"Convert it into my type of magic? What I'd been planning to do."

"...It is the case that if you try to cast something bigger than your CC you just die and you don't have a CC," says Kaylo, "which normally would mean you couldn't even get that close to overchanneling, but if you do your thing instead..."

"I mean I had the distinct impression that there was a thing there that actually threatened to kill me, not just, like, the vague instinct that I would die if I continued doing this."

"My link paper. Threatened to kill you."

"Yes. Or, well, maybe not the actual link paper but the magic holding it together, yes."

"That's, uh. Who all have you talked to since you got here?"

"A thudia elf called Korulen, headmaster's daughter, and his wife Keo, and Korulen's friend Saasnil, and a librarian, and some people at a few stores, and a few people at the cafeteria, and you. Why?"

"Trying to figure out if you got ideas from the Sand Dusk Chanters somehow."

"The who now?"

"They're a religion."

"They think magic is sapient or something?"

"The reservoir in particular."

"...huh. I... hmm. Sec."

Is the link paper also connected to THAT ENORMOUS THING OF POWER ALL OF EVERYWHERE IT IS VERY BIG?

Yup.

"...it might be."

"Great," says Kaylo, flinging up his hands, "the Sand Dusk Chanters may have been right, alert the press..."

He shrugs apologetically. "I... have no idea how to actually test that hypothesis in a way that's verifiable by other—" Pause. "Maybe Keo."

"No, she still needs a signature, reservoir doesn't have one."

"I mean, she could read my mind while I was... seeing whatever the heck that was."

"That wouldn't get her a signature though."

"No, but she could at least... I don't know, confirm I'm not crazy? And possibly suggest other ways to perhaps combine my magic with hers and figure it out."

"Maybe," acknowledges Kaylo.

"Are there any other kinds of persistently magical things that aren't wizardry?"

"Besides people?"

"Yeah."