:Mmm: 

They walk around until sundown. Jisa asks a few more elementals about rumours they've heard from their owners and extra precautions against elemental-freeing. 

A lot of people have had their amulets shored up against breakage. She catches wind of a rumor that some people are working on making a single elemental have two amulets, leaving a backup in safety if the main one is destroyed.

If they do that before she can make a move it'll be very inconvenient! This is her own fault for being dumb and not planning ahead, Jisa admits to herself. 

:I really need to study my Gate-spell more: she muses to Wood as they trudge back toward the university. :- Er, that's how I ended up here from my world, I was experimenting -: 

(Thinking about it is distracting because she MISSES TREVEN and she MISSES ENARA, she's mostly been able to not-think about that - there are maaaaybe some self-Mindhealing redirects involved - but thinking about getting back in contact fills her with an unbelievable wash of longing.) 

:- um, anyway, Gates are sort of portals from one place to another, except I did something fancy and ended up in another world somehow, but doing the exact same thing again doesn't work to get back. So I need to figure out the...same thing backward, or something, I was making some progress on it the other day but I've been really distracted...: 

:Is there some way to help you with that?:

:I'm not sure. At least I can think out loud to you, maybe?: 

:Okay, sure:

They reach the university. Is Maurabel home yet? 

Yup, she's making supper, lentils and yogurt and lemon. And bread. She offers Jisa some, asks Wood if he'd like a bite.

"If it's not too expensive."

"Honestly feeding Jisa's kind of expensive but giving you a taste isn't. I'll just have to pick up more chores."

"I should - pay you back." Jisa manages the entire sentence in the local language, though with some hesitations. "Once Wood is," :ready?: "to work - with me. I am," :grateful: "for food." 

"You've made more progress on my main ambition than I ever did," says Maurabel, "of course I'm feeding you, just, the school takes a big cut of what I earn working. When Wood is ready he'll be able to earn enough to feed the both of you."

"Thank you. Oh, news. We asked around..."

Jisa explains, dropping into Mindspeech whenever she doesn't know a word, what they learned from the elementals she talked to about the new amulet precautions. She's a bit sheepish about it, since this is her own fault for not anticipating the consequences of her actions. 

"I don't immediately know how one would double up an elemental's amulet," muses Maurabel. "Which means it might take awhile - by comparison, attaching an elemental to one amulet is easy for us basically as soon as we've got the idea, I know how and wasn't trying to learn. But it is worrying, and it might not be the only idea anyone's had."

:...Honestly I'm wondering if it's worth reading some of the mages' minds to figure out if they've had other ideas, since they're not necessarily going to tell their elementals. And, I mean, it is unethical but so is keeping slaves:

"...yes, but - you can't tell in advance which people's minds are going to be helpful, can you? Or even which of them are doing - worse than normal - normal amounts of elemental use aren't okay but I don't actually like the implications of deciding there are about twelve people in my entire civilization who might turn out to be bad to mindread after you check by doing it anyway."

- Nod. "I thought you - would say that." She lapses back into Mindspeech, remembering words is still effortful. :Do you have - other ideas for, er, spying?: 

:I can ask around. My weirdness is not fully understood by the school population:

"Mmm. Anyway, I need to keep," :researching?: "how to do a," :Gate: "to get home. For help." 

"What do you need for that?"

:If I knew exactly what I needed, I'd have solved it by now! Um, I was routing my Gate in between some different planes I was studying recently, to see if that'd let me Gate further, and it worked but it didn't go where I expected. Now when I try to go back it just doesn't work, it feels like the destination not existing, so I think I'm - not managing to find my way back to where I started? And have to somehow do the same path backward...: 

:These are the other planes your kind of elementals live in? Would they have seen anything?:

:Oh! Maybe. It wouldn't've been for long, and it might not be any elementals I know, but - actually, I should try summoning them here anyway, to see if it works and to ask if they can help me figure out the way back: 

:I'd be curious to meet them but presumably they don't speak my language any more than you do:

:They can Mindspeak! Although the usual convention is to give them a construct body and use the pidgin that some mage invented and taught them once centuries ago: 

:Why's that the convention if they can mindspeak?:

:...I'm not really sure? I guess not all mages have Mindspeech and also it's more invasive, my teacher said it might startle them: