"They have... not identical but often similar use cases, so that's fine."

"Certainly- it tended to be useful to have more-" she frowns and mimes a small explosion, searching for the word, "...dramatic, more dramatic effects in our work.  My former work, I suppose."

"I'll have Lt. Grec bring you the supplies for the first and if that's successful also the second."

"I appreciate your flexibility.  ...I'd need time to prepare spells first but I could do both today, I came straight here."

"Of course, by all means finish your preparations. It'll take twice as long going forward."

A nod, and an 'ugh mornings' kind of grimace.  "Create Water."  Can she get it to do raindrops again...

"What does it... feel like?  To channel?"

"Well, that depends."

Aaah fuck of course that's prying into his private business, she'd gotten too comfortable-  she Creates another very tiny rainstorm while she tries to figure out a graceful out-

"It is- different for different people, then?"

"...I don't know. I haven't been different people. I find it different... now... than it once was."

What is his deal.  Okay, focus, he's not taking the deflection but he also doesn't seem to like talking about it... maybe theory is fine and he just doesn't want to get too personal?

"Create Water."  The raindrops are almost down to normal size now.  "I suppose I don't know how much to expect Nethys to be like or unlike other gods, I haven't read especially much theology."

"You will need a holy symbol for channeling. We have wood and paint for things like signs and targets, and you may have some to fashion one."

"I appreciate that."  Okay, maybe she misread him entirely and they're just talking logistics again, that's fine.  "Do you know if there's one among the fort who does- um, paint on people but permanent, like sailors often have?  I should- quite like to also have a symbol I couldn't be parted from."

"There are several people who do tattoos but they are amateurs, I do not know if they can achieve the necessary quality."

"Tat-toos."  She nods thoughtfully again.  "I can ask if there are those who would let me see their work, perhaps.  I'm likewise an amateur with woodcutting but if there are, um, parts remaining from a target, a small one should be sufficient?"  

"Yes. I can have someone show you when we're done here."

He buttonholes a man at breakfast and tells him to show their guest to the workshop and introduce her to a specific person with lots of ink who'll know who did each one.

By lunchtime, someone finds her with a live ptarmigan kicking under his arm.

Khalida digs around in the workshop scrap basket until she finds a corner of thin pine board a little narrower than her palm, and gets the name of the tattoo guy still at the fort who does the cleanest lines (and really hopes she threaded the needle of complimenting the work in a plausibly-deniably-not-flirting way but, Cheliax, she has no idea), and fills up on Endure Elements and Glitterdust, and has an incredibly tense and awkward talk with her party, and flees back to the workshop to focus on turning her board into a mask shape until the shop steward gets frustrated watching her and takes the rasp back to do it properly.

The rumor's probably gotten around by now that the explodey foreign wizard is a surprise cleric, unless that patrol captain is really good at keeping secrets; how do people seem to be reacting to her?  (Insofar as she can tell, at least.)

(The crack in the wall is quietly repaired in the early afternoon.)

People are paying a little more attention to her? A couple people are doing a "hopeful smile" sort of behavior at her but most people have already settled on whatever their strategy for foreign adventurers is and are sticking to it.

Okay, she can handle that.  She returns the smiles in a hopefully not-promising-anything manner.

She'll accept the ptarmigan with a murmured thank-you, and- is there enough room in a training yard somewhere so she can test it, or can she procrastinate on finding out for a while longer should she wait for a class to end?  

There's room on the archery range and they can clear it for a test.

The ptarmigan is flapping around trying to escape, broken wing and all; she digs out a piece of string and ties it to a midrange archery target by the leg so it'll stop distracting her so much.

(She thought she spotted Omar in the crowd of archers but she doesn't see him now.  It's fine this is fine she doesn't want people watching her probably fail anyway.  Although not badly enough to ask the remaining onlookers to clear out because then they'd know she's nervous about this which would be worse.)

She sits down in the snow a couple of paces away from the bird, doublechecks that the edge of her theoretical range isn't reaching inside the building, cups her new holy symbol in her hands (paint still slightly tacky) and tries to concentrate.

The key has to be in the word, she thinks- channeling, to channel, a channel, it's the same metaphor in both languages, the same word for drawing divine energy into the mortal world as for the Sphinx splitting and cutting through silt on its way to the ocean, for people digging canals to bring water to their fields and dredging from the river to the harbor to let larger ships through...

She reaches, in that new mental direction, holds up her wonder and awe and delight, and- there's something there, that tiniest fragment of Presence, but it doesn't feel like the sort of thing that could flow... does she need to get herself out of the way, she's never been good at that, but she tries clearing her mind and visualizing a river down from the crown of her head out through her hands...

There's a sense of... balancing, potential, a coin spinning through the air, a knife edge...

Nethys has two aspects, that's why His symbol is the divided mask:  magic is a tool, an art, a bedrock reality unrelated to human judgments or even Pharasma's.  It doesn't care what it's used for: creation or destruction, growth or devastation, healing or wounding...

She reaches out towards creation and light and healing that one that one please please I want THAT one...

I KNOW

(Khalida has never heard of the concept of intervention budget, but Nethys the All-Seeing would like to point out for those who have that this does not actually convey any new information.)

The ptarmigan flutters up to the limits of its tether with a confused croaking noise.

Khalida squeals like a schoolgirl and leaps up, still reeling from being Known and being a conduit for the Divine, and spins around and topples over into the snow.

it's okay I'm okay I did it I'm not damned-