"We're a democracy, yes. Vera's not special, she's just rich and good at getting away with shit. And, you know, capable of undetectably twisting people's minds until they fall into eternal love with her. That's kind of her thing."

"Ugh. Mind control is the worst. Is there no way to protect against her?"

"Oh, there's plenty of ways to protect yourself from psychics, but she has ways of getting to people when their guard is down. Just... never talk to her when you're alone. She probably wouldn't go after you, you don't really have anything she wants. But better safe than sorry."

Nod. "On the brighter side. You can use spellwords now. They don't sound as versatile as your magic and you need to memorize it again after each use. But it stays with you and actually casting is not mentally complicated."

"Neat! Can I see some?"

"Of course. You can borrow my spellbook to copy."

He offers her the spellbook... the difference between now and the first time she saw it is very noticeable. Before it was just filled with undecipherable scribbles in an alien alphabet.

But this isn't alien anymore, it's language. One she can understand. It's not meant to be spoken, not exactly, but it's meant to be understood. It explains the spells in great detail. Each symbol being an intricate part of the whole and connected to the entire thing.

"What you need to do is to read the spell until it clicks into place."

"Cool."

She flips through the pages, scanning each page for about a second, then gets out a marble notebook and starts scribbling.

He looks at it curiously. "Do you have improved memory or something?"

She taps the side of her head with her free hand, still scribbling. "Exemplar brain. I think fast, remember everything, and am generally cheating massively at everything."

"Okay, color me jealous."

"She is from this world and has a bunch of other powers, including magic, and now you're jealous. By the goddess, you're a nerd."

"Hey, if I had to pick one of my powers to keep it'd be Exemplar. The rest of them are strong, but Exemplar is where it's at for convenience."

"I am noticing the theme. Maybe someone from this world will have magic to make people into mutants? Oooh, we should try that. It would be fun."

"We probably can't aim well enough for that. We might be able to get mental shields against the likes of Vera? Maybe?"

"I advise against trying to turn people into mutants; our magic, at least treats that as an intractable problem and punishes attempts to solve it. Psychic shielding is a thing, yeah."

"What do you mean with punishing?"

"Like, 'the worst time somebody tried messing around with somebody's mutant status, they turned into a giant flaming snake monster and leveled Buenos Aires'. It's a bad idea."

"I see. No mutant tampering foolery."

"Yep."

Ariel sits back for a minute, then straightens suddenly. "I totally forgot to get you guys your shots, shit. I am the worst tour guide. C'mon, follow me, technically you were supposed to get these a couple of hours ago." She throws her shirt back on, opens the window and flies out.

They follow, leaving the window one at a time (it's kinda small for a place with so many fliers).

"We are probably not as in danger, but lead the way."

"That's good."

It's not far to the medical complex. Ariel leads them inside and to the door of Doctor Ophelia Tenent. She knocks and the door opens.

"Hey Caduceus. I've got some extradimensional visitors here, they need to be vaccinated and we need to test them for invasive microbes."

The doctor turns out to be a woman in her sixties with extremely long, greying honey-blonde hair. Her hair appears to be prehensile, holding a mug of coffee and lifting it to her lips absently. "Sure thing, sweetheart." Her hair extends to a nearby cabinet and removes a series of syringes while she sips some more coffee. "Come on in, boys, these needles aren't getting any sharper."

The two boys come in. Herod looking surprisingly suspicious at the needles. "Uh." He offer his arm.

Dr. Tenent's hair glows for a moment, and his left shoulder suddenly goes completely numb. The hair stabs him in the shoulder several times, once for each syringe, then glows again. His shoulder stops being numb, and there's a strange feeling of something flowing through his veins quicker than it otherwise would.

"Next?"

Sure, Gav will take his shots like a big boy and everything. Here is his arm.

Dr. Tenent repeats the same process. "Now just give me a moment..."

Several different locks of her hair glow simultaneously and weave through the air in an intricate pattern. Her eyes begin glowing, and she peers closely at the boys. "They're clean," she rules. "You can go."