Ohhhhhhh. So that's what it was.

"How do you learn?"

"Ask your matron or enroll at Hawthorne or Arcadia? There is a public library in town, maybe just reading some guides there would work? I don't know."

He can do that!

"I will learn Sending. However, I will also come back to this plaza 24 hours from now."

He doesn't need to sleep. He might be able to travel to Hawthorne and Arcadia and find out what they're about before meeting her here again.

"Farewell!"

And the plaza continues to plaza! The same doll is at the information desk. Someone translucent is sprawled in the fountain reading a book. The blue and white cart advertising 'NYC-Style Hot Dogs' is gone, but the green and yellow cart advertising 'Anthousa's Hot Dogs' remains.

Also, someone's seen the back of CoNRAD's neck and overheard some things and is taking a discreet photograph to send to Alphazon.

And some people with animal ears are getting snuggly on a public bench. Normal public location things.

What would CoNRAD like to do next?

He considers his tasks.

• Read natural awakening booklet
• Learn Sending (there is a library available near here)
• Visit and learn about Hawthorne
• Visit and learn about Arcadia
• Find protection from Alphazon

He thinks he wants to learn Sending first. He thinks that he could also learn about magic ranks that way.

He will conjure a cowboy hat and put the metal map facsimile in it, and open the booklet given to him. What is in its table of contents?

Witchcraft and You: What You Need to Know

1. Natural Awakening, Explained
2. Understanding your Species
3. Common Magics
4. Pursuing Growth
5. Staying Safe
6. Additional Resources

He will dismiss his cowboy hat and begin reading Common Magics. That seems like the chapter to read.

Common Magics

According to a 2002 survey, the most common magics among witches are Runes, Transmutation, Witchery, Familiarity, Necromancy, Consortation, Divination, and Aethernautics. This guide also gives some mention to Potions, Curses, Portals, and some Elementalisms. These magics, along with some more obscure arts, are known as ranked magics. Like wild magics, ranked magics have elemental and class affinities. Unlike wild magics, most ranked magics have 3 elemental affinities. (Elementalisms have elemental requirements for non-sorceresses.)

Ranked magics are called such because they come in discrete ranks, with each subsequent rank costing more than the last. Typical witches can access up to rank 3, but some special witches can access up to rank 5! It's very easy for witches to pick up the first rank of in-class in-affinity ranked magics, and some magics, like Transmutation, Witchery, Familiarity, Necromancy, and Divination, have rank-zero forms which any witch capable of the art at all can learn without any expenditure of development points!

Reading on reveals that Transmutation and Hexes are the same thing. The guide has some advice on rank-0 Transmutation, which is minting Kisses (a common witch currency), and rank-0 Divination, which is, as mentioned, Sending. There's advice on checking whether your companion animal is your familiar, but no other guidance on familiar-calling, even though it is rank-0 Familiarity.

Ooh! He's learning about magic! He didn't know about Familiarity, Necromancy, Consortation, Divination up until now.

He knows about Hexes, or Transmutation, but he doesn't know what a Witch Kiss is. Apparently you use it to trade. Okay.

Hm...how does he tell what ranks his magic are? Zamira said that he has Rank 3 Witchery. He has no idea about the other ones. He thinks he's probably a typical witch.

Hm. He does not have a companion animal. There is no advice on Necromancy. But it does have advice on Divination! That's great! He'll try that before he tries minting a Kiss.

Who to target. So far he has met three (3) people. Zamira talked about using Sending on the dolls. He will do that. What to include in his message...ah. He should ask where the library is, in the case he wants to go there. Although if he does succeed, he won't bother with the library and proceed straight to Hawthorne.

He will follow the instructions meticulously and precisely.

:Hello. Do you know where the library near Chasmapolis Plaza is?:

«The public library nearest Chasmapolis Plaza is, starting from the center of the plaza and facing towards the information booth, about half a kilometer to the right along Metrodora Street. The buildings have numbers, it's number 126, and there'll be signage out front.»

:Thank you.: he will send back.

Sending works! It is So Good. He wants to stay here longer and Explore, but he does have two more places to go to, and he isn't sure how long it will take.

He will go to the portal to Hawthorne now. Not using any magic to go there, but just running. Running feels So Good and it is So Good that he gets to do it everywhere now, because there is so much space!

He is going to stop at the portal. How do you use it? Is it obvious? Do people just walk through?

Gateways are typically doorframes or archways that only open to their destination when activated.

This gateway is a major transit node between two highly populated openly magical areas. The archway looks less door-sized and more monument-sized, and it's open, revealing tall buildings in an entirely different architectural style, under a cloudy sky dimly lit by a red orb.

There's a paved road through it. People just walk through.

As much as he wants to just run through it, this is probably something that should be approached slowly.

He will mimic the pace of the other people walking through, and walk through! With his hand held in front of him, so in the case that it blocks him, he doesn't hit his face or toes on it.

The gateway does not block him.

It's darker, on the other side of the gate. The air is colder and foggier, and there aren't as many people out and about. There are some armored women with halberds at either side of the gate.

There's not any incredibly obvious direction to proceed from here.

Fancy pole weapons!! He has not seen that specfic type, but he's familiar enough with the concept.

He is still getting used to the lack of guidance, but figuring out things on his own is refreshing and great. If there were no time constraints on him, he would just Wander and look at things and record where he's been. But he's not going to do that because he has a Timely Agenda.

Is there some sort of map or information booth like at Lunabella?

Nothing obvious, but there's some signs on a pole, one of which parallels the road he came in on and another which parallels a nearby road it's crossing with it? The one paralleling the road he came in on reads 'Via Lunabella' and the other one says 'Via Kanzaki'.

There's some skeletal horses heading away from him along the cross-street pulling a colorful cart.

Oh no. None of these say which way is the way to Hawthorne.

Skeletal horses! His mind is still kind of boggling at all of the New Things it is being exposed to.

Hm. Actually, navigating would be much easier if he had an aerial view. He will use Windkeeping to propel himself upward several stories. Is there some sort of Obvious Large Building That Is Hawthorne? Or is it ambiguous or nonexistent?

There are some more brightly-lit buildings over there, that might be a sign of centrality?

He will fly to the brightly lit buildings! He will land just before them and look at them from ground level, again looking out for signs and such.

There are more of the little signs pairs that are perpendicular to each other. (The closest pair read Via Sinclaire and Via Flamma.)

There's people milling about in a square, almost all wearing mostly-black robes and pointy mostly-black hats, some with subtle patterns or colorful accents. Someone's doing what looks recognizably like an Earthmoving exercise. Someone is holding someone else's feet down while she does sit-ups. The square is being mopped with no mop-operator in sight. There's some kind of parked cart with a big sign depicting a light brown isoceles triangle with a grid texture point down with white and dark brown circles coming out of the top. The cart has a kiosk-style counter, but nobody's there.

There was a lot more clothing diversity back at Lunabella, and now he wonders whether he ought to change his outfit to be similar to the people here, so as to not stand out. He thinks...no. He thinks the clothes are supposed to mean something and he doesn't want to inadvertently signal something he doesn't want to.

Sit-ups! He likes sit ups, but it's not his favorite exercise. He also recognizes the Earthmoving exercise – he's done a variation of that before.

He has absolutely no idea what the isosceles-triangle-and-circles cart is supposed to be, and it's sad that there isn't anyone to ask!!

He will approach the person doing sit-ups and the person helping them. It does seem that this place is some sort of Exercise Space. He'll lie down near the person doing them – with one person's worth of space between them – and do sit-ups alongside them! Except he doesn't have anyone to weigh him down, so he'll use Earthmoving to put an arch of stone around his feet to keep them down.

After doing 18 sit-ups, the other witch will catch her breath and look over at him.

"Hi? Are you a student?"