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"It is, as I said, personal, which means I cannot share it, it is intrinsic to me. And it works by me shapeshifting some part of my body into the desired material and then severing the connection."

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"Oh, could you demonstrate that?" The fox starts searching for something inside wooden boxes.

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She produces a pearl in her hand.

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"Ooooh, and you can do that indefinitely? Do you think you could create alchemy ingredients?"

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"I do not know what alchemy is or what ingredients it needs, but yes, that is what I meant by 'endless.'"

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"Where in the worlds do you come from? I've never heard of that ability."

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"Different world, far away, long time ago."

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"Ah, okay. This is interesting. Do you mind if I inspect that pearl to see if it's real? You haven't lied to me, but you could be mistaken."

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She hands them the pearl.

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The fox takes the pearl, sniffs it, then puts on a ring that makes her eyes turn bright-blue. "Ooh, fascinating. Do you think you can do other materials? And what sort of thing would you like? We could trade for our merchandise."

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"I do not know what-all your merchandise is."

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"Well, if you promise not to steal anything, I can show you our list and lend you my translation ring."

The fox retrieves a list of paper and starts retrieving several other weird things: a flower that looks like a pair of lips, berries with tusked faces on them, a very colorful feather, a five-legged bird...

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Okay but what do these do?

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The various things are ingredients that the fox wants to see if she can copy. They are used as materials to make other things, like the rings they sell - it's not immediately obvious how the five-legged birds are used in ring creation.

The list contains an inventory of the rings. The vast majority are personal effects of various sorts: translation, increased strength, protection, regeneration, improved hearing, lie detection, flight. Some are more esoteric, like the "ring of pointing" that emits a focused red light meant to distract cats and help with business presentations. The ring of bees just produces bees constantly while worn; it's stressed that the bees are not under your control. The ring of bad handshakes is self-explanatory.

There are rings that can protect against emotional pain, or make you focus on other things, or allow you to be functional despite "heartbreak and loss".

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...she's interested in those last ones, what exactly do they do? And perhaps lie detection and translation. How do they work? Mechanistically, too, where does the knowledge come from?

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Lie detection tells if someone said something that can't be construed as true to their knowledge; it can be tricked by technical truths or misleading truths - otherwise it could be triggered by a "hello" because it is a greeting not a true statement. It is technically a form of mind-reading, but only on a very surface level and the wearer doesn't get more information than "true" or "false".

Translation recognizes and catalogues languages, offering the meanings of words it knows very seamlessly. The fox doesn't know how to explain further than that.

The heart-soothing rings sort of diverts your mind from the emotions and feelings you don't want to focus on - the fox makes an analogy to "turning your head in the right direction," making it easier not to feel whatever is the problem. It comes in three grades. The heart-shielding ring is a bit more extreme and stronger, being more forceful at stopping your emotional pain.

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What are the three grades and how is the heart-shielding ring more extreme?

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The grades are just based around on how strong the effect is and in this shop they label them 1, 2 and 3. The heart-shielding ring is stronger than heart-soothing level 3 and can make a wearer behave oddly unless they precommit to things before putting the ring on. It's highly recommended to be taken off once per day and before receiving any bad news.

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...what are the actual subjective effects of this last ring?

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It is very similar to being... really distracted? Like when you sometimes forget the hurtful thing and it doesn't hurt in that moment.

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...she wants translation and that one.

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Excellent! The fox does some mental arithmetic and figures the materials they want from Sadde and in what quantities. She offers a ring of pointing as an extra and asks if Sadde wants them gift-wrapped. If not the fox just offers the rings and waits for Sadde to produce the relevant materials.

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Sure, Sadde can produce them, and no not gift-wrapped thank you.

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And soon enough, Sadde will have her rings. All rings have a simple design that goes with anything (according to the fox) and they only work if just one ring is worn per finger. if She can keep the ring of pointing on a finger to negate the effects of the other two if she feels like it. They also adjust to fit her finger perfectly.

The effect of the ring of heart-shielding are obvious the moment she puts them on...

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As she expected, it does not trump the mate bond. It couldn't possibly do that. They're still the most important things in her life.

But it trumps literally everything else. Everything else is pain, everything else is heartbreak, and all colour gets drained from the world the moment she puts the ring on. She drops her arms to the side and looks around. Hundreds of people, so many species, and she's not curious. She doesn't care. There's nothing else, nothing there, it's all gone.

Everything, everything but them. They're still there. And she has a mission. She can focus.

She does not thank the fox. She opens a door right there and walks through it without sparing the people and worlds she's leaving behind a second thought.

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