"Nope! I was an atheist until I walked into this room and heard afterlives and angels and demons exist."

"Oh good, easier that way. Somebody dies and they leave a spirit. Most of those get collected by somebody and put somewhere; lots of somewheres, plenty of somebodies. If no somebodies they collect in Limbo waiting for their dead person visa to somewhere. Sometimes a spirit escapes, though, either for sensible reasons or insensible ones, and those are just around, so you or spirit-eating monsters may encounter them. All witches even without necromany ranks can see things of this sort, usually. At one necromancy rank, you can let humans see them too, and force them to show if they were trying to hide from even witches. You can try to talk to a spirit by visiting a grave or ashes or something but they do not all have great magical phone etiquette, might not pick up. Also, animate small dead animals. Start at three at once, size and number of dead thing you animate goes up by rank. Basically acts like it is alive.

"Rank two, if a spirit predator has been predatoring a spirit you can patch it up so it can realize it has been very foolish and skip off to the safety of Limbo. Put a homing beacon on them for a reaper if you like. Mix and match your dead animals if you want a snake skeleton with stork legs or something. Also just sling bones around without animating them if you want. Owl pellet, more like owl bullet. Rank three, attach cooperating spirits to your skeletons and zombies to give them that little extra intellectual liveliness. So to speak. Makes them keep going if you are asleep or something. Sling meat around as well as bones, terror of the butcher shop, and if you are fresh out, make your own bone out of nothing. Rank four you can do your own reaping if any afterlife operators wish you to have admitting privileges. Commandeer bones and meats even if someone is still using them alive-style, sense it even through walls. Rank five: lichdom! Stick your soul in a thing and hide the thing in an object in an item in a container in a location in a place. Bounce back from damage, or give up a body as a bad job and make a new one at the phylactery. Relocate other immortality methods to the location in the place if you wish. Location must have an unobstructed but possibly skinny and twisty path to whatever passes for open sky in wherever the place is. Body becomes far less important, for instance no longer needs eyes to see. - this will not help you not need hair to dye, though. Build your own afterlife if you have a place to put it but they start out not too secure compared to the big kahunas."

She laughs at "Owl pellet, more like owl bullet."

"Wow, that's a way more appealing variant of lichdom than any of the fictional ones I've heard of! Making a new body instead of being all gross and rotting! ...But the overall package here doesn't sound particularly me; I'll just take the first rank for the talking to ghosts."

"One rank one point! Where to next?"

"How about Witchery?"

"Witchery is such fun! Practical everyday being a witchness. Rank zero gets you the mothergifts from Witch Mom. One garment, one hat, one stick. Traditionally robe, pointy hat, wand, but possible to go with sundress, cowboy hat, quarterstaff, etcetera, if you wish, though still they will be very plain. Put them on ten minutes after any time, replaces what you have on unless what you have on is magical, make it nice and long because it does not come with underpants. Wand helps a bit with casting things. Never need patches, new set always like new.

"Rank up once, no longer takes ten minutes to put them on. Takes ten minutes to tweak the style, though. Turn your stick from wand type stick to broom type stick. Bicycle speed - can be pretty quick, bicycles are not slouches - and you plus fifty percent your weight. Rank up twice, and now they are perfect for all weather, keep out cold and dry off from rain and breathe in heat like a dream, shrug off stains like they never happened without having to do the whole dismiss and summon thing. Highway speed broom, added magical windshield to keep bugs from flying up your nose, catches you if you fall off, more carrying capacity. One minute to restyle your swag, garment now possible to have as separates so you do not need to go commando or sew runes on your scanties any longer.

"Rank the third and you have a pocket dimension in your hat! That is where we keep the rabbits. And the snacks. And the ingredients. And the shopping. And the - you get the idea. No air in there but the rabbits temporarily need not breathe and do not get scared and etcetera, they are on pause. Racecar speed broom with climate control, no longer need to buy specialty tube shaped pillows to sit on it comfylike, provides air where it is lacking. Reshapes into a magic carpet for slower more capacious cargo van experience. Instant quickchange powers. Fourth rank brings us to the invisibility cloak feature! Covers anybody on your broom with you even if you do not put the cloak over them. Still visible to some fancy sensory stuff but feel free if adequately warded or in a witchy enough place to go faster than jet planes. At this rank you can also do the tailoring service for anyone who cannot self-serve in this way. Rank five, pocket dimension can now admit your own self, does not pause you, customize the interior decoration however you like, pirate all the furniture in a store by staring at it and go to town. Kind of holodeck-ish in there, you cannot really make infinite Monas Lisa if you pirate her for your pocketspace, but you can look at her while you are at home in it. Turn your garment or hat into a portal to have friends over. They and you can pop out whence they came or instead choose to teleport home from there, do not even have to click heels three times - anywhere them or family owns, rents, leases, squats, whole nine yards."

"I'd like to go for rank three! I was wondering where a Bag of Holding might show up. What about Hexes?"

Three ranks! Boop boop boop. "Hexes is transmutation. Thing into other thing. Each transmuting hex sounds very specific, but is less so than it sounds. You have thing A, and also a thing B; you disappear some thing B to turn your A into some C, and all such C also can turn into the respective A. Thing B is called a medium. It is also technically a hex, rank zero, to turn mana into Kisses - witch coins. Six minutes to get a little bit of mana to be a coin. Skip the medium for extra mana cost if you must.

"Rank one has the wood medium. The A and C pairs are stone and mud, clay and glass, iron and tin, salt and sugar. Also, turn creatures into other creatures, if they do not start out too big or end up too much bigger or smaller. Rank two has metal as medium; cloth and leather, water and milk, paper and plastic, copper and bronze, fuel and bread. Polymorph bigger things and turn them into whatever animal you like. Rank three, medium is nice semipreciouses, like quartz, topaz. Egg and chocolate, water and gasoline, vegetable and meat. Polymorph good enough to hit a normal size grownup person now. At this rank also possible to animate objects - dishes wash themselves, broom sweeps around blind according to programming, kinetic sculpture starts itself again from the beginning over and over. Weight limit, mostly not a problem at household level unless you wanted the couch to move itself. Rank four! Ebony, ivory, fossil-y things, those sand struck by lightning things. Wood and cheese, cloth and air, steel and cloth, fruit and sweets. All the limits off your polymorph. Make a golem statue, stick a spirit in it by necromancy or human sacrifice if you want it any smarter than a video game character. Rank five, precious gems. Old and young, water and any beverage, lead and gold, flesh and stone. Duplicate anything you have to hand with some medium, doesn't work so hot on blood if you are specific about the blood, bring your own platinum, dupe is not magical."

"Do I need to take at least one rank in something to learn more of it the long way, or can I work my way up from zero? This all sounds useful but none of it is grabbing me in a 'I gotta have it now' way. I expect there will be more of that; I've been asking about the most 'gotta have it now' areas first."

"You do not have to take a rank today to get one later! You will grow."

"I'll go without one, then. What do I have left on the table, just Familiarity and the other elementalisms?"

"With curses and consortation ruled out, yes, but you have no affinities for any elementalisms, so you cannot take more than one and would have to put Psionics back to get a different one."

"Yeah, I already know I'm not putting Psionics back. Let's go over Familiarity."

"Familiars are not animal-animals, they are spirit beings - not like dead people spirits, usually, like ambient magicnesses. Very very easy, sometimes done by accident, to invite one to anglerfish onto your soul and turn into an animal for you. Pick whatever sort of animal so long as you are not ridonkulous and asking for a whale or a hydra. Cats traditional. Looks normal, smart as those contest-winner sheepdogs. Doesn't age. Dies for good if you do, and wanted to attach to you to start out anyway, so very loyal. If it dies, or you want to on purpose not have it for a while, you can put the spirit in a new critter no problem later, infinite resleeving. It is a spirit so it can see them and poke them.

"Adding one rank lets you lose animal allergies, even indirect ones like milk or eggs. Empathic communication. Use it to channel magic, like it's your wand but can move around and point at things on its own. Two, talk to both your familiar and regular animals, any non-ridonkulous thing you could have picked even if you did not. This will not work amazing for you because animals will hate you, but they will do it while understanding what you mean to say, at least. Doesn't make them any brighter. Three, borrow a couple of your chosen animal's traits, either real traits like seeing in the dark and breathing underwater, or mythical traits like owls being wise. Four, shapeshift into your animal. No special powers but still a witch. Familiar can turn into a human! Smart to match, usually still very cooperative but depends on personality. Mix and match to partly shapeshift, both of you. Five, you get nine lives. Even if you do not pick a cat. Cannot hold more than nine at once but refresh them by saving a cat's life, adopt from a kill shelter or whatever. Spend these lives on you or on any other dying thing you see - animals, people, whichever. If you were going to age you would have help from here at this rank too."

"Oooh, talking to animals is—one of those things that of course I would have to go for if I were the only witch in the world, but since I'm not I'd rather leave it for people who aren't hated by them? I think I'm going to take zero ranks for now; if I have additional points burning a hole in my pocket after hearing the miscellaneous magics I might come back to this."

"Of course. Miscellany now?"

"Yes please!"

"For this one you would also need two more ranks Divination. Gets your omens more specific. Also works well in combination with prayer if you have the prayer related magic - there are more rank magics but they are specific to where you go and who you hang out with, pick just one of them later."

"No thanks, Divination isn't one I'm interested in taking more ranks in now even if I have the points."

"Little globes of fire, any color, hover in the air, adjustable temperature even to below freezing, doesn't catch and spread, very handy, I have this one."

"I can see how it would be, but it's not really my speed; I'll pass on this one too."

"This one makes you a boy. Far commoner to go the other way but in case you have always yearned."

"Absolutely not! Glad it's there for the people who need it, though."

"You will find boys a bit thin on the ground in witchy places. Bit mysterious. Cannot all be explained by being a boy costing points. Anyway. Prestidigitation! They named a Dungeon And Dragon after this, if you have heard of it there. Clean things, little conjurations and illusions, warm and cool and flavor and scent things."

"Wow, gotta be tough for the heterosexuals! Lucky I'm bi. And that one's cool, I'll call it a 'maybe'. I'm being very picky about these because part of me also wants to pick up even more ranks in the magics I've taken."