If you had asked her in advance she'd have expected that, prior to being snatched to another universe, she'd have at least caught a glimpse of whatever magic was going it. She'd have of course disclaimed that otherworldly magic might be different, that maybe she can only see her world's magic, but really, she'd have expected it.
So it's pretty surprising when she's suddenly somewhere she was not a moment ago.
And magic of such different types, none of them is recognisable.
But okay, let's focus more on this mana place. What exactly is generating this mana? Can she coax it into producing more? Are there other untapped sources nearby, or ways to boost production?
The earth and water produce mana, as do all the living things in and on them; people, animals, water, and a few houseplants. She could maybe coax the existing landscape to produce mana more quickly, but it would be complicated and require continuous effort. Making more life in the area would certainly speed up mana production if she could do that. She could probably gather some of the diffuse mana distributed around the landscape, and there are other similar mana sources along the leyline, some depleted and some not (there one becomes depleted, its mana being pulled away into a spell), the nearest undepleted one around two kilometers away. There are also quite a few people with magic amulets for accessing other, distant mana reserves.
Further away, there is a leyline of another sort of mana; energetic, hot and passionate where this mana is calm, cool and thoughtful. Deep under the ground there is another leyline, its mana proud and hungry and sickening.
She now has mana. The people and animals in the street suddenly seem noticeably more tired. The mana is slowly dissipating, but slowly enough that she could definitely try casting Jace's spell before it does.
Jace looks at her in surprise.
Can she hold it all and keep it from dissipating? She'd very much like that.
"I might be able to figure out how to use this more efficiently," she adds casually.
She did build a voluntary exception to her mind opacity spell for a reason. She opens it up and—shows him.
"Interesting. I had assumed you had meant you could use the mana more efficiently, rather than the landscape itsself. I don't believe that can be done with the metamancy I'm familiar with- it seems the purview of green rather than of blue magic."
She shrugs and closes her mind again. "I also don't know the full extent of what I can actually do with my metamancy here because I haven't been around for long enough but the fact that it doesn't seem idiosyncratic is promising to my building knowledge and being able to generalise it."
"What sort of things could you do with your metamancy in your home plane? In the worlds I'm familiar with, magic for gathering raw mana more efficiently is not normally considered the same specialty as magic for manipulating existing spells and magical constructs.
For that matter, besides metamancy, what other sorts of magic do people have in your home plane?"
Instead of explaining with words she opens her mind just enough to let him get the concepts:
Expression, the effect of trying and succeeding to do magic, it's idiosyncratic and causes different effects depending on the kind of mage a person is.
Mana, the fuel every form of magic uses, personal and (normally) impossible to transfer, built up from birth.
Arcanism, (permanently, but personally) binding (in one sitting, you can't stop in the middle and continue later) magical effects (known as spells) to actions and words and symbols (collectively known as a spell's incantation) in order to project them or write them down so other people can do it. Expression tends to cause an unfortunate effect to be attached to an unfortunate incantation. Mana has no hard cap and starts charging up from birth, whenever the arcanist performs one of their spells' incantation while having enough mana the spell will be cast. Typically concerned with limited-duration or instantaneous effects, can also create scrolls that allow other people a single use of a spell.
Enchantment, (permanently) attaching (in one sitting, you can't stop in the middle and continue later) magical effects to inanimate objects (known as artefacts). Expressions tends to cause a random inanimate object nearby to become an artefact. Mana has no hard cap and starts charging up from birth; artefact creation costs mana, and every artefact has its own mana charge which runs down as it's used or as time passes and needs to be periodically recharged. Artefacts are automatically more durable than their mundane counterparts, and can store information or mana (which can then be drawn by other enchanters).
Elementalism, being able to apply magical effects (known as blessings) to oneself, elementalists have a (possibly infinite) list of magical effects to pick from, and what counts as a magical effect depends on the elementalist's specific mental architecture. Expression doesn't tend to have any extraneous side effects. Mana has a hard cap per blessing, all blessings start up charged with exactly the same amount of mana (although this is not known for sure by non-metamancers), mana only recharges while an elementalist has a blessing active but not being used (elementalists always have one and exactly one blessing active from when they Express and can only switch active blessings while not using them). Blessings are typically safe for their user (a blessing to go through solid objects for instance does not allow its user to suffocate while using it) unless the user decides to be reckless about it (stop flying while very high up).
Metamancy, being able to see and manipulate but not produce all magic. They can transfer and convert mana between people, they can unbind incantations from spells, they can turn an artefact into a mundane object, they can allow elementalists to recharge mana while not having a blessing active, they can nonconsensually steal mana from other mages and from artefacts, they can allow arcanists and enchanters to take breaks while developing spells/artefacts, they can use any mana they have stored to perform the effects of any of the other sorts of mages, they can lock up or steal a person's blessing. Expression has no external effects if no other mages are around, and accidental use of a mage's magic if they are. Universally reviled and considered sinful and tainted and evil.
A very small share of people have magic at all, and out of them not everyone manages to Express their magic (due to not finding the idiosyncratic mental action to do it), and out of those who do only a tiny fraction are metamancers.
"Fascinating. If you're telling the truth, your world must be the most magically abnormal one I have ever heard of. Can you use blue mana the way you would mana from your own world, for example to charge a blessing?"
She can.
"Wow. I haven't seen mana anything like that before. Is that elementalist mana?"
He raises his hand, and the mana flows from Kaede into him through the bond between them.
Indeed it is. Jace sighs.
"And can you convert elementalist mana back into blue mana? What about other colors of mana? There isn't much free mana that isn't blue around here, but..."
He points at woman with wings "...she's flying with a black-and-white aura, and..."
He points at one of the small, pointy-nosed green people "...she was summoned using red magic, if that helps."
A moment then—" Yep. I wonder if I can turn it into some form of mana I haven't seen yet—green?"
White mana feels bright, clean, rigid, and dutiful. It demands that she use it for good, and not immorally. It doesn't have a clear idea of what that means, but would like to enforce rules and judgements, especially those of her society. Using metamancy on it is a little harder than using metamancy on blue mana, but she can turn it blue again.
Her attempts to turn the mana green are unsuccessful.
...no, surely she can do it. She's seen mana of all the other colours, there should be some way to find whatever's missing—
If she keeps looking she might find traces of green mana in the landscape, or a person a few streets away who was summoned with it.
Green mana feels vibrant, primal, physical, and serene.
Ugghhhh she wanted to figure it out without lookinnggggg pout.
Fine. "Are there only these five colours?"
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