"We were never that close. But Tempus' primary trait is an obsession with magic and I could see that outweighing his common sense."

"I see. Well, we'll go after him, won't we?"

"We will. And things are not that grim. He is still alive and his dance is versatile."

"How exactly does it work?"

"He copies people's dances and if he has the right shape-power combination his current power is displaced and changed into the target's. He mostly sacrifices shapes to Ventari because of that. It's touch range."

"Hmm, so he needs to have people with useful powers around, he can't just carry all of them with him."

"Yes, but it works such that he can copy two people and end up with a combination of powers that neither target had. In the case of the inspired he retains a good fraction of the knowledge as well."

"How can he get a combination?"

"Say, there is person A and person B. Person A sacrificed Petram and Aestes to the Ventari shape. Person B sacrificed only Aestes. If Tempus copies Person A and then copies Person B, only the Aestes power is going to be displaced by the new one. So he gets to the Person A Petram power and Person B Aestes power. And while shift-dancers are rare he could get interesting interactions by creatively combining powers from non-dancers with copied dances."

"Ah, yeah, that makes sense. So he could get arbitrary combinations."

"Yeah, you can see why I would like to introduce you two."

"I can."

"I can see you two getting along as well. Which is good because he might pay you to just hang around in his vicinity for the rest of your lives."

"You've mentioned, and I can see it, too, from your descriptions."

Nod. "Ironically, I think I'll trust him more with double-digits powers than the alternative."

"I understand that, having more choices usually helps."

"Yes. Speaking of power. Did you manage to go through and get one?"

"Oh yeah! I got—is there any sand around?"

Esdras retrieves some sand for her.

She's shifted to her Ventari shape. "Where did you even find this—anyway—"

She starts moving her hands around, and the sand starts floating and following them, making swishing patterns in the air.

Esdras chuckles. "It's a convenient weight and building material. And cool power."

She raises an eyebrow. "Those are not by a long shot the only uses of a power like this." She demonstrates by using the sand to fetch her a pen.

"I meant that sand is typically used as a weight for ships and material for buildings - they mix it with other things. Your power is good either way."

"Oh you were talking about how you got it. Right. Yes, my power's great."

"It is. I bet Oran will be pleased too. He was having trouble finding mages for the expedition."