Eliza watches interestedly.

Rupert is busy.

To Eliza's eye the pieces and board probably look kind of like plastic, and not the stiff injection molded kind, more like sculpted plastic wrap. It wouldn't be useful as a way to make a tool or a weapon. But it'll do for a chess set.

Eliza will happily play chess with sculpted plastic wrap. (Is it squishy? The plastic wrap association makes her think squishy, but it could also be brittle and rigid.)

It's brittle and if she squeezes one too hard she will get a handful of plastic dust, which Blai dismisses and replaces with a fresh pawn.

"Wow, they looked pretty fragile and they're even more fragile than that."

"Yes. It works for some very minor things but it is not really a way to make usable stuff, even if you wouldn't mind your stuff only lasting an hour. The most commonly used function of the spell is a completely different one for cleaning things but this is all I've mastered."

"Rupert, would you be interested in learning an odd little utility spell that Blai has access to? It made this questionable chessboard and apparently it also cleans things."

"Certainly, but first I'm going to want to finish getting these books copied and then study the copies as much as I can while I still speak their language."

"I left my scroll case at your home in any case. I don't need it often because this is the kind of spell that can be caught and used again after it is cast and I do not often drop it."

"Caught and used again...? I shouldn't get distracted." He resumes turning pages.

"I can cast Share Language on you every day if that's the best use of the slot."

"Eliza, your thoughts?"

"I'm going to want to experiment for the first few days but most of Blai's spells have per-day usage limits and a lot of them are really temporary, it sounds like, so Share Language might actually make it into the long-term daily list if it's ongoingly useful for your research."

"It lasts twenty-four hours and most spells are seconds or minutes. Though Endure Elements is also twenty-four hours if there's any limited supply of climate management widgets."

"Our climate management widgets are pretty good but if we need to go somewhere that would give them trouble I'll keep that one in mind."

Distracted agreeable noises as he continues scanning books.

Chess. Quiet chess to not distract the man or his scrivening widget.

Quiet chess!

Eliza seems to set herself a different informal challenge every game. Some of them are obvious, like 'make every move in two seconds or less', and some of them less so, like subtle constraints on her pawn movements and the game where it gradually proves to be the case that one of her knights is terrified of her king and won't move to any position with a clear diagonal or orthogonal line of sight on him.

Figuring out what she's doing each time is entertaining, though it does kind of make him wonder if she's doing it as a handicap and would prefer to just have a normal handicap; after the frightened knight game he asks (softly).

"I'm not doing it as a handicap exactly, I'm not sure how to calculate chess handicaps and I'm not sure I'm good enough to need one against you, but I'm trying out a lifestyle where I avoid taking strategy games too seriously and the weird little extra challenges are a fun way to do that."

"How do you decide what kind to try?" he asks, setting up again.

"Whimsy? I thought of the 'one piece intimidated by another' idea during the previous game when I happened to move pieces out of line of sight of my queen a few times in a row. For the weird pawns thing I was trying to simulate constrained battlefield communications so they could only move if there was a valid communication relay between them and their chain of command, but I think it was too complicated and I forgot my own rules for what valid communication relays look like. I might try that one again with simpler rules next."

"Do you want to try some of the variants in the chess book? If it's not being widgeted at the moment -" He glances over.

It is not.