"I'm eighteen."

"So perhaps we can broaden your horizons, now you're getting off that rock..."

She winks and sticks her tongue out.

Squint. "You're definitely a sorceress," she says, tapping her chin. "Too charming to be anything else."

"I'll defer to your expert opinion."

"Good." She fiddles with something in the guts of a tangle of pipes. "Any other specific questions, or should I just keep listening to my wonderful voice?"

"I don't mind listening to your voice very much either."

Heeeeee. "So... For how the ship works - in most planes, anything with enough mass maintains an air envelope around it, though the air's not always breathable by humans. So the ship's a lot bigger than it needs to be, so if I stop somewhere with nice air to refresh, the envelope will stay breathable for a while after I leave. Everything also has its own gravity locus. If you're floating off into space, your gravity locus will be whatever you think is sensible, which is exactly as exploitable as it sounds. If you think it'd be sensible to fall in a specific direction, you will. Because your personal air envelope is tiny, that's not a safe way to travel between planets, but it's useful in an emergency. If you're near something bigger than you, your gravity locus will realign to match its. For a ship or planet, the gravity locus is usually gonna be a flat plane at its base or a point at its center - though some gods set up weirdly complicated planetary loci."

"Now, that's a bit of a generalization - I need to run the spelljammer helm while I'm in local outer space to tell your plane's very overly insistent physics to fuck off. But most planes support proper magical physics."

"Is there a way to make your personal envelope bigger?"

"Hmmm... I'd rely on stuff to purify it, first, and look into stopping needing air second. Most things that'd make an envelope bigger - like shapeshifting - will also make you take more air..."

"I see."

"It's a good thought, though, and you might also be able to invent a spell that'll just create air - I haven't heard of any, but there's ones for food and water."

"A growth project."

"Heh."

"Once I'm done here - want pointers on your spell work?"

"Yes please."

"In the meantime... I can explain what kinds of options you've got for pushing forward on more education? At least in areas I'm familiar with."

"Wizard schools."

"Not always the best thing if you're not a wizard, but wizards and sorcerers can usually do pretty similar stuff. Most of the schools cost money but some don't, and some have scholarships. There's also apprenticeships, which are usually more prestigious and get you more time with your teacher. They can be hard to get, though, especially without connections..."

"I can write you a letter of recommendation for wherever you want to go, which should help. And I can teach you myself for as long as you feel like sticking around."

"I think I'd like some flexibility to explore before committing to school again."

"I can definitely help with exploration."

"So I'll stick by you for a while."

"Cool. Though there's something I'm investigating right now that might get dicey - we'll be safe getting to the next port, but after that there might be stretches where I have to leave you somewhere for a bit..."

"What are you investigating?"

"Rumors of a powerful artifact, possibly an intelligent one. A fairly old one, too..."

"What's it supposed to do?"