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Bella's house gets done, and she fills it up with things. She experiments with magic, and theorizes when she has more data to work with; when she runs out of her steadily increasing mana supply for a day she studies Quenya. One morning she sits bolt upright in bed, realizes she has not seen a single wheel since she got here, and runs off to Mahtan to explain the concept, which is, it turns out, new.
When Fëanáro is feeling sociable she hangs out with him. He finishes his novel. (In it, the school turns him over to social workers and adopt him out, he escapes his foster family, he encounters a dragon and talks his way past it with stories about Arda, he studies wizardry and is unreasonably effective at it, when the dragon opens a portal to Arda he sneaks through too and the Valar slay the dragon, he fixes his mother with magic, and then he masters planar travel himself and conquers Bella's plane.) He finishes his typewriter, too; Bella's of the opinion that it would have been easier if he made vowels separate instead of consonant-hats, but it works okay like so. She acquires one when there is more than one, and learns to type, because crystal balls are a long time coming.
She has made some progress, though. She finds the common thread in dud combinations that produced an aura, and successfully decomposes all her original spells into pieces and begins to make new combinations. Most of these are trivial like the increased character limit arcane mark. Reverse-engineering her undead-damaging spell, though, gets her (small) arcane healing well in advance of when she was expecting to have that down. So anybody who lives on her block and cuts themselves cooking breakfast can knock on her door - or that of anybody who's getting the spells as she turns them out - and get that seen to without bothering a Maia.
Once a month she sees Miriel. Bella doesn't have any ideas that land any better than "forget you forgot something". But forgetting the contents of that foolish, foolish oath is at least a holding pattern that lets Miriel pretty much live her life, so, therapeutic success? ...Bella makes sure to remind Fëanáro that he is very adorable and lovable and adored and loved.
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subtly_artistic
subtly_artistic
Sounds good to her! The spell does need more than a name to go off (people might have the same names) so somebody who's met him should try it.
In that case they will have to go down to the new city, Alqualondë, that the Teleri are building with Noldorin stoneworking help on the beaches of Valinor.
Rúmil would love nothing more.
Alqualondë is taking shape as the city in the Valar's vision of fate. Construction is underway. There are great white ships bobbing in the waters near the shore.
subtly_artistic
It's pretty. Of course. She feels a little jaded at Eldar prettiness lately. Where's somebody who's met Círdan and wants to try to talk to him?
It does not take long at all to find a volunteer.
subtly_artistic
Cool. She explains the spell and casts it on them so they can direct it at the intended recipient.
Contact is a success! Rúmil has to translate for her tester, whose language sounds less like Quenya when he's excited, but he tells her it worked perfectly.
subtly_artistic
Hurray! She will get right on making messenger objects. Thank you tester.
No, thank you, we thought we'd never speak again unless he died.
subtly_artistic
She is here to help!
A little while later she starts churning out little wire jobbies that wrap around the ear and do message spells. She's got them in a version with a usage limit of their own and a version that draws on user mana; she recommends the latter if you're going to share it around and the former if you're not. She's working on an unlimited version.
A little while later she starts churning out little wire jobbies that wrap around the ear and do message spells. She's got them in a version with a usage limit of their own and a version that draws on user mana; she recommends the latter if you're going to share it around and the former if you're not. She's working on an unlimited version.
If the Valar object to this they neither break them nor complain.
subtly_artistic
Good.
When she is not passing out earwires she works on crystal balls, hangs out with Fëanáro. Writes up another magic lecture.
When she is not passing out earwires she works on crystal balls, hangs out with Fëanáro. Writes up another magic lecture.
Fëanáro has a mechanical loom. It can't do his mother's magic but she's trying to add that part. He has published translations of two of her textbooks and spoken on a public debate in the forums (he'd sat on the podium) about loanwords from Pax.
They are great and everyone should learn them, otherwise they won't be able to read his books!
By the time Fëanáro is eleven they will have accomplished a worthy ten years worth of work.
subtly_artistic
Crystal balls! They're hard. They're very complicated; they're a design as well as technical problem and the design is all wrapped up in the technical. And in order for them to be useful she needs a lot of them, so she wants to get them really, really right before starting to roll them out en masse.
Eventually, though, she has a design that allows fully featured etherscaping, will permit connection to a scriber once she invents one, and supports the invention of further grafts onto the design if someone wants to invent ballgames or calculator apps or something. (She delivers a lecture on Things Crystal Balls Are Known To Do to encourage invention there. And then teaches introductory etherscaping.)
Eventually, though, she has a design that allows fully featured etherscaping, will permit connection to a scriber once she invents one, and supports the invention of further grafts onto the design if someone wants to invent ballgames or calculator apps or something. (She delivers a lecture on Things Crystal Balls Are Known To Do to encourage invention there. And then teaches introductory etherscaping.)
Her lessons are so routinely well-attended that there's talk of building larger lecture halls. Fëanáro might try ballgames but has been wasting most of his mana on developing ever more complex variants on dramatic-expression-of-emotion spells and on flying everywhere. He declares it a festival when Bella finishes crystal balls, and then ignores his festival to spend the whole time working.
subtly_artistic
Bella is getting used to delivering talks to large audiences. Bring it on. Here is how Caltrop Sweeper works, it is a popular ballgame. Here is the concept of a blog. Here is what she remembers about fiction publishing websites; Fëanáro independently reinvented this one subgenre. Etcetera.
Valinor has a lot of fun with the ethernet.
subtly_artistic
Great!
Hmmmm, what else needs doing. Is anybody in the Outer Lands eager to be called over? Should she get on that?
Hmmmm, what else needs doing. Is anybody in the Outer Lands eager to be called over? Should she get on that?