The tale of the bamboo cutter | Glowfic Constellation

If she's going to be reading more she should put in the investment for a properly addressed spell, but if she puts in the effort the current one stretches to reading.

What sorts of things are they writing?

Some descriptions of seals filled with technical jargon, a lot of calculations, some on what's probably inventories.

Well the first one is certainly relevant to interests.

Are there scrolls not being currently worked on? Are they organized somehow?

There are.

There seems to be some sort of organization based on the color of the scroll's outer edge. It's not obvious what the colors mean.

Are the people using the scrolls using some sort of obvious protection like gloves or magic she can sense?

The ones handling more fragile looking scrolls are wearing thin gloves, but otherwise, no.

If she walks up to some scrolls (she will avoid fragile-looking ones) and looks like she's about to take one, will anyone look like they're about to take issue?

Nope.

Do people tend to have only one scroll out at a time, or does several seem normal enough?

Several seems normal enough.

Then she will take a few, not all the same color, and sit at an occupied desk with them and take a look.

The plain ones are blank. The green ones seem to mostly be references for equations, formulas, and 'this has been solved a thousand times, here's the shortcut' type situations. They seem to all be written by the same person. The blue ones are probably esoteric theory, though it's hard to decipher - they're full of vague allusions and obscure jargon. The black ones are mostly medical wood-cut pictures with some captions (again mostly jargon). The red ones are full of archaic kanji that she can't read.

What colors, if any, were the previously-seen seals, descriptions of seals, calculations, and inventories?

Calculations were mostly on the plain ones. Or scribbled in the margins of other in-progress scrolls. The descriptions go into blue scrolls. The seals are usually yellow (which isn't represented on the shelves) or plain. The inventories are plain, in their own room that doesn't have other things.

All useful to know. It would be interesting to see what gets done with the seal-scrolls when they're put away, but she can wait on that until she can more usefully spend her time here. She considers for a moment, then puts the scrolls away again and heads back to stores.

She imagines they don't have jewelry. Do they have hairties or the like?

Things for tying hair up, sure, though not elastic hair ties.

Good. She'll take a few; head back to her room.

Her room is still there.

Convenient.

She sits at the table and lays out one of the hairties. She could hold this spell in her head too, but it's over the threshold where she'd prefer the other way. So.

There's advantages to having physical signs for the spell-anchoring, but she doesn't have either the technological facilitations she might use where she came from or a scriber handy, and it's not worth it to her to embroider them or something herself, at the moment. She works in magic, draws signs with her mind and occasionally her finger. She can't do something as high-strength as she might like at the moment, but this should do for a lot.

When she's done she fastens the tie into her hair.

While she's on the topic here, did people she saw around have designs on their clothes? Was that embroidery, or something else? How were those symbols generally made?

Most people had one of the previously mentioned shared symbols of some kind, which were usually embroidered on, sometimes sewn on as a patch, once apparently painted, but purely decorative designs don't seem to be common. A few people had lightly patterned pants or jackets, the design apparently woven in. Usually nature or abstract motifs. There was one person in armor with painted on designs of some kind of serpent, with an ornate sword at his waist, but he seems to have been an aberration.

So she might be able to find someone better at embroidery and such than she is if she really needs it, but not as certainly as she might in different circumstances.

And meanwhile on second thought she will go look at the schoolrooms now.

They're very clearly focused on martial arts - there's racks of practice weapons - but there's also a room with maps and a scattering of books and scrolls. It looks like the supplies were haphazardly gathered.

School isn't currently in session, but there's two boys in one of the practice rooms, sparring. They're probably about seven or eight. A younger white-haired boy sits off to the side, switching between reading and watching the other two with narrowed eyes.

Hm. Readjustments on default-meaning-mapping of 'school', here.

Closer examination of the maps, books, and scrolls, if possible.

(How do the children react to her presence?)

Handwritten, mostly by the same person. The books and scrolls are primarily theory on 'how to use ninja techniques', with some history, botany, zoology, anatomy, sociology, and geography (a catalog of clans, their publicly known techniques, and their symbols is one of the notable books).

The two sparring boys keep trying to hit each other, while the reading boy turns to look at her and quietly closes his book.