"They have control over an element. Fire or air or water or earth."

"Oh. 'Potential,' is that something you can be without knowing, then?"

"Yeah, people are born with the potential for it but they only get the actual power if they need it to save their life. Wizards can check for potential and then if you have it you can go jump off something or take a lot of painkillers and catch fire or whatever."

"Huh. That's a better analogue for what my magic's like than the other kinds I've seen. The one in two hundred figure is more or less how many people do turn out to get their magic, but how many people are born mages is less clear, because to get magic you have to—try to use it, and it's a primitive mental action but it's not obvious at all and it's different from person to person and kinda ineffable. When someone manages to figure it out we say they've Expressed their magic, 'cause it's something they always had before and just had to release. Metamancers—my kind of mage—can detect magic early on, but, taboo."

"I wonder if wizards could find potential in your world's people, then, if somebody invented a spell for it."

"Might be doable, but we'd need some work to convince people they're not just metamancers in disguise or something."

"Oh, wizardry doesn't work in other worlds so people wouldn't be able to check in your world."

"It doesn't—oh, right, the reservoir. Yeah, makes sense."

"That's why, yeah."

"Another thing I was wondering about is shrens."

"What's a - oh, those - what about them?"

"Well I kinda wanna take a look at one? Read a book that said no one knows why they happen so I kinda want to see if I can find out."

"They wind up in institutions, I think, so it shouldn't be too hard to find a bunch of them all together."

"Mmhm. I'll go visit once I'm more—acquainted with the world."

"That makes sense. What things do you need to shop for?"

"Clothes, I guess, and basic stuff like bed sheets and toiletries."

"That all?"

"I guess? Do you have suggestions?"

"Not really, just didn't know what you might want besides that."

"...I might want something magical? If people sell magical stuff? To stare at."

"There's tons of magical stuff, yeah, do you care what it is?"

"Not really? More than one thing, that all do different things, and are all wizardly, would be better."

"So like a waterspout and a communication crystal and some link paper maybe?"

"Yeah, sounds good. What's a waterspout and link paper?"

"Waterspouts make water and link paper if you write on one pad it appears on the other."