"Rubber, or at least wool or some other insulation. I'm not sure if silk works. Copper wire, not having to draw it out myself would save an enormous amount of time. A little bit of paper, some sulfur or acids, small amounts of metals other than iron and copper- Like, tin, or nickel, or lead. It will need an energy source, some strong source of heat or cold or lightning or force. Glass jars or vials? Maybe samples of whatever is common. If I'm to make steel I'll need coal, not charcoal, proper hard anthracite, and chalk or limestone on top of the ore. Also to build a custom forge. Uh... Rambling on. Iron, copper, a power source, and some sort of lightning insulator are the things that absolutely can't be gone without. More variety would almost certainly help. I want to stress that I can't guarantee this will work. Much better than even, but not sure."

"Tiny amounts of wool are around but silk is more common. Wire exists, paper exists, sulfur and acids and coal and various metals and chalk and glass exist... how continuous do you need the heat or cold or lightning or force? A ton of spells do those, repeatably and cheaply, but - not really more repeatably and cheaply than a light, we do have some lit chambers with plants in them."

"Well, I can do capacitors that store lightning energy- Why is it so much easier to say 'lightning' than 'electrical' no nevermind- But that means more glass and paper. A big boiling vessel that's continually kept at a boil and more water added, or a tiny lightning strike every few seconds, I think I could make work?"

"Oh if you can store a bunch of Jolts that's great, that'd mean the place doesn't need a wizard standing over it at all times and a bunch of students can just cast into it for practice. - I told Instructor Johysis I'd teach some of her junior classes to trade for the third circle spell."

"You can store Jolts, yeah... Have to mull over the best ways. How do 'spells' work? You can learn them?"

"You can learn them if you're a wizard, or pick them up less controllably if you're a sorcerer. Clerics get them from demon lords - in most places it's gods but drow prefer demon lords. I'm a wizard and a sorcerer both but my usual dueling cantrip is Ray of Frost, like you saw, I'd have to buy and scribe down Jolt to do it myself. A lot of the kids will have it, though. There's also an acid one but the acid doesn't last."

"That is. Strange. But Sparks exist, the world is a strange place. Do... Things the acid eats at stay corroded? What's this about demons?"

Is EVERYTHING in novels real after all?

"Things the acid eats stay corroded. Demons are chaotic evil outsiders? I thought everyone knew that."

"Ugh. I... Am aware of the outside world through novels I thought were fiction. Should get into the whole story later when we're not running down a harsher timer."

"Yeah. I can probably get Instructor Johysis to cast more of these at the same exchange rate, but if we make enough money I want to spend some of it on getting a Share Language spell, lasts all day and it's a circle I can cast, I just don't have it yet."

"Money is pretty important, I know that much at least. Lots of plot arcs where the hero runs out or has it stolen from them... It sounds like the basic plan is getting money from your mother to try and build a Jolt-based plant agitator? And then sell it to someone? Or possibly make a deal with someone who owns a caveful'a plants? I'm, uh, I don't know much about this - city? But I can build things, and then build more things, and then pay you back and figure out what next. If I'm building things it can't be all bad."

"Some plants have seeds in them, could we just use those?"

She thinks.

"Probably. I wouldn't put much past the Spark. Maybe I size the thing for a single room and a few dozen plants, not a huge farm and 200 potatoes a day. And if it doesn't work to grow plants I can always turn it into a lightning cannon."

"Getting a big cave to ourselves would be expensive but there's no shortage of little ones that are in weird places nobody's using. A cannon that stored up cantrips and shot meaningful amounts of lightning at monsters would also be really cool though."

"It would! It'd also be kind of heavy and unwieldy. Little cave in out of the way place is a good idea. If I get off the ground maybe I can make things better, and more food's probably the number one way, right? But I'm not a plant or animal spark, it's all steam and lightning and metal for me. We get specialties, or at least styles."

"I expect to be able to muddle through getting you materials with only Comprehend Languages up - that's the one where I can understand you but can't talk to you - and I can do that several times a day, not every waking hour but whenever it's important... We're going to want to not make it obvious where our chosen out of the way cave is, make sure we're not followed, that sort of thing, it'd be a big theft risk."

"Hrm. Traps? I can make some."

"I'd rather not kill people for trying to steal food, to be clear, and if they don't die, they'll be able to come back later with help, so it's best if it's just really hard to find."

"-Oh, right, this would be people and not gribbles from the mines or snow-wolves or whatever."

"I might wind up picking a place out of the way enough to have big monsters but most of those aren't accustomed to eating plants!"

"Nothing about today makes much sense to me, okay? I'm just kind of saying things at this point."

"No, no, absolutely go ahead and clear up anything you need to know from me while I've got Tongues."

"The - small people? How many people have magic? How does, uh, no guards no judges, so you have to be intimidating but also not too scary, right? I think an explanation of demons being real sounds important too."

"Halflings. They're slaves. Anybody down here who doesn't look obviously like an adventurer - you do, but keep your saw with you - is a slave, but most of them are halflings because they eat less. Since you want to look like an adventurer, go armed, wear everything you want to keep on you and keep it secure, don't be aggressive because aggressive adventurers sniffing around among drow are bad news. You can tell people Belmarniss from the line of the cunning sorcerers is your friend - ask me to repeat that with Tongues down so you can memorize what it sounds like - as a social buffer, but I'm not important and my family's not very important and you should avoid getting to that point if you can. Demons are real but they're not around, they live in the Abyss which is the chaotic evil afterlife. The judge-god is racist so drow all go there even if we're nice folks but you'll probably go somewhere else. Wherever Odin lives maybe, I don't know enough about surfacer religion."

"Slaves. Racist gods. Evil afterlife. Grand."