"Damn, lots of those sound useful. Good thing my true form is gonna have plenty of space for tattoos. But wait, will it take me ages to earn enough cash for a time rune? Maybe I should wait to take this one until I've got the money."

"You could probably take contract work from someone who will front the materials and simply does not have five ranks of runes her own self."

"Sure, five ranks then. Hey, can they reverse aging, or just stop it? Do I need to worry about what if my awakening happens late and I end up stuck with wrinkles forever?"

"Just stop it. Five ranks of hexes will let you transmute age away."

"Oh, speaking of which, will the delayed awakening mean you can't put my third nipple in my bellybutton?"

"Yes. Also inconveniences you props-wise with getting started out."

"God damnit, now I'm starting to reconsider. I can't come back and get it moved after I awaken, can I? How hard will it be to get someone else to do it?"

"Not too hard, lots of people take enough hexes to affect a human adult and move the witch mark. Maybe harder to get a wand to borrow. I will still do it for you but you would have to find me, and my door moves about."

"How hard would it be to find any random witch and get one?"

"You will find the Hespatians sooner or later, with your fate twist for them. You will be able to see witchy stuff, witchier stuff than my door which is visible to potentials like you, and that will be a clue. But any random witch might not lend you her wand, you're a stranger and will also be starting naked as we have discussed."

"Hmmm. That's annoying, but it's still probably better than fated death or multiple times a day compulsion."

"Your call!"

"Yeah, I'm sticking with it. I can barely ever stand to wait for anything, might as well take advantage of the free memory wipe making it easier."

"Then you will awaken all of a suddenness one day and probably find a bedsheet before you find a borrowable wand to call your mothergifts, but it will all shake out eventually."

"So what else does Hexes do?"

"Besides animating objects? Which is a rank three thing. Polymorph turns creatures into other creatures, size limitations apply by rank. Mint mana into witch money called Kisses, though this is quite inefficient. With a medium, rarer and pricier by rank, that disappears when you cast, turn things into other things; the list expands rank on rank and contains silly sounding things like 'egg to chocolate' but the key is that you can do it backward and do not need to end with the same kind of the thing you started with. Make golems, starting rank four; again must staple a soul to it, if you want it to do any more complicatedness than just another animated object. Rank five and you can duplicate whole objects, less their magical properties - combine with the relic rune to copy very fancy stuff. Rank five is also where old-to-young comes in."

"This one sounds kinda lame. I'll just get someone else to move my nipple and de-age me if necessary."

"Alrighty. So we stand at five of runes and undecided on witchery, do you have one you want to hear from next or shall I pick?"

"Isn't Familiarity another one that can make me immortal?"

"Yes! You do not need any ranks to simply get a familiar, that is rank zero, possible to do by accident. You pick a kind of animal and find a spirit that wants to live in that shape and be your friend. If its body dies or you dismiss it for a time, you can whip up a new one for it. It doesn't age. It is like the smartest dog, at this level, and totally loyal, and will get a bit brighter with ranks.

"Rank one, you lose any allergies you had to any animals or animal foods, and you can telepathically talk to your familiar even if it is between bodies at the moment. It can channel magic for you, if it is closer to where you want the magic done than you are. Rank two, talk to animals - not just your pick of species but anything that can normally be a familiar. They do not necessarily want to do what you say. Rank three, pick two traits of your species choice - not just things that are true of it for real but also things that are mythology or common misconceptions. Owls are dumb as rocks, but owl familiars can make you wiser, say. You can get water breathing if you have a fish, too, but not flight yet at this rank. Rank four, turn outright into your kind of animal. You can still do magic like this. Familiar, now as smart as a human, can turn into one. You look like the animalsona of your true form, animal looks like the humansona of theirs. You can blend stuff too, if you want just the ears or just the scales or whatever it is you have on offer. And rank five: the traditional familiar is a cat, and cat mythology says they have nine lives. At rank five so have you! Die of anything, wake up in bed at home. Refill lives by saving a cat's life, get one from a kill shelter. You can also spend your banked lives on dying animals or children you see, though this reduces not increases your lives total so it is not a good way to refill even if it does count as saving a cat life when you do it to a cat. Spend a life at will to de-age whenever you are getting long in the tooth, which will take quite a bit longer than it would otherwise."

"Eh, aside from the immortality, this one sounds kinda mediocre, and I don't wanna evict my cat from his body. I'll probably pass on this one, might drop a few points in it if I have some left over."

"You would not evict your cat, a new cat would appear with a spirit in it, but your call. What next?"

"Didn't you say potions is one of them?"

"Sure. If you are dead this complicates swigging one but someone else can drizzle it on your deadness. The three general potion categories are curatives - that's medicines, or poisons - and stimulants - that's performance-enhancing drugs, or debilitating ones - and novelties - dyes and pranks and lava lamps and whatnot. At rank one you are basically Walgreens over the counter, a bit fancier around the edges. Rank two, you are behind the counter, three times as good, no side effects, serious magic potions start here. Rank three and you can do splash grenades, throw fireballs or acids or whatever. Rank four and if someone is only recently dead, bam, not dead. Love potions come in around this rank. Grenades can work on a timer or when stepped on like a mine. Rank five, restore even the long-dead so long as there is something to marinate. Memory modifications, too, copy your memory into your cauldron or erase ones from whoever drinks your brew. And of course as usual all the limits of other ranks are getting harder better faster stronger the whole time you rank up. Ingredients of rankier potions are harder come by, of course."

"Isn't this one of the ones I have affinity for, so I get the first rank for free? I think I'll take three or four to start and maybe pick up the fifth later."