"But it was probably not exactly that."

"Yeah, because I might have had less if the mana thing does a weird rounding thing that I wouldn't expect but then again it's magic, or it might have been more because I probably have some leftover mana now? Except 'probably' doesn't really apply, because again, magic."

"Yeah, but like, it only seems to fuck up just as we're running out of mana, and subsequent tries just don't work at all, so I think it might be because we're trying to draw from empty reserves? But then where does the magic to do the effects that do happen come from...?"

And Willow returns presently!

"It's possible it does it when if you'd complete the spell it'd lower you beneath the amount required for the special effect?"

"And seems to consume whatever mana you have left anyway, yes."

"Well, at least consumes enough to drop you below the threshold for doing another piece of paper, yeah, but it might not drop you quite to zero? It might depend on the effect, though it's not like that's– particularly helpful. I guess we could time how long it takes me to, if I keep trying to charge a piece of paper, get to the stage where it does a weird effect again?" Shrug. "That might take a long while though – we don't know if the recharge rate is very high, or if it improves when you sleep or run around or what."

"Woo, testing! Maybe you pick it up from the surroundings if you're in a place with magic. Or maybe that prevents you from recharging for some reason. Or maybe it does exactly nothing."

"Threshold for doing pretty much anything, I think you mean, since we could do no other magic, and in that case we might as well call that threshold 'zero.'"

"And there might not be a recharge rate."

"Which is a horrible idea but at least Tyler and I still have some magic left over and so we can just be really conservative with it and see if there's a way to do a spell specifically to get more mana, can't we."

Theo… does not look super happy about this idea, but he replies to Juniper, "The different failure things – candyfloss and pink skin – might take different amounts of mana, so they might drop you different amounts, meaning 'zero' might fluctuate if we base it on where they occur or where they take you to?"

"Yeah, we'll need to test that."

Sadde returns! Not covered in feathers, and wearing clothes that aren't hers!

"Hi!" says Theo. "So it seems the magic worked to– make the feathers less stuck, then."

"Well, it did turn their, er, 'stems' into liquid, so I suppose so." She looks around. "Any new conclusions and experiments to run?"

"Well, Theo was able to write another symbol thing, after un-pinking himself, before he ran out of mana or whatever – then it turned to candyfloss – but other than that we were just talking about what sorts of stuff could confound the mana thing, if it– uh, if it recharges, stuff like that. I think."

"If- okay, yeah, hadn't thought about that, eech."

"Yeah," she says. "Um, horrible as it is, on the bright side at least Tyler and I still have mana? And presumably there must be some way to get it back unless people are just really careful with the spells they can— okay, eugh," she says, thinking about it. "That would explain too much, I think, eugh."

"… It would," agrees Theo after a few moments. "It would explain why so few sorcerers actually seem to get anywhere, or why so few get immortality, I think, yeah, agreed, ugh. I really hope it's not like that."

Jess watches from her seat. Slightly sympathetically, but then again, she never had any magic anyway.

Tyler still has a bit of mana left, presumably. So he's mostly okay, here – he thinks he can construct a spell to do at least some useful things with what he has left.

Would be better to have more magic potential available, though.

"Clow could do lots of spells," Kero ventures.

"… Okay, so there's presumably something for mana then," says Theo. A little bit hopefully.

"So are we gonna do any more experimenting tonight?"