"A shop would be a good way to relax from working all the time, too."

"Mm-hm!"

"How many people are wizards? I don't see a lot of magic around."

"A lot of people are wizards but they mostly don't run storefronts, they have employees who do. Like the bookseller's going to be a frontman for a family with a lot of people who can cast Scrivener's Chant plus a party of surface raiders who get paper."

"-Sparky idea about paper, but, bleh. Heavy on the chemistry. I can't cheat as much with chemistry."

"If you can make paper that would be cool but you need to move a lot of volume compared to strawberries."

"The thing is you always need stuff to make things out of. Coal is- Essentially the same stuff that's the foundation of most life and materials derived from life. A bloody tree is- A beautiful, efficient machine when you think about it. It converts light, water, and carbon dioxide into wood. We can't make wood from scratch. Trees can. I had a point... Right, coal. With a whole lot more steel and glass and other things I could, uhhh, melt coal and water into useful non-coal things. I'd be experimenting a lot. I don't remember nearly as much of that type of engineering. Food pays better, anyway."

"No shortage of people who'll splurge on a strawberry as often as they can afford it." At this point Belmarniss is just talking, slowly and with breaks between her words but letting Waltana pick up meaning from context and ask for clarification if she needs it.

It's good practice!

"D'you think I should stop relying on you having Comprehend up? Yeah, probably should. That one looks angry," she says of a shopkeeper peddling fabric goods.

"He does, yeah."

She tries to keep chatting idly and not get confused for the rest of the shopping trip. It's still a nice break. Something in her mind is unwinding.

Belmarniss will show her where she's been shopping for all their staples like trash rocks and chalk and silk and wire. Introduce Waltana as "an alchemical barbarian" to people if Waltana seems amenable to being introduced.

She's curious what 'barbarian' means but in front of people is not the time to clarify. She will say hi, yes, she likes making things, making things is very exciting. (The power saw has, at some point in the last several days, made a reappearance, this time in a more wieldy form factor. It rests at her side, gleaming.)

People are curious about her, and seem to be taking something about Belmarniss's introduction as - quelling - and want to hold lights close to her head so they can see the color of her hair.

Oh, is her softly ticking lightstick not good enough? They call this hair color 'red' even if it's more of an orangey-brown, it's not common even where she's from.

(She attempts to memorize names and occupations and appearances.)

Belmarniss is not very socially friendly with most of these people and will learn their names right along with her. It's a little hard to tell drow apart if you're not used to them - they're different shades of purple and dark blue and grey and black, and they have various hairstyles, but the ethnic novelty of "drow" is overwhelming a lot of the facial variation.

Eh. There was an attempt. It's still good language practice.

--Ooh, is that lepidolite?

If she can distinguish it from other purple rocks: sure!

Yeah, this is lepidolite. It's... Six or seven out of ten, going by her gesturing, with the bonus info, "For alloys. A pound would be plenty. Up to you if it's worth the price."

Haggling ensues, and some of their strawberry money is exchanged for a few of the less attractive chunks of lepidolite.

"...Say. Have you ever heard of 'aluminum'?"

"I think it's one of the rare not-quite-magical metals like mithral, so if you need some that's going to be a bit of a trick."

"I can probably get it out of 'alum' or 'bauxite'. Maybe easier than other people can. It's good for certain alloys- There are so many alloys- It can make really corrosion-resistant metal, specifically. So if it's saleable that might be something to investigate."

"Ooh. I don't know what form people would want it in - mithral you make armor out of it, so I'd ask an armorer, I don't know who would do things with aluminum, what's it for where you're from?"

"Corrosion resistance. And it's a lot lighter than most other metals, you make- Wagon frames and the like from it. Gliders and airship frames even. I'm not sure if mithral is something I'd know of, but I can make nickel steel and face-harden it, that makes it better armor than plain carbon steel. I suppose I don't know if people are doing this already."