"Is that the technical difference between them or are there other distinctions? Other schools?"

"There's schools of thaumaturgy and elements of evocation, which go by the same general principles but have different execution, which is why I'm fantastic with earth and great with air and good with water and technically competent with fire and energy. And then there's metal and wood but Mom wouldn't teach me those, she's a classicist. There's dozens and dozens of schools of thaumaturgy, I've learned most of the useful ones, they differ less from each other than the elements but it can still be a bit tricky to work one you've never tried before, viz. that damned happy spell with regards to psychomancy, which I'm pretty sure I fucked up even before the cup got involved."

"I'm glad it didn't do you any sort of long-term damage. And all your magic is one of the two?"

"Yep! Unless you count creature magics like turning into wolves or ripping out people's souls by poking them, which I don't 'cause I can't use them."

"Can everybody who can do one of thaumaturgy and evocation do both?" (One of her trees stops growing. She flies up to sit in it and get a closer look at what's going on with it.)

"Well, there's people with just one element or just one school, which is a hard limit. But if you've got the full package on one side, you can get the other if you work at it. My friend Sally could only do thaumaturgy, no evocation at all, but she turned out to be doing it as some kind of weird not-quite-human thing. Other'n that I can't think of any exceptions."

"What weird not-quite-human thing?"

"Something about being a descendant of the people of Atlantis. It was weird, but I don't recall the whole story because that was the same year we fought the memory devourer. That was confusing as hell."

"Oh dear. I don't like the sound of a memory devourer."

"Neither did we, that's why we killed it. Predictably enough it devoured some of our memories, and it turns out you don't get them back when it dies, contrary to the teachings of Saturday morning cartoons. Nobody forgot anything really important, though, we're pretty sure. Sally didn't forget anything, she's got this cheaty little mind shield ring that keeps things from getting in her head unless she's fifteen different kinds of outclassed. Which is nice."

"I would sure want one of those if I had to go anywhere near a memory devourer. Or anything else inclined to similar."

"Yep! Unfortunately it takes one hell of a long time to make. And I'm not sure anybody who isn't a scion of Atlantis or whatever can make it anywhere near as good, she had a serious way with enchantment."

"Fortunately memory devouring is not a local Fairyland hazard."

"Well, it's less specifically proof against memory shit and more- "you don't get into my head." It's come in handy a couple of times, there's a lot of things that like to get at unsuspecting victims through the squishiness of their brains."

"There's not a lot of that in general here, to my great relief. Of course vassals can be commanded to say things, but it doesn't get you very far trying to do mind sorcery. There is some very, very obscure spellwork, but you have to know someone exquisitely well to get spells on their heads to work right - too much harmonic detail you can't get by brute force. Or I suspect being a vassal might have outright broken me."

"That's a good thing, then."

"Yeah."

Ari returns to scribbling about transmutation!

Ari is unlikely to notice this while hacking at resonant expansion! (He may have forgotten to resume his narration in the excitement at transmutation scribbling.)

Promise determines that the red dangly thing isn't ripe. She leaves the plants be for a while, expecting their momentum to carry them along without supervision for an hour or so, and goes to see what Ari's doing.

To all appearances, very, very complicated math.

Promise is not highly up on her math. "That notation is so strange I can't even interpret it," she says.

"Yeah, it's... kind of like calculus? I guess? I'm sort of figuring out how to keep the cavern's expansion from doing nasty things to the surrounding landscape. Which I guess I could do by just carving it out instead of making it bubble outwards like I want it to, but this way is a lot better long-term, it results in a more stable structure. But: math."

"Sorcery does not involve any math to speak of. I've never learned much beyond the very basics."