"Why'd you go with being a warlock instead of one of the other two, if you got to pick?"

"I'd've picked sorceress if I didn't have a patron option I liked. But--I'm really into art. Poetry, cooking, mixing perfume scents--things that make people have feelings. Sorcery would have been fine; I would have gone a lot harder into elementalism; you can do some good art with elementalism. But sex is a kind of art, too, if you're doing it right, and it can incorporate a lot of other kinds of art too, if you do that right, so--I end up spending more of my time doing the kinds of thing I want to do with my life, as a priestess of Kedesh-Nanaya, than I would have as a sorceress."

"I mean, couldn't you do that kind of thing for fun and also be a sorceress? What's the advantage of being a warlock over being a sorceress with hobbies?"

"The advantage is that I don't have to spend all the time a sorceress would practicing in order to get power. I still have to practice my abilities enough to be able to use them, but that's a lot less than a sorceress has to."

"Oh, so it's a time-saver, gotcha."

"Pretty much, yeah! Plus--has anyone told you about the different class advantages."

"A little bit but not so I know what you're about to say."

"So, in addition to how each class of witch is better at different kinds of magic, there's also a sort of bonus that they all get that are less related. Academics get twice the bang for their buck on things that academics are better at--twice the duration of a digicasting summon, twice the oomph of a luck rune, half as much mana to brew a potion, etcetera--sorceresses get personal auras that they can use to color their elementalism to increase its strength, and warlocks get soulbonded relics. When a warlock soulbonds to a magic item, we can summon or dismiss it like we can our mothergifts, and most patrons throw in some tempting relics as part of the deal. I got the Kiss mint that way, which is kind of a big deal for Katarzyna on account of she is neither any amount of a sadist nor into casual sex."

"Oh, cool! I was assuming the mint was something a witch manufactured."

"Oh, probably at some point--I think gods can make relics, at least some of the time, but they can also, like, acquire them."

Bella nods. "Let's see, who else should I check if they're alive..." She sends out more texts.

"Should we get Manchester in on this? It sort of seems like the more enclaves find out about this the faster we can argue them into anything we need to argue them into."

"Sure, but you were the one on an alliance with them, I nominate you to text them. ...Boston got pretty beat up and it looks like they're not sure if Annie'll make it but the core four are alive..."

She pulls out her mom's phone. "Oh sure I just wanted to make sure nobody had some compelling reason not to first, telling enclaves things isn't the kind of thing you can take back." 

"I have no compelling reason to cut Manchester out."

"And we don't have any particular reason to want to keep our presence limited in scope." 

"Cool." 

She texts Nia's mom first. 

Hi this is Lucy I'm Nia's graduation ally, can you give her the phone please?

The phone rings a minute later!

Lucy answers it. 

"Hi Nia! I was actually going to start a group text with Sean and Ennis, have you heard from them yet?"

"They have called! They will come whisk me away to a spa hotel decadent nonsense thing when their families will allow them and my father can only pretend at being angry because they are enclavers. My lost boy thinks he is being eaten very slowly by a hallucination inducing thing. A blue one. He was specific. He says it is a good way to go. And my priceless artwork is already exasperated of her mother after five minutes."

"--A hallucination inducing thing? Is that a flippant reference to something or should I actually be concerned."

"He thinks some mal is very kind to its meals and has eaten him all up while making it seem as though he has graduated and about to go on vacation! He is very silly. I think he does not all the way think it."

"Ohhhhh. So, uh, if something is going on that would make it more likely that this was a hallucination and not real life, should I, uh, hold off on talking to him about it."

"...maybe? Artwork has seen more Sean than I have since he began thinking this."

"I will call and/or text Ennis about it then. I assume you want to hear about it, it isn't very plausible but I can prove it, assuming you won't react to proof with 'aha, this must be a hallucination after all.'"