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Here, in a place where she is quite an unexpected sight, is:
an eight year old girl with brown-flecked white wings, looking dismayed and lost.
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pen_is_wow
witchwatcher
"You're all carrying ridiculous amounts of power. That's sufficiently deific to count to me, even if you can't do literally anything. I'm not gonna ask to be an equal, but I kinda want an aura - how hard would it be to convince you I won't abuse the piece of your magic collection that gave you that?"
"I second the sentiment," Lytee comments.
"I second the sentiment," Lytee comments.
beheld_beauty
"Enchanting, which is actually native to this world, is one of our more versatile forms of shareable magic. It can substitute for our default utility magic in a pinch - and I use it preferentially because I had it first, and so does one other Bell. Using the upper levels of its power, however, requires unusual personnel assistance, intense powers of concentration, a magical upgrade, or unethical behavior. And you have to do a lot of enchanting to get an aura. We have a shortcut for auras, which incidentally doesn't require very much skill either, but then you'd still have the ability to enchant in non-aura ways. And torching means you could survive a lot of untutored trial and error."
witchwatcher
"...You're talking about the pain? Yes, that's a significant limitation. I do suspect I'll be unusually good at learning magic - my special ability is to copy the stuff. I can't grab any of yours yet, it's too different from what Witches have, but I can understand it some."
beheld_beauty
"We try to be a little careful about handing out magic. We don't know any alts of you - do we, Glass?"
thaumobabble
"Nope, new and new and new moiety to boot. So the alts you don't have can't vouch for you."
witchwatcher
"Understandable. Will seeing my history help convince you? You have past-scrying in there somewhere, I think."
thaumobabble
"Yes, but it's time-consuming. If you don't have a privacy issue at all, Jane or Elspeth can judgesight you - that's a total copy of your history from your perspective copied into them."
witchwatcher
Gren nods. "That'll be fine."
Lytee looks nervous. "You won't tell anyone else what you see? Just use it to decide how much to trust me?"
Lytee looks nervous. "You won't tell anyone else what you see? Just use it to decide how much to trust me?"
witchwatcher
[It's not a secret, precisely, just something I don't want going around too far. Go ahead, if you want.]
witchwatcher
Lytee is a smidge selfish, and less attached to people than your average person. She joined the fight against Neuroi for the pay more than out of civic duty, but she doesn't hurt people out of spite and is not impulsive. She had been trying to scheme her way to a higher position in the local power structure, but only so she had more resources and freedom to use them. She probably won't use anything they give her unethically, at least. Especially if she knows there's a higher authority to answer to.
Gren is curious and determined. Her life goal seems to be learning more things, only to be interrupted constantly by the obligation to help save the world. She's fought bravely and stoically against the Neuroi. She's not prone to anger, and when she does get angry she's perfectly capable of channeling it into something nondestructive. She's a bit impulsive and careless sometimes, and possibly a little lazy, but is careful and cautious with her own magic. She wants her brother back, and after that nothing in particular. She can definitely be trusted to use magic ethically.
Gren is curious and determined. Her life goal seems to be learning more things, only to be interrupted constantly by the obligation to help save the world. She's fought bravely and stoically against the Neuroi. She's not prone to anger, and when she does get angry she's perfectly capable of channeling it into something nondestructive. She's a bit impulsive and careless sometimes, and possibly a little lazy, but is careful and cautious with her own magic. She wants her brother back, and after that nothing in particular. She can definitely be trusted to use magic ethically.
mind_game
[Gren's all to the good,] Jane reports. [Lytee I'd maybe worry about if there's a contact loss and nobody to theoretically keep an eye on her.]
mind_game
[It's happened. We've patched the obvious ways for it to happen again, but if, say, we give Pen one of my gems in case she goes astray, and she does in fact get lost again, and it's another hostile-to-my-medium world, then I go down. That doesn't totally cut off contact because you exist, Shell Bell may be able to force the Milliways door to your world, and there are people who can do a thing called 'freecasting'; what it would do is disconnect your timestream from the one I keep synced up. Oh, and depending on how your teleporting works this may have happened already.]
witchwatcher
[I expect to effectively live forever now, and I expect that if I ever lose contact with your group and regain it later, which is inevitable because I expect to live forever, you will investigate my activities for the duration. I'll behave.]
witchwatcher
"Getting back to the original point, Glass, what do you think about increasing Witches' mana?"
thaumobabble
"...Hm? Oh, that looks totally straightforward. It's a substance, you want there to be more of it, we should be able to do that and if it turns out we can't trying won't hurt anything."
witchwatcher
"A booster will be enough to get us home, but out of curiosity, could you make us generate more? It's inconvenient to nearly fall over every time I do a difficult teleport."
thaumobabble
"Eh, probably take a higher grade of coin. Not really out of your price range since you brought Pen back but you might want to know more about what your options for things to spend the favors on are before you pick?"
witchwatcher
"Torching is already worth it. But by all means, tell me about the kinds of goodies I can get."
thaumobabble
"...Name ethically-in-the-clear things that operate on a planetary scale or smaller and I'll let you know if you hit something we can't pull off."
witchwatcher
"Well... End the damn Neuroi war, heal my sister's limp, give me enchanting, a magically operated house in the mountains, scrub all the ash from the skies, rebuild western Europa, give me the ability to copy Witch specials like Gren... I can think of more."
Gren comments, "Besides ending the Neuroi and bringing a few people back from your afterlife, I think I just want more mana and a better ability to hold on to things I copy long-term."
Gren comments, "Besides ending the Neuroi and bringing a few people back from your afterlife, I think I just want more mana and a better ability to hold on to things I copy long-term."