"The latter, from what I've gathered."

"Could be worse, I suppose. What is your magic good at?"

"Physical effects more than metaphysical ones, though the latter is not beyond reach. Not expending a resource to perform seems to be the main advantage compared to the other kinds I've heard of now."

"Our most minor spells are free, or may as well be free, I'm not sure if anyone has spent all day casting cantrips to see if that uses up noticeable amounts of energy. It's probably free, energy costs aren't really continuous. What kinds of physical effects? What magnitudes? Uhm - earthquakes, weather, creating something from nothing, transmutation, teleportation, flight, deflecting projectiles, shapechanging - these are all things my style of magic can do, approximately in descending order of difficulty."

"Probably it can do earthquakes; I've never tried. The others are all possible, but not in the same order; shapeshifting is more difficult than teleportation."

"Shapeshifting is generally hard, but I was ordering those by "easiest thing that could count" and the easiest shapeshifting is mostly cosmetic, humanoid forms only, limited duration. Hm. I wonder if I unpack one of my spells and describe what it's doing you'll be able to contextualize it like one of your rituals. Or vice versa I suppose."

"That would be an interesting experiment."

"OK! So, this is a spell for making an object glow, it's a fairly simple example and doesn't involve interfacing with an existing enchantment like the circle scrambler..." and she proceeds to do her best to explain a light cantrip. "Simple example" is obviously a relative term, but a lot of her explanation is explaining terminology that probably generalizes to other spells.

He follows along, fascinated.

"...and that's about it. I don't think you'd be able to cast it without more explanation - probably just spell diagrams 101 and then a more standard diagram to prepare from but I think I covered everything you need to understand what it's doing and how it's doing it, any questions?"

He shakes his head. "It doesn't seem to be the same thing as one of my rituals at all, but it's fascinating."

"You could probably learn it, though it's generally accepted wisdom that devoting yourself to a single style of magic is more efficient than picking up two or more. It's not so much that they interfere with each other, just that one only has finite time and memory and attention and will be able to accomplish more through focused study of a single technique than through dabbling in many. For now. Would you care to explain one of your rituals?"

"I do not have finite time and memory and attention and would be happy to exchange thaumaturgical knowledge. Would you care to move this conversation to the library?"

"Gladly. Do you have the thing that people have when they are young that makes it easier to learn things? That's important, might be a limiting factor even if you have all the time in the world."

"I was turned at twenty-three and haven't aged since, physically or mentally."

She shoots him an envious glance before remembering that that's extremely dangerous.

"I will need to make sure my immortality includes that feature. I imagine that's the sort of metaphysical thing your magic is bad at?"

"I expect so. Vampirism being transmissible I haven't put as much effort into it as some things."

"Vampires are supposedly under the control of the one who turned them, though I expect you'll deny that that applies to you. At any rate, it's insufficiently immortal for my purposes. What have you been putting your effort into?"

"I do indeed deny that applies to me. I spend most of my effort on theoretical undertakings, I spend much of my energy on defense, analysis and proactive security measures I decline to detail to anyone I trust less than my sister."

"Of course. If I had an assortment of personal defenses I probably wouldn't even mention that they exist." She plops down onto a library chair. "So, do you care to share any of your theoretical insights?"

"The fact that I have defenses can probably be inferred from the fact that I'm not dead by now," he says. "I suppose you wouldn't know that I'm nearly nine hundred years old, but it's not uncommon knowledge in magician circles." He totally has theoretical insights! How much sense they make when she's never performed a ritual is debatable.

"What about you makes you especially likely to die violently, is it the vampirism or the magic or something else? And, um, maybe some more basic theory first would help, remember that I have not only never done this but also not even heard of it before tonight."

"Yes, it's the vampirism. And the lack of tact, I am not a very tactful person. My sister describes me as an 'obstinate misanthrope.' Does your translation spell work on books?"

"This is one of the reasons I am looking into non-undeath forms of immortality, having lots of people wanting me dead and terrified I will eat their children sounds inconvenient. This is also why I don't usually mention that lichdom is my backup plan. The spell I prepare every day does understanding and producing speech, I have one that does understanding speech and writing but that would have to wait until after I've slept."

"Alright, then I'll start from the beginning--" and he describes some basic theory, including a very simple ritual that's recommended to start with.