effect when the quest is completed, which may be at the end of its timeframe or at the moment when you accomplish its goal.

Some quests, especially the more powerful ones, have penalties for failure. If you run out the quest's timeframe without finishing it, or if you violate the conditions of an ongoing quest, the penalty will apply. It is meant to be possible to complete all your quests without failing any, and this book will track progress and time limits so you can stay organized and not have to worry about maintaining access to a calendar or figuring out which things do and don't count.

It is meant to be possible...

Somehow, she can't find it in her to believe that.

Quest List

The Light of the Moon

Timeframe: 6 Months ⧫ Initial Reward: Points
Final Reward: Magical darkvision ⧫ Penalty: Reward retracted

You must spend at least one hour meditating under the light of each full moon. Cloud cover and other natural obstacles won't count against this, but being indoors or underground will, unless you are imprisoned or otherwise unable to reach the sky; in that case, meditate while the full moon shines.

Toil and Rest

Timeframe: 6 Months ⧫ Initial Reward: Points
💧 Final Reward: Substitute mental focus for any gestural component
Penalty: Reward retracted

Each day you must do one significant act of physical development, such as exercising for 20 minutes, and one significant act of personal restoration, such as having a hot shower or bath, eating a comforting meal, or meditating.

Fragile Hope

Timeframe: 1 Year ⧫ Initial Reward: Points
💧 Final Reward: Whenever you make a true friend, you generate and learn a new cantrip, whose attributes are formed based on you, your friend, and the relationship between you.
Penalty: Reward retracted, and you are cursed to speak more quietly the more strongly you feel.

At least once a week on average, you must make a sincere request of another person, either to do something you'd like them to do or to refrain from doing something that would make you unhappy. You can complete this quest early by forming a relationship in which you are fully comfortable making such requests.

Absolute Fealty

Timeframe: 1 Year ⧫ Initial Reward: Points
Final Reward: Immunity to mind control
Penalty: Reward retracted, and you become permanently more susceptible to mental control and influence.

You will be bonded to a complete stranger for the duration of this quest, such that with a mere thought they can command you, and you will understand and obey. Resisting their commands is possible, but if you ever resist strongly enough to break the command rather than merely delay it, you will immediately fail the quest. (Orders that would threaten your life or health, or interfere with your completion of other quests, will be invalid and carry no compulsion or consequences.)

Heart of the Arcanist

Timeframe: 1 Year ⧫ Initial Reward: Mage Hand free at Tier 1
Final Reward: Tenfold accelerated development of Mage Hand Overmagic (stacks with purchase)
Penalty: Lose access to Mage Hand, and all cantrips become significantly harder to control.

You must learn, via introspection and meditation, to sense magic directly without spells or tools, and to manipulate your own magic directly without casting any of these cantrips.

Voracious Reader

Timeframe: 1 Year ⧫ Initial Reward: Scholar's Touch free at Tier 1
Final Reward: Tenfold accelerated development of Scholar's Touch Overmagic (stacks with purchase)
Penalty: Lose access to Scholar's Touch, and randomly lose access to a single sense or Sensory cantrip each day.

You must read an average of at least two books every week that you have not read before.

Grimoire

Timeframe: 10 Years ⧫ Initial Reward: Ink-enchantment ability
Final Reward: A ritual for turning a magic book of cantrips into a true grimoire
Penalty: Your copy of this grimoire will vanish, and you will be stripped of all magic it granted.

You must construct a book, of at least 100 pages, that is made of exclusively magical components. Then you must fill it with one hundred different cantrips, each enchanted at the Master level into a separate page while writing the cantrip's name on the page with magical ink, a process which will leave the cantrip bound inertly into the book. This book has no direct use, but with the ritual granted by the completion of the quest, you can elevate it into a true grimoire like this one, binding it to your chosen recipient at the same time. You will be able to construct more books afterward by the same means, though it will always be a significant undertaking. The quality of the result depends substantially on the quality of the ingredients, so make sure to use the most magical components you can find.

My Focus Is Unparalleled

Timeframe: 5 Years
Initial Reward: Hold up to X castings of any Focus cantrip at once
Capstone Reward: Increase your effective Mastery level by one when teaching.

For every cantrip which Requires Focus (Prestidigitation excluded; 50 available) that you train to the point of removing required focus, add 1 to X. Capstone reward is achieved when X is 24.

Effective Improvement

Timeframe: 5 Years
Initial Reward: Selectively reduce the effects of a cantrip down to 1/X
Capstone Reward: With a few hours of meditation, you can establish a teachable variant of any cantrip you know to at least Master level that omits some of the original's effects completely.

For every cantrip with an Effect (56 available) whose Effect you train to Tier 3, add 1 to X. Capstone reward is achieved when X is 24.

A Little More Time

Timeframe: 5 Years
Initial Reward: Hold any cantrip for up to X times its natural duration
Capstone Reward: You can make spell effects permanent; each permanent casting exhausts the cast cantrip for 1/X years.

For every cantrip with a Duration (55 available) whose Duration you train to Tier 3, add 1 to X. Capstone reward is achieved when X is 24.

Compressed Casting

Timeframe: 5 Years
Initial Reward: Enchanting speed multiplier up to X
Capstone Reward: Increase your effective Mastery level by one when enchanting.

For every cantrip with a Method (41 available) whose Method you train to Tier 3, add 1 to X. Capstone reward is achieved when X is 24.

Aim Far

Timeframe: 5 Years
Initial Reward: Cast any cantrip at up to X times its natural range
Capstone Reward: You can cast cantrips originating from any of your active spell effects.

For every cantrip with a Range (39 available) whose Range you train to Tier 3, add 1 to X. Capstone reward is achieved when X is 24.

Overcharge

Timeframe: 5 Years
Initial Reward: In a single casting, multiply a cantrip's effects up to X times
Capstone Reward: You can multicast active overmagics as well as ordinary cantrips.

For every cantrip with an Intensity (32 available) whose Intensity you train to Tier 3, add 1 to X. Capstone reward is achieved when X is 24.

Finesse

Timeframe: 5 Years
Initial Reward: Add or exclude up to X specific targets when casting a cantrip
Capstone Reward: You can exclude from mass casts not just single targets but whole classes of targets, defined similarly to the "broad/specific group" restrictions on enchanted items.

For every cantrip with a Target (28 available) whose Target you train to Tier 3, add 1 to X. Capstone reward is achieved when X is 24.

Save the World

Timeframe: Indefinite ⧫ Initial Reward: Points
Final Reward: Dimensional navigation ability

Your new world is in danger, and you must save it.

Fragile Hope is baffling. Absolute Fealty is a horror story.

...there's how many cantrips available?

Cantrips

You begin with 240 points to spend. You have used 0 of them.

There are 100 cantrips in this book. Each costs one point to unlock. The point costs to purchase acceleration to higher tiers are listed individually. Purchasing overmagic acceleration costs 10 points every time, but is listed individually with every cantrip for display purposes.

...and then it's straight into the cantrips. She skims the titles briefly. Some of the names look familiar.

The list is really long.

She skips to the end to find out if there's more to the book. There isn't.

So... now what?

Every lesson she's ever learned as the Slayer is adamant that this can only be some kind of demonic trap.

But she followed the Watchers' rules diligently for three years, and where did that get her?

...she hates thinking such a disloyal thought. But maybe she is disloyal, now. Maybe being drugged and locked in an abandoned warehouse with a vampire is cause for disloyalty.

Even if she's suspicious of the Watchers now, though, that doesn't actually make them wrong about most things that promise you great power being demons.

...it really doesn't read like any demon she's ever heard of. Most demons don't actually promise you great power, and most of the ones that do, do it pretty straightforwardly. Not a lot of elaborate deception. The elaborate deceptions do happen, but they're rare. And she has the feeling that they're not usually so... hmm... the thing that's giving her pause here, she thinks, is that she is being called to save a world, and with a weird amount of apparent sincerity for a demonic plot. Being the Slayer was also supposed to be about saving a world. Even if she can't bring herself to feel loyal to the Watchers anymore, she does still feel loyal to that.

Could be just a well-crafted trap, though.

There is, at any rate, probably no harm in just reading through the cantrips. And she's curious. And it beats sitting here staring at her choice of doorless wall until the spell warding her against mental damage from solitary confinement (side note: what) wears off and kicks her out of Cozy Office Prison into the world she's meant to save. Or until the elaborate deceptions collapse and some other, probably worse thing happens. One of those.

Acid Splash: frankly, she hates it. The thought of deliberately pouring acid on another living being turns her stomach. She can hear Mr. Jameson's voice in the back of her head, lecturing her for being too squeamish, and then she can hear Mr. Jameson's voice saying "Cruciamentum", and now she would like to stop hearing Mr. Jameson's voice. What's the next cantrip?

Alarm: seems... fine? Seems fine. Useful in as many as several situations. Better than Detect Cheese. Not interesting enough to tempt her to actually try the 'act of will' necessary to allocate a point to it.

Alignment: ...she stares at this one for a long moment, and then turns to the next page.

Alter Object: this cantrip alone could completely change human civilization. Master three upgrade areas, build entire houses in seconds. Depending how generous Alchemical transformation is, the houses could potentially be built out of whatever dirt happens to be lying around at the construction site, if you can call it a construction site when construction is instantaneous.

And yet... she just can't bring herself to be excited, somehow.

Animal Aspect: Seems Fine. At lower levels it's mostly redundant with being the Slayer. The higher levels look interesting, but...

Animal Friend: ...she remembers a bit about summoning from earlier, and flips back to read it again. So... she can summon animals... but they might be made out of her somehow? She can't figure out how she feels about that. Moving on.

Arcane Eye: okay, this is the first one she's seen that's really kind of tempting on its own merits. She would love to hide somewhere and spy on things. Except... she actively doesn't want to upgrade her Eyes into Possessors. 'Upgrade' seems like a misnomer for that whole track. That is not the way in which she would like to upgrade an arcane eye. Next.

Banish: this would be really useful if she ever loses her powers again. She really doesn't want to think about that.

Bleed: Speaking of things she doesn't want to think about.

Blessing: ...this one's really nice, actually. A must-have, if she were actually going to choose some cantrips, which she really doesn't feel ready to start doing yet.

Blink: ...oh, she wants it. She wants to be able to run away from anything and everything instantly at will. She wants it.

She doesn't quite want it badly enough to actually try taking it, though.

Blood Money: —a possible interaction with Bleed pops unbidden into her head. She flips back to the start to double-check that you can use harmful cantrips on yourself if you do it on purpose. She flips back to Blood Money. Maybe with some extra healing... why is she even thinking about this? What's the next cantrip?

Charm: She stares blankly at it, and then flips back to the quest that lets you disable certain effects of cantrips you cast, and tries to figure out how much time it would take to raise the Effect upgrade area of 24 different cantrips to Tier 3, and gives up without really trying because she's daunted by the thought of doing that much math in her head. It would be nice to know what's going on in people's heads, how they work, what kind of people they are. It would be nice, but also kind of concerningly invasive, and she is absolutely not going to mind-control them just to get it, augh.

Circle: definitely has some tactical uses, but it does not really speak to her.

Cloudshape: this is so weirdly charming? Why is it so weirdly charming? It doesn't really seem that useful but... clouds fluffy.

Cog: speaking of weirdly charming! She could make a little guy! She does not really want to make a little guy. But she could make a little guy! If she wanted! Assuming this whole book is not just some form of horrible trick!

Color Ray: she's having a little of the Acid Splash emotion again. Admittedly it's not as bad as Acid Splash. Still. She thinks perhaps she might just not be a fan of Attack cantrips.

Commune: and now she's getting the Arcane Eye emotion. And this one doesn't even upgrade into weird possessing phantoms!

Counterspell: an obvious must-have if there's any chance she might encounter hostile magic. The part of her that's thinking about this list in purely tactical terms makes a firm mental note.

Crystal Shot: it's an attack cantrip. More viscerally upsetting than Color Ray, she thinks, but less than Acid Splash. If there's a cantrip more viscerally upsetting than Acid Splash, she doesn't want to meet it.

Dancing Lights: ehhh...hh? Ehh. Wait hang on you can upgrade the lights to be intelligent??? Why??? No!!! Wait, and the T3 Effect upgrade is random mind control! Could these cantrips please stop having random mind control!

Daze: ...at... least... the mind control... is more upfront on this one??

Detection: it's the Arcane Eye emotion again. And another tactical no-brainer.

Disguise Self: sounds like something someone who wanted to disguise themself might do. Well, no, that's not fair, freeform shapeshifting can be useful in a variety of ways. It doesn't speak to her, though.

Divination: she's suspicious of this one on 'nothing good ever came of prophecy' grounds.

Druidcraft: this is another one that's really sweet. She's not sure how she feels about being able to only temporarily make a tree into a person, but the description of tree personalities sounds nice. It might not be so bad, being friends with a tree.

Eldritch Blast: ugh, attack cantrips. This one's still not worse than Acid Splash but it's concerningly close.

Facsimile: weird? Doesn't look that useful? She takes a closer look at the higher tiers in case she's missing something, and oh, there it is. Voodoo dolls. What'd Mr. Jameson call it—sympathetic magic. No thanks.

Faerie Fire: why is this spell tagged healing? It makes fire? She scans the upgrades until she sees it: Refining, under Nature. 'Can include diseases or poisons'. Okay. Wait, it can burn your soul?! Even if it's allegedly burning away evil, yikes!! Burn away all your fear and doubt? Hell fucking no! (She could maybe, as a person, use a little less fear and doubt in—) not like that she couldn't

Featherfall: oh look, a nice, reasonable, useful, non-terrifying cantrip. What a relief. You go, Featherfall. Keep on keeping on, Featherfall. Keep on not being Faerie Fire, Featherfall. It's very good how you aren't Faerie Fire.

Fire Bolt: attack cantrips are bad.

Fist: —sixty times over—okay, attack cantrips are still bad, but it is undeniably true that, as the Slayer, it would be tactically ludicrous not to take this.

Fog: she looks up from the book and just spends a minute daydreaming about being veiled in a misty cloud that conceals her from everything. Then she looks down and sees that it upgrades to Toxic. Why are these cantrips so mean all the time?

Forcedisk: ...why? (She glances down at the Tier 3 upgrades.) Oh. Murder, that's why. And... shielding against physical force, probably. Shielding against physical force is useful. Murder is also useful, she just really doesn't like it.

Gate: ...it's like Blink but worse? Mostly worse? Somewhat worse. There are tradeoffs. She doesn't feel drawn to it, anyway.

Ghost Words: What's with all this temporarily giving things minds? If she's going to give something a mind, she would really rather it be able to keep it! She's not at all sure she will ever want to give something a mind, but she is nevertheless pretty sure of that specific part!

Glow: ...it's a lamp. It's a... wait, Revelatory? Purifying?? Okay, it is more than a lamp. It's probably tactically invaluable to have a lamp that burns away evil, but she can't help thinking of Faerie Fire and being disturbed.

Goodberry: an obvious must. Even at baseline, that's one minute to conjure a Meal Replacement Blueberry, which means all food needs taken care of forever.

Grease: icky. Weird. Kind of upsetting. Is there a spell to conjure the opposite of a huge puddle of smelly goo? She wants that one.

Guardian: she thinks about the concept of a being that exists solely to protect her from harm. She stares off into space. She tries not to cry.

You begin with 240 points to spend. You have used 30 of them.

Healing Hands: healing spells good. Healing lasers slightly weird, but healing spells good.

Heroism: at first it looks kind of nice, but then she notices that for some reason it also does random mind control. Sigh. And she feels kind of Faerie Fire about boosts to "courage, morale, and levelheadedness", too. Wait, it can shapeshift her to look more impressive and heroic? Why??

Hideaway: ...she stops herself from impulse-buying it, but it's a near thing. Yes please she would like to hide away in a cozy pocket dimension at will. She can train cantrips in there. And read books. And not have to deal with Absolute Fealty she probably cannot use this spell to escape Absolute Fealty.

Infestation: gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

Investigate: oh, what a good power to have. What a... maybe concerningly tempting power to have. Maybe she will stop reading this cantrip now.

Jinx: oh. She's found it. She's found the cantrip she hates more than Acid Splash. Awful. Can she do the opposite of unlock it? Can she delete it out of the book? No, she shouldn't try to delete things out of the book.

Jolt: yep, it's another attack cantrip.

Knock: oh, neat, a... lockpicking and/or door-busting spell. She doesn't feel very in need of busted doors. Maybe she will be more in need of them when she's trying to save an alien world. She's still feeling cautious about taking cantrips, though, even though she has now done it at least once.

Life Bubble: ...for when you have to go Slaying in space, she... guesses? Probably a good idea to take, though. Better to have and not need, and all that.

Lifelink: a healing spell for people with friends. No, that's not quite right. She could use it to heal people at a touch, which is neat. Still, she feels like Healing Hands was better. Also, reading the description of Bound under Target is just upsetting.

Lock: they rhyme. Maybe she can use it to lock her Hideaway against she probably cannot do that.

Longstrider: why is there an entire second spell that's like Blink but worse, and why is it so much worse than the first such spell? No, thank you, she would not like to get lost in the dimensional interstices, actually!

Lullaby: ...it's the least upsetting combat cantrip she's found so far, perhaps because it is also a healing cantrip. It is also, relatedly, not a very good combat cantrip.

Mage Armor: a spell to conjure clothes. N...eat? Neat. It would be nice to have a spell to conjure clothes. The clothes can also be upgraded to do cool things. That is also neat.

Mage Hand: oh, it's one of her free cantrips! It's highlighted already, with a little footnote symbol on all the free parts to denote that they're free. (She's so caught up in the formatting that she forgets to think about the spell.)

Magic Missile: that's definitely the name of a D&D spell. She can't tell if it's the same spell, though, she's never actually played D&D. This seems... like an attack cantrip. At some point she will have to reckon with her distaste for attack cantrips but now is not that time. At least this one is among the less distasteful ones.

Magic Weapon: the part about summoning a weapon at will is useful. The part about automatically knowing how to use it is indispensable, especially if she can use it to piggyback off the temporary(?) battle instincts and gain permanent skill improvements. It doesn't even say the battle instincts are temporary, not explicitly at any rate, but she's really not about to get her hopes up there.

Mark: ...mildly... concerning...??

Mask: ah. Yes. This is one of those absurdly tempting concealment spells. Though it's also... very much a solid tactical option. Stealth Slayer? Stealth Slayer.

Mending: another one of the "transform the global economy" spells. Also just really useful.

Message: for people who have someone they need to send a message to. Possibly a hostile message? Possibly that's concerning actually. Possibly she's concerned.

Minor Illusion: ...she doesn't really want this cantrip to exist. At least the illusions aren't solid to the touch, so there's that.

Mirror Image: what a weird spell. She can see the tactical uses, kind of? She'd rather just use Blink if she's going to teleport, and Mask if she's going to confuse people about what she's up to. Then again, Mirror Image combined with Mask... maybe.

Mold Earth: kind of neat. Would probably transform the global economy. Maybe where she's going they have a better global economy, though.

Muffle: a Stealth Slayer spell. She could put it on a stake! She has no evidence that stakes will be useful where she's going.

Murk: ...she could just not use the mean upgrades. She could just not use the mean upgrades, and be Fogged and Murked and Masked all at once and no one would ever see her again... no, wait, the duration can't be upgraded... no, wait, yes it can, she just needs to advance the appropriate metamagic quest. She indulges in a brief fantasy of locking herself in a cozy dimensional pocket full of concealing mists and becoming totally unobservable. Totally unobservable sounds like such a great way to be.

Navigate: oh, cool. Neat. Useful. Not all that exciting, but useful.

Pact: this spell heebies her jeebies. She can see how it might be theoretically useful under some circumstances but it heebies her jeebies so much.

Peacebond: absolutely the opposite of tactically useful, and yet, so tempting... so very, very tempting...

Penumbra: she will become so unobservable. And, also, extremely Stealth Slayer.

Phantom Steed: summoning spells generally seem sketchy but being able to go places quickly is cool. It's just so... not Blink, though.

Pocket: if you put a Pocket inside a Hideaway do you become twice as cozy she is pretty sure you do not. Undeniably useful, though.

Prestidigitation: what. What? What a weird spell?? And she's pretty sure this one also exists in D&D??? Did the people who wrote this book play a lot of D&D???? ...the utility is undeniable, though. Yes please she would like to be Clean Always Instantly Forever.

Purify: ah, for people who don't have Goodberry. Well, no. For people who may or may not have Goodberry but who also need to hydrate. Fair enough.

Raise Dead: absolutely not no thank you go away

Ray Of Frost: an attack cantrip. Maybe one of the least upsetting attack cantrips so far. Unfortunately all the least upsetting attack cantrips are also all the least useful ones.

Recollect: is there really anything about her life that she would like to remember more clearly? Can she get a spell for remembering less?

Rune: ...there is a spell... that puts runes on things... and maybe they tell you something... or maybe they tie you up... or maybe they explode... or maybe they magically boost you somehow??? That is too many different things for a rune to do. Also, do they have to be specifically runes, and do they have to be specifically read? Because most people these days can't read runes, actually. She feels that this spell has not been fully thought through.

Scholar's Touch: oh, it's her other free spell! Hello, her other free spell. A good spell. Will make it even easier to complete her book quest.

Scour: eeeeeegh. Upsetting. Acid-Splash-tier upsetting.

Scribe: well the printing press already exists so it's not revolutionizing the global economy anytime soon but it's still neat. No, brain, stop thinking about writing entire books in seconds, that can't possibly be how this works and also the last time you tried to write a story it was really bad.

Seance: ...so, wait, how does this spell work with the thing where if your spell can't find spirits it creates them...? She remembers something about spirits of the dead, but not the details. She flips back to that page to refresh her memory. O...kay. She's not sure how to tell whether a spell summons dead people in their capacity as dead people, but the paragraph does at least answer her question, sort of.

Shape Water: she doesn't even know why she wants this one, she just wants it. Well, okay, being able to turn six hundred thousand gallons of water into healing potion and wave it around at will does sound handy for some very specific situations. And it's a good water purification spell without being quite as redundant as Purify. And on a much, much bigger scale...

Spirit Bow: Magic Weapon already exists. ...she does like archery, though... wait, at higher levels you just get a gun?? Why?? Okay, admittedly they do do the job of bows much better unless you specifically need a projectile made of wood. And you can cast a cantrip at a lower tier deliberately, right? Right.

Stabilize: kind of a niche healing spell, but really good for its niche. Oh, hey, and she can use it to prevent herself from shriveling into a crone due to living her life thirty times faster. Neat.

Thunderclap: it's not even that upsetting as attack cantrips go, it's just... a lot? It's so imprecise.

Tongues: an absolute must-have for dimensional travel. She dithers for a second, then unlocks it. She can decide whether to spend any more points on it than that later.

Toughness: tactically invaluable for a Slayer on the go. Also synergizes with Fist. She is going to be so good at punching. She doesn't unlock it right away, though; it feels... like a big step, to unlock something that's directly about getting in fights.

True Strike: oh, wow, it's... not exactly another Magic Weapon, but definitely in that vein. How much better of a Slayer would she be, with this? But she's not unlocking it. Not yet.

Unseen Servant: okay, kind of useful. More than kind of. She's still not sure she's willing to get on board with summoning cantrips. But she could populate her hideaway with helpful blobs... she's just not sure she wants to get into the ethical implications of creating temporary beings who exist to serve her. That sounds like a dark wizard sort of thing to do.

Upgrade: it sure does upgrade things. Goodness. What does improving the functionality of an object by 300% even cash out to? Does it matter? The boost can linger... yeah, she wants this.

Vicious Mockery: the worst attack cantrip.

Vigor: an even better solution to the wizening problem, it looks like!

Warding Gesture: oh, this one's definitely good in a fight.

Web: eek?? Eek. In theory cantrips are supposed to avoid harming the caster but she's not sure she could bring herself to cast this one even so.

Wellness: oh, what a nice spell. Uncomplicatedly helpful.

Witch's Brew: well she doesn't love the name but she does kind of love the effect.

Okay. She has read all one hundred cantrips, although in some cases she skimmed the upgrades.

One hundred cantrips, and not a one of them is Detect Cheese. If Detect Cheese appeared on this list it would probably have upgrades that turned the cheese into little cheesy minions or something.

She should organize this list. She wishes she could take notes... ooh, the desk has a drawer. Does the drawer have stationery?

It does!

Eeeexcellent.

It is time... to plan.

—it's not that she doesn't still kind of think it's a trap. She does absolutely still kind of think it's a trap. It's just that, well, she has read this list of spells and she is now quite motivated to spend all her points so that none of them will randomly land on Acid Splash. And if she's going to spend all her points, she might as well spend them carefully, you know?

Right. So. Planning.

She pulls one of the plain yellow legal pads out of the drawer—there's three—and grabs a pen to go with it. It looks at a glance like a Bic Cristal, but when she looks closer, there's no BIC on the side.

...she takes a moment to contemplate the sheer weirdness of someone, somehow, constructing a dimensional pocket stocked with ordinary mass-produced office supplies with the branding stripped. It just implies such a specific range of possibilities for what the forces that created this space could do.

Maybe they bought a pack of Bic Cristals and then Alter Object'd the branding off.

Anyway.

She is going to make lists.

Utility

• Haste/Slow
• Tongues
• Vigor
• Goodberry
• Shape Water
• Purify (redundant with Shape Water and Goodberry?)
• Prestidigitation
• Alter Object
• Upgrade
• Mending
• Unseen Servant (maybe????)
• Mage Armor
• Pocket

Become Unobservable

• Hideaway
• Fog
• Mask
• Mirror Image
• Muffle
• Murk
• Penumbra
• Blink

Help and Healing

• Blessing
• Druidcraft
• Guidance
• Healing Hands
• Heroism (troubling)
• Life Bubble
• Lullaby
• Stabilize
• Wellness
• Witch's Brew

Information

• Arcane Eye
• Investigate
• Tongues
• Commune
• Detection
• Divination (maybe)
• Alignment (maybe)
• Charm (not worth it)
• Scholar's Touch

The Slayer List

• Fist
• Toughness
• Counterspell
• Magic Weapon
• True Strike
• Featherfall
• Forcedisk
• Spirit Bow
• Warding Gesture
• Ray of Frost

Focus Required: Alignment, Alter Object, Animal Friend, Arcane Eye, Banish, Charm, Cloudshape, Cog, Dancing Lights, Detection, Disguise Self, Divination, Druidcraft, Facsimile, Faerie Fire, Featherfall, Gate, Ghost Words, Guidance, Gust, Haste/Slow, Healing Hands, Heroism, Infestation, Investigate, Life Bubble, Lifelink, Lock, Lullaby, Mage Hand, Magic Weapon, Mask, Mending, Message, Minor Illusion, Mold Earth, Navigate, Penumbra, Phantom Steed, Prestidigitation, Purify, Recollect, Scholar's Touch, Scribe, Seance, Shape Water, Spirit Bow, Stabilize, Toughness, True Strike, Unseen Servant

Effect: Alarm, Alter Object, Animal Aspect, Banish, Blessing, Circle, Color Ray, Crystal Shot, Dancing Lights, Daze, Disguise Self, Divination, Druidcraft, Eldritch Blast, Facsimile, Featherfall, Fist, Fog, Gate, Ghost Words, Glow, Goodberry, Grease, Guidance, Gust, Haste/Slow, Heroism, Infestation, Knock, Life Bubble, Lifelink, Lock, Lullaby, Mage Armor, Magic Missile, Magic Weapon, Mark, Message, Minor Illusion, Murk, Navigate, Pact, Peacebond, Penumbra, Pocket, Purify, Recollect, Rune, Scribe, Seance, Shape Water, Stabilize, True Strike, Upgrade, Vigor, Wellness, Witch's Brew

Duration: Alarm, Alter Object, Animal Aspect, Animal Friend, Arcane Eye, Bleed, Charm, Cloudshape, Cog, Daze, Disguise Self, Druidcraft, Facsimile, Faerie Fire, Featherfall, Forcedisk, Gate, Ghost Words, Glow, Grease, Guardian, Guidance, Gust, Haste/Slow, Healing Hands, Heroism, Hideaway, Infestation, Jinx, Life Bubble, Lifelink, Lock, Longstrider, Mage Armor, Magic Weapon, Mark, Mask, Message, Minor Illusion, Mirror Image, Pact, Peacebond, Phantom Steed, Prestidigitation, Ray of Frost, Spirit Bow, Stabilize, Tongues, Toughness, Unseen Servant, Upgrade, Vicious Mockery, Vigor, Warding Gesture, Wellness

Method: Alignment, Animal Aspect, Arcane Eye, Banish, Bleed, Blessing, Blink, Blood Money, Charm, Circle, Commune, Counterspell, Featherfall, Gate, Ghost Words, Glow, Goodberry, Guidance, Healing Hands, Investigate, Jolt, Longstrider, Mark, Mending, Muffle, Peacebond, Purify, Raise Dead, Recollect, Rune, Scholar's Touch, Scribe, Seance, Stabilize, Toughness, True Strike, Upgrade, Vigor, Warding Gesture, Wellness, Witch's Brew

Range: Acid Splash, Alignment, Arcane Eye, Banish, Blessing, Blink, Circle, Color Ray, Commune, Counterspell, Crystal Shot, Dancing Lights, Detection, Divination, Druidcraft, Eldritch Blast, Fire Bolt, Fog, Gate, Glow, Grease, Infestation, Jinx, Jolt, Lullaby, Mage Hand, Magic Missile, Mending, Message, Mold Earth, Muffle, Murk, Navigate, Ray of Frost, Scour, Seance, Shape Water, Thunderclap, Web

Intensity: Acid Splash, Bleed, Charm, Cloudshape, Color Ray, Counterspell, Daze, Detection, Divination, Druidcraft, Fire Bolt, Gust, Haste/Slow, Healing Hands, Investigate, Jinx, Jolt, Knock, Lock, Longstrider, Lullaby, Magic Missile, Mending, Pact, Penumbra, Prestidigitation, Ray of Frost, Scour, Thunderclap, Upgrade, Vicious Mockery, Wellness

Target: Alter Object, Banish, Bleed, Blink, Cloudshape, Commune, Counterspell, Disguise Self, Featherfall, Ghost Words, Guardian, Haste/Slow, Heroism, Investigate, Jinx, Knock, Lifelink, Lullaby, Muffle, Navigate, Scholar's Touch, Scour, Tongues, Toughness, True Strike, Vicious Mockery, Vigor, Witch's Brew

Utility

• Haste/Slow (F E D I T)
• Vigor (E D M)
• Goodberry (E M)
• Shape Water (F E)
• Purify (F E M)
• Prestidigitation (D I)
• Alter Object (F E D T)
• Upgrade (E D M I)
• Mending (F M R I)
• Unseen Servant (F D)
• Mage Armor (E D)
• Pocket (E)

Become Unobservable

• Hideaway (D)
• Fog (E R)
• Mask (F D)
• Mirror Image (D)
• Muffle (M R T)
• Murk (E R)
• Penumbra (F E I)
• Blink (M R T)

Help and Healing

• Blessing (E M R)
• Druidcraft (F E D R I)
• Guidance (F E D M)
• Healing Hands (F D M I)
• Life Bubble (F E D)
• Lullaby (F E R I T)
• Stabilize (F E D M)
• Wellness (E D M I)
• Witch's Brew (E M T)

Information

• Arcane Eye (F D M R)
• Investigate (F M I T)
• Tongues (D T)
• Commune (M R T)
• Detection (F R I)
• Divination (F E R I)
• Alignment (F M R)
• Scholar's Touch (F M T)

The Slayer List

• Fist (E)
• Toughness (F D M T)
• Counterspell (M R I T)
• Magic Weapon (F E D)
• True Strike (F E M T)
• Featherfall (F E D M T)
• Forcedisk (D)
• Spirit Bow (F D)
• Warding Gesture (D M)
• Ray of Frost (D R I)

F: |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| - 24
E: |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| - 25
D: |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| - 25
M: |||| |||| |||| |||| ||| - 23
R: |||| |||| |||| - 15
I: |||| |||| |||| - 14
T: |||| |||| ||| - 13

Information

• Arcane Eye (F D M R)
• Investigate (F M I T)
• Tongues (D T)
• Commune (M R T)
• Detection (F R I)
• Divination (F E R I)
• Alignment (F M R)
• Scholar's Touch (F M T)
• Navigate (F E R T)

The Slayer List

• Fist (E)
• Toughness (F D M T)
• Counterspell (M R I T)
• Magic Weapon (F E D)
• True Strike (F E M T)
• Featherfall (F E D M T)
• Forcedisk (D)
• Spirit Bow (F D)
• Warding Gesture (D M)
• Ray of Frost (D R I)
• Animal Aspect (E D M)
• Banish (F E M R T)
• Circle (E M R)
• Magic Missile (E R I)

Metamagic Filler

• Gate (F E D M R)
• Glow (E D M R)
• Grease (E D R)
• Message (F E D R)
• Mold Earth (F R)

F: |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| - 24 29
E: |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| - 25 34
D: |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| - 25 30
M: |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| ||| - 23 28
R: |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| - 15 24
I: |||| |||| |||| - 14 15
T: |||| |||| |||| - 13 15

Metamagic Filler

• Gate (F E D M R)
• Glow (E D M R)
• Grease (E D R)
• Message (F E D R)
• Mold Earth (F R)
• Bleed (D M I T)
• Blood Money (M)
• Cloudshape (F D I T)
• Gust (F E D I)
• Knock (E I T)
• Lock (F E D I)
• Longstrider (D M I)
• Pact (E D I)
• Jolt (M R I)
• Color Ray (E R I)

F: |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| || - 24 29 32
E: |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| - 25 34 39
D: |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| | - 25 30 36
M: |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| || - 23 28 32
R: |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| | - 15 24 26
I: |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| - 14 15 24
T: |||| |||| |||| ||| - 13 15 18

Okay. So.

It is now, she thinks, time to spend points unlocking all these cantrips.

She goes through and does it. Vigor, Goodberry, Shape Water, Purify, Prestidigitation, Alter Object... on and on and on.

When she gets to the end of the Slayer List and checks, she has spent 80 points, and... she feels like she's missing something? What is she... oh right. She never wrote down Mage Hand even though she has it for free from that one quest.

She dutifully records it in the last spot in Metamagic Filler even though it probably belongs somewhere else. Mage Hand, F R.

And with that taken care of, she proceeds through the Filler list. Grand total: 100 points spent.

Now... how does she figure out where to spend the rest?

And, given her tallying issues thus far, she should perhaps make a point of reorganizing her lists and double-checking that she really does have all the cantrips she needs to get 24 for each metamagic quest.

F: |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| - 35
E: |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| | - 41
D: |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| ||||| - 40
M: |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| | - 31
R: |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| - 25
I: |||| |||| |||| |||| ||| - 23
T: |||| |||| |||| |||| || - 22

I: |||| |||| |||| |||| ||||
T: |||| |||| |||| |||| ||

Intensity: Bleed, Cloudshape, Color Ray, Counterspell, Detection, Divination, Druidcraft, Gust, Haste/Slow, Healing Hands, Investigate, Jolt, Knock, Lock, Longstrider, Lullaby, Magic Missile, Mending, Pact, Penumbra, Prestidigitation, Ray of Frost, Upgrade, Wellness
Total: 24

Target: Alter Object, Banish, Bleed, Blink, Cloudshape, Commune, Counterspell, Disguise Self, Featherfall, Ghost Words, Guardian, Haste/Slow, Heroism, Investigate, Knock, Lifelink, Lullaby, Muffle, Navigate, Scholar's Touch, Tongues, Toughness, True Strike, Vigor, Witch's Brew
Total: 25

This is hard, and she's tired, and she just died, and she has not remotely dealt with that, and, looking back over her life, she suspects that "she has not remotely dealt with that" should be carved on her tombstone, if she even gets a tombstone instead of rising as a vampire and eating Mr. Jameson. Mr. Jameson was probably doing his best, sort of, at least by Watcher standards, and does not deserve to be eaten by a vampire-Slayer. Maybe the fact that she's here in this room means she won't be rising as a vampire? But maybe it's just her soul that's here, and her body is back on Earth being inhabited by an evil demon who, she suspects, probably really wants to eat Mr. Jameson, and/or thinks it would be funny. She, personally, does not think it would be funny.

If she's lucky, that vampire who catcalled her has no idea what he just drank and will be leaving her in a heap on the ground like vampires often do in that park. If she's not lucky... well. She doesn't remember being fed vampire blood, but she was not super with it at the time. It could've happened. Or he could've waited until she lost consciousness, to make it a nice surprise for the demon he invites into her body.

This is a really depressing line of thought. She should be thinking about getting cool magic powers, instead.

She tries to think about getting cool magic powers, but somehow she ends up thinking about what life would be like after failing all those quests. No cool magic powers, cycling through different lost senses every day, permanently more susceptible to mind control, intermittently mute... all in all, better than being a member of the evil undead, but maybe not better than being regular dead, actually. It's the permanently more susceptible to mind control part that's haunting her particularly.

Well. Look on the bright side. All she has to do to avoid that specific fate is whatever her stranger tells her to do, and she's great at that, nearly all of the time, recent events notwithstanding.

Hmm. This attempt at cheering herself up has led to her staring at the floor thinking wistfully about crying but not feeling like she can muster the energy to actually cry. Not ideal.

She rubs her face with both hands, and gets up and walks around the room again. Does some stretches, just to have something to do that isn't mope.

Okay. Assume that she lands in an alien world that needs her to save it, and she doesn't speak the local language, and she doesn't have food or water or shelter. What are the first things she'll need?

Tongues. Goodberry. Shape Water and/or Purify - maybe Purify to start with. Mage Armor in case she lands naked. Something for shelter... Alter Object, Mold Earth? No, she might as well use Hideaway, that's sort of the thing Hideaway is for.

Vigor, for Haste-training purposes. Fist and Toughness and Counterspell for Slaying purposes. The rest of the Slayer Basics, if she can manage them.

All right then. She sits down and looks over the list.

The upgrades on Tongues are mostly not that relevant to getting by in an alien world. Depth, maybe, but Depth isn't a metamagic area and she wants to prioritize those.

Goodberry's Effect and Method both seem worth upgrading faster. She puts them both up to 3; she can always take them back down again.

Purify is the same way.

Mage Armor's Duration seems very important, considering.

Hideaway doesn't work well as a shelter without some Duration on it. She allocates the points and also takes a quick peek at Alter Object and Mold Earth, as her shelter alternatives. Okay, Alter Object really can't function as a shelter alternative without some serious training, what about Mold Earth? Sure, she can put some points into Range for Mold Earth.

Vigor: the thing she needs it for is at the very end of Effect. It also has a Method, Target, and Duration, so she throws some points into those while she's here.

Fist has an Effect, but she's not that thrilled about it. Toughness has a Method, Target, and Duration and she would like all of them. Counterspell has Method, Intensity, Target, and Range, and she would like all of those. How many points has she spent? 228 out of 240, so that's... 12 left? What can she spend 12 more points on...

...she takes a peek at Mask. Yes, yes, she should probably be looking into Slayer Basics instead. But, when you get right down to it, she really wants to be unobservable. Maximize Duration, that's 5 more points, 7 left... she can grab Depth up to Tier 2 and Nature to Tier 1 and then that's that, she has allocated all 240 of her points. Done.

She is immediately assailed by self-doubt.

Maybe she should pull those points out of Mask and put them into something else? Warding Gesture? Warding Gesture has Duration and Method...

...she wants Mask, though... and it'll be really good for stealth slaying, if she gets it bumped up high enough...

She sighs, and deallocates those twelve points from Mask's upgrades, and takes Warding Gesture's Method and Duration both to 3 instead.

Okay. She has now allocated all her points to useful places, and only ended up needing to take a very small number of cantrips that are upsettingly violent or sketchy, and every allocated point that's not unlocking a cantrip is accelerating getting her a metamagic tally.

That is, she thinks, a pretty good lineup. Practical. Useful. Doesn't leave over any points that could get randomized into bad places.

Her heart still wants Mask, or maybe Penumbra, but her heart is just going to have to shut up, because she doesn't know where she's landing but she can expect to have a hard time there and it would be really very silly of her to prioritize her daydreams over her basic physical safety.

—wait, hang on—

She pulls the twelve points out of Warding Gesture, and flips to Detection. Intensity to 3, Range to... darn, she can't afford to push it all the way. Maybe if she deallocated Fire Bolt...? No, she shouldn't deallocate Fire Bolt. She puts her two remaining points into Tier 1 of Result instead. It's not a metamagic area but it is, she thinks, probably worth it, to have magically improved situational awareness. Situational awareness is very important.

She should, she thinks, go through the whole list of cantrips and find all the ones she's not taking and decide whether she should instead take them. That's the sensible thing to do. She doesn't really want to, but it's definitely the sensible thing, nonetheless.

How long has she been here? It's hard to say. There aren't any clocks. She doesn't feel hungry or thirsty or tired, but perhaps she's being protected against damage from those things too.

She gets up. She walks around the room, twice clockwise and then once counter-clockwise, trailing her fingers on the wall. It feels like it should feel cramped and trapped and tiny, but it doesn't. It feels comfortable and safe. Like a Hideaway.

She sits down again.

Cantrips Not Taken
Alarm (E D) not that useful
Animal Friend (F D) summoning
Charm (F D M I) bad
Cog (F D) summoning
Dancing Lights (F E R) not that useful
Daze (E D I) bad
Eldritch Blast (E R) attack
Facsimile (F E D) bad
Faerie Fire (F D) bad
Infestation (F E D R) bad
Jinx (D R I T) bad
Minor Illusion (F E D) bad?
Phantom Steed (F D) summoning
Raise Dead (M) bad
Recollect (F E M) upsetting
Rune (E M) weird
Scour (R I T) attack
Scribe (F E M) no good reason
Seance (F E M R) summoning
Thunderclap (R I) attack
Vicious Mockery (D I T) bad
Web (R) upsetting

If she deallocates the Detection areas that she only partially accelerated, she frees up five points, so that can be her extra cantrips budget. Scribe is first. Dancing Lights second. Recollect next, maybe? She could help people with it, at high enough levels. Or teach it to people so they can help themselves. Two points left... Alarm maybe. One point left. What should she pick up with her last point?

Hmm... her pen taps against the page, bouncing next to Phantom Steed. She doesn't think she especially wants Phantom Steed, and it isn't that useful in the metamagic department...

Metamagic-wise, she obviously should take Seance, which is the best available metamagic spread among cantrips that are not actively evil. However, for one thing, she's not completely sure that it isn't actively evil; Mr. Jameson has had some choice things to say about magic users who consort with spirits. And for another thing... Cog is cuter she should not make this decision based on Cog being cuter.

It is cuter, though.

What else could she take, though? Rune?? Rune is so weird and it's not clear how it works and most of what it can do is sketchy...

She sighs, tiredly. Maybe she will allow herself this one tiny self-indulgence. Cog it is. She'll probably never cast it.

Now, the thing is, if this whole setup is a trap, putting her hands on the book and saying the thing would just be asking for trouble. And if it's not, then she goes ahead to her destination as soon as the spell fails. So it's obviously the wrong move to do it, and she should just wait it out instead.

She lies down on the floor, and daydreams about being safely tucked away in a cozy dimensional pocket where nothing from the outside world can ever find her.

Her daydreams turn to thoughts of being found by the stranger from Absolute Fealty, so she gets up and practices martial arts instead, careful not to hit the desk or the lights on the walls. The space is a bit cramped for it but that just makes it a useful challenge. If she keeps her body moving it can leave her thoughts behind.

Beat up the air, take a breather, do the short stretch routine, do the longer stretch routine, walk around the desk five times each way, do the really long stretch routine, repeat.

She sits down and tries to read over her lists but she can't make herself focus. And she didn't write down the extra cantrips she took at the end, just allocated the points directly. That was silly of her; now she'd have to page through the book and match them against her latest list to figure out what they all are... Scribe was on there, right? Scribe and Alarm and Dancing Lights and Recollect and... Cog. Right. She sighs and scribbles them halfheartedly on the same page as her latest list, off to the side. Maybe Recollect was a good pick after all.

She should have needed to sleep by now. She lies down on the floor again and tries it.

So that was a bust.

Back to martial arts practice. At least she'll be in top shape when she lands. Assuming that the sense in which she has a body right now is meaningfully applicable to her destination, which is pretty up in the air considering that this might all be some hallucination of her dead captive soul.

Somehow she finds herself sitting on the floor, tucked as far as possible into one of the corners behind the desk, hugging her knees and trying very hard not to think about Absolute Fealty.

Commands that interfere with her other quests don't count, right?

And she has all those metamagic quests. She hasn't done the math, but she's pretty sure it's going to take her a really long time to get through all that training.

So maybe if she just lands with a ferocious determination to spend every waking moment training for metamagic except when she needs time off to save the world, then her stranger won't be able to do much to her. Oh, she has other quests too—every waking moment training for metamagic except when she needs time off to save the world, read books, pray to the moon, work out, take naps, meditate on her magic, and, um... make sincere requests...? She can sincerely request that her stranger be nice to her, unless it turns out that that makes them meaner, in which case she can... go to a restaurant and sincerely request a nice meal, which may also count as an act of personal restoration? But regardless: training. Training might save her.

She gets up and goes back to martial arts practice, but this time continuously muttering under her breath, "train haste train haste train haste train haste train haste..."

"Train haste, train haste, train haste..."

"Train haste. Train haste. Train haste."

"Train h—"