Here's one that's hard to see into because the windows are none too clean, but it's a shop that looks much older and weirder than its surroundings - gnarled wood instead of cement and paint, moss and some other small plants growing directly out of the side of the wall, sign impossible to read.

Maybe it'll have more cool stuff for her dorm! And even if it's got nothing of interest right now, she might as well figure out what it is in case it's useful later.

It's full of weird things - taxidermy and lovely fantasy maps and dried plants and art glass and a huge orrery that might be trying to represent the Firefly setting or something because it's sure not the Solar System and funny clockwork kinetic sculptures and a columnar enclosure full of weirdly giant butterflies and fancy rugs and furniture so eclectic it would strike a typical interior designer dead on the spot.

"Good afternoon to you over there!" says the proprietor, a young woman in a witch costume. The witch costume fits the surroundings, the youth less so. She's fidgeting with an armillary sphere.

Ooh, art glass! Pretty. She'll take a closer look at the fantasy maps, to see if any of them are from Lord of the Rings or some other setting she'd recognize.

"Good afternoon! I'm Alyssa. You have quite a collection here."

"All one has to do is to have fabulous taste and spending money. Piece of pie."

No Lord of the Rings; no recognizable fandoms at all, actually, unless "the concept of fairies, generally" or "what if people lived on the moon and the moon was sort of Ancient Greek themed" are fandoms.

"What if people lived on the moon and the moon was sort of Ancient Greek themed" sounds like a banger novel if it is one, though. She'll point at that one.

"Hey, is that one from anything? Like, a book or movie?"

"Maybe. Come here, let me get a look at you and maybe tell your fortune."

Awwwwwwww, so she is a woo-peddler. Still, harmless to play along for a bit, it might make her happy, and the stuff is still pretty in any case. She steps closer.

The witchy shopkeep takes Alyssa's hand in hers, then beams, and then her hands turn into fluffy hare paws and her hat is bounced off her head by the force of the appearance of ears to match. "Aha!" she says. "Yes, it is from something. It is from secretly being real and full of witches, like you may yourself be."

What.

"Holy crap that's so cool! ...like I might be? Why's it secret?"

"This particular Earth has a very bad problem where if too many people know there is magic then it is very bad for everyone. That is what happened to the dinosaurs. That is what happened to the dinosaurs and this was not then the keystone Earth. Go to some other Earth if you want to do witchcraft on the TV. Tell your family though if you like, just don't adopt everyone you see."

"Yiiiiiiiikes. Noted."

At least it isn't "because we think non-witches are subhuman and want to exploit them with impunity"; that might be more tractable but it would definitely be much more unpleasant for Alyssa to deal with.

"So! You said I 'might' be a witch. How do I turn that 'might' into a 'definitely'?"

"You get awakened! You can do this by going out and waiting for trauma to happen to you but I recommend me doing it instead. I am professionaler than a house fire."

Alyssa laughs.

"Yes, I would vastly prefer the trauma-free option! What does it cost? Do witches use American dollars?"

"Awakening is gratis, I am paid by various interest groups who want this to be happening and in the hands of neutral confidential folks like my own self! Witch currency is mana. It is called kisses but you do not kiss it into existence."

"Good to know! I would, um, please like to be awakened, then."

"Follow me, I say, as though it is something you do with your feet -" Hands in paws, she pulls, and they are in a not-place, full of sparks of not-light in myriad not-colors in yes-clusters.

"Where do you want to start? Popular options for first ports of call are what species you will be and whether you want to be bookish or errands-running or hands-on with the learning of magic."

"Ooooooooh, what species I'd like to be, say more about that."

"You can keep what you already have got if you like! Among witches this goes by the name 'neutral' not 'human'. You still get an awakened witchful form so you can neaten up any things that are bothering you about your biologicalness, twice as long a lifespan even if you do no more magic about it. Neutral witches are very common and normal and some people like that kind of thing. And they recharge their mana by sleeping, full tank again once they pop up in the morning."

"Very nice! I like that I'd recharge by sleeping; nice for it to be something I have to do anyway. Also a fan of the implication that one can further extend one's life through magic. I hope it doesn't involve any horribly cruel sacrifices, in fiction immortality always requires some horribly cruel sacrifice and that's totally bogus.

What other options are there for my species?"

"Well, you don't have to sleep anyway, is the thing, there is magic of it. Cruel sacrifice is a thing but you don't must just for being immortal. Next up is daeva, very popular, it's like neutral but souped up, proportions and a few other things of a comic book superhero. Worth elaborating or next?"

"That sounds appealing enough to be worth elaborating!"

"No aging! Very tall! Super strong! Very intense feelings they are very good at sitting on! Instead of sleep, mana from emotions, like an audience around you or your genderfriend right at you."

The height and strength definitely appeal. Stronger emotions seem perfectly fine if they come with an equally strong dose of self-discipline. As for the mana...

"Emotions from an audience...like, making people feel things by acting or singing? How far does that scale, does it have diminishing returns with a bigger crowd? Does it have to be in person or could it be, like, livestreaming?"

"You don't have to make them feel the feelings, you can just go to see a sportsball. If the sportsball is any good that day, at least. Getting much off just one person the feelings have to be about you but you don't have to be paying attention. Does have to be in person for daeva."

"Oh, that definitely seems like an overall improvement on neutral, to me. What are some other options I have?"

"Dryad! That's what it sounds like it is complete with being a tree some of the time. Mana from taking care of alive things, have a garden or make the neighbors a casserole or get a cat. Sylph! Floaty air spirits, hang out where there's spirits from people being dead or something for mana. Undine! Made of shapeshifty water all the way through, very good at purifying water and get mana to do it too. Taura, that is like a centaur but less specific, looks like you would be an... alpaca taura if you would be one. Mana from being a tremendous hippie about an environment, or alternately historical preservationy behavior. Vanir, those are icey folks, get mana from being unconventional or resisting temptations. Elf, looks like you would be the Sun kind of elf, meditate for your mana. Orc, lots of people have orc ancestors because of how orcs get mana from having children. Mimi, animal-person kind of like me but I am instead an oread, you would be a fox mimi, fastest recharge of anybody from getting pats on the head and things like that. Pixie, tiny little flower fey, mana from growing flowers. That looks like it for things you can be, which sound funnest?"

"Hmmmm...say more about vanir and mimi?"

"Vanir turn blue or white or grey. Impervious to cold, they feel it but it does them no harm, extensible to plants and creatures close enough too. Sometimes accumulate ice buildup in horn shapes or spike shapes or scale shapes. No aging past some random point eighteen to twenty five. If something gets you, you explode into little bits of ice everywhere and regrow again in the nearest permafrost zone to pop up alive three months later. Mana recharge is like - everyone says Coke and you say root beer, ta-da; or, everyone is bundled up for Christmas and you say tank top, this too, or, you want the new shoes but you win the fight with your you and do not buy the new shoes, poof, mana."

"Hmmmm, I'm not sure about the idea of being a different color, even if it is just a bit paler, I like the color scheme I already have—and come to think of it, while there's some appeal of the mimi method of mana from physical affection, I can already tell that it would offend my sense of dignity that it's only one-way. I think I'll go with daeva; it's the one that not only appeals but has no niggling downside. What can you say about the different types of magic learning?"

"Not uncommon for mimi to meet up with each other and make it not one-way. Daeva it is though. Not locked in till you are all done for sure with all the things.

"Over here we have warlock, sorceress, and academic. Warlocks pick patrons! Patrons send warlocks on errands and give power for paychecks, fastest growth. Sorceresses are best at elemental magics, and get more power by paracticing with magic more. Academics learn it all out of books, takes longest but get a little extra oomph out of it."

"Are there any things that can only be done through a particular school, or is it just a matter of how long it takes?"

"Sorceresses are alone among witches in doing all elementalisms. You will not have enough power to pick up every kind of magic today but you are quite oomphy and could do it eventually, if you want, only if you sorcer. Warlocks get free magical presents but those are come-by-able other which ways."

"What are the elements? Is it just, like, the four classical ones?"

"Those and also nature things and metal and psionics. And technically turning yourself into hugeass kaiju but you do not get to do that one if you are a daeva, you must be instead or also something beastful."

Psionics! She is excited about that possibility for normal reasons entirely unrelated to having read an excessive amount of romantic fanfiction where lovers are soulbonded and can read each other's thoughts.

...but you can have one elementalism no matter what, and none of those others sound like deciding considerations. Wait, unless...

"Is there healing magic, and if so, is it classified under 'nature things' or are there other methods anyone can do?"

"Alchemy is most of your normal healing. There is also a rune for it and some hexes things people do. Naturalism is not so much a healing magic."

"Good to know! From the sound of those things I think I'm leaning academic; if immortality weren't on the table I'd be going fastest growth for sure, but since it is 'most total power' is sounding more appealing. Curious why you have to pick only one, though—is it just because each method takes up too much time to get anywhere if you try to split, or is it an inherent limitation of the power?"

"You can pick two growing options if you are Neutral or part Neutral - or, you will really be one thing, for affinities and suchlike, but can moonlight as another for getting more magic. Costs points though."

"Part Neutral? And, affinities—I'm guessing those are types of magic that the different schools are best at? What are some examples, besides sorcery and elementalism?"

"Hybrids are things! You can be more races than one if you like. Races and also classes have affinities that make magic less pointy to buy. Or more pointy to accept, for the bad stuff you are paid to take. Academics have affinity for Alchemy, Runes, Witchery, Aethernautics, and Portals. Warlocks for Hexes, Curses, Necromancy, Consortation, and Divination. Sorceresses for all elementalisms and also Familiarity."

"Oh wow this opens up so many additional questions! I guess I should start with, while I'm still digesting the 'magic is real' reveal—Necromancy, is that just reanimating bodies, or are ghosts real? Is there an afterlife?"

"Ghosts are real! Lots of afterlives, necromancers can sometimes tote a ghost where they wish it to afterlive."

"Do non-witches go to afterlives too? Are any of them hells and is anyone doing something about that if so?"

"There is Hell, wherefrom hail Consortation demons. There are also angels and whatnots, some warlocks work for those. I do not know exact statuses of projects of angels."

"Unfortunate. Unless they just have bad PR and the whole 'lake of fire, eternal torture, all the murderers and so on accumulated in one place' thing is made up, I suppose. What about, hmmmm...what are Witchery and Aethernautics? What's the difference between Curses and Hexes?"

"Have not visited Hell to know how it differs from its brochures. Witchery is having witchy clothes! We are all related way back when and our umpteenth grandma did a little something to let us have those. Adding ranks in it lets you have the classic broomstick, look snazzier, turn your hat into a pocket dimension - more details on all this available on request, I am going shallow first. Aethernautics is mostly about where all the rocks and lights in the sky are, breathing in space like Batman, eventually planar travel shenanigans. Curses is what it sounds like, Hexes is transmutations and only called hexes for some reason."

"What about Runes, what uses are there for that? What kinds of information can be learned through Divination?"

"Runes do lots of different things and also those things' opposites too! Luck charms, birth control, heavy-ifying things, antimagic, copy relics, and more. Divination is good at identifying 'who is that' or 'what is that' or 'how are you doing', mapping where you are at, chat app in your head, tell if the future is bright or not so..."

"Hmmm...you said Alchemy is used for healing; are there other uses for it also? Am I correct in assuming Familiarity is 'stuff related to having a familiar'? I'd like to hear a little more about what you mean by 'transmutations' for Hexes—is it, like, lead into gold and so on?"

"Alchemy has tremendous versatility. Hair dye to prankster nonsense to fireworks to video gamey buffs and splash attacks. Familiarity is stuff related to having a familiar yes, channel magic through it, talk to animals, best-of-both-worlds your and your familiar's traits so it is smarter and you are more whatever way it is, at rank five you get nine lives like the cat proverbial, refill them if you run low by saving cats - cats are the standard and the only thing that works for that one part but you may have any sort of animal for your familiar."

"I think I'm leaning academic; there are 'ooooh yes I want that' options under all three but the overall package of academic is clearly calling out to me. Before I move on to the next set of choices, I wanna jump back to the 'hybrid species' thing for a minute—could I be a hybrid of any two of the species I could pick? Like, say, daeva and mimi?"

"Sure. Or three, buy it twice."

"Good to know! I think I will revise my species choice to daeva slash mimi, then, and...what other choices are there to make?"

"Which magic to buy! The ones we have been talking about, which have ranks, and also little ones that are just take or leave, and also bad things that get you points to add on."

"What's my starting point total?"

"After buying the hybridizing twenty-seven."

"How much is it to buy a rank in a kind of magic?"

"Goes up with more ranks and depends on affinities for being your class and species-es! So cheap to take one rank in Academic things that each gives one point." She illustratively sweeps a rank each of all five Academic specialties into the tentative build. "With no affinity at all much expense. All five ranks in, say, Necromancy, fifteen points down the hatch. Daeva affinity is Body and Life, Mimi is Beast and Life - so Life for sure, your pick which you want to be more of under the hood to get which thingamajig."

"I think I'll go with Body. And then...I'd like to hear about the bad things I can take on for extra points first."

"Sure! Take up to thirty points of them, twice, to raise your ceiling and also to separately give you more starting points to play with. Very big ticket unpopular one over here, never get more than zero ranks of any magic, no nice wild magics of more than four points - I have never seen anyone take this but it is here for you if you wish."

"I am going to go with everyone else and say 'no thank you'."

"Quite! Over here... nature hates you, dogs are not your best friend, all the mosquito bites. Two points."

"Oh, wow, I hate nature too! ...that came out wrong, I wish animals the best lives they can have and I appreciate the ecosystems that sustain our own existence, but like, I am happy to appreciate them from my nice clean air-conditioned apartment. It would be sad for dogs to hate me, but I think the power is worth it; I'll call this a tentative yes."

Into the pile! "Here is a popular one, rule out a magic forever - good if you never want to summon any demons or already know which elementalism you will never get around to and wish to be paid for this."

"Can I take it twice? I would be happy to rule out Curses—even if I decide the best thing I could be doing in the magical world is, like, fighting the legions of Hell or something I'd rather be doing it in a support role than a directly confrontational one—and I think I'd probably be willing to rule out summoning demons as well, if they're like I'd expect from the name. Just to check—I know you said you don't have much insight into the Hell PR issue, but...do you at least know of any examples of demons, and what kind of deals they offer? So I can get a general idea of what I'd be giving up."

"Oh, sure, fully qualified awakener, neutral on most all things, sometimes set people up with full on diabolism build, none of my nevermind. How interesting a demon you get depends how many ranks - rank one is little six inch imps, on up from there. All associated with a sin, want things and can do things according. Lust demons for personal use, gluttons to cook for you, envy to pick pockets for you, so on and forth."

"Thank you! Yeah, this sounds like something I would also be happy to go without, if I can take it twice."

"Sure can! Thrice if you like!"

"Well, I suppose air doesn't hold much appeal to me, among the classical elements, and you said that as a non-sorceress I couldn't do them all, anyway. So I think I'll rule that one out too."

"Not totally forever impossible to do them all, can get more affinities by doing alchemical shenanigans, but very much valid to not do this, focus on fewer."

"Yeah, I think in any case I'm unlikely enough to get around to it that it's worth the point boost now. What's next on the menu?"

"Monster bait! There are monsters in some places and if you go those places they will be so excited to meet and eat you."

"Hmmmm. Are they already people-eaters and the effect just draws them to me over other people, or is it actively instilling the desire to eat people?"

"Depends on what monster. Does not make a sweet puppy into a menace but might wake a toothy something up from the nap it would have otherwise took."

"And...how common are these locations? Are they mostly sought out by people who want to fight monsters anyway or would I be missing out on whole corners of academic life by not visiting?"

"I live in a monstery place when at home! Girlfriend from an old Feywild family. Will not trouble you much if you just go to magical college then live on the moon or some such. Would make it a bit harder questing for your own alchemy ingredience."

"I think I'm going to leave this one as a 'maybe' until I've heard a few more."

"Fair is fair! This one makes you a magic black hole - good defensively if you are getting in duels, but also no buff spells, also-also harder to use magic, more mana and more exhausting."

"That one's a 'no thank you'; if I'm getting in duels I've already failed."

"As you like it! Popular one here, makes you light and floaty. No scubadiving without ballasts in your pockets, easy to knock over, less broomstick carrying because that is so many times your weight, but ignorable unless it is so blustery out."

"How does that interact with daeva strength?"

"Not weaker! Just lighter. Carry around all your sandbags and lead weights no problem. Broomstick is weaker, not arms."

"I think that one will be a yes also, then."

"Ta-da. And - this one makes you eye-catching. Not all bad, if you have no stealths you wish to stealth. Sticks if you turn into something else too."

"Yeah, that seems like the opposite of a problem to me, actually."

"Boop! And this one makes you cuter and makes your true awakened witchful form a kiddo - you can get as old-looking as a mature fourteen but not more than that. Hard to date, people may be condescending about this, but some people do not love being taken seriously or on dates."

"Well, if people don't take me seriously that sounds like a them problem, but I do want to go on dates, and not with the demographic I would attract if I looked fourteen. No thanks."

"Understandable. Not for everyone. This one makes you ugly? Also hard on the love life."

"No."

"Popular one: extra nipple! Appears in some random spot but I will move it for you where you please, no charge."

"I think on this one I'm going to have to diverge from popularity and say another 'no thanks'."

"Suit your own self. Be addicted to a thing? Cannot get too cute, no addicted to jogging. Coffee, gum, porn, all three of them for three times the points, roll your own."

"How brutal are the withdrawal symptoms? Headache, death, somewhere in between?"

"Not too bad, about like addicted to coffee the normal way. Hard to skip it if it is there to be not skipped though."

"Okay, that's doable. And wow, 'coffee, gum, porn'...what a trio of suggestions. It's like you know me! Well—"

She blushes.

"—assuming erotica falls under 'porn', anyway. And as on brand as chewing a piece of bubblegum now and then is," she twirls a strand of hair around her finger, "I don't think I actually want it to be as big a part of my life as caffeine and AO3 dot org. I'll have to think about if I would want to do a third thing—oh! Doing my makeup, maybe? If that's not getting too cute with it."

"Hmmm... think I can squeeze it in so long as it is makeup per se makeup and not the skincare routine. Caffeine erotica and your creams'n'powders, boop boop boop. Next, sensory disability. Legally blind, legally deaf, legally cannot tell if you have a gas leak, legally have no taste, legally never experience the scratch of wool sweater again, again can take three if you so care."

"I think I would prefer to take zero, actually."

"Opposite thing is also on offer! Most annoying supersenses."

"I think like the monster thing I will leave that as a 'maybe' for if I find myself desperately wanting more points."

"You are pretty good on points in humble opinions such as mine. You want to stay attached to all your limbs?"

"Indeed! Big fan of my limbs."

"Requirements, sort of like addictions, but harder core, your choice if you need them like air or like water or like food, more points to less points. Chews up your mana if you go without on top of being hungry for it."

"I think that one also goes in the 'maybe' pile."

"Heinous nightmares?"

"I don't think so."

"I have seen it took ever but not popular at all."

"Next... so, as you can choose to be a species or later poke fate to put you in a place, you can be in a sort of magic lineage, not blood relatives but a little like it. These things are less and less popular because they make anyone from a different one which has in the past bothered any of yours the most bothersome forever and vice versa, you will not really be able to stand those other guys and they will hate you too. Four points though, advantages of magic relatives."

"I don't think it would be worth it to let other people drag me into conflict without my say-so. That one will be another no thanks."

"Here is one that fates you to die in a fight. Does not seem your speed though it is not necessarily permanent."

"Yeah, I don't need more of a ticking clock to figure something out about death than I already have from, you know, being mortal."

"Oh, no ticking clock, daeva do not age, mimis neither."

"Oh nice! That doesn't really make me more inclined to introduce one, though."

"So valid. Next one, your choice of paranoid violent lewd or mad with curiosity?"

"I think I'll call a 'maybe' on mad with curiosity."

"Imposter syndrome one? I have seen it took but I think often it is regretted. Same with this one that makes you not at home in your awakened witchful form."

"Yeah, those are both a 'no thanks'."

"Fated to be betrayed by a trusted loved one?"

"No way! I'm surprised that one didn't get a 'no one has ever actually taken this' disclaimer."

"Some people are like, ha, I will simply have no trusted loved ones. Fate is patient, fate is unkind. Compulsion like an addiction but on steroids?"

"I think I'm going to say 'no thanks'. In theory it might be a 'maybe' but I'd have to be really desperate."

"And those are all your bonus point options. You are not full up but perhaps your fondest ambition is not filling up."

"Hmmmmmmmm...if I were to take the monster thing, mad with curiosity, and three requirements at the level of 'need like water', would that be enough to fill me up?"

"Can only take one requirement. This can fill you up on one or the other of long term power cap or quick-fix power right now but not both."

"I think I will stop there, then, and go for 'long term power cap'. I'm not sure what I want to make my requirement yet; can I think about that while I distribute my points? It might help if you had some examples of popular choices. That is, if enough people have taken the trait for there to be popular choices."

"Oh, sure they do, people get clever all kinds of ways requiring for themselves things they expect to have always or need anyway. Their wedding ring like air, whatever they do for mana like food, sunshine like water."

"Oooh, sunshine is good, I like that. I'm assuming I could define it such that it's the light of any star, not just this Earth's Sun? Still means I'd die if imprisoned, but I'm not sure that's a negative. Wait, actually—"

Alyssa blushes, grits her teeth, and continues.

"—just to get a full sense of my options, would 'masturbation' be an available choice? I know I already picked 'porn' for an addiction, and they tend to go together, but—they don't always. For me."

"Yes, if you want to be enjoying three squares a day of it forever."

"Ah, fair enough. I hear 'like water' and just think about how often I'd need water to not die, not how often I need it to not be miserable. I'll go with 'sunshine', then, unless I think of something better before I finish picking my other options."

"Sunshine and starshine like water? All right. - does limit your gallivanting in pocket dimensions a bit, eff why eye."

"Before today I wasn't even expecting to get to go to other planets! I think it's a fair price for maxxing my long-term power."

"Well, the nice schools are not in sunshiney places. Circle back to it if they sound of great appeal, perhaps."

"Fair enough. Do you have a standard recommendation for whether people invest in ranks or miscellanous little magics first? If not, I think I'd like to start with ranks."

"Either way superfine! I have already assumed you want the free points of the academic things. Things in species affinity for you are Divination and Alchemy again because both species have Life, Hexes whichever species you go with by different routes, and if you go mimi-first, Familiarity and Metamorphosis. Going daeva-first has no rank magic advantage but might be handy for perk thingies."

"I'll stick with daeva, and I think I wanna start with ranks. What are the ranks like for alchemy?"

"Usually take about an hour to make, vary how much of that time is prep and how much simmering and how much stirring new stuff in. Then they sit on your shelf forever till you want them, if you go tomb-raiding the potions are all safe to drink like honey if they ever were safe to begin with. Condense them into pills, soak them into bandages, reduce them down to single drops to carry in a hollow tooth, as you like. Potions vary like cooking, but more! No two perfectly alike, very customizable within broad power bands. You will need ingredients ranging from grocery store to grand quests for unique swag depending on ranks, or to substitute extra mana. Broad categories are medicine ones, buff ones, and silly ones - like magical no-annoying-side-effects paracetamol, caffeine, and hair dye, as a for example. Also possible to do poisons and debuffs. Ranking up lets everything be harder better faster stronger. Well, not faster, already pretty fast at rank one. Medicine ones go from 'reliably best case mundane medicine' to 'definitely obvious magic' at rank three. That's also when you can do grenades! Usually not worth the ingredients unless you are very good at throwing and do not have straight combat magic, though. Rank four is when you can bring the dead back, but only if they are not too long dead. Rank 5 is when you can go around solving aging for people who have this problem! And do scary things, love potions and amnesia potions and shapeshifty potions and all that intense stuff."

"How many points do I have after taking my various disadvantages, and how many would it cost to take all five ranks in alchemy?"

"If you are spending to cap on long term potential, with your complications, you can spend thirty-one more today."

"And what's the situation on how many points each rank costs?"

"Only seven! You cannot do this with all the things you like, though, you want a sort of a stack, for every five a four and for every four a three or a couple and for every three a two and so on."

"Yeah, I figured, I thought I would at least see about Alchemy though because I'm doubly advantaged at it and it seems like one of the coolest magics. Do the affinities from my species and method of growth continue to make it easier to rank up in an area of magic once I've left here, or do they only apply to point costs right now?"

"Applies forever so long as your affinities stay as they are."

"I think I'd provisionally like to take all five in alchemy. What are the ranks like for Divination?"

"Divination has a zeroth rank! It is the chat app in your head. Text voice video, block people if you want, very handy. Costs nothing. Old-school witches sometimes still put it through a magic mirror or crystal ball but these days everyone has always wanted a phone in the brain. Once you buy ranks - never forget people's names at a party again, point and say 'identify' and know who they are and some public fact to go with. So-and-so captain of rugby team, such-and-such queen of location, etcetera. Also good for field guiding plants and things, indispensable if you go mushrooming. At rank two also starts telling you magical facts. Essential if you go mushrooming in the Feywilds. Status spell keeps you updated if your friend is hurt or your toast is burning. Augury gives you a good or bad or meh feeling about something you might do in half an hour or less than that.

"Rank three, convenience bonuses for identifying, like everybody has a nametag for you all the time without you needing chanting. Status more specific also. Map app in the brain, like a video game keeps the map of wherever you go, place markers in your map. Archive is witch for photo app in your head, also manages inventory if you have extradimensional space. Augury goes up to twelve hours. Foresight is half a second precog, mostly useful for fights. Rank four, identify can doxx people! Status gains a Clippy telling you how to fix it if you can, if your toast or your person is burning. Map more convenient and backgroundy, works on places you went before you got this magic, automatically identifies all the things on the map. Spell to hit things you aim at like a homing pigeon, Archive starts working without needing your eyes on the thing you want photo'd, Augury two days long, Foresight does one and a half seconds or a simulation that doesn't know anything you don't for an hour. Rank five doxxes True Names and weaknesses, traces magic effects to casters, checks if people like you or not. Status gets spookier, less about 'is burning' and more 'having affair with the postman' or something. Maps update live like you had the Google truck there taking pictures all the time, unless masked; masking also becomes a thing you do at this rank. Archive works through maps, locking on to targets works through maps. Augury all week long, and longer if the thing is very bad. Three second foresight or 24 hours of simulation, and it glitches informatively if you will be surprised."

"Oooh, Augury sounds great! How much would it be to bump it up to rank two? What about rank three?"

"Two is two, three is four!"

"I'll take rank two. What about Psionics?"

"One is one, two is three, three is six, etcetera, no affinity there. Buffers you against trauma, spooky shit, telekinetic things thrown at your head, and psychic constructs, more at all ranks. Rank one, you can make a little fist size thing or smaller invisible - to one set of eyes or ears or one other sense, not a crowd, not cameras - or like a different thing the same size. Give people headaches, just because you said so or because they must put a quarter in the swear jar or something; these can get worse with every rank. Rank two, fist size goes up to big pumpkin size, two senses two people; this keeps going up each rank. Make psychic doodads - letter opener, chair, have seen this done with a handkerchief and that was mightily odd to look at - which are real to you, sit-on-able to you, but nobody else, they just feel tingly, numb. Psychic chair would go through the floor if you weren't holding them up with your brain. Rank three! Better range of constructs, thirty meters instead of five, that keeps going up, throw ninja stars that don't exist at people to make their arm fall asleep. Swap places with anywhere empty, ker-pop! Sixty feet but handy if you are not doing lots of portals and flying magics. Rank four, the ninja star that does not exist action-movie-unconscious-es people if you get them in the head! Mile of teleportation! Go bother people in their mindscape, mess with memories, adding subtracting remixing. Rank five, the headaches are bad enough you physically explode their skulls. Very gruesome, one hears. Scarier mindscape botheration. Go see psychic echoes in the ethereal realm of thought, make a thing antimemetic if you wreck it from there. Though many witches are warded, this and other hasslements will not work on savvy ones."

"Awww dang, the really cool mind powers are all the way at rank four and sound more geared towards strictly adversarial purposes than I was hoping for. Figured it was worth checking for low-hanging fruit, and any amount of psychic power would rule; I'll take one rank.

And then I wanna hear about Runes next...is what I'd like to say if something weren't bugging me, which is—so since I heard that immortality is on the table I've been going for—disadvantages I'm sure I could stand forever, long-term power over short, nothing to get me dragged into conflict. But it's starting to really sink in that being a witch sounds probably more dangerous than being an American rich kid even if I'm the type to focus on my studies, do nice uncontroversial charitable projects, and not seek out beef with anybody, and if I'm not willing to put more effort into survival now, I might not have forever. Which you might've been trying to hint at more gently and I was being too dense—and starry-eyed about the cool stuff—to get it, so sorry.

So, I guess I'm wondering which areas of magic are best for, like, defense? For shrugging off a wide range of potential attacks? And also noting that I will wanna revisit the disadvantages with additional questions to see if I can squeeze out a few more points."

"Totally possible to be uninvolved in scarinesses. Limits careers and tourisms - and you will be powerful enough as a grand alchemist, to get shook down for things, if indefensible enough and not very secret - but witches die less often than humans and come back more often. Just, you do not want to bring a knife to a sorcery fight. Avoid the fight or go armed.

"Any elementalism a fine armament if you outrank the other girl. Runes very good for warding starting around rank four. Portals good for getting out of Dodge. Divination to not be in Dodge to begin with. Really anything can be good in a fight with time to get ready, alchemy is good for this too!"

"Oooooooh, I think I'd like to hear about Portals next, that was one of the ones that sounded cool anyway."

"Portals, cheap for you, five ranks for seven points just like alchemy. The portalest kind of portals is rifts - cut reality open here and it leads to over there, you must see or know very well the over there. There is also making a doorway or something into a gateway, usually not always-on; and portkeys - used to have another name but portkeys caught on following certain literature - objects that swap places with all aboard. Rifts are fragile, something hitting it from the wrong side or trying to squeeze too big a thing will rupture it. Portkeys and gateways are expensive, ritual sacrifice of expensivenesses to make them. None of these things move around - except for portkeys doing the swap dance - once they are made. Standard use of rifts is one-way ones to elemental planes, ay kay ay proximas - ice tray, hot plate, suchlike, starts at rank two. Add Storm Proxima at third for jumping your car, at rank four Water Proxima to fill your Brita, at five tap the Void to pull things into it and listen to it whisper creepsome shit. Size of rifts, range of rifts, range of portkeys and gateways, depth of proxima rifts and how intense accordingly, number of these things you can have - all of this increases numberswise rank over rank."

"I'd like to go for rank three. Runes next?"

"Runes! Magical ritual and inscribing onto a thing, poof, thing is magic. Time consuming as poofs go though, so good thing you do not have to do them all at once. Rank one runes are luck, fertility, courage, chill, and augment! Also can do their opposites, most runes will. Mostly what they sound like but augment is mostly used for soaking up damage - by affinity, which is fun, like your splash grenade potion will do less damage if someone's tattoo is an augment for Water but, even if it is a fireworks exploding burny potion, not if the augment is for Fire. Rank two, runes are disease and heavy - mostly used for opposites, though, those are just their names. Rank three, talent and wind. Playing with talent objects is terrific fun, I learned the harp this way. Wind like a fan or like a chainsaw or like one of those indoor skydiving places. Rank four, Spell and Warden runes, for attaching other magic to runed things and for dispelling magic on contact respective-like. Rank five, Time - prevent aging, keep your bouquet of flowers forever, make your wine fancy in a hurry. Protection - object stands in for whoever has it to take damage in their place should they trip and fall into a staircase or an argument. Relic - some extra special magic items are called relics and this rune copies their whole deal onto a new object, or a creature."

"Very cool! How does the Spell rune work? Can I make a magic item out of any spell I know, or are certain kinds of thing best for it?"

"Most anything! Cursed necklace, toasty-warm-all-over hat, enchant a broomstick to act like a Witchery one for someone who hasn't got the convenience, put your healing potion in a chunk of crystal to make it look woo enough to the mundanes, make a thing psionically invisible all by itself, suchlike."

"I'd like to go for rank four! Could I go over Aethernautics next?"

"Less popular. Your one net positive rank for being academic gets you true names of any rocking celestial bods, or also the gaseous ones, if you see it. Tell how far away it is too, get a little better at thinking about those big numbers. Party trick, unless you are astronomical. Rank two, you can survive in space, no trouble breathing or with the exploding eyeballs or anything. Rank three you can track littler space things too, like the space station. Float around as fast as you could on a broom even if you do not have one. Bit of space folding, dovetails nice with portals. Rank four you get to bop around among atheric spheres, alternate dimensions, and things like that. Go pick pocket dimensions and break and enter if you like, if they do not have security. Make your own, like dumplings in the dough of the world, twist and pinch and the house or whatever is tucked away. Twisty trippy geometry silliness. Messes something awful with teleportation type things. Reorient gravity for you and other things you touch if you care to have tea on the ceiling. Rank five, better at stopping teleportation on purpose in bigger areas, better at picking pocket dimensions - useful to know the owner's true name for this - do little time loop dioramas in your dumplings. Scary combat power at this rank, black distortiony shears in the world, make magical radioactive Superfund site, not recommended. If you were going to age, you don't at rank five, unless you feel like it, forward or backward. Immune to time stoppage if someone puts you in their time-runed pantry or something."

"Heh. I'm noticing a bit of a pattern to the rank fives. And heck YES, I wanna breathe in space, I'd like to go for rank two.

...could we jump back to the disadvantages for a bit? I've thought of a few more questions."

"Three ranks windkeeping also gets you breathing in space but if that is the main draw two aethernautics is far cheaper. What are the questions?"

"So, first of all, instead of 'sunshine' for my requirement, would I be able to do 'having my hair dyed pink'? Or just having dye in it at all; I feel pretty locked in to pink right now but it's not impossible that in all the ages of the world I'd wanna be a green girlie again."

"Yes, that is doable!"

"Great! ...I think I might want to bump it up to 'need like air', in that case. Assuming it can be a binary thing like the wedding ring example, I can 'breathe' if there's any amount of visible unnatural color and only die if I let it totally fade?"

"Wedding rings are more binary than hair dye, you might begin to feel a bit faint if it started fading."

"I think I could manage carrying an emergency bottle around. Oooh, hey, would alchemy let me do better dyes than regular chemistry? Less prep time and damage to the hair and such?"

"Absolutely. And fancier effects. Dye stripes out of one bottle if you want. Sparkle-shimmer it. Make it glow in the dark."

"Yessssssss.

So, I was also wondering if you could tell me more about the compulsion drawback? Do you have examples of the sort of things that count?"

"Points by how often it comes up - compelled to do a dance when fireworks go off, one point, compelled to howl at the full moon, two, compelled to pet every dog - I do not recommend this, as you decided dogs shall hate you - either four or eight depending on how common dogs have been around you before in your life. Possible to overcome but tremendously difficult."

"Hmmm, the first thing that comes to mind is 'give cash when I pass a beggar on the street', but perhaps that's cheating like 'addicted to jogging'. Actually...if I swapped out makeup for another addiction, could I make it 'touch up my makeup whenever I see myself in a mirror'? Would that be four or eight points?"

"Compulsion does not have a cheating problem like addiction! Totally possible to be compelled to give to beggars. Makeup touchups at the sight of a mirror look like... eight points. Need not even de-addict yourself to makeup, fine to double dip this."

"Even better! And, thinking about it more, I've decided it's worth taking some sensory issues after all. I'd like to go for heightened sense of taste, reduced sense of smell."

"I hope you do not like spicy food."

"Nah, I'm not a big fan. What do I have left among the ranked magics...Necromancy next?"

"Ghosties and ghoulies, yes! Do you have a religion which I must culturally sense?"

"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."

"Very lucky to be bi! I selfishly have a boyfriend. Share him with my girlfriend, though. Next! Suggestion, lock eyes with someone and tell them what to do and they shall most likely do it so long as you are not saying 'everyone jumped off a bridge and you can too'. Does not give them special powers so they cannot forget things on your sayso. They can figure out it was your idea, especially if it is a weird thing for them to do."

"That sounds like something I would love to have if I had no morals! But, um, since I do—does it still work if the person knows what I'm doing? Like, if a friend wants a push to do homework they've been putting off or resist the siren call of junk food or whatever, could I use it on them with their consent?"

"Less well, but still at all."

"I'll put that down as a tentative yes, then."

"Another one they stole to be a Dungeon And Dragon, Fascinate makes any performing art you do more captivating and better executed! Also you can curse people through it but not you because you don't curses."

"I won't say there's zero appeal to that but it's not insistently calling out to me either; I'll call it a 'maybe'."

"Mime psychic constructs into existence. All but completely redundant with a second rank for psionics."

"Mime psychic constructs! If God is real then He has a sense of humor. But no thank you."

"Oh, lots of gods are real. One specific one might be the big cheese, might not, isn't telling."

"Huh, really? Just ones I'd know of from non-magic people's religion and mythology, or are there entirely new ones?"

"Both!"

"Cool! I bet that will be interesting to learn about. ...Is there, like, a witch Wikipedia?"

"Not exactly a Wikipedia, but there is witch Internet and many lovely libraries."

"Excellent! Are there any more options for miscellaneous magics available to me?"

"Yes! Next we have here sleep only and exactly when you wish, immune to magic sleep attempts, lucid dreams on demand."

"Absolutely yes!"

"Thought you would say so. Next, third eye - no cosmetic effects, is only called that - see auras in addition to spirits and things. Reads emotions, fingerprints individuals."

"I think I'll call that another 'maybe'."

"Extra familiar-esques who are slime creatures?"

"Hmmm, no thanks, I'm not even sure I'm going for a familiar at all."

"Telekinese all your mothergifts, duplicate your hat and appear one to the other, patch it into your portals powers if you have enough Witchery?"

"Nah, nothing against it but it's not passing the 'would I rather just have another rank of something' test."

"Mood weather, is what it sounds like."

"I don't think I'd go for that even if it didn't cost points! I bet someone somewhere is having fun with it though."

"They are. I have a neighbor back at home who does a little fisher king situation with it. Everyone must keep her happy or it shall be thunderous. Next - you already bought this one to be a daeva-mimi. Next, charge swap, if you want to drop one of your mana charge methods and put in another."

"Nope, my charge methods are perfectly satisfactory."

"Turn yourself crystalline, part or all of you? Invulnerable to physical harm but must skedaddle quick, mana-pricey to hold."

"Eh, no thanks. The only real appeal to me is the invulnerability and I'd rather not spend points on something that's such a last-ditch defense when there are options useful for both defense and daily life."

"Store clothes, weapons, armor, in your pocketspace, and summon and dismiss them onto you just like your mothergifts?"

"Just to confirm I understand—is the only advantage this offers over the rank three Witchery hat pocket dimension 'speed of equipping'?"

"Speed and seamlessness. People who take it seem to love it but it is not for all."

"It does have a certain charm to it; seems like the kind of thing you can do in a video game. Sounds not worth the points for me though."

"Blood telekinesis and using blood to swap in for mana and material ingredients?"

Alyssa grimaces envisioning the potential applications of "blood telekinesis".

"Um, I'm good, thanks."

"I'm neutral but I am more neutral about some things than others," Nia nods. "Levitation! Broomless flight. Weightlessify things you touch and leave them in the air as long as you want. Sleep above your bed instead of on it if you like to. Making your broom faster makes your this faster also, by itself it is eight leagues an hour."

"Nah, that one's another 'cool but not particularly my thing'."

"Fate yourself a soulbond? Can but needn't be romantic."

"Um. Elaborate on that, please? What effects does it have for souls to be bonded? How is the person chosen?"

"Feel each other's emotions, sense if they are in danger before they do, hug each other for fast mana charge, cannot get more than a little pouty at each other. Once a year you make half a heart and they make the other half for a very overpowered line attack or healing beam, as the situation calls for. Person will either have also chosen this magic, or... naturally awaken and get it by accident, but then they will still soulbond somebody, harms nothing for it to be you if you want this sort of thing in your life. I think some gods take interests in pairing people off?"

"Um. Well. Yes I want this sort of thing in my life, holy crap."

(That's about the strongest swear Alyssa is willing to use.)

"...but I suppose it would be responsible to ask if there's any sort of personality filtering. Like, is there anything stopping me from getting matched up to someone who kicks puppies and thereby nudged in a more puppy-kicking direction?"

(She'd be a total liar if she said there isn't any appeal to the idea of her nudging someone in a less puppy-kicking direction, but the part of her that wants that doesn't get decision-making power.)

"...we can check which gods are making you warlock offers, try to guess from that which may be paying attention? Nothing stops puppy kickers from taking the magic and even if only exactly one puppy kicker has it they will be paired, so it cannot be too guaranteed."

"Yeah, I'd like to hear what gods are interested in me."

"We've got... Aphrodite! Ọsanyìn! Prende! Xochiquetzal! Mangagayuma! Jiutian Xuannü! The angel Harut! Hecate! Lots of people who can do rank five get Hecate, she's probably not paying loads of attention, she just likes witches."

"Aphrodite and Xochiquetzal, nice! ...Well, I don't think I'd want any Greek or Aztec god as a boss if I were really going warlock, but as areas of concern go 'love and beauty' are both ones I vibe with and encouraging in a potential matchmaker.

Ọsanyìn is cool, from what I've heard of him. I wonder if he took notice of my studies—I'm a bio major, hoping to go into either public health or medical research. 

Nice to hear an angel's on the list, if they match their reputations as much as demons do.

From the names I recognize, it's an encouraging list, for sure. Just curious, though—who are Prende and Mangagayuma?"

"Zoja Prende, also called Afërdita, Albanian goddess of dawn, love, beauty, health, fertility, women in general. Mangagayuma, Tagalog love charm sort of person."

"Oh nice! I'll have to read about more world religions and mythologies now that I know they're, uh, all real.

And I've decided I'll take the perk."

"Here you go! No guarantee how long it will take but should not be too terribly. Wind blessing, expensive but nifty - sense of where the air around you is to sense things that way, everything blowing does so convenientest for you, absorb anything coming at you that you dodge to use its kinesis for your own things in the next few seconds, double jump - quadruple actually - like a video game character."

"Nah, that'll be a no thanks for me."

"That looks to be all on your menu at this time. Go back and pick up more ranks?"

"Sure! How many points do I have left?"

"Six!"

"Would that be enough to get one rank in Familiarity and two more in Aethernautics?"

"Yes, with one left over."

"Hmmm, what else have I not taken ranks in...that, and the last one for one rank of Hexes?"

"Perfect. However, you might want to put some back later, because there is also faction magic. To go with factions. Big loosely aligned witchy cultures."

"Noted. I take it my next decision to make is picking a faction?"

"You can hang out with many, but you can only fate in one, and only take one of the magics today. Magic colleges? The moon? The religious folks? Fairies and monsters and politics oh my? Secretive little cells of mischief?"

"I wanna hear about the moon!"

"The moon is lovely. Lunabella, it is called. Highest of standards of living, very rich and comfy place. Major thing its detractors point out is how everyone is technically slaves. This means everyone, so if you get a bad draw of matron after auctioning yourself off you can go to her matron about it and complain, and they get so intent on assuring everyone how happy their possessions are and how much free time they have and how their contract only covers the household itself and they get an audit every six weeks and so forth, and it seems like most people are very happy with the arrangement, but it is quite the technicality to overlook."

"Yep, that would definitely be a major adjustment for my modern American sensibilities! What do they get out of it being slavery, instead of, like, feudal allegiance?"

"I do not really know. Possible it is a mistranslation but it is the standard mistranslation if so."

"Huh. Are people bought and sold beyond the initial, um, auctioning?"

"Sometimes! Possible to specify about this in initial contract phase."

"Huh, so there is some negotiation, it's not totally one-sided?"

"Oh, yes, you are not sold until you sell and can hold out for whatever you wish to bargain for if someone will bite, just, cannot really enjoy more than tourism existence on Lunabella without participation."

"I see  What's their faction magic?"

"Dominion! It is how they are so unobtrusive on the moon: copy a section of reality to be a pocket dimension you control, mundane astronauts walk right by and never notice. There is a rank zero you can learn without ever going a-mooning, make a little forty-yard-radius bubble if you want to step outside of prying earshot for a conversation or a fight or a bit of magic-doing. Adding ranks lets you do the fancier higher-control version, starting smaller than this but ending town-size. Air conditioning and stuff. Time dilation comes in at rank two, local-only earth and water elementalism-ish control at three, four lets you exclude buildings and stuff in the area you're bubbling. Rank five you can anchor the bubble on a crystal so it does not count against the one at a time per witch bubble limit, and in your own bubbles, doing magic is free of mana cost and has a range of anywhere in the bubble. Sometimes I think that since they must live in these bubbles anyway on Lunabella, they might as well say the quiet part out loud that whoever owns a place might as well also own anyone in it."

"That does sound quite cool. I don't know if it's worth, well, the catch. I'll consider it a 'maybe' for now. What are the magic colleges like?"

"There are two. Big sister Hawthorne, little sister Arcadia. Hawthorne lives under Greenland, very strict and old fashioned; faction magic is wands, lots and lots of little grab bag charms, very handy, list on request. Arcadia has a pocket dimension that changes themes by vote every term, very loosey-goosey party school with a college town around it; faction magic is newfangled digicasting, bringing books and video games and things like that to life."

"Ooooh, Arcadia definitely sounds like my speed! What are the ranks of digicasting like?"

"At one, dream your way into a fiction - put a DVD under your pillow or fall asleep with a book or something, out you pop into the world it is about. Uses the creator's vision, not your interpretation. Time passes at normal rates, do-over at will or pick up where you left off successive sleeps. At two, bring friends, have a dreamy LAN party. Pull flat pixely Pokémons or what have you from the Gameboy or whatever they use these days into reality, but they don't last too long. Rank three, skip the part where you go to sleep, go bodily into it, run around in the entire Internet; all the fictions are shared, so you will meet anywitch else who is in The Great Gatsby at the same time, and you can leave things in the cupboards there and go get them later even. Rank four, skip the Gameboy, and less flat and pixelly. Still no firebreathing Pokémons, though. Rank 5, turn cartoon like you are who framed Roger Rabbit, you pick your style, bop in and out of paintings and movies and games and such, pop out again to scale or regular size whichever you like. Watch out for wind if you are two dimensions, but, plus side, slip through door cracks."

"Okay, that is extremely cool. Can you tell me a little more about what Hawthorne is like? I feel like I have a pretty good handle on what 'party school' means but 'strict and old fashioned' could cover a lot of ground."

"They do corporal punishment, up to and including death penalty if you fuck around too bad. Classes are mandatory, no skipping no slacking not allowed to fail. Sort you into a House by personality and magic, so you would get some House full of... alchemists who brew their own makeup or something... and if they do not keep you in line it gets escalated."

"Yeah, that one's not for me. What about the religious people?"

"Watchers. Pan-Abrahamic society, mostly pretty kumbaya about it, the big cheese is fine with anybody whose religion is about the big cheese and is very quiet on details. They think there's an apocalypse coming, from keeping track of who is having visions. They have a celestial plane called Eden. Their magic is like Consortation, but for angels; you do nice things and that pays for angels to show up when you ask. What nice things you get angels from goes by rank - kindness, charity, mercy, justice, grace."

"Everything I've heard about angels so far has made me approve more! Very glad to find out I live in a universe where there are cosmic forces of good and they even seem to have a balanced virtue profile instead of being all smiting evil all the time. And there's definitely an appeal to the magic—it doesn't just do cool stuff, it incentivizes the user to be a better person. I like that. But...even if I come to work with them at some point, it seems unwise to magically lock myself into the God faction when I just found out that He—or She, do witches say She?—exists literally today."

"Watchers say He, at least ones I have met. Very valid not to convert to a religion right now."

"What about the 'fairies and politics and monsters' category, what goes in there?"

"That is where I live! It is one fate twist one faction magic, but there is nesting upon nesting of courts and enclaves and things there. A lot of the fairyest species - not all of them witches, there are normal fairies and sprites and such that are not witches around also - live there. It is shocking beautiful. So do lots of magical critters, people playing silly buggers with magic or maybe the things just happen, who knows. Summarizing for the unfamiliar you say, there is the summer court, centralized and formal and fancy, and there is the winter court, chaotic and patchwork and crazy. I think this is probably not for you most personally but it is lovely for if you like it."

"Yeah, I also think probably not for me, especially since I took the monster disadvantage and it's a monstery sort of area; I want a good long chunk of time to practice my magic and build up defenses before I start throwing myself at those. Just to fully understand my options, though, what is the faction magic?"

"Covenants, magical contracty things."

"Yeah, not quite my bag either. And, to round out the set—'cells of mischief'?"

"Hespatians, organized in 'families', but not so family you cannot be in one. Run the gamut, some of them probably just like dancing naked in the moonlight and do not do murders. Lots of contact with Hell, friendly with Hawthorne, on the perpetual outs with Watchers."

"Yeah, um, not sounding like a promising general overview for my odds of finding one I'd get along with. So it's really down to Arcadia and Lunabella for me, and wow it's actually kind of a tough choice. Hmmmmmmmm—how does Lunabella treat kids that grow up there and don't want to participate in the system? Do they, like, help them get set up on Earth with a job and place and come back for frequent visits, or is it kind of a 'well you're of age now, better sign a contract or you're kicked out into the world alone' situation? I think I'd be able to work out a contract that doesn't offend my sense of dignity, in exchange for living on the frickin' Moon, but I wouldn't want to—prop up that system if not-fully-uncoercedly-consenting people are being conscripted into it, no matter how nice it's supposed to be once you're signed on."

"Children covered under their mother's contracts till they get their own or leave. There is really not a way to be Lunabellan without belonging to someone - even the king belongs to the constitution - but no respectable matron never lets her clients out of her bubble, and out of the bubble they can sign on with someone else or hop to another universe or something. I cannot guarantee no one is doing a sketchy, but I cannot also guarantee this about anywhere else."

"'The king belongs to the constitution', that's awesome, I love that. Actually significantly decreases the ick factor in itself even without knowing what the king and constitution are like—but if you can tell me anything about what the king and constitution are like, that would be greatly appreciated."

"He wrote the constitution about fifteen hundred years ago, his fellow founders act like a Supreme Court if there's any doubt that he is being a good slave of the constitution, there are lots of protections on everybody from being maltreated. I do not have the Iron Tablets in the memorization though."

"Fair enough! All good to know. Wow this is a tough choice. ...I suppose I could at least visit the Moon without joining Lunabella, while I couldn't do digicasting without choosing Arcadia, that's a consideration to keep in mind. Um, are there any other major choices I haven't made yet and could use to further procrastinate making up my mind on this one?"

"This is basically it, alas."

In the absence of a coin to flip, she does the "imagine a spinner" mental exercise with a circle half red and half blue, and tells herself she'll pick Lunabella if it lands on blue and Arcadia if it lands on red. It lands on blue and she feels a flash of disappointment that it wasn't red.

There we go.

"Arcadia, then. How many points would it take to get rank three in digicasting?"

"Triple affinity, so one point."

"Wow! I will take my spare point back from Hexes, then, and use it for that instead."

"Splendid splendid. Anything to double check? Last minute questions comments complaints?"

"No, I think I've covered everything I can without visiting places and meeting people myself. Thank you for all your help understanding my choices!"

"You are most welcome! If you are all set for sure no takebacks say go and we are go."

"Go."

And there is a rush of magic, a new but definitively magical sensation, and -

- she's out of the strange spangled void and back in the witchy shop, and she's got fox ears.

She reaches up and feels the ears. They are soft.

"Awesome."

"Congratulations!! You can get on the witch internet from here to find out how to get to Arcadia and enroll in classes and things. Also the things you were wearing fit less, might want to take a minute to change your witcherythings."

She changes her witch clothes and manifests them! She's made the garment a pink dress and given the hat a shorter, rounder top, though it's still wide-brimmed. She pulls out her phone.

"How do I get on the witch internet?"

"Listed as HexVPN in the network dropdown."

She selects the network. In one browser tab, she searches for Arcadia's site and looks for enrollment instructions; in another, she looks up HexVPN itself to see how she can get her own subscription.

"Thanks! Hey, are you on any social media, would you want me to follow you?"

"I am on Spellbook but none of the human ones."

Arcadia's website is user-friendly and offered in a lot of languages. She can buy a HexVPN device from Alpahzon for a sum of Kisses.

"Nice! Is it a legal name or username sort of site?"

She makes a note to acquire a HexVPN device once she has some Kisses. Are there forms to fill out on Arcadia's site or does the enrollment process start in person?

"Legal name is a flexible concept many places. You get a user ID and can set your display however you want. Say when and I rattle the number off."

She can enroll online! Roommate preferences? Tentative course schedule? The next term starts a week from Monday.

"When," says Alyssa, and prepares to write down the number.

"1190734612988."

She writes it down!

"I'll get in touch to let you know how things have been going once I get on my feet in the witch world, if you want. I can't say enough how grateful I am for what you've done today."

"It is my job! I hope you have a wonderful witchiness forever!"

"Thank you! Mind if I hang out here a bit longer to finish filling out the Arcadia forms?"

"Be my guest." She puts her hat back on over her ears and sits on her broom behind the counter, bobbing gently in the air.

She fills out her forms, and when she's done she leaves with a smile and wave.