"Yeah, it's arbitrary, and there are no restrictions like that. When an arcanist chooses a symbol for a spell it only works for them, so an arcanist could attach flight to the word 'ground' and another to the word 'sea' and another to raising their hands up to the skies and singing half of a song. There is a way the specific symbols affect the spell, which is that symbols that are related in meaning to the spell make it cost less—if you attached the flight spell to the word 'flight' it'd cost less mana than to the word 'sky' which would cost less mana than to the word 'ground.'"

"Does this mean you should avoid the word 'ground' altogether or do you get a benefit from using something like 'give me freedom from the ground' in a flight spell?"

"No, that one would be good, both because of the meaning and because it's longer."

"Cool, I have sooo many questions that are bound to be very introductory. Does the arcanist need to know the language? Do multiple languages work? Can you get a sense of how much mana a spell costs before attaching it for good? Do the symbols change things other than the mana cost? Duration, precision, speed and that sort of thing?"

"They don't need to know the language, but it helps create a spell that makes sense and costs less. Multiple languages do work, and you get a sense for how much a spell costs when you finish attaching it to the incantation, not before. Symbols only change mana cost, everything else needs to be defined when inventing the spell."

"Cool. These systems are straightforward versatile so far. How about the last one? Metamancy?"

"Metamancers do magic to magic. We can detect magic—in artefacts and people and things—and we can tweak it and we can steal it and we can convert it and we can optimise it and we can generally mess with it. I can see yours."

"You mean the wards? Or maybe you can see the augmentation?"

"I don't have enough knowledge to distinguish that yet, I can just see that there's some magic on you that's not ambient magic and not like my world's. If I squint for a few minutes I might be able to figure out how many things you have, but any more detail than that would take a very long time."

"At least some of that should be the augmentation, and then wards, I'm not sure if you can see the ability to do sorcery... do you want to squint at me for a few minutes to find out?"

"Sure."

Squint.

Katur takes this time to quiz the bar and get suitably more impressed with it's capabilities. He asks for a history book from a long dead civilization and skims through its contents.

"Huh," she says eventually.

"Anything unusual?"

"There are—" squint "—four things. Two of them are in you, two are sorta—around you. One of the first two is almost like a part of you, it's what you are. The other's sort of—attached? Like, it's in you, but in the same way your blood is in you, not like your bones and muscles and organs are."

"The ones around me... must be my protective wards. And I guess the augmentation is the one that I am because my biology runs on it. Not entirely sure about the last one, might be sorcery? I always assumed sorcery was a feature of reality, but..." he waves at the napkins, "reality is bigger than I expected."

She grins. "It is! Knowing a bit about what they are like could let me draw some more conclusions about it but, do you have any more questions about my magic before we move on to yours?"

"Most of what I would've asked is minutae. Or how the two kinds of magic would interact, but then it's back to moving to mine."

"And I'm pretty sure I can figure out how they interact if I squint at you long enough and understand your magic well enough. So, your turn to explain your magic."

"Sure! There are three, maybe four, kinds of magic, but of those only sorcery is actually versatile. The others are synth, heat manipulation and the fourth is a type of memory crystal that could be the result of sorcery. Do you want me start with sorcery or with the simpler ones?"

"Simpler ones, I think."

"Okay, the simplest is heat manipulation from Efross; people from there can drain heat and store it for later release. It has an element of trained skill and natural talent to it. Some animals have it too."

"Animals can do magic, too? That's... interesting. Do they have a sense of how much heat they still have in them or something?"

"Efross' fauna is the only known to have developed magical traits naturally. And they do have a sense of stored heat, both for themselves and others. When people came exploring it was considered a sign of peaceful intentions that the explorers had no stored heat."

"That's an interesting convention. Back home it's seen as rude to do magic in public, and somewhat sacrilegious. Can get old ladies yelling at you if you do it. Using artefacts is fine, though."