He grabs his phone, tries to turn it back on, groans. "Coulda warned me about the technology part."

"Well, shit," Ari says. "Sorry about your rectangle. ...Expensive rectangle? Probably expensive rectangle. Sorry."

He sporfles. "My rectangle," he says, amidst giggles. "Nah, it's fine, my magic's good at fixing stuff. I just need to find something else that's relevantly not broken."

Ari thinks about it, then points at his apparently sole possession, a heavy ring on the middle finger of his right hand. "This magic ring that makes me good at punching isn't broken? If that's not relevant enough, I'm probably going to just instantiate some pants and we can go scavenger hunting for a working rectangle to copy off of."

He looks at the ring (and uses that an excuse to take a step closer), then says, "It... would probably count but I think my magic would grumble at me a bit for it. Doesn't need to be another functioning rectangle, though, it can be some other form of 'modern technology.' But anyway how does it work, how does a ring make you good at punching?"

Ari flexes his hand out and into a fist. The dark stone set into the ring glitters faintly in the dark. "Hm... It's hard to explain properly without a backing in thaumaturgy, but you could say that it pretends, under certain circumstances and to very specific laws of physics, that it weighs several hundred pounds."

"...ouch. That would make a punch more effective, yeah."

"Yep! It helps level the playing field when you're fighting an ogre. Or if you need to break through a wall."

Ari crouches and starts drawing runes with the asphalt, which leaves a sooty line behind it like a stick of charcoal. His handwriting is impressive, especially considering the instrument.

Yep. It's the handwriting he's impressed by. For sure.

There are many impressions to be had here!

In short order, a four-foot diameter of rooftop is covered in black script, with a three-foot-diameter circle notable by its absence. Ari stands up and claps his hands together. "So, pants are about to happen. Please, please do not interrupt me while I'm chanting; I've made it this far with all my eyebrows, and I'd prefer to continue that way. Is there anything that should happen before pants?"

"Oh, so many things, but they can also happen after pants."

"Excellent. In that case, I'm gonna be boring for several minutes."

He crouches down again and, with a single broad sweep of his arm and an anatomically fascinating twist of his back, draws a perfect circle around himself, threading the needle between half a dozen sigils. Then he sits cross-legged, closes his eyes, and begins chanting in Old High German.

It is, in fact, kind of boring. Apart from his continued nudity, which may still be a source of interest to some.

When you're getting magic from it that does make it more sustainedly interesting, but that's not a source of limitless interest. Still, it's only a few minutes.

Toward the end of those minutes, a cloud of shimmering grey... something slowly materializes. It spins itself into thread, which fast-forward weaves itself into a pair of breeches around Ari's crossed legs. The breeches are excessively tight by any reasonable standard, but they're slightly less obscene than the immediate alternative.

Ari's eyes open and he hops to his feet. "Pants!"

"—well at least now you're not breaking any laws. So I should probably find somewhere with a working television or something."

"Yes, let's fix the rectangle. I wonder if you could protect it with your kind of magic, somehow? It fixes; can it prevent something from needing to be fixed? Or is that nonsense?"

"It can make stuff more resistant to damage and such, for sure. I'm not sure about interacting with other types of magic, though, since I didn't know any other types existed and I think the other people I know who practise it didn't either."

"Science, then!" Ari rubs his hands together. "I quite like science. Though probably it should be saved for when we have worked out things like food and shelter. And less temporary pants. Do you have any human currency? I can find or make gemstones pretty easily if no, assuming those can still be exchanged for human currency."

"I have, er, a credit card and Japanese currency, let's see if I can use the former to acquire money. Gemstones—can be useful but it'll be hard to sell any in a non-suspicious way, can you make jewelry?"

"Um... I can work with metal it's just hard, I could make, like, a kind of shitty ring with a really nice diamond in it? Or just, like, a string of jade beads, if we can find a string."

"The problem with gems is that really expensive ones usually have a trail so you'd need to sell them to someone pretty shady for them to accept them no-questions-asked. String's a good idea, I don't actually know how much fanciness starts straining credibility."

"...I was going to go with 'my moderately beloved grandmother just died and left me the poorly documented contents of her jewelry box', but I guess you're saying that would have some kind of legal evidence? Man, humans are complicated now."

"That could work if the contents of her jewelry box were not, er, a huge diamond or whatever. I have never actually sold precious metals and stones to know all the ropes, it could be easier than I'm guessing. But yeah, complicated. Let's deal with fixing my phone first and then see whether I can make do with already-existing money without upsetting the economy much?"

"Right, the expensive rectangle. Are we getting down off the roof separately or together?"

"I still appreciate being carried by you but if it's gonna run down your magic battery I can do it."