"We can find an armorer. Pretend like you might wanna buy something, though - I can't 'cause I'm a wizard."

"I would like gauntlets or chainmail gloves. Eventually."

"There you go then."

They can find an armorer. The armorer does not have any aluminum anything in stock but would be interested in experimenting with it.

"If I can make a sample of aluminum I'll come back for sure."

None of the steel in here is nickel steel. Now that she thinks of it though, most of the advantages of nickel steel show up in, like, high pressure steam systems, less in a big chunk of metal to cut things or stop yourself from being cut. (She keeps this thought internal.)

The armorer claims he does have mithral but it's not on display, special viewings with a nonrefundable deposit only.

--Maybe when they've sold strawberries for another week or two and she doesn't owe Belmarniss quite as much. ('Maybe later', out loud.)

(Huh, if she scales up, they might meaningfully depress the strawberry market. That's a funny thought.)

(They can switch to other plants if the strawberry price falls!)

Once away from the armorer-

"Honestly I'm not going to stop needing wrapped wire anytime soon so maybe I should make a sewing machine and start fussing with it myself, I know you were maybe going to get uh, forgot their name, to help-"

"One of the halflings, but an unseen servant might be as good or better."

"Would you mind trying to teach me spells some time? It might not make sense to focus on them, but it seems worth trying?"

"It will take months to learn even one."

"Egh. Maybe not, then. If there was nothing better to do, or for my.own curiosity later, I guess."

"Some people if they are extremely talented are faster but even being very smart is not the same thing as being talented at wizard spells specifically."

"Better to try and get more plants up, yeah..."

"Yeah. A spellbook costs hundreds of gold, people save up for years."

"Is that why they're so rare? I had thought everyone would want to do Prestidigitation."

"Yeah, you need the money and the time and to be smart enough."

"I wonder what makes the ink so expensive, it's got to be the ink, paper wasn't hundreds of gold..."

"It has to be especially good paper, but the ink has spellsilver in it.

- if you can make that -"

"...Thaaaat depends on what spellsilver is. Much like mithral. It's not translating usefully."

"Well, I can find some in a store you can look at. There's kinds."

Off into the market, looking for a magic supply store.

"I might not get very far just looking at it either."

Presumably it's not just 'silver', right, maybe it's one of the rarer metal elements that you use a gram of in exotic alloys?

The spellsilver they're allowed to look at is just a few flecks of gray metal, kept suspended in oil in a glass vial that is itself in a box.

"Ah, so it's one of those annoying metals that oxidizes instantly."

Does the shopkeep know where spellsilver tends to be mined? What kinds of oils keep it well and what kinds don't? (She won't even bother asking how it reacts with other things; Who would waste incredibly valuable material trying that?)

"I get it from the Quinder mine complex. I think they get a different kind if you go all the way to Prosh. This is just liquid paraffin."