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Adarin's magic has some advantages over witchcraft, but it is imperfect. Still, over time, mana recovers, and in this time Metis's hospitality does not run out.
They watch Harry Potter, Adarin is introduced to Wikipedia, he makes the second thingamajig. Isabella interrogates her alethiometer.
It's kind of cryptic about whether she has to fear being a "crazy witch". But she's tentatively optimistic and still brainstorming new ways to format the question. (She complains about the alethiometer being bad at numbers and at "yes" and "no".)
It can, however, identify landmarks by referring to whatever they're named after. It's not so hard to interpret on the subject of where she may find a place to claim. She moves into it, Adarin in tow, Metis retained as a friendly advisor but apprenticeship terminated. The place has plumbing and a generator already; she gets satellite Internet for an entire half-day of spellcasting and collects a hand-me-down laptop from a mortal friend of her mother's. She sets up arrangements for building a nice big wall along the edge of a clearing on her appropriated property. It's a very busy couple of weeks.
Eventually she tries asking the alethiometer a fifteenth way whether she's prone to crazy witchitude. Whether she'd ever hurt someone she loved if they rejected her, or even threaten it.
The alethiometer says: love violence counter-to querent nature.
She's starting to get the hang of interpreting it, even if most of the practice has involved getting the addresses (via intersection and cardinal direction because it can't give her anything so useful as house number or latitude) and this is - this is pretty damn good.
This is good enough.
Of course, that's not all the answer she needs, is it?
Path goes looking for Vernaia.
dark_light
dark_light
So anyway, while no science is truly complete without replication studies, they are only so superhuman.
Isabella flops on him and doesn't appear to intend to move for the next ever.
prodigal_miser
That's okay. Adarin's not moving for a while, either.
Cuddles. Cuddles are a thing they can have while not moving for the next ever.
Cuddles. Cuddles are a thing they can have while not moving for the next ever.
dark_light
"Mmmmm."
Pause.
"Soooo how much of a target will be drawn on my back if I set foot in New Kystle again?"
Pause.
"Soooo how much of a target will be drawn on my back if I set foot in New Kystle again?"
prodigal_miser
"Pretty large, I'd say. Not as big as the one perpetually on my back, but still rather large. I have to admit that I kind of just want to never go back, but..."
He sighs. "There are also people that don't deserve to be stuck with them, either."
He sighs. "There are also people that don't deserve to be stuck with them, either."
dark_light
"They've only been living in New Kystle for a few years. I wonder if it makes sense to just import the lot of them - or the more tolerable ones, anyway - to some appropriate refugee site on Earth. Picking a place would take a while, but... it's not that big a population."
dark_light
"What would they do if the nonmage population was just - escorted off the premises? What do they want with them?"
prodigal_miser
"Ignore it until it becomes a problem for them, such as not having food on the table. The nonmage population does farming and general manual labor."
dark_light
"Well, if they'd ignore it to start that would give us a while to enact stage one. And if there was a system for them to import food for magic trinkets or whatever?"
prodigal_miser
Adarin smiles a little, affectionately. "Hmmm, maybe. But you saw those people, do you think you could convince them to work and make things when right now they're being fed for basically free?"
dark_light
"My question is what alternative would they have? It's just you and your sister who can make portals proper, right? If they came in one at a time, low on mana from the transport, intending grand larceny - they'd be outnumbered by witch clans and high tech mortals. And the alethiometer works here, too, we could spot-check periodically for incursions."
prodigal_miser
"They can make portals if they team up," he informs her. "But... Hmmm, yeah. Should I - I dunno, speak to various witch clans and high tech mortals and say, 'So I'm nice, but lots of my people aren't, please be aware of them and squash them if they try anything?'"
dark_light
"Yes, quite possibly. Post-portal-capitalism, ideally, so no one wants you assassinated or pissed off."
prodigal_miser
He snickers, a little. "Yeah. I would also like large amounts of money to throw around in this plane, because I can do fun things with it."
dark_light
"Believe me, if you can crank out enough portals to replace even a single percent of airline traffic, you're golden, and I think you can top that."
prodigal_miser
"If they're all inside one plane? Oh yes. But if that avenue of magical capitalism dries up, I have other options. Portal-bags, the mirrors, illusions, translation spells, fancy lights, magic doors for security... I have lots of options."