"Super bizarre! At least it didn't short me an odd numbered level? I guess? But what a ripoff!"

"Betcha someone in Sothis might have a guess, if you ask around. Mahdi might know."

"Yeah, I'll ask him. Wow. Do you wanna finish the spar or nah -"

"Sure, if you're not in too much of a rush to go check it out."

"Still wanna sleep the night here. We could re-pace or go from where we're at, what's your pleasure?"

"Let's start over, you've gotta recast your buffs."

So they repace and she loses even though she has more Admonishing Rays than she thought. She wakes up a bit later covered in sand, and giggles softly.

He is leaning right over her and quickly steps back away. "I just - had a cure spell if you needed it -"

"Eh, save it in case something sneaks up on us in the night." She gets up, going 'oof', and tromps over to her mercifully already-set-up bedroll.

He will do the same.

Zzzzz.

And they can be back in Sothis in plenty of time to snag the other two for lunch and ask Mahdi about mysterious sorcerer levels.

"Haven't heard of it. There are ways to chain your sorcerer and wizard caster levels but I think you still level in wizard when you do that?"

"Chain them?"

"So your overall caster level takes into account the sorcerer and wizard levels. I haven't done it, but I read something about it somewhere."

"Fly lasts longer, but I thought that was just normal progression... haven't precisely timed it, I was expecting more wizard slots."

"My pocketwatch has a stopping feature so you can measure precisely, if you want to try -"

"Sure, I'm always up for a fly."

He hands her his pocketwatch, demonstrates the stopping feature.

Up she wafts.

"Okay, yeah, seven minutes three seconds."

"Huh! I don't remember any more than that about what chaining the levels involves or how it's done or anything, I'm sorry. I'd be surprised if it interferes with getting fourth-level spells? Because people did it deliberately." 

"I guess not having to ration my admonishments is nice but there had better be some cool upside in the works."

"You'll have to tell me all about it, once you figure it out. How'd the drow mission go?"

"Basically a best case scenario. Want a dried mushroom?"

"Sure. Best case scenario....so you and Hagan got married?"

"I learned some deadly drow dagger techniques, I'll have you know."