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Two girls are moving their hands through the air and speaking together in perfect parallel.
Two girls are looking expectantly at a circle of red chalk on their floor.
Two girls have done something exceptionally stupid.
Nick in Elcenia
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His food is again completely carnivorous, and he sits alone unless approached by someone.
People look at him, but nobody strikes up a conversation.
<Keo, you said I'm stuck for the near future. How am I going to go home in the not-near-future? I'd like to go back eventually, even if there's nobody I'm urgently missing.>
<When Korulen has advanced far enough to get a familiar, it'll increase her channeling capacity, possibly by enough that she can send you home herself. If she can't do it, Saasnil can try, although it's a longer shot. We can have someone good at spell breaks look at you, but that's iffy at the best of times, and a co-cast is not the best of times.>
<If a break works, will it send me back that instant? Because I'll fall into the deeps without my ship there to catch me.>
<If a break is successfully cast, yes. Someone can analyze the feasibility without actually casting the break, and if it's feasible we can plan to unsummon you along with someone who can fly you to safety.>
<It isn't urgent on a scale of days. I would definitely like to import conjured things if and when I go back, though. What kind of things sell well here? What sort of jobs are available here so I could fund such a project? Who should I ask about this kind of thing if you don't know or want me to stop bugging you?>
<I'm not sure what your standards for selling well are. You probably don't have any locally demanded skills, and even in a nominally unskilled job you're unfamiliar with how, say, retail works here. The girls, being the source of your inconvenience, are more or less at your disposal if you need anything, but they're less likely to be able to answer questions than I am.>
<I mostly want money so I pay someone to conjure and send various things. We have almost zero raw resources in Cloudbank, anything I can have sent there there will be exceptionally valuable. In particular, wood, silver, steel, rubber, and meat are worth a lot of money. I could try trade, buy glassware or something for a bit of steel, sell the glass in Elcenia, pay someone to conjure more steel.>
<Korulen can look up how to conjure and send things for you; Saasnil may be able to help her.>
<I'll ask them, then. Thanks.>
He looks for a compost bin for about five seconds, then remembers to tap on the table. He walks over to the lift. "Library."
He looks for a compost bin for about five seconds, then remembers to tap on the table. He walks over to the lift. "Library."
<You're welcome.>
Back to the library he goes!
Back to the library he goes!
And after a bit of wandering, onto a table go a moderately large pile of books. An atlas, history books, a first tier wizardry textbook, and a book supposedly summarizing all the different species in Elcenia. He starts reading.
The atlas indicates that the planet is square. There are continents (three that go to edges, one large island whose continent status is apparently controversial), and seas, demarcated by merfolk political boundaries, several of which also go to edges. It is, by convention, divided into nine climates - three columns with wet on the east and dry on the west, three rows with cold in the north and hot in the south. Esmaar is on the cooler edge of medium and spans the dry area. People only live on the top of the square.
The first tier wizarding textbook has a lot of tips for getting crisp gestures and accurate pronunciation (this part will make no sense, being intended for Leraal speakers). It also introduces the concept of intentional components, suggests exercises and practice spells to get those right, and defines vocabulary like "reversal" and "analysis" even though it says that first tier students will get to those later in practice.
Elcenia has quite a number of sapient species. Fey are apparently three kinds of small insect-winged four-armed people. There are sapient wolves, up north. There are bird people and merpeople and vampires who turn into bats and drink blood. There are thirty kinds of dragons, who can have a number of interesting types of crossbreed. By comparison, elves and dwarves and halflings are pretty tame.
The first tier wizarding textbook has a lot of tips for getting crisp gestures and accurate pronunciation (this part will make no sense, being intended for Leraal speakers). It also introduces the concept of intentional components, suggests exercises and practice spells to get those right, and defines vocabulary like "reversal" and "analysis" even though it says that first tier students will get to those later in practice.
Elcenia has quite a number of sapient species. Fey are apparently three kinds of small insect-winged four-armed people. There are sapient wolves, up north. There are bird people and merpeople and vampires who turn into bats and drink blood. There are thirty kinds of dragons, who can have a number of interesting types of crossbreed. By comparison, elves and dwarves and halflings are pretty tame.
He attempts to find a book that summarizes the different kinds of magic.
If he looks hard enough he can find one! There's witchcraft and wizardry (the latter of which comes in three 'traditions'), there's sorcery and lightcraft, there are four kinds of mages, and there is the magic that various species sapient and non- can do.
He skims a few spellbooks - things like "50 Spells Your Friends Will Expect You To Know If You Are A Wizard" - to get a better idea of the kind of things wizardry can do, but by then it's getting rather late. He asks the first not-busy person he can find if he has to put the books back himself.
The kid he asks says there's a spell to do it, and if he doesn't know it a librarian can do it.
"I have no CC. Where can I find a librarian?"
"Behind that desk," says the kid, pointing.
"Thanks." The librarian spells his books back. Nick directs the lift back to his room and goes to sleep and wakes up at the next day's sunrise unless something interrupts him.
Nothing interrupts him.
He eats breakfast (It actually contains things that are not meat, he's had his fill) and wanders around the school, thinking about wings and wood and lift and drag.
Assuming he's not going to try the stairs, it's not very suited for wandering per se. The halls don't connect to each other except by lift and he has to know where he's going to use that. He can go outside if he likes; there's plenty of prairie to walk around, and a pond.
He looks contemplatively at the pond. <Keo, I'd like to try swimming, where can I find a place to do that?>