"There's probably a lot more interesting stuff here than there is on a farm."

"Yeah farms are boring. Also kinda smelly." She wrinkles her nose. "I don't miss pigs. Now I only have to see them when we have pork roast. Books are better. Well, most books." She glares balefully at the volume of Gryffon.

"Why would someone even make a book that tries to escape? Maybe it was an accident." After all, not everybody can have gotten as good an education as she did.

"I asked the clerk and she said the enchantment was 'authorial direction in order to enhance empathic verisimilitude and reader engagement with the socio-historical milieu of the Wildhammer dwarves'." Diane pronounces all the words in the quote very carefully. "I think he just wanted to play a mean joke on everyone."

"That seems pretty likely. Or he just really liked enchanting things and didn't have the courtesy to stick to enchanting his own."

"Eheh. Yeah. It is a pretty neat enchantment. The flaps are very realistic. And some of the others back in the shop were pecking at birdseed. Have you ever met a real gryphon?"

"No, I haven't." That would be cool, though. "I suppose a silly spell done well is better than a silly spell done badly, at least."

"'If it's worth doing at all, it's worth doing well'." Diane does her best impression of a gruff old man. "That's what Archmage Marwyl always says. He can always tell when I'm trying to take a shortcut on something, eheh."

"Well, far be it from me to contradict your teacher. Though I find that finding the fastest and easiest way to do something can be part of doing it well."

"Yes, exactly! ...But most of the shortcuts I try don't, uh, work. So that might be why he's like that."

"Well, if you try something and it doesn't work, you still learn something. If only not to try that particular thing again. Eventually you'll get to a point where you can figure out what will work in advance at least sometimes."

"There's so much stuff to learn, though. Sometimes it seems really hard."

"That's very true." Maragosa knows she's been lucky in having as much time to learn as she has.

"I won't give up, though! I'm gonna learn all the magic and become an archmage and have lots of great adventures!" She nods with fierce determination, then almost trips over a loose cobblestone. "Eep!"

"That's a good plan! I hope you manage it." It sounds pretty similar to Maragosa's plan, actually, though she's more planning to invent things than she's planning on having adventures.

Diane recovers herself with a little hop. "Thanks! Oh, there's the Citadel." It's the large building she saw earlier, a smooth spire with no visible joints or mortar capped by what looks like some kind of purple crystal. There are more guards at the entrance. They don't seem like they're going to let Maragosa in.

Pretty reasonable, given that she is in fact a relatively dangerous person in disguise. "Looks like you're going to have to take the rest of these back," she says, holding the books out.

"Oh! Right." She maneuvers into placing Maragosa's stack atop her own. "Thanks for your help, Mekith."

"You're welcome, Diane. It was nice meeting you!" And off she goes to walk around the Citadel and admire its architecture.

Much of it seems obviously impossible with ordinary building techniques. Most of it stands on its own now that it's been instantiated, but there are a few spots that are still actively supported with magic. These generally serve a double purpose as decorations, as fountains of lights. Maragosa can see the way the mages here have hooked into the ley lines to power this, though their methods are undeniably cruder than those of the blue dragonflight at the Nexus.

Seems a bit wasteful to have magic keeping the building up when it would be totally possible to design one that stands on its own while still being conspicuously magical in construction techniques. Still, pretty impressive for people working under the handicap of not being dragons.

Perhaps the mortals are worried people will forget they can use magic if they don't wave it around ostentatiously.

"Pardon me, master dwarf," says a voice from behind her, dripping in condescension, "but are you lost?"

What's this guy's problem, do they not like tourists? She turns around with a cheerful smile nonetheless. "Nope, just wandering!"

"There's nothing for you to see here." The speaker is a sneering, blond-haired man. "Dalaran is the city of mages. Run back to your little hole and scratch in the dirt. You have not the wit to comprehend the sights here."

The contrast between what this guy knows and what he thinks he knows is too funny for Maragosa not to snicker. Which is not a wise or a courteous response, so she tries to turn it into a cough.