"If you want to test it..."

"Maybe at some point," he says, looking slightly conflicted. "How's, uh, have you tried doing any lumen?"

"There is a distinct sensation in the spaces I focus on but I haven't made any light that way yet. It seems to want a 'twisting' motion I can't do enough of or something."

"Have you tried actually touching the space you focus on? In case it actually physically feels different, I don't know?"

"Yes. It feels weird."

"… Like a light tug?"

"...yeah, like that."

"Sounds like it's definitely a lumen thing then, even more than it did before." Shrug. "I should maybe get to the water purification thing."

"Sure. Lemme know if you have any questions."

She has as before brought her own stuff to do.

So he sits down and gets to the water purification thing.

It's probably weird because they're in a different location, right?

Yes, that will slow him down, he has to reevaluate the sorcerously relevant features of the place.

He does.

… After a bit, he decides that he should also investigate if lumen messes with it, since he hasn't done that yet. He summons a blob temporarily, trying to see if there are any immediate major changes to the surroundings – probably not, because Promise was still invisible while he was writing at her, but still. He's not actually testing the blob itself yet.

"If you do that you'll affect the ambient light and maybe heat conditions," Promise says. "I might want to do that to make the area more complicated for a rival sorcerer and more known to me but you probably don't want to do anything that complicated." She idly grabs at some air.

The air is somewhat grabbable, as she has found it to be before! Maybe slightly more so – it's been getting more grabbable over time.

"Oh, right," he says. "I'm not sure it actually does major changes to the surroundings, though, so it might not be that helpful in complicating things."

"If I phossed myself on and off, say, I might be awkward to target," she says. "And I can see lumen, so it is affecting light conditions a little." C'mon, lumen, happen.

"Oh, true," he says.

She feels like her twisting is– a bit off, like she's doing it in the wrong axis or something. If she metaphorically tilts it a bit, though, she notices that it feels like an actual motion, and it clicks into place.

Simultaneously, a rather small blob of brown lumen appears in the center of the bit of air she's focusing on, and she should notice what he means by a proprioceptiony feeling. It seems to have a few 'directions', but it's somewhat slippery to hold in place.

Purple doesn't seem to notice, seeing as he's facing away from her.

"Oh! I think I did it!"

He turns around and notices it, just as she loses her grip.

"Oh, congrats!" he says anyway, smiling. "… Lumen defaults to your eye color, by the way, not sure if I mentioned that yet."

"How do I change it?"

"Um. When you actually had it, did you have the, like– directions you could pull or twist or whatever it? One of those messes with the color. It's the same across different bits of lumen, but for me it's– uh, I drag it across colors, so, it's not very easy to explain, I don't think." He makes a bit of a face. "It feels color-y?"

"...okay, I'll mess with it, now I know I can manage it at all properly."

"Yeah," he says. "Sorry that I'm… pretty bad at explaining it."

But back to the water purification he gets.

Promise turns around so not too much of the light will affect the local environment of him and the water.

That's very considerate of her! Purple continues working, hopefully making decent progress on things.

With Promise, meanwhile, it takes a bit before she can actually produce the lumen again; it's sort of tiring to produce that much of a twist for that long, even though the slightly twisted twist is in fact sort of conceptually easier than the original mental twist. It feels more like a direct action, instead of like she's trying to force something unnaturally.

She does get a small blob of lumen again, though, brown and small and slightly transparent as last time. There is in fact a 'direction' that feels like it might be a sort of hue axis, if you can call it that, and she could try pushing or pulling it along that.

It might be brightness instead, though. Or opacity. It's not really clear, but it at least doesn't feel like a movement or a size direction.

Well, seems safe enough to experiment. Shove.