He looks over, pausing in stretching out his arms. "Good morning," he replies. He reaches into his pouch for the runestone, and blinks when he finds it missing. Frowning, he looks through the others, and then around the room, finally spotting it on the table next to his bed. He stands to go grab it. 

"Did you have any luck with powers?" He asks, assuming this is why he's in this shape. 

"Sort of. I got a power that lets me swap locations with something else, but it requires line of sight. I am trying to learn its metaphorical shape."

"If you learn its metaphorical shape you can aim for something more like it?" He asks. 

"Yes, easier to figure out what to take hold of, and less time trying to sense what the power does without using it. Which can be non-zero levels of risky without being careful."

"Ah...Yes, I can see how that might be a problem." He hums, "Our magic can be dangerous," he mentions, "Spells are unlikely to go too terribly wrong if you make a mistake - generally speaking they just won't work - but freecasting can be very dangerous, especially if you attempt anything large-scale." 

"Sounds versatile. Sometimes powers are hard to control, but it's rare to be completely wrong about what they do."

He nods, "It is, very much so. The greatest limit is in the time needed to reach proficiency with larger spells, and the size of one's pool. Mine is actually quite small. Without the Nomad I would be a much less effective opponent. As it is, much of my repertoire, and my pool, is made up of Water and Air magic - the Nomad's affinities." He smiles, wry, "The size of my pool is why I worked so hard to learn how to refine my lifespan. Without it I can only preform the simplest of healing spells, now." 

He nods seriously. "Are there no other known ways to expand one's mana pool?"

He shakes his head, "It is a fixed amount - made more limited by the fact that the more you use a colour of mana, the more your pool becomes coloured that way. Any threads you pull from a coloured part of your pool are that colour - they can be unrefined, but at a cost." 

"Is the colorization permanent? Would it go away on its own or if you used more spells of a colour?"

"Unrefining works the same way - if you do it often enough, some of the colour you unrefine will fade. It's a slow process, however. 

"Having a coloured pool can be very useful, if you are careful of how much of each type you colour. Colouring a thread also uses up mana - twice as much. If you unrefine and then colour a thread you are actually using up four times as much mana as if you use a properly coloured one." 

Nod. "Does most people that perform magic for a living have a tendency to be mono-coloured?"

"It depends! For example - many village healers have small pools which are almost entirely Life coloured. However you'll find most of the healers around here have both larger pools - which means the younger ones likely have some unrefined mana - and at least some amount of other colours, for protection's sake." He pauses, "To be clear, it is very possible to harm people with Life magic, in the higher tiers, or when freecasting - though the latter can cause serious backlash if done wrong. It is just also very taboo." 

"Why is it a taboo?"

He hums, "Perhaps because the results are often so horrifying. Life magic is meant to heal, and grow, is the most common thought. There actually aren't any structured spells of the type that are meant to harm - if you manage to use one that way you are in a sense purposely failing to cast properly. 

"Besides that, healing someone requires them to be either unconscious or consenting. The barrier of a person's magic protects their body from being directly acted upon of they are unwilling. This can be bypassed with a large enough amount of mana - or if they are drained enough - but it is a very expensive amount. Further, attempting to freecast this way almost always causes backlash - often it reflects the damage dealt upon the caster." 

Nod. "I figured it would result in quite gruesome violation of consent."

"Oh definitely."

He's seen the results of a purposely miscast Life spell once and he never wants to see it again.

"...Where were we, before this topic," he hums, "...Pool colouring, right. My pool is almost enitrely Water and Air, with a few low first tier spells worth of each of the others, and enough unrefined mana to allow me to sense that way. This is fairly common even for warriors who are not also wielders - it pays to specialise in two or three colours, as the more of a colour you have the more spells you can cast." 

"Yes. People who want to do magic for a living will either sacrifice only to one of their shapes. Or do what me and my brothers did and generalize. Though that's rare. Most people have three shapes, and will want to keep two."

"...It occurs to me, I haven't asked much about what your world is like. Do your people have Kings? Do you have enemies to fight? You mentioned monsters, what are they like?" 

"We have Kings, but - at least in my part of the continent - we mostly have elected councils. It helps keeping things peaceful. Monsters are... very hard to describe, they are mass of limbs that barely make sense and that shift over time, they often have destructive auras and tend to destroy whatever is on their way."

"Disturbing," he notes of the monsters, "There may be something which looks like that somewhere in this world, but not one I have heard of.

"Elected from what pool of candidates?" He asks, "Is there a ruling class, or can anyone be elected?" 

"That varies per place. But it's usually selected from people that own land in a given area or people that gave give a certain amount of tribute - food, usually - which tends to correlate."

"Jaim," Ilek groans from the bed behind him, "Why are you talking about politics so early in the morning while I'm trying to sleep?" 

Jaim give him a sheepish look, "Did we wake you? Apologies." 

He looks down at his emoty plate and completed paperwork, and then back to Zephyrinus, "I should take these back," he says, "They should be handing out breakfast, if you want something," he tells him. 

"Okay, are you going to eat as well?"