"Great." He opens a very fancy-looking money pouch and digs out three gold coins before handing them to her. "This is all I can spare personally. It's plenty to start with, though not a queen's ransom. Your Highness the Hero, if you would follow me..."

He is very keen to get her out of his town. He brings her to the roof and calls for some sort of flying (horseless) chariot, which lands on the roof with a thrumming noise, piloted by a short and energetic mouse-woman. It looks fast, but uncomfortable.

"All the way to Liscor, is it? That's a great gig - you must be in a hurry, miss!"

"I am indeed," she says. "Thank you for your service."

Always remember the little people, and in turn they'll remember you. She repeats the mantra again to keep herself from being short with the innocent pilot.

"Well then, strap in and off we go!"

This thing is not faster than a jet plane, but it feels almost as fast. Talking is close to impossible. Her hair gets messed up by the wind.

For this kind of speed she'll endure a little excess wind. She holds on and flies.

Liscor, it turns out, is a large city with some very impressive looking walls, nestled in a sort of swampy valley between two high streaks of mountains. The whole area is criss-crossed with lakes and mud by the look of things - there is only one road north and one south.

Her pilot slows down on the approach and argues with someone for a little bit through the control console once they're close, hovering in midair.

"Okay, looks like I have to set you down outside the walls! The gateway city doesn't want things flying over it."

The flying chariot attracts a lot of attention. People standing on the walls and in the streets of the city and on the road point and stare as it lowers to the ground.

"Aetherwing ultra express appreciates your patronage and hopes you enjoyed your flight! Need help getting down, miss?"

"No, I can handle myself." What is she, an invalid? 

She steps down from the flying chariot outside the walls, fixes her hair as best she can, and walks onwards towards the city.

The crowd by the gate parts for her. The gate guards are about half some sort of lizardperson, half human. One waves at her cheerfully.

"Welcome to Liscor! Name and purpose in the city, please?"

"Liath, magical education." 

The lizardperson writes this down. "Are you aware that Liscor's laws mandate that you must either, one, take shelter as directed, or two, follow orders of the Liscor guard for the duration of the emergency and receive compensation for participating in the defense of Liscor, in the event that a general alarm is sounded?"

"I am now so aware, thank you."

They snicker. "Yeah, that's the point of asking it like that. Entry tax is one silver..."

"We don't have an entry tax, you fuckhead!" Another guard calls.

They snicker again. "Just joking, go on in."

"Thank you." She looks to the guard who denied the entry tax. "And thank you too," she says, more gently. "Can you give me directions to the..." She pretends to fumble for words. "You know, the magic college?" More colloquial than is her style, but that humanizes her.

"Liscor Academy? Straight down the street, can't miss it. NEXT!"

She goes through and straight down the street. Is Liscor Academy obvious?

Liscor Academy is pretty obvious! It's a large complex with its own unique architecture filled with young people carrying books, much like Earthly universities.

She looks for the enrollment desk.

Also findable after asking a few students! They're mostly happy to give directions to the rich girl and maybe hit on her.

The enrollment desk is an open lobby area with individual desks, like bank tellers. The man at the desk she picks invites her to a back room as soon as she mentions being a new enrollment instead of merely changing classes or some other bureaucratic action.

"At Liscor Academy, essentially, you will open an account with us, and all our classes have set fee that pays for the professor's time, as well as use of facilities and class materials or supplies. You can choose to sign up for any class you like and drop the class for a small fee if it's not what you wanted. There's no attendance policy, if you want to pay for the class and not attend it we're perfectly fine with that." He laughs to himself. "Of course you can also hire tutors or pay for one-on-one lessons with your professors, if they agree. At student services we track your Skills as they progress to help you choose the best classes and qualify you for higher level lessons."

First things first; shelter.

"Do you offer student housing? I'm comfortable with something spartan. And what are your rates for standard instruction?"

"We have housing partners and a campus dining plan, yes, I can go over the options in a bit. Rates depend on class - this is our course catalog-"

They offer instruction in LOTS of things, apparently. Many martial pursuits are listed, but so is economics, history, blacksmithing, politics, and quite a few magical disciplines. Course fees range from a dozen coppers for a two week intro workshop to 6 platinum pieces for 'Battle Magic - Chamon'. Most intro courses cost 1 to 5 silver.

She has no idea how much three gold is, but she can get this advisor to help her figure that out without realizing it. She needs something for expenses other than this, so she'll hold back one gold from this theoretical plan.

"Could you recommend me an introductory plan for someone interested in going into combat spellcasting within a budget of, mm, let's say two gold?"

"Hmm, that does depend on what specialty you want and whether you have the right capacities, and I'm not the best person for that discussion honestly- Have you ever been tested for sorcery talent?"

"I have not. How much for that service?"

If she doesn't have the potential she'll eat her crown.

"Looks like... Windsight awakening attempt is one silver piece, it's half an hour's guided meditation with a Magister-level sorcerer. If you have the potential it will be revealed and you'll learn which Wind you are best suited to as well. Sorcery is powerful and versatile, but somewhat dangerous to learn and use. Wizardry takes longer to learn and has some odd limitations but is another mainline discipline for good reason. There are several enchanting disciplines, but if you're going for combat caster you don't want those. There are quite a few more niche types of magic but again, I'm not qualified to discuss them."

"I'll be going for Sorcery assuming I have any talent whatsoever. Can you open an account for me and deposit two gold of credit now?"

She still needs to account for meals and clothing and so on, but this seems like a good place to start.

"Of course! We do collect a magical signature from all students, that's the account key and also the mechanism for Skill tracking. It involves collecting a drop of blood, but alternate methods are available for a small fee."