Well, that was a productive weekend. Sunday dinner finds Alexius looking for more people to meet, tray laden with potatoes and a bit of squash that had been caught in the crossfire when a junior zapped a mal.
Here are some enclavers he hasn't met! Maybe they are not assholes! A surprising number of enclavers have been not-assholes, frankly. Even that one fellow from Shanghai was quite friendly. Alexius will go say hello.
"I dunno, hence the placeholder name Obscurus." Note to self: Sean may be slightly literal-minded.
Maybe Alexius should be a little more careful about Latin root words. Some people actively avoid them, maybe? But they're just so numerous!
"...you mentioned! That might be a good candidate for the handwriting trick, if it turns out to work, I bet a lot of wizards who wrote spells in Latin wrote a bunch of them. Once you're spell fluent you'll have a lot to choose from."
"It was customary for a while for spells to be written in Latin even after it was no longer the vernacular," agrees Ennis.
"Harry Potter: more accurate than it has any right to be." Wait, was Rowling a mage? That would explain so much. Probably not, though; there aren't many mages who would write books about a nice magic school experience. In retrospect, uh, should not have said that.
"I don't think that's actual Latin and also they're all too short - I mean there are a few spells that short but not many."
"I actually do have one that short, but yeah, most of them aren't. Kind of a pity, really, it makes casting in combat that much more difficult." If Alexius wants to be in a fight at full strength, even assuming he can afford the obscene mana costs, he needs about five minutes' prep time. And even that is barely enough to mildly challenge an average sophomore, according to the combat instructor back home.
"Skin toughening! Good for not getting chewed on. Very handy if you have a chunk of mana for an emergency and don't have a shield up, or for layering defenses."
"It's one of my favorites. Very good oh-shit-button that scales up nicely." Pun intended, hah, it's for crocodile skin. "You can do whole-body or just the part you're sticking in the possibly-mal-infested cupboard."
"That...is a very good question." He thinks on it while he eats. "It would probably keep out most mundane contact poisons at least long enough to win the fight and have a shower, probably not forever. Magical stuff might absorb anyway depending on the magic. It basically puts scales over your skin, gives it a much thicker nonliving layer, so it would at least take longer for any poison to reach the bloodstream." Alexius is shaky on animal biology, he mostly studied human anatomy for his affinity. "Fortunately, I have the antitoxin for dealing with poison."
"I'll probably get a variety of potion antidotes too, given my affinity's interaction with alchemy, but yeah, this one's a spell. One of those scalable flexible ones. It turns toxins inert, works most cheaply if you know which toxins, I traded it to Sean a bit earlier."
"Maybe when we do the enclave swap on Saturday you can throw it in the pool," Ennis says encouragingly.
Well, it's not strictly speaking good for Alexius, but he feels good anyway. He did know enclaves swap spells among themselves - well, the ones with their act together, anyway - so it isn't news. He can still swap with the other enclaves and a lot of what he has is fairly basic right now anyway.
"If I get something really good I'll bargain folks for exclusive trade deals, but not for spells this basic. I doubt I could enforce banning retrades anyway, especially retrades within an enclave. Have at it. If anyone asks where you got 'em, though, send 'em my way. I hope to do a brisk business in personal spells."
"Just name's fine." With the number of alchemical reagents he plans to store, it's probably best not to advertise his actual room. He'll share it as needed, it's not really feasible to keep it secret indefinitely, but no sense inviting trouble before he's prepared to punch it.
It would be sort of rude to insist on "the Great", here, wouldn't it. Oh well. "Marcus."
He'll leave off the Jacksonville bit for now; they're currently vying for the title of Most Loudly Condemning of the Stupid Freshman.
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