:I can choose what kind of food I get but it reliably comes out needing salt. ...I think the distinction you have in mind isn't quite mine; I would call it a spell and not a ritual but this one in particular takes ten minutes to cast. I have other spells that require foci and some spells require materials that are destroyed in the casting.:

What an odd spell. It can create food but the food requires salt??? Okay.

:I can buy salt. 'Create Food and Water' does sound like a spell name; I really should have known.:

:I have salt! I brought some with me specifically because I was expecting to subsist on this spell and exchange it for hospitality for weeks while I traveled.:

:Wonderful! How much will you charge for the food? And what food is it going to be?: Presumably the food will be foreign food from wherever he's from. Exciting!

:If we can find half a dozen people who all want some I might start thinking about charging but if it's you it would be silly to charge, it will disappear in a day if it's not eaten. - it doesn't disappear if you eat it, it works normally if you eat it.:

That makes NO SENSE how does that even WORK.

:Does Iomedae eat the food that is uneaten?:

:No, gods don't eat, the conjuration just... can't go on by itself.:

:Oh. Our workings don't work like that.

Would it bother you if I recorded the experience of you casting and of the food itself?:

:I see nothing to object to about that.:

Then he will write while Blai casts the spell! He doesn't bother to clarify more about what the food will be like because Blai is sharing for free.

Blai doesn't start yet! :Are there more of you - I mean, of your - Way? - who might want to partake? Usually when I was staying at a farmhouse and they didn't have a lot of livestock I'd suggest they invite their neighbors and I understand most people here will be suspicious but maybe there are people predictably you-like?:

:Yes, the mail transmitter here is also Open. I suppose I could ask him? He's not of my Society, though.

Oh, do you mean like, you'd prefer to not waste the food and potentially make money off of it? I could try asking acquaintances in this city if they want to try alien conjured food.:

:I don't object to making money off it, but that's not my primary concern, it just seems a waste to let a third-circle spell go mostly to waste in a city.:

:I see. It's so unusual that your workings are so...discrete...and can expire.

We could donate the rest of the food to a soup kitchen. I know there's one in the city center. I think Society of Solace runs it, beside the clinic they have here. That would be a good opportunity to see if someone needs urgent healing too. Do you want to go there?:

:That sounds like a good idea!:

They can go there! It's about a ten minute walk. Does Blai seem interested in Kanuwa talking about how local casting works.

He will listen attentively!

Great!

Kanuwa will explain that casting is based on energy, which is continuous and not discrete. Energy is gained passively from existing, and also from meditation, and also from doing things related to your Way or your precepts. So, an Open practitioner whose precepts were about knowledge would gain energy from learning, a Flowers practitioner whose precepts were about sensation would gain energy from sensation, etc. Each person has a maximum amount of energy that they can store — it's almost always more than what they could generate in a day.

Rituals are the most basal and most common type of casting. Rituals involve trappings, or components that are used to make the energy do what you want. These include words, movements, times, places, ingredients, and tools. Spells are a compressed version of rituals that are typically way less efficient, but let you dispense with many of the trappings. Typically, they are also shorter. Most rituals have spell versions and vice versa.

Rituals and spells typically cause instantaneous or limited duration effects. It's possible to place an effect that is self sustaining, or has a very long duration. These are called enchantments, for people — though this is ambiguous between mind affecting effects, so there's been a movement to rename them to something else like 'augmentation' — artifice for portable objects, and consecrations for places and buildings. Kanuwa doesn't know how to cast any of them, though. He only knows spells and rituals.

He stops himself from talking about the effects each Way can cause, because they're on the street the soup kitchen is at and they're almost there.

:There are places on Golarion that are reputed to have ritual magic traditions but I don't know much else about them. Most of our spells have temporary effects but we have magic items that can use those effects - sometimes only a few times a day but sometimes in a continuous way. It's a specialist skill I don't have, making magic items.:

That's too bad. Many people would pay dearly to be able to learn otherworldly artificing traditions!

Anyway, they're here.

:If you're able to translate by telepathy while speaking to people about the matter I'll start working on picking up the language.:

In the distance, the clock tower rings once.

The soup kitchen, and the clinic that is next to them, have the symbol of the Society of Solace on them: a square drawn with thick lines, with four black horizontal lines of the same width inside. The clinic is enclosed but the soup kitchen is totally open to the street. There's writing and signs but Kanuwa doesn't bother to transmit their meanings unless Blai asks.

There's a line of about two dozen people at the soup kitchen since it's near lunchtime. The place smells of cooking oil and pepper. People seem to be getting a bowl of rice and a spoon, and some sort of lentil and leafy vegetable soup ladled into the same bowl. There are long tables with benches for people to eat on.

:Oh, that makes sense. I can do that!:

He's going to approach the person at the counter. "Hello. Is there anyone I can talk to to arrange food donations?"

"Yes, you can talk to Sanat. I'll fetch him." She smiles and goes into the back room, then fetches a guy.

"My acquaintance has a spell that creates food, but the spell has to be used today or it will be wasted. Could we donate the rest of the food to you?"

He then looks at Blai if he has anything he wants to add or object to.