(Locally, magic-users are called magicians. But that's just a word.)

Magically speaking, normal magicians look similar enough to Su-Yeong, but it's clear there are differences even without a direct side-by-side comparison. For starters, their magical production is much more relaxed - it's about two-thirds the rate of Su-Yeong's when she's relaxed, about half of when she's agitated, at least based on what Hali's already seen. And the link between magician and familiar is different. Magic flows loosely between the two, but there's stuff that Su-Yeong and Morgan share that other magician-familiar pairs don't.

People without magic… well, that's not entirely accurate. They've got a little, but the production is a tiny sliver of what a normal magician produces, and it dissipates almost instantly. Still, Hali can see what colors people's magic could be, as well as faint shadows of animalistic traits. The latter are much more ephemeral and nebulous than the colors of unrealized magic.

There's a shop that sells assorted enchanted objects! It's not huge, but it does have its own building instead of a tent. The lighting inside is done with, unsurprisingly, enchanted lamps.

Interesting.

And the gemstones those magicians carry upon their persons, with which to store power, are there any fundamental similarities or differences between types?

The factor that has the most effect on how well a gemstone works is color. The closer the color match between a gemstone and a magic user's personal magic color, the better the gemstone will hold the magic. There aren't a lot of perfect matches, but it may become apparent after looking at enough magicians that a gem's color changes subtly with repeated use towards the magic color of its user.

Clear gemstones, like uncolored quartz, can hold and focus magic, but much less strongly than colored ones. The main utility of quartz is in enchanted items that need to be able to draw power from anyone - Hali might spot some rambunctious kids shooting (mostly) harmless beams of colored light with gloves that have clear quartz cabochons embedded in the back.

(She might also spot a guard or two, recognizable by their red-and-green uniform, with similar gloves that have colored gemstones instead.)

These things, as ever, continue to be interesting.

Are any of the kids with gloves not connected to a familiar?

Nah.

Well.  She's done all the investigation she can possibly do from a distance, at this point.

Therefore, it's time to investigate an item up close.

Runes are a process of inflecting the boundary of an object such that the naturally-occurring magic flowing through it forms a spell effect in its passing.  Or, at least, this is what Hali believes to be a first-level approximation of how the fuck anything works, because she's done things that by all rights ought not have worked under that paradigm, such as her message-stones.

She's seen natives cast spells before, and yet more after her arrival.

But how, she wants to know, are they being bound up in items?

The bell of the item-shop jingles as she enters it.

The shopkeeper looks up! She's a tall woman, mid-twenties, with caramel-colored hair, teal magic, and a budgie familiar on her shoulder.

"Welcome in!" she says.

The shelves are lined with doodads - clocks, kettles, music boxes, lamps. None of the light fixtures have bulbs, per se, just glowing glass crystals.

"Hello."

And she is going to examine these items!  And their prices!

The prices are given in copper, silver, and gold pieces. Compared to the prices of food items, most of the items seem to be between gift shop prices and tourist trap prices. They're well-made enough that they at least look like they're not ripoffs - most likely the price is because the shopkeeper makes them all by hand.

Magically speaking, the biggest divide seems to be between devices that need to be turned on, like kettles or the more functional lighting pieces, and ones that don't, like clocks and the decorative lamps. The first category has a minor split between devices that need to be powered by the user's own magic and devices that don't, which are slightly more expensive because they're more magically intricate. All the devices have at least one magic crystal inside, with the more complex ones being powered by increasingly elaborate networks of gems.

...And how do the gems work, in this context?

As power sources, mostly!

There's a little self-powered wheeled toy that's currently running inside a hamster wheel. Its main crystal has the shopkeeper's teal magic wound precisely inside it. There are two smaller crystals that the main crystal is sending power to: one that alters the speed of the wheels, and one that turns the wheels so the toy can change direction. The latter wheel has a small shell of magic, externally imposed, probably so that it'll stay in the hamster wheel instead of careening around the shop.

Hali can see that the gems are, essentially, repeating a set of magical instructions to themselves, over and over. The magic won't last forever, but it can be topped off (and, in fact, a sign behind the counter lists prices for recharging items - something this small would be free), and the instructions will last much longer than the magic does. It would probably need to be re-enchanted entirely if it were left in a box untouched for a hundred years, but it's definitely long-lasting enough for its main purpose.

...She has been staring at that little wheeled toy for several uninterrupted minutes, just processing the idea of - loops - and their interaction with glyphic techniques -

She thinks that she could create a spell that enforces itself.

She thinks that even if she tried to break such a spell apart, disrupt it with perturbations of the magical field as she normally attempts, she might be able to suspend it, as long as she held the ward-pick - but it would not break.

Or rather, if it broke, it would break violently, rather than coming apart in a whisper.

She thinks that she might, with effort and study, be able to create a spell that holds itself together within an antimagic field, if it had a physical anchor.  It would require...inversion...of...

Oh, those clever, clever beings, who made a zone where magic could not be - the thing that Lolth robbed from her, the absence that enabled her to step through a barrier no god could pierce, though it tore the scars of the magic she'd laid upon herself wide open - 

They had, somehow, inverted the principles underpinning the soul.  And one of the things known about standard antimagic fields was that souls, despite their nature as magic, were not - extinguished, blown away - inside!

...This thought, that she has just had...it may be too dangerous to know.

Because she was pretty certain, now, remembering that field, that she had stumbled upon the principles underpinning how souls could be made - and unmade.

"...I would like to purchase a representative sample of your work."

She can have her existential crisis later.  Right now she is shopping.  "Unfortunately, I misestimated the amount of money I would need to change to accomplish both my travels and my purchase orders, and know not if such an office exists here that would even have records of my currency with which to process exchanges; would accepting foreign currency be a problem for you?"

The shopkeeper, oblivious to Hali's moment of horror, laughs.

"A representative sample, huh? Do you mean one of everything, or are you trying to suss out a recommendation?"

The currency comment makes her tilt her head, but she's confused, not suspicious.

"… well, I probably wouldn't be able to part with much, since I probably won't be heading down to someplace I could get it changed anytime soon. But I can be flexible, I guess."

"A recommendation would be - ha - recommended, for both our sakes, I think.  Given the money issue."

Her coins are definitely foreign, that's for sure.

Predictably, she doesn't recognize the coins. Still, she can probably make some use of them even if she never gets around to getting them changed for local money.

"Let's see…"

She gets out from behind the counter and walks through the shop. When she gets back, she sets down three devices: a Pomodoro-style timer that can measure one-minute increments up to two hours, a desk ornament with a number of leaf-shaped bits of glass that glow in different colors, and a cup that will keep liquids at whatever temperature they're at when they're first poured in.

"Any of these seem to be what you're looking for?"

"They do, yes.  How much would these be, then?"

She knows how she'd approach making the cup, and the glowy ornament, but as it is, she'd have to build a clock to have a clock.

She is particularly interested in both the cup and clock.

"Great! The timer's ten silver, the lamp is six, and the mug is four silver, ten copper. If you wanted all of them I'd do it for one gold, six silver."

...She'll buy the lamp too; it will make for a useful test subject.

"That's agreeable, I think I'll take the lot.  Would payment in silver entire be workable?"  The silvers are definitely the most similar of the two sets of coins; her golds are huge and her coppers are tiny.

"Yeah, that's fine, it'd be eighteen silver. Well, our silver. Do you remember what the exchange rate was?"

"I believe it was rather close to one to one at the time, as it happens."

"Well, that's convenient!"

And a little suspicious, but - she already accounted for the possibility that this was a cover story, and she's fine parting with these three trinkets. She takes the cash.

"Did you want these boxed or anything?"

"I have room in my bag; thank you."