"...they probably lose more business that way, have they considered taking out a billboard advertisement. Technopath sounds... fun... but expensive... is anyone else on taking Aspicio Mori with respect to maw-mouths?"

"Hm." She gets a distant look for a moment, then nods. "Okay, Lucy's dad has it covered."

"- oh, I guess that would work, wouldn't it. Good for him. I think I want to hold onto... what is it, six points... in case I suddenly want three ranks of an elementalism in some kind of emergency situation. Which means I could afford technopath but it's not going to be relevant this month, probably? Anything I'm obviously sleeping on that might be?"

"Specialty magics. I can put a fate twist on you to guarantee your connection with one faction or another--Arcadia would be the most trivial, considering, but they're all valid--for a discount on faction magics and some free bonuses. Faction magics include digicasting, wands, dominion, covenants, ministration, and occultism. Wands gives you access to a handful of free-form spells and is associated with Hawthorne Academy, a sort of older sister institution to Arcadia; Ministration is associated with the Watchers--you might want to study with them for a bit to pick up the first rank of it at some point regardless, that one's warlock-aligned--Dominion magic is associated with Lunabella and is good for keeping monsters out--Occultism does weird shadow stuff and is associated with the Hespatians, who are variable amounts of bad news. Covenants is associated with Alfheimr--the feywild--and enforces agreements."

"What does the fate twist do, in more detail?"

"More-or-less guarantees that, one way or another, you're going to end up significantly associated with the faction for an extended period of time--not necessarily forever, but the looser the association the longer the minimum total amount of time. It does not, for example, strictly require that you become a Lunabellan citizen and become a part of their weird slavery thing."

"Weird slavery thing??"

"Technically everyone on Lunabella is a slave to another Lunabellan, all the way up to King Culicarius, who is enslaved to the Lunabellan constitution. It's very weird and does not, actually, much resemble any conventional form of slavery--too much consent and human rights, for one thing--but it is, uh, very much not everyone's cup of tea regardless."

"Well, I'm glad I don't have to do it in order to learn pocket dimensions. Pocket dimensions sound great... wands might be useful too?"

"Wands is in-affinity for everyone, which stacks with the faction discount."

Bella inspects these options more closely. "- a cheap silence spell would be an amazing defensive option if any wizards decide they don't like my face. And, uh, aren't fated to successfully murder me about it. Same with the one that stops people. Can I customize my association, is Hawthorne going to start a wizardry program I could guest-teach, that would be kind of neat. - ooh the pocket dimensions do time dilation, can I get both of these -"

"You can't make Hawthorn start a wizardry program it otherwise wouldn't, but you can, like, hold out for one. Both Dominion and Wands are pretty freely available to people not associated with the relevant faction, that varies and Hawthorne is way on the open end but Lunabella is, like, generally pretty friendly. --If you want both I would advise on points alone to take the fate twist for Lunabella, on account of how you don't have an affinity in line with Dominion and you get less of an absolute points discount on a second halving in price." 

"Sounds like good advice to me. I will hang out on the moon and learn how to run a magical colony on an inhospitable space rock."

"You could be King Culicarius's intern!"

"Maybe! So with that how much will - eight for three ranks each Dominion and Wands, cool. And six to set aside for emergency elementalism, and I have two left... recommendations? Is Aethernautics good?"

"Well, its practical uses in the low ranks are relatively limited, but it goes well with Portals. Plus if you're going to rule a space colony, you'd find it more useful than average."

"Hmmm... are the mime powers actually good?"

"It lets you make invisible objects only you can interact with up to the complexity of a bicycle. So you could bicycle places, or not need actual hairties to put your hair back, or sit down just wherever, or climb arbitrarily high on a ladder...it's pretty convenient, actually."

"...huh, that does sound awfully convenient. I'll grab that.

"Speaking of hair can I fix that while I'm in here. I don't actually like it short."

"You can change whatever you like about your body! That's not even a god thing, that's an Awakening-as-a-witch thing." 

"I mostly like my body but I guess in addition to the hair I could clear up some scars and zits and such!"

"Yeah, exactly. Or take the opportunity to pierce anything you'd like pierced without having to actually stab through solid flesh." 

"I don't think I want anything pierced. - Though I'm getting the magic tattoo kit, right, can I do some of that in here, is there anything obvious enough I should have it right away?"

"...Luck." 

"I do like to be lucky! What are the degrees of freedom on that?"