More members of the household are trickling in and filling up the table. Apparently Cumin and Conrad arrived on the earlier side. The invisible servants return to serving food. Someone looks at Conrad in a strange, assessing manner.

Saffron scowls and raises an eyebrow. "This is my guest. He has dealt with too much unrefined behavior as is. But now he's here, so he shouldn't have any such problems, yes?"

The witch being scowled at slinks back. "Yes, lady Saffron, I understand."

Saffron turns to face the table. "Ladies who are now arriving! This is my guest, Conrad. We're considering whether he should join my household."

With this many people at the table, there are now some who are operating their utensils telekinetically, or just picking up the food with telekinesis. Apparently the issue is with touching some specific foods with one's hands.

Conrad doesn't pay any special attention to the person that looked at him like that. Assessing looks are the opposite of strange to him! He doesn't understand why Saffron is so upset, and he wants to Send to Cumin, but casting Send would probably take him thirty seconds because of lack of practice. So he doesn't.

Ooh. He wants to pick up his food with Windkeeping, but that's probably a horrible idea because his close precise control of it isn't as good as with Metallurgy. He might end up blowing the other food around. He doesn't bother with using Metallurgy to control his utensils, though. Using utensils is still very fun and new!

Is new food brought in with the arrival of the other people.

Not immediately – the other people mostly arrived in time to catch the end of this course.

Someone with shiny scales is seated across from him now. "Hi, Conrad! How's your day going?"

Ooh. Do they look similar to Zamira?

"Very good! I got attacked by Alphazon agents but I fended them off and got away!" He is very happy about that!

No, her face is much more humanoid than that, and the scales aren't all over her skin, just on parts of it.

"Wow, that must have been exciting! I had a nice day but the most exciting part was that I feel like I have a grasp of matrix multiplication now."

"It was! And I'm happy for you too. Matrices are very useful. Math is very useful in general, but geometry is most fun for me. What else do you study? I'm probably going to learn a lot about software if I join Lady Saffron's household."

"I'm pretty focused on the portals-aethernautics-physics cluster, which integral calculus and linear algebra are relevant to. And I'm trying to learn enough Orcish to properly appreciate their poetry and theater, but I'm not prioritizing it, so it's been pretty slow going. What do you like about geometry?"

"I know some aethernautics and physics, but don't know anything about portals. I only know English. What is good about Orcish poetry and theatre? I have not seen English poetry and theatre either.

I like it because it's good for navigation. And also very good for things like construction and art. And I find it very easy to understand. It's...spatial. I can intuit it better than other areas of math."

"Oh, Orcish poetry and theater are just so raw and passionate. At least in translation. Though English is good too! And Lunabellan Greek, there's a decent theater scene up here, though a lot of it is either repetitive or only interesting if you've been keeping up with everything for the past few centuries."

"And you're right, geometry is good for art! They're not very popular around here, but you might want to look up the tilework on the Watcher's Cathedral, or this human artist Escher?"

Conrad does not understand what it means for poetry and theater to be raw.

"Does it have dancing? I like dancing. I have seen neither of those. Where are they?"

"Theater sometimes, though really you'd want to look for ballet. Poetry no. You can't visit the Watcher's Cathedral, it's in Eden, but our lady's library has a photo book someone who got permission to visit made. Escher's work is … I guess it has a location, in that there are original prints and less original prints, but it copies really well and so you could say it's in a lot of places? Michaela has a Waterfall poster in her room. I'd guess most of the original prints are on Earth, though."

"I will look for ballet.

Oh! There are photographs. I will look at the photographs.

I have long since wanted to decorate a room, but now that I might potentially be able to decorate a room, I don't know how to decorate it. How do you decorate yours?"

"Well, I have a water tank, for sleeping or for when I otherwise want to recharge in private. It's got some low-maintenance animals and seaweed, and maintenance equipment, and some pretty rocks and such, and a place for me to lean if I want to read a book I don't want to get wet. Outside of that, there's a sofa, and I have little twinkly lights all around the room, and a big photograph of my favorite actor, and my record player for playing music, and my dresser and a mirror, I do have some clothes besides my mothergift. I picked the mirror because it has a bright red frame in a cool shape."

"That is so much stuff! I have never had that much stuff ever!" Conrad looks starstruck.

"You recharge magic by being in water? I get mine from electricity. Or battle. But electricity is much easier and reliable to get.

I really want to try making lights and record players and dressers and mirrors too. I don't know if I can make a sofa. I think they need cloth and I don't know how to work with cloth very well. Except for working on my mothergifts."

"Lights call for glass, I think? Lady Saffron's amazing with glass. I think you need a vacuum too, maybe, there's somewhat decent vacuum outside but I'm not sure they're good enough. And there are metal sewing machines, but you still want cloth and thread for them."

This is at the point where someone seated next to the witch across from Conrad turns to him. "Josephine's an old-timer. If you want to learn to make incandescents and phonographs, you can, but these days LEDs and MP3 players are where it's at."

(Further away, someone listening bites back a comment about audio file formats.)

"I can make polymers with my nanite swarm, but not glass. I might be able to get a vacuum with Windkeeping, I'm not sure." And then, to the other witch, "I have not made LEDs or MP3 players before. Most of the things I've made were weapons, usually firearms."

The witch next to Josephine sighs. "I guess that's useful, but war is so ugly! If I were a Calamity-grade metallurge I'd do something more interesting than that. Maybe a sculpture garden, to start."

Josephine nods. "I'd probably start with Art Nouveau cast-iron fencework?"

"Alphazon had me make a lot of weapons, which is why I have a lot of weapons. If I tried making other things they would have been very angry with me. I love doing metal sculptures! I have done a few sculptures of solids, but then I had to stop. I have not done Art Nouveau cast-iron fencework."

"Well, we've all established that Alphazon has no class. Sculptures of … solids? I'm not sure I understand, I suppose some people sculpt waves or such but I think most sculptures are of solid things?"

"Sorry. I mean to say polyhedra." He will breathe out nanites and make the Platonic solids and the Archimedean solids and have them slowly go around in a circle in the air.