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tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today
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She can levitate her hammock off the ground... while she's concentrating. If she stops concentrating, so does the levitation. However, unlike her mother's levitate spell, she can do horizontal movement too!

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Well, that's useful. ...she has her normal pen and ink, what she used for writing the contract that is supposed to be connected to her, as well as the implements which need to vanish as soon as possible. Can she levitate the pen? Can she levitate it enough to dip it into ink and write with it?

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Tencednil can levitate the pen! Dipping it in ink is somewhat difficult but possible. She can only change the direction it moves once every few seconds, which is unfortunately not enough control to write with.

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No, that really won't do it. Oh well, a baby Levitate is still better than nothing. The new first-circle spell... probably also means she can cast at least one more before recovering? That's how it works for wizards, at least, and first circle is her highest circle. She hasn't needed all five of her Color Sprays any time recently, so even if it doesn't mean she has another she shouldn't be taking that much of a risk.

Still, where can she go to test it? It feels aggressive, and shooting someone with an attack spell in the middle of the road is a poor choice. If she wants to use it, though, she needs to know what it does.

...it feels precise, at least. It probably won't explode too much. If nothing else, she can try using it on the shadow at the end of the day and see if she can make out what it does while it's actually powered. On the other hand, that isn't the best option. She doesn't know what is, but it's not that.

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If there's a better solution, it's not coming to her. Perhaps it will later.

The next thing she was planning to do was look into Glarataxus's historical feats. Whoever wanted to kill King Eodred used Glarataxus to do it, and dragons aren't easy to manipulate. That doesn't mean it's impossible, but that's the starting point she has. Of course, investigating Glarataxus in particular would be incredibly suspicious if word got around. Instead, she sets out on the hunt for Korvosan history in general, especially around the last queen, Queen Domina. King Eodred's personal enemies most likely won't be mentioned while he's right there and king, but his mother is dead and dragons are known to hold grudges deeply.

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It takes her a while, searching indirectly like this, but she does eventually find something. Glarataxus has attacked Korvosa before, last in 4674 AR, during the reign of Queen Domina. He went on a three week long rampage across Korvosan holdings in Varisia, before striking the city itself. A wide swath of the docks at Midland and East Shore were torched. All attempts to communicate or negotiate with him failed. There have been no credible reports of his activity since this rampage.

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Strange. And he supposedly came out of nowhere to kill King Eodred and did nothing else in the vision? That did look like a melted and scorched tower, and dragon breath seems like it should do that, but a three-week rampage and killing the king out of a cloudy sky seem like very different approaches. And dragons... probably aren't immune to whatever that was at the end of the second vision? Maybe they are, how would she know. They can be Charmed and Suggested just like anyone else if you're a good enough wizard, at least, and that demonstrated some impressive wizardry.

Anyway, that was slow, and she's found about as much as she expects to today. Back and to sleep, and tomorrow the Breaching.

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KORVOSAN CARRIER
SUNDAY, DESNUS 31st, 4708

SHINGLES GANG BRAWL TURNS BLOODY, NINE DEAD

A perfect circle is carved into the sky, two miles wide. The storm seems to bend around it. It's a bright, sunny day. The Acadamae opens its doors to outsiders for the festival. The guard struggles to handle a crowd. A small ship wrecks against the Varisian coastline, far in the distance. A devil has breakfast with his great grandson.

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When Tencednil wakes up, she has another new cantrip! This one is transmutation and feels like rippling water on her skin.

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Last night, before going home, she went out to a mostly-empty corner and tried her new spell. It shot a pale yellowish beam at her shadow. The ray didn't have any particular effect, as far as she could tell, but she did recognize some patterns in how the power flowed through her words and gestures. It seems like it's intended to do... exactly what it felt like, and diminish the force behind its target's blows. That doesn't answer why it bounced off the shadow harmlessly, but then the blob hasn't exactly demonstrated much force behind its blows, so maybe there was just nothing to diminish?

Today, when she wakes up and pulls her shadow out, its letter engravings have been replaced with what look like spell diagrams. Strange. Less useful for writing, but she doesn't need that until tomorrow, and maybe they'll be back by then.

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This new cantrip is... unusual? A cantrip for washing yourself, maybe? No, Create Water is conjuration... Well, the only way to know is to test. She goes out and rubs a bit of dirt over her hand, then tries the new cantrip, focusing on pushing the dirt off her hand and making it clean again. Flick through the gestures, mutter the words...

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Her skin tone shifts and becomes an olive human color. The texture also changes subtly.

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That is not what she thought that would do! ...on the other hand, it is useful. And would have been much more so if she had figured this out yesterday. Oh well, better to have than to not.

Back inside, where she can see herself in a mirror and such. (And Prestidigitate the dirt off on the way in.) Can she change her face to look human-colored? More of her body at once? Can she recolor herself entirely? How much does the texture change, and can she vary that? Can she make herself look like she has fur or scales or something obviously non-human?

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She can't change specific body parts alone; either all of her skin changes or none of it does. Her color range is wide but not unlimited; she can have any skin tone humans can naturally have, any skin tone drow can naturally have, or a blend between the two. The texture shift is subtle and hard to control; it blends within the range of human to drow automatically based on her skin tone. She cannot give herself fur or scales.

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Can she give herself markings? Some humans have tattoos, and some humans are born with inconsistently colored skin (frickles? Something like that). Could she replicate those?

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She cannot give herself tattoos or other artificial markings. She can give herself inconsistently colored skin or freckles, but she cannot control the specific places they appear or precisely how many of them there are.

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Can she place them generally? A few splotches on her hands, say, and some dots on her face?

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She can mimic natural skin conditions as an average example of those conditions. If she mimics a skin condition that naturally occurs only on the hands or face, it will only occur on her hands or face. She can't otherwise change specific body parts.

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Alright, good to know. If she gives herself dots, switches to blank skin, and then back to the dots, are they in the same place? What if she gives herself dots and then re-casts the spell, holding the same mental image?

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Each casting of the spell is discrete and unaffected by the last casting. The dots are not in the exactly same place when she re-casts the spell either time.

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So she can't keep a constant disguise if she needs to recast it. Good to know. Can she make scars or calluses or such things, which are part of the skin but not entirely flat?

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She cannot create or modify scars or calluses.

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She wouldn't know about the modification, she doesn't have any scars to modify! (Yet.)

If she can't recover an exact configuration, she needs to be sure this won't lapse in the middle of anything where her suddenly looking different would be a problem. She can dismiss the spell, but how long does it last on its own? She colors herself human (and checks in the mirror — does that hide the ears?) and goes to do some reading, telling the shadow to buzz at her when she goes back to looking like a drow.

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A little under thirty minutes later, her shadow buzzes. She has reverted to her normal skin tone.

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And her ears were not covered. So it's not a perfect solution to her problems, but it's still an incredible advantage. Even if she's easily spotted as a half-elf, there are many half-elves in Korvosa, and this should make it much easier to conceal even that. Human colors are close to elven, so if she goes this color she can—

When the shadow buzzes, she glances at a clock and goes to experimenting. It's only a few minutes later that she realizes the clock said she had about thirty minutes until the Breaching. Oops. She hastily tucks away everything she wants to take and runs over to the Academae, still looking at a glance like a surface half-elf.

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