"What's the spellcasting procedure?"

"The spellcasting procedure is just performing the incantation—actions or gestures or whatever—and having enough mana to cast it, and thinking about the target when applicable. But before an arcanist can cast a spell they have to bind it to the incantation, and that's a primitive mental action that attaches an internal description of the effects desired to the incantation. That's why it's idiosyncratic."

"You keep saying 'primitive mental action' -"

"It's the best way to describe it. In the same sense telling your arm to move is a primitive mental action doing magic is a primitive mental action. It's not like anything else except in the same way the action of telling your arm to move is like the action of trying to recall what an elephant looks like."

"Well. That's unhelpful."

"Yeah, it is. If magic here is less personal like that, and I think it probably is, then I won't have to relearn how it works for each person it works with."

"Yeah, nothing like that. I want to cast an analysis on you, do you know what that is?"

"From the name, spell that looks at my magic?"

"No, I'd need to invent a new analysis to see yours and that will take more than a degree; it'll let you see wizardry."

"Oh, cool. I mean I can already see it so I guess it gives me more information to work with?"

"That's the idea. Analyses are designed to represent information in specific ways, I want to see what you can derive about the analysis design by having it overlaid on what you've got."

"That will probably help a lot."

"Here goes, then - actually hang on a tick I need to take notes -" He casts something; paper flies to his hand from some kind of supply cabinet elsewhere in the library. He writes down the name of the spell in the book, then casts that.

All the wizardry in the area is alive with informatively colored light.

"Ooooooh."

The first thing he will stare at is, of course, Kaylo.

Kaylo does not seem to have any spells on him; there are a few little motes indicating spells he has cast which are still active, including the analysis. The spell does not visualize dragon magic at all.

Hmm. Pity. Still a very cute dragon.

Wizard magic elsewhere?

Lots in the library. All the books have a dab of magic on them, and that supply cabinet, and the circulation desk, and the light filtering down from the ceiling, and the ward around the building. Some students milling around have one or more spells on them and many carry magic objects.

Oooh! Okay which one is the closest, or clearest, or most obvious?

Kaylo's analysis book is closest! The analysis makes the magic on it look like a blot of blue, connected to the circulation desk with a thin tendril and to its place on the shelf with another.

Well that's painfully obvious isn't it.

"Way clearer than I'm used to."

"The analysis doesn't give content, just structure; how's it dovetailing with your thing?"

"It's—like being told? Without having to be told. Context helps, of course, but this helps me know where to look at. A large part of the process is figuring out what to look at, where each bit leads, stuff like that. This helps."

"So your sense is - not very locational -?"

"That was a metaphorical where, but that, also, partly. There's a sense in which it is, I can see what a magic thing's attached to, more or less, and the way it's attached to it—but I wouldn't have found this connection, here between this book and the circulation desk and its shelf unless I was actively looking for it or knew it must be there."

"Why not? They're attached."