"I mean I don't personally but it is, like, known. I think it's... expensive? You might need the right affinity. And like tons of mana, probably more than a lake of it even."

:- I would imagine so! Your, er, friend here -: vague gesture at Orion, :was apparently able to pull an entire node in one go: 

"Well, Orion's very special, I think most people would be drawing from a sharer that hooked up to a big sink instead."

A pause. 

:Can you - explain what you....mean by 'sharer' and by 'sink'?: 

Raleigh could explain but plausibly Rebecca is actually better placed for it, given that he's been familiar with wizard magic since early childhood and she had to pick it all up at age 14. He glances over at her and waits to see if she's going to explain or indicate that he should. 

She does look at him but shrugs and says, "A sink is like your lake, I guess, but it's usually an artifice? And they can hold a whole lot, and a sharer lets you grab it from the sink really easily, and put mana into it when you build it."

:- Oh, interesting. And the sharer is usually also an artifice? Does it let anyone pull from your sink, even if they're less powerful?: 

"The sharer's an artifice too, yeah, and it works for whoever wears it I think? I guess maybe you could make them differently if you were going to risk them getting stolen."

:Is that not usually a risk? It sounds like something that would definitely end up tempting mage-bandits: 

"I think you can cut them off if they do get stolen and also if anyone did that they would get so murdered. ...in school, I don't actually know what would happen if somebody did it with a sharer out in the regular world - Raleigh do you know -"

Raleigh? Is that a name? Orion thought that was a city.

"I....don't specifically know of it having come up? I mean, like, maybe it has ever, but - anyone from an enclave who's got a power-sharer is probably going to beat anyone not from an enclave in a fight, unless they're a maleficer - and anyone openly maleficing humans is going to end up with the best wizards from multiple enclaves trying to hunt them down? Which does happen, once in a while, but I think stealing a power-sharer that's likely to be cut off soon anyway isn't usually what they'd go for?" 

The connotations coming across with that foreign word are...strange. And concerning. Very concerning. 

:Is that like blood-magic?: 

(The connotations that come across to the kids along with this word are - a lot like 'maleficer', but, oddly, actually less bad-feeling? The priestess seems to be mostly thinking of it as something distasteful, in addition to morally wrong, but not exactly with horror.) 

"...may...be? Maleficing is if you kill something - like a rat or something, or a person, not like a bug - for mana. And it's really bad because if you get in a fight with a maleficer they're going to be getting mana while you're spending it, so they get out of control super fast like - like setting fire to a fireworks factory - and you have to gang up on them right away before they do that, you can't even really talk them down because maleficers go nuts."

That gets a considerably more discomfited look! 

:All of them go crazy? How - sure are you, of that?: 

"I, uh - I think sometimes people are able to pull off using mice or something while they're in school, and manage to be okay after, but it's - they have to be really really careful, and ration it, and - even then, it messes with using normal mana, so if they want to be normal again after they have to stop using magic for a while and that's - you almost can't do it unless you've got an enclave and people to look out for you? And, uh, people in enclaves don't do maleficing even in school, it'd..." 

He trails off. There are certain bits of his school experience that he doesn't especially want to get into right now. 

"There's that one enclave that has some secret for not going crazy and everybody puts up with them and they don't kill people. The - what's the leaning tower city, it's them. Pizza. - Pisa. Otherwise yeah, what Raleigh said."

The leaning tower– all right never mind this is so not the priority here. 

:This...doesn't make 'maleficing' sound very appealing or smart: she notes. :Why do people do it?: 

Shrug. "'Cause it's pretty powerful? Uh, I guess especially for freshmen, when you've got a tiny mana limit but you can collect a ton of malia anyway."

"Lots of people cheat if they're in a tight spot, just a little - if you don't have enough mana for your ward overnight and you're really tired and you need to be rested in the morning it's not weird or even dangerous to pull some of the extra out of the air or your bedpost. I don't really get why people plan on it and bring animals to school but outside if something's after you and you're running away and you find a raccoon or whatever..."

Shrug. "Landon used to say it was an...enclave privilege thing? That, like, it's easy for us to say we don't get why anyone brings in mice, we've all got power-sharers, but if you don't then..."

He wriggles his shoulders uncomfortably. He always hated that particular conversation. "It evens the playing field? Except, you know, it's still dangerous and a bad idea and sometimes people get out of control anyway and end up murdered for it and - they'd never even have been tempted if they were enclavers..."

There are so many baffling concepts here! 'Mana limit' and 'freshman' both almost make sense? But the connotations are...slightly off from 'size of reserves' and 'a kid at the age when they're admitted to a mage-school'. And 'enclaver' came up before, sort of, but there's whole messy complicated pile of context, including some very mixed feelings, coming across in the second kid's thoughts. 

Focus. She's never going to get on top of this if she doesn't prioritize. 

Glance around. :Do, er, 'mana limits' vary a lot between people? It seemed like you were saying that Orion can hold a lot more in reserves: an ENTIRE NODE in fact, which is INSANE, :but that that's unusual?: 

"Well I didn't have a power sharer - yeah, mana limits vary, but like there's a normal amount and then Orion's really really really unusual. I think mine and Raleigh's and Shannon's aren't that different from each other but I can cast most spells cheaper than most people because my affinity's song spells and lots and lots of spells are songs."

:I, er - right. I think I maybe need more explanation of how 'affinities' work, sorry. It's - not the same thing as having an entirely different Gift? Not like, um, if one person has Mindspeech but not Healing, and someone else has the opposite?: 

Shavri speaks for the first time in a while. "No, not like that. You can cast out-of-affinity – uh, at least once you're a senior, freshmen are limited enough on mana that you often can't cast very many spells at all. But, yeah, it's more expensive, and if it's a really mana-hungry spell then sometimes you can't unless it's in-affinity."